Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Mark Williams and Angela Smith

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Williams]

I welcome the tone of the hon. Lady’s remarks. She has talked about good practice by referencing credit agencies. How would she ensure that that good practice is disseminated across the country?

[Angela Smith]

I would ensure it through the amendment. Local authorities should be under an obligation to draw local residents’ attention to the fact that access to finance and mortgages might depend on whether they are on the electoral register. Some local authorities already do that. Southwark council makes it clear on its website, on the page referring to the annual canvass under the heading, “What do I need to do?”, that

“If you are not on the register you may find it difficult obtaining credit for a loan or mortgage”.

That is a simple, straightforward sentence making it clear that if someone does not register to vote as a resident of the borough, they might be denied access to finance.

To show that I am not being partial, I shall mention a Conservative borough. Basingstoke and Deane council makes it clear on its website that access to finance will depend on registering to vote. Not every local authority does that, but it is a straightforward, lost-cost option. Local authorities would simply have to make it clear when they send out the forms for the annual canvass that registering is important not just for the right to vote but for accessing finance. That can also be put on local authority websites. As far as we are concerned, there is no excuse for local authorities not making that point clear to its residents. It is a simple reference on a form or on a website page; it is a simple request, and I am sure that the Government will want to accede to it. That applies to all our amendments in the group, as not one of them involves extra cost or any significant extra burden on the work of local authorities or electoral registration officers.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Smith]

Of course, but the system we have now and the one we want to put in place would provide safeguards on that score. Anyone applying for a passport has to prove nationality before being granted one. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but there should be sufficient safeguards in any registration system to ensure that only British nationals with the right to vote are allowed to go on to the electoral register. Indeed, that lies behind many of the issues that we are discussing today.

Many other legislatures across the world use such a method of ensuring that the registration of eligible citizens is maximised—the United States, for example. Once again, Opposition Members can see no reason why the Government would want to resist amendment 17 in any way, as it is perfectly sensible. It is a practical, common-sense way of extending awareness of registration and of the duties and responsibilities that go with being an adult citizen in Great Britain. It provides a perfectly sensible and practical way forward for maximising awareness of those rights and responsibilities. I look forward to hearing the Government’s response, particularly to hearing that they are ready to accept all our amendments in the group.

[Mr Mark Williams]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith). Her amendments specify the steps that local authorities should pursue to register more people. Amendment 16 specifically reminds applicants of their civic duties. This raises the key issue of what information should be included in the communication, and she listed some reasonable mechanisms and steps that should be taken. I guess the substance of the debate will be whether these provisions need to be written directly into the Bill or whether, as clause 5 specifies, they can be made by regulation. That will be the focus of my brief contribution.

I believe it is good that clause 5 allows the Electoral Commission to standardise forms, which is my reading of that particular clause and it applies to some of the issues the hon. Lady mentioned. We heard on Second Reading, as we usually do, from the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), who talked about the excellent experience in the county of Denbighshire. He mentioned the good work that had been undertaken there and the documents that had been created, which led to impressive rates of registration.

I would like to hear more from the Government about the onus they intend to place on the Electoral Commission—in preference to writing provisions directly into the Bill—in respect of the substance of those forms and the prominence in them of various messages, not least the civic duty and the penalty. The Bill as it stands says that the Electoral Commission should provide that information, but will the Minister ensure that it must provide it? We need additional clarity about the penalty and the implications if the application is not complied with. Will he confirm whether the Electoral Commission will be mandated to put information about the civil penalty on the forms? If we are to have good practice, will the usability of those forms be tested? Critically, if we are to rely on regulation rather than place these matters directly on the face of the Bill, when will those regulations be laid out? Critically, too, what detail will they specify? In short, what is the Electoral Commission’s role in these matters; what is its role in disseminating good practice; and what is its role in insisting on that good practice? The hon. Lady cited some good examples of good practice undertaken by local authorities from both political parties—I wish she had said from all political parties—but the reality is that that is not universal. I am interested—I suspect the hon. Lady and the Minister are, too—in ensuring that best practice is pursued.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Mark Williams and Angela Smith

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Williams]

I agree entirely with the hon. Lady about the huge importance of the annual canvass—she is quite right. I wonder whether she has had the time to consider the Electoral Commission’s comments about the timing of the annual canvass. It has complimented the Government’s measures removing the 15 October date as an opportunity for greater flexibility and greater completeness, because the gap between the canvass and the election could be reduced. I appreciate what she says about the rarity of those elections, but the Electoral Commission seems to be saying something different from what she is saying.

