Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Paul Uppal

Monday 28th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Ministers take every opportunity to make the case that we welcome genuine students and to set out the attractive offer we have. As the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chair of the Select Committee, said, both the Chancellor and the Mayor of London were in China recently to make that case. The Prime Minister has been to India, as has my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. We make the case at every opportunity and I am glad the hon. Lady is doing so, too.

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

6. What steps she is taking to tackle gang crime.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Paul Uppal

Monday 15th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

1. What recent progress her Department has made in tackling abuses in immigration via the family route.

[The Minister for Immigration (Mr Mark Harper)]

Before I answer the question, Mr Speaker, on behalf of Members on both sides of the House, I would like to add to your tribute to Malcolm Wicks and Sir Stuart Bell. Your sentiments were very well aimed, and I am sure that all Members will support them. These were valued colleagues who will be sorely missed.

The Government implemented new family immigration rules on 9 July this year. These tackle the abuse of immigration based on sham marriages, ensure that family migrants do not become a burden on the taxpayer and promote the integration of family migrants in British society.

[Paul Uppal]

May I also support the sentiments expressed by the Minister? I know that Malcolm Wicks was a fellow Wolverhampton Wanderers fan, so he was a man who always spoke incredible common sense.

On this particular issue, many of my constituents in Wolverhampton South West express concerns about the robustness of the current entry and clearance system that operates in India. Will the Minister assure me, the House and my constituents that that system is still robust and fair and will meet the high expectations that people have of it?

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Mark Harper and Paul Uppal

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I sincerely hope that it will be no lower than the population that is registered today, and indeed that it will be higher. One of the interesting things that we learned from the information that was published last year was that the number of people who were registered was not as high as we had hoped. That research, which the Electoral Commission carried out last year, will act as a baseline for the process. I have made a commitment to get the Electoral Commission to carry out the same research after the process, so that people can see how successful it has been. We want the process to be transparent and we have nothing to hide.

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

I take the Minister’s point about two thirds being the anticipated carry-over to the new register. However, I understand from reading the information from the Electoral Commission that voters who are on the register and who do not reply to the request for individual electoral registration will still be able to vote in the general election of 2015. Is that correct?

[Mr Harper]

Yes, that is correct. I referred to that point in response to the right hon. Member for Belfast North, when I spoke about the carry-forward. There is the important safeguard that if people fail to register to vote individually and there is no reason to think that they are not eligible to vote, there is a carry-forward process to stop the drop-off that we saw in Northern Ireland when it moved to a new system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Paul Uppal

Tuesday 7th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Specifically, we have made it clear that the commission will not be able to look at the financial questions. The Government have committed to resolving them, but we have made it clear that the deficit must be dealt with first, and then those other matters will be taken forward by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor.

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

6. What plans he has to improve the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)]

In order to deliver a more complete and accurate electoral register, we will introduce our proposals for individual registration, the principle of which is supported on both sides of the House. We have published our proposals for pre-legislative scrutiny and we will respond to the Select Committee shortly. I hope my hon. Friend will welcome these changes.

[Paul Uppal]

I welcome the Government’s initiative on individual voter registration, especially the provision to deny the postal vote to people who are unable to provide national insurance details. Does my hon. Friend agree that we might expand that principle by considering the option of requiring individual voter ID from people voting at polling stations?

[Mr Harper]

The Government do not have any plans to introduce a requirement for voters to present ID when they vote. We think the current arrangements get the balance right between accessibility and security. We keep these matters under review, however. My hon. Friend will know that there is such a requirement in Northern Ireland, which has a different history in this regard, but it is not in the Government’s plans at present.

Individual Electoral Registration

Debate between Mark Harper and Paul Uppal

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman has raised two issues. The fact that individual registration was implemented overnight in Northern Ireland led to that sharp drop, not all of which was accounted for by the removal of people who should not have been on the register because they were not eligible to vote in the first place, which is one reason for introducing individual registration. It is because we do not want to see a similar dramatic fall here that I announced the safeguard that we would not remove people from the register immediately, and certainly not before the next general election.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s second point about resources and ring-fencing, it is a difficult argument. Local authorities generally take exception to central Government’s giving them ring-fenced amounts and micro-managing what they do. I know that it can be argued that central Government should say that this is a different area, but that is not a view that has been taken so far. I will think about the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, but I do not think that the Government will pursue it.

[Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)]

Without simply reiterating the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) and for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), I ask the Minister to take on board my deep concern about postal voting fraud. Although I welcome individual registration, I fear that it will not wholly tackle that problem, to which I have referred before.

In my constituency—I must choose my words carefully, because the case is currently being investigated by the Electoral Commission—200 more votes were cast than electoral ballots were issued. I want to impress on the Minister a point that was raised with me recently by a constituent. He said that Labour Members were going from door to door asking if people wanted them to help them to fill out postal voting forms.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend would not expect me to comment on an ongoing investigation, and I will not do so, but he has raised the issue of why it is important to make the accuracy of the electoral register more secure. We intend to deal with the public perception as well as the reality of the fraudulent registrations that have occurred. As I said in my statement, a third of the public are worried about the security of registration in our voting system, and it is important to the maintaining of confidence in our democracy for us to deal with those real concerns.