Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 16th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has asked that question, because we have set out our plan very carefully. There is £8.3 billion of extra money to improve the quality of local roads. The Labour party has not backed that plan and has not committed a single penny of money to local roads, so the choice is clear: if people vote Conservative, they get £8.3 billion spent on roads; if they vote Labour, they get none.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

12. What recent discussions he has had with Network Rail on the timeline for introducing bi-mode trains on the midland main line.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful for the positive tone in which the hon. Gentleman has welcomed that announcement. Wales will receive the highest amount of funding per capita from the levelling-up fund under the announcement that has been made today. I am indeed visiting that scheme later today and I will meet officials from the council. I will of course continue to work closely with them to turn the money into effective transport connectivity as soon as we can.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

On average, how much do train drivers get paid and how many contracted hours are they required to do each week?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. I think that about £60,000 is the average salary and the contracted hours are about 35 per week.

Hezbollah’s Rocket Arsenal: Southern Lebanon

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 6th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned the al-Quds march in London. One of the reasons why the distinction that our right hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb) sets out is a problem is that that is how Hezbollah gets away with flying those flags. When it is challenged about being a proscribed military organisation, it effectively has some small print at the bottom of the flag that says it is the civilian wing, and the police are then not empowered to do anything about the march. Does my hon. Friend think that issue should be tackled?

[Mr Hollobone]

Yes, I absolutely agree, and I hope that the Minister will relay to the Home Office the concerns that have been raised about that here. As we have discussed, Hezbollah does not see a difference between a military and a political wing. Very distinguished international bodies have banned Hezbollah outright and have proscribed it as a terrorist organisation, including the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, the Arab League and the Gulf Co-operation Council. Frankly, we should join them.

Before I took those three helpful interventions from distinguished colleagues, I was in the middle of quoting the High Level Military Group report, which continues:

“There is nothing predetermined in strategic life, but the new configuration of forces in the region could lead to a new war that, because of the regional dynamics and new security imperatives, will be much more violent and destructive than the previous ones.”

We have been warned.

In case I get distracted during the rest of my contribution, I will go on to the solutions that the High Level Military Group outlines. Having extensively researched the subject, including through visits on the ground, it states that

“our assessment is that a new and grave conflict is only a matter of time, and the international community must act to help prevent it.”

Balancing the Public Finances

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of balancing the public finances.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this new Parliament, Ms Ryan. This is the first time I have secured a Westminster Hall debate since the general election. If you will forgive the indulgence, it is also a great pleasure to see the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), in his place. He served with tremendous distinction in the Whips Office, which I had the pleasure of leading after the 2015 general election, and I am pleased to see him in his current role. I look forward to him responding to the debate.

I am conscious that a large number of Members wish to speak, so I will speak for a little less time than I had originally intended. The first thing worth drawing to the attention of the Chamber, however, is how few Opposition Members are present, which I find astounding. To draw some conclusions from the attendance, we can see that the Conservative party and our allies in the Democratic Unionist party believe in balancing the public finances and making the difficult decisions necessary to ensure that we can grow the economy and create jobs. Judging by the turnout on the Opposition Benches, or rather the lack of turnout, the Labour party is clearly not interested in balancing the public finances or making sensible decisions; all that it is interested in is spending other people’s money until it runs out. Whereas, so many Conservatives are here that they are having to move right around the Chamber and take over the other side.

I will probably have to draw my remarks to a close sooner than I had expected, in order to allow other Members to speak, so let me do a quick précis of my argument. We have come a long way since 2010: we have cut the deficit by three quarters; we have had faster economic growth than almost any country in the G7 largest countries; and we have cut unemployment to levels not seen since I was at primary school in 1975. That is incredibly important, because those are not just statistics; they represent real people getting the opportunities to succeed and thrive.

There are things that we should be proud of, and we could and should have talked about them more during the election campaign. I was very pleased to hear the Chancellor’s outstanding speech in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, in which he set out our economic record and our plans for the future. My central message at the conclusion of my speech today will be that although we face difficult decisions and many pressing needs for spending public money, we need to raise that money while keeping taxes low and economic growth moving along. Those are difficult decisions. The Chancellor is the man who must make those decisions, and he must make them in a balanced way, taking into account all the factors, including economic growth. He needs to make those decisions at the Budget in the autumn, and Conservative colleagues should give him our support in doing so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his excellent speech. Is it not the case that Britain has become addicted to public sector debt? The truth is that since 2002 Governments of both colours have been spending more each year than we have been collecting in taxes. If are to stop doing that in future, it will be a bit like a drug addict coming off drugs.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend sets out clearly what has happened in the past, and I want to spend a little time on the challenges facing us in the future, but it is worth looking at the economic record. We did not make the decisions and get the success we have had easily; they were contested, and our political opponents challenged us every step of the way. But we have been successful, which gives us the credibility to talk about facing the challenges of the future.