[Angela Smith]

I appreciate that point, and I have read what the Electoral Commission has said about it. However, the key point is the one I made a few moments ago, which is about the importance of getting it right. Secondly, the Electoral Commission has a certain perspective on this. A different perspective would understand the importance of stability at a time of radical change in the registration process. It has to be said that for as long as most of us can remember the culture of this country has seen us running an annual canvass in October every year. That is what people have come to understand, and under the new system there will still be a requirement for the head of the household, or someone in the household, to supply the information to the ERO to enable the sending out of the invitations to register. We will still have that culture of a form being filled in for every property, completed for every residence and returned to the ERO. Opposition Members feel it is important to continue the culture of running that exercise every October, not least because it is the time of year when further and higher education colleges enrol their new students.

In what is often a five or six month gap between the completion of the canvass and the establishment of the new register and the election, the chances of that register being grossly inaccurate are reasonably small. The risk of that is smaller than the risk of a drop-off—a fall—in the number of registrations because we have messed about with the time of year when people will register. I do not think that any hon. Member feels that an annual canvass should be run in July, Easter or post-Christmas. Is there any point in the year, other than October, that makes sense? There is a reason why October is the date, and we think we should stick with it. Amendment 6 would reinstate the requirement that EROs run an annual canvass in October of every year.

Amendment 8 seeks to strengthen and improve the process; this is the belt and braces approach that I talked about earlier in relation to amendments 9, 10 and 11. The gazetteer is a very complete and up-to-date list of any property in a local area. We believe that EROs should write once a year to every property listed in the gazetteer, supplemented by those properties that they know to have been built in the past two years, when registration forms have been returned in the past 10 years and when a property has been involved in the charging of taxes by the local authority in the past five years. In all those circumstances, we believe that the ERO should send a form to the property concerned to ensure that we do everything we can to guarantee the highest possible level of completion of each new register.

Earlier we argued for the need to glean information from university institutions, sheltered housing providers and private landlords in order to aid the process of building a high quality and highly complete register. We also believe, however, that such an approach should be supplemented by our using the soundest possible sources of information about which properties are occupied in any area when the local authority qualifies as an electoral registration authority. If the House agrees to those requirements, that will mean that we have done our best to guarantee that the new individual registration process succeeds rather than fails. That is the key point that Opposition Members are trying to make.

Amendment 7 deals with house-to-house inquiries on which, in our view, the Bill is far too weak. It gives EROs the power possibly to conduct a few house-to-house inquiries, stating that they “may” do so, but in our view they must carry out house-to-house inquiries, particularly when citizens have constantly and repeatedly refused to register to vote. Given that we have included a penalty in the Bill and reinstated the principle of enforcing the requirement on citizens of this country to register to vote, it makes sense that we should require EROs to do their utmost to ensure that the law on electoral registration is complied with. “May” is only one word, but it is very important and saying to EROs that they may, rather than must, conduct house-to-house inquiries represents a watering down of the commitment in the Representation of the People Act 1983.

I am convinced that not only Opposition Members but Government Members are fundamentally democrats at heart who believe in people’s right to vote and in the importance of their registering to vote. Let me make a plea to the Minister, who I know to be a man of logic and reason. The replacement of the single word “may” with the word “must” is a small concession to make for the sake of this House doing its best to ensure that democracy in this country is properly served and is as legitimate as it possibly can be. I call on the Minister to concede this amendment and to put hon. Members’ minds at rest on this point.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Amess, for the opportunity to comment, particularly on amendment 6 on the annual canvass, and the issues that it raises in relation to young people’s engagement in politics, and that of students in particular. I recognise that not all students are young people, but the vast majority are. Sadly, according to a million+ report produced recently, there are declining numbers of mature students as a result of the Government’s policies on higher education.

I represent a city where, as Members are aware, voters were turned away in large numbers at the general election. It is an issue which new clause 4 deals with later. Those voters were largely students or others who were affected by a surge in student voting, and those students were whipped up to vote by the fairly relentless campaigning of the Deputy Prime Minister on both our campuses, which are both in my constituency. Members will remember the “trust me, we’re different” initiative during the general election—the promise that

“We will resist, vote against, campaign against, any lifting”

of the cap on tuition fees, with a plan to abolish tuition fees within six years. I notice Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches looking a little bit embarrassed, and understandably so. That was no subscript in the manifesto. In constituencies such as mine, it was at the very heart of their party’s campaign, as the president of the Hallam university union, Caroline Dowd, said at the time:

“We could not get”

the Deputy Prime Minister

“out of our union before the general election.”

Afterwards, when she was being held to account, she pointed out that they could not get him in.

The broken pledge on tuition fees has not simply damaged the Liberal Democrats’ party; it has damaged trust in politics for a whole generation of young people. All the people who were persuaded to vote, queuing in Sheffield Hallam because they believed the pledge, they believed in a fresh approach, they believed that when people signed a solemn promise, they would keep it, feel betrayed by the trust that they put in politics. So many of them whom I have spoken to are now saying, “Why should we vote?” I have knocked on many student doors during subsequent local elections. This is precisely the time when we should be making extra efforts to engage students, not reduce their participation. Amendment 6 and the annual canvass in October specifically address that issue.