When we came to power in 2010, the budget deficit was the equivalent of just under 10% of the size of the economy, at £150 billion a year. According to the most recent set of actual figures, we have reduced the cash deficit to £46 billion—down by 70%—and the deficit as a proportion of the size of the economy is down by 75% to 2.5%. That is a significant achievement, and it means that in this Parliament the size of our stock of national debt as a proportion of the size of the economy will start to fall. That is incredibly important for the future.

Allied Steel and Wire (Pensions)

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification. He has already written to the scheme, so I will draw his comments to the attention of the Minister for Pensions. It may be helpful for the Minister to look at the case and perhaps write to my hon. Friend about it, because it is difficult to go into the specifics of an individual case in an Adjournment debate.

My hon. Friend rightly raised the subject in his role as Member of Parliament for his constituents. He acknowledged in his speech the assistance he has received from those in his constituency who have campaigned on the matter. I recognise that he and those whom he represents are probably disappointed by what I have had to say. However, I hope he understands that, given the very significant contribution that taxpayers rightly continue to make to the financial assistance scheme, there is a limit to the amount of support that taxpayers can give. I fear that it will not, therefore, be possible to deliver the things that he has requested, given the circumstances that we still face in the public finances because we are dealing with the legacy that we inherited from the previous Government.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I thank all hon. Members who took part in that important debate for covering all the issues pithily and succinctly. The next debate is not due to start until 11 o’clock, so I will suspend the sitting until that time. However, if the participants arrive a few minutes early, we will start when they arrive. The sitting is, therefore, suspended until about 11 o’clock.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 15th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

The hon. Gentleman is a little churlish in his response to my answer. I have looked at the discretionary housing payment guidance in significant detail and it gives local authorities complete discretion. Local authorities are the ones considering specific cases and they are in possession of all the facts. I trust them to make good, sensible decisions.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Is there a list of local authorities that compares the number of disabled people who might require such discretionary help with the discretionary help they are receiving?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend raised a similar question at the previous Question Time and I put in the Library information on the amount of money the Government have made available to each local authority in the country compared with what they are spending. We do not have a list broken down by local authority of every single person affected by the removal of the spare room subsidy and their level of disability, so I cannot give my hon. Friend the exact information he requires, but I think I have done the best that I can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 27th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I note that the right hon. Gentleman did not deal with the point that I made. We are treating people in the social housing sector in exactly the same way as the previous Government treated them—[Interruption.] I hear someone heckling on the Labour Benches. Disabled people do not get a spare room subsidy in the private sector. Those rules were implemented by the previous Labour Government. This is a matter of fairness. The £345 million we have made available to local authorities over the past two years for discretionary housing payment gives them the flexibility they need to deal with individual circumstances.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Will the Minister name and shame the five worst local authorities that have the largest number of disabled people who are affected by the spare room subsidy removal but are not using the discretionary funds that the Government have given them?

Relationships and Children’s Well-being

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Harper]

My understanding is that the family test will effectively apply from November. From that time, as Departments develop domestic policies they should consider the impact on families. My hon. Friend made some sensible points about grandparents and wider family relationships. I am particularly familiar with the extra responsibilities of parents with disabled children and the help that they receive from grandparents and the wider family. He raises sensible points, and the Government are considering such issues. We have ensured that grandparents can claim child maintenance if they are the main carers. I know he also welcomes the Department for Education’s guidance on care, which recommends that local authorities now consider family options first before taking children into local authority care. There are obviously further ideas, and I think he ascribed both to himself and to my hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) the Prime Minister’s invitation to contribute ideas both directly to him and to other Ministers on how we can make further progress in this area—not that either of my hon. Friends need inviting to contribute on policy areas in which they both have a long-standing interest.

We are also looking at piloting relationship education in both antenatal and post-natal provision, and we are looking at national guidance for health visitors, who are well placed to spot early signs of relationship distress. Through Early Intervention Foundation pioneering places, we are also considering joined-up approaches that we can take with local authorities. Those ongoing trials may shed light on the suggestions for What Works centres made by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton, including using those children’s centres as family hubs. The shadow Minister also specifically mentioned the What Works centres.

I think there is general consensus among colleagues that we should recognise and support the involvement of both parents, and I hope colleagues welcome that following the Children and Families Act 2014 there is now presumed shared involvement of fathers and mothers alike. The welfare of the child still rightly comes first, but there is now explicit recognition that, except where there are specific reasons why not, the presumption is that the child should have contact with both parents. That recognition in the legal system is welcome.

The Government are also spending £10 million on the help and support for separated families innovation fund—it is admittedly not a catchy title—which covers 17 projects aimed at testing interventions to help parents going through a separation to work together and resolve conflict. Up to September 2014 those projects engaged some 53,500 parents. The projects consider innovations in delivering those services and the outcomes that we receive from them.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton also mentioned the appointment of a Cabinet-level Minister with responsibility for families. The Prime Minister said in his speech that, as well as bringing together all relationship support policy within the Department for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will be that Cabinet-level Minister. The Secretary of State has a long history in this area, and he is very pleased to have been given that responsibility by the Prime Minister. The Secretary of State considers himself responsible and accountable for families, and he is already effectively doing that within the social justice Cabinet Committee, which he leads on some of those issues.

Those are some of the things that the Government have been doing, and in the remaining minutes I will address some of the issues that colleagues have raised in this debate. Both my hon. Friends the Members for Salisbury and for Enfield, Southgate mentioned joint birth registration, which was introduced in the Welfare Reform Act 2009. I was shadowing this brief at the time, and I distinctly remember those debates. Joint birth registration is a more complicated issue than it seems at first glance because, as both my hon. Friends mentioned, there are exemptions in the legislation for difficult cases. Other ministerial colleagues are considering that issue, so it would be sensible if I arranged for the relevant Minister to write to both my hon. Friends, to all Members attending this debate and, indeed, to you, Mr Hollobone, so that we can have a detailed response. In my constituency I have experienced cases such as those raised by the shadow Minister in which fathers have been involved in the upbringing of their children and want that important relationship to continue, regardless of the fact that their relationship with the children’s mother has broken down. I will consider that carefully.

The shadow Minister spoke about children’s centres. As of February 2014 there are 3,019 main children’s centres, with a further 531 sites open to families and children. Since 2010, despite the significant financial challenges that we inherited from the Labour party, only 76 centres have closed. Indeed, six new centres have opened, and 90% of eligible families in need are registered with their local centre. That sounds like a pretty good record on providing such support at local level, even where there have had to be very difficult financial savings to rebalance the public finances.

I welcome what my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate said about mental health. My Department is working on the improving access to psychological therapies pilots with the Department of Health. Those pilots are important for ensuring that we do a much better job not just of addressing children’s mental health—he will know that that is one of the passions of the Minister of State, Department of Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who has responsibility for care and support, and it is a passion shared by both coalition parties—but of helping adults with mental health problems either to stay in or return to work. Less than half of adults with mental health problems currently work, so the Government must improve what we are doing. I hope my hon. Friend welcomes what we have done so far, and I hope over the months to come he will welcome our work to improve that still further.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury referred to an award he gave to Liz Sirman, who works at a children’s contact centre in his constituency. I am a glass-half-full kind of guy, so I welcome the Government’s support for the work of volunteers in helping to support families and children who have experienced difficult relationship breakdowns. Such work is welcomed, and I am pleased that my hon. Friend was able to recognise it so publicly at the weekend.

The shadow Minister referred to the importance of mediation when a relationship breaks down, and in the Children and Families Act there is now a statutory requirement for people to consider mediation before they rush off to court, which is helpful. There will clearly be cases in which mediation simply cannot work, but the fact that it has to be considered and in people’s thought processes before lawyers get involved is helpful—I am an accountant, so I can be slightly rude about lawyers. Having more mediation to support relationships means that, even if the parents’ relationship cannot be preserved, the relationship with their children can be preserved, which is welcome. My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury mentioned child maintenance thresholds, and the Minister for Pensions has committed to reviewing the formula and the threshold once the current reforms have been safely implemented.

My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate did a good job of responding to the shadow Minister on the economic issues, but I have a couple of further points. First, children are three times more likely to be in poverty if they live in a workless family. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that there are now 290,000 fewer children living in workless households, which is good news. That means that there are 300,000 fewer children living in relative income poverty than when the Government came to office.

Finally, the shadow Minister referred to the importance of work and people being in jobs, which is why I am sure he will join Government Members in celebrating that there are now 1.8 million more people in work who are able to bring home a pay packet and contribute to their family. That is a positive note on which to finish this excellent debate, which was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I thank all Members who have taken part in this extremely interesting, informative and important debate.

UN Syrian Refugees Programme

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Monday 20th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question, which was informed by his recent personal experience. He answered rather better than I did the earlier question about the support the Gulf countries are providing to Turkey. He is exactly right. We are providing diplomatic support to the Geneva II process, which is the best solution to a settlement in Syria, and we are providing help to the 2.4 million refugees and the 6.5 million internally displaced people in Syria, and that is the right thing to do.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Having visited Syrian refugee families in Lebanon, I find it staggering that this country should be accused of being uncaring towards Syrian children. We are the first country in the world to pledge 0.7% of our economy every year in international aid. As the second biggest donor to the Syrian refugee crisis, will the Minister confirm that we are helping the second largest number of Syrian children?

[Mr Harper]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question as he draws attention not only to the help that we are providing in Syria but to the help that we are able to provide across the world with our international development spending, which, although not universally popular, makes sense from both a humanitarian and a security perspective. He has put his finger on the help we are providing. By being the second largest global donor, it follows that we are almost certainly helping the second largest number of people after the United States of America.

Immigration (Bulgaria and Romania)

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 19th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Hollobone]

I welcome the intervention from the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), not least because, as always, she knows what she is talking about. She is a proud champion of the concerns of her constituents, who will be rightly concerned about that issue.

[Mr Harper]

Given that two hon. Members have raised the question, and given that my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) takes part in crime fighting directly, I think it would be helpful to give an answer. The order I signed and laid before the House on 6 December, which I will set out in more detail later, enables us to remove from the UK people who are not here to exercise treaty rights—those committing low-level, but damaging crimes, begging and sleeping rough—and importantly stop them from coming straight back again, unless they are coming to exercise those rights. That is an important power and change that goes some way to addressing the concerns of my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady.

[Mr Hollobone]

It does indeed go some way, and I am grateful for it, but sadly the changes do not go far enough. Those people can be sent back under the order he mentions to their country of origin, but in a certain amount of time, they can come back to our shores. I have a private Member’s Bill on the Order Paper that would ban foreign nationals who commit an offence in this country from ever returning to our shores. I think that measure would enjoy popular support.

The scale of this crime wave is really quite startling. Romanians are seven times more likely to be arrested in London than British nationals; Romanians account for more than 11% of all foreign offenders in the UK, despite currently making up just a tiny proportion of foreign residents here; and last year Romanians accounted for almost half of all arrests for begging and a third of arrests for pick-pocketing in the capital. I declare in my interests that I am a special constable with the British Transport police on the London underground, and I can say that eight out of 10 pick-pockets are from Romania. So the whole thing is completely out of control and the Romanian authorities need to provide the British police with information about the Romanian criminals that they know are in this country far more quickly than they are currently providing it.

The background to all this is that we are a crowded island. What the British people object to is not the nationality of someone coming to our shores, the colour of their skin or the language that they speak. What my constituents object to—what the British people object to—is the numbers coming to our shores, with which our crowded isle cannot cope.

We are now told that, according to official Government statistics, some 43% of new housing requirements are because of immigration. Immigration is driving up our population to unsustainable levels, and we have a population boom that is fuelled by EU migration. Indeed, Polish immigration has contributed almost half of the UK’s recent population growth. Half of all foreign-born residents currently in the UK have come here since 2001. From 2001, the number of foreign-born residents rose by almost 3 million, and yet in the 50 years beforehand only 2.7 million people arrived in the UK from abroad. There has been more immigration to our shores since 1950 than there was in all the time between 1066 and 1950. We are one of the most densely crowded countries in the European Union.

The vast majority of people who have come here in recent times have come from Poland. Poles are now the second largest group of foreign-born nationals in the UK, with only Indians having a larger presence. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2011 there were 7.5 million non-UK-born residents in the country—13% of the population—and it is migration that has contributed to just less than half of that population change in the last 60 years. The non-UK-born population has almost quadrupled since 1951, from 4.3% of the population to 13.4%. My contention is that our crowded island cannot cope with this level of population increase, because our population is set to rise, according to official statistics from the ONS, by 9.6 million people by 2037, reaching a total of 73.3 million people, a level of population that our country has never had to cope with before.

Unless we close the door to immigration from EU states, my contention—on behalf of my constituents—is that our country will struggle to cope, and not just in our capital city or our other big metropolitan areas but in semi-rural areas, such as my constituency of Kettering, where the number of houses is set to increase by a third within the next 25 years.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Monday 2nd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

On the hon. Lady’s point about benefits, those are not decisions for local authorities but for the Department for Work and Pensions, which trains its staff very carefully and gives them clear guidance. They are rolling out the new habitual residence test, which is robust and has a clear script with questions that people are asked. There will be further changes on access to housing benefit. We will make sure that where these decisions are for local authorities they are provided with clear guidance so that they can make the right decisions in the tougher regime.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

On 1 January, when the transitional controls on Romania and Bulgaria are lifted, will entry also be permitted to non-EU citizens who have Bulgarian or Romanian passports? If so, will the very large number of Moldovans who have Romanian passports be entitled to benefits, like Romanians and Bulgarians?

[Mr Harper]

I may be missing something, but if people have Romanian or Bulgarian passports and are citizens of Romania or Bulgaria, they are entitled to come to Britain because those countries are members of the European Union. Indeed, they could come to Britain today; the transitional restrictions are only about whether they can come here to work. People with a Romanian or Bulgarian passports—citizens of those countries—are of course able to come to Britain today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

T5. After the wave of mass immigration under the previous Labour Government, my constituents believe that this country is full, and do not want to see unrestricted immigration from Romania, Bulgaria and, as it now turns out, up to one third of Moldova. At this late stage with a month to go, I urge the Home Secretary to think again and not to waive the transitional controls.

[Mr Harper]

Obviously I understand why my hon. Friend’s constituents are concerned, given the appalling job that was done by the Labour Government. In fact, under Labour twice as many people arrived from outside the European Union as arrived from within it. However, as I said earlier, the transitional controls under the accession treaties that Labour signed can last only until the end of the year, and eight other European countries are removing those controls. That is why we have announced changes to ensure that anyone who comes to this country comes to work and not to claim benefits.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Monday 25th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to my previous answer, he would know that there has been a significant increase in the number of appeals lodged by criminals; in 2012, the figure increased by 1,000. That is exactly why we have strengthened the ability to remove criminals by implementing changes in the immigration rules, and to ensure that that is enforced by tribunals. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has made it clear that we will take powers in primary legislation to do so.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Jamaicans and Nigerians make up a disproportionately large number of the foreign nationals in our jails. What assistance is my hon. Friend providing to the Secretary of State for Justice in negotiating compulsory prisoner transfer agreements with these two countries, and what progress is being made?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the Nigerian Parliament has passed the legislation required to implement compulsory prisoner transfer, which means that in due course we will be able compulsorily to move prisoners to Nigeria, which I am sure he will welcome.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Monday 11th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend is right to say that it is helpful for us to look at the experience of other European countries. We want to make sure that when people look at the access to our benefits and our public services nobody thinks we are a soft touch in this country, and the Government are taking action to ensure that people will not think that.

[Mr Hollobone]

My constituents think it is madness to open our borders to 29 million people when we have absolutely no idea how many are going to come to this country. Will the Minister at least introduce a new requirement that European Union nationals seeking to reside here for more than three months have to apply for a residency card? Will he insist that the Romanian and Bulgarian Governments share with the Home Office details of any criminal records of those who come to this country?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend’s first point about a residency card is something I will listen to and take away with me. On his second point, he may be interested to know that the Metropolitan police and the UK Border Agency been working closely together over the past few months on Operation Nexus, and have removed about 200 very serious and high-harm criminals. That has been very effective, and I hope it will be rolled out across the country in due course.

Individual Electoral Registration

Debate between Mark Harper and Philip Hollobone

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

There are two questions there. On the first, I shall be writing to all local authorities responsible for registration suggesting that they engage with the pilots. The best thing the hon. Gentleman can do is to speak to his council and his registration officer and encourage them to participate. On his second point, quite a lot of people have not deliberately chosen not to register. As I said, one of the key reasons is that people have simply moved and have not got around to registering. Some people do not know how to register. Many would do so if it were easier, and if they were clearer about what they had to do. I think that if we approach them, tell them that they are eligible to vote and explain how they can do so, we will improve the rate of registration. However, in a free society, if someone deliberately chooses not to register to vote, that is a matter for them.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

Parliamentary democracy cannot function at its best if nearly 10% of our citizens are not registered. May I urge my hon. Friend to think again? I think most people believe that registration is a civic duty, and that they would be surprised by what he has said today. May I encourage him to make it a legal requirement for people to register when he introduces legislation?