Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Angela Smith]

The key point is that the new register, and the one used for the boundary review in 2015, will not be as complete as it should be, because those people carried over for the general election will not be carried over for December 2015. I therefore do not take a great deal of reassurance from that.

We have had a lengthy debate. The Opposition will not seek to press the amendment to a vote. We believe that the House of Lords will engage in a lengthy and detailed debate on the issues that we have raised today, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 7 and 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Piloting registration provision

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I beg to move amendment 32, page 7, line 29, at end add—

‘(7) An order under this section may require registration officers to record at the point of registration—

(a) a voter’s access needs in relation to any document which is required or authorised to be given to voters or displayed in any place for either registration or election, and

(b) a voter’s access requirements to the polling station.’.

This amendment would allow for pilots which could assist disabled people both to register to vote and to cast their vote. It would achieve this by allowing electoral registration officers to establish the level of demand for (a) documents in alternative formats and (b) additional accessibility measures at polling stations. It is estimated that there are approximately 15,000 disabled potential voters per Parliamentary constituency.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Scott.

The issue of disability concerns many hon. Members and, as demonstrated by the Government in bringing forward the legislation, the issue of effectual electoral registration also concerns the majority of hon. Members. Therefore, the amendment seeks to address two concerns for Members. First, it seeks to introduce a better system of individual electoral registration, which identifies every person eligible to vote, and it seeks to identify the needs of disabled voters participating in the electoral process. The Bill introduces an opportunity to achieve that by seeking information at the time of registration.

Recording disabled voters’ access needs at the point of registration can be used to improve the accessibility under the current system during the transition to IER and over the longer term. To put the issue in some context, it is worth establishing how many people it could affect. There are more than 10 million disabled people in the UK, with each parliamentary constituency containing approximately 15,000 disabled voters. That is almost a fifth of the total electoral roll. Polls Apart research has found that despite existing legislation aimed at improving the accessibility of election material, the experience of many disabled people has been that insufficient provision is made to provide information, forms and notices relating to the electoral process in alternative formats. Where this information is not available or is not sufficiently signposted, the election process can be considerably more difficult for these people to access.

The Electoral Commission has responsibility for monitoring the extent to which the electoral registration officers comply with a series of performance standards. One such standard is focused on accessibility, more specifically on the extent to which EROs have taken into account the different needs of voters in their local community. The commission’s first analysis of EROs’ performance against the standards in 2009 highlighted a lack of consideration of the need to provide documents in alternative formats and raised concerns that attention by EROs had been focused primarily on the provision of documents in various languages. I am concerned at the evidence that the provision of accessible formats to voters has not had the same focus, as the lack of it excludes disabled people who require information in a format other than the standard print from the electoral process. The Electoral Commission’s subsequent assessment against the standard has revealed a worrying trend that EROs’ performance on accessibility has remained poorer than for any other standard.

It can be said that we are currently placing the linguistic needs of people whose first language is not English above those for whom English is their first language but who, as a result of an accident or complication at birth, are being disfranchised from the electoral process. Consequently, individual registration has a potential to transform disabled people’s experiences of the electoral process if their access needs are recorded at the point of registration. The amendment seeks to achieve that by introducing a pilot project that can be rolled out on a national basis. The Government would need to ensure that such a pilot would be properly evaluated before any roll-out of the proposal goes nationwide. I am pleased to be able to inform the Minister that the Electoral Commission is prepared to carry out such an evaluation if the amendment is agreed.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on tabling the amendment. How will electoral officers be able to identify the individuals? Will it be through the canvass, which is the main issue, or another method?

[Dr Offord]

It will be through the canvass. I hope, as I continue with my speech, that it will become clearer to the hon. Gentleman and the Minister what I seek to achieve by tabling the amendment.

The introduction of individual registration allows blind and disabled electors to specify at registration the format in which they wish to receive the information, including Braille, tape, large print, easy read, and so on. That would mean that a blind elector could specify when registering to vote that they would need to receive a polling card in a Braille or other format, or that they would require an audio postal vote application form. Allowing individuals to specify what format they need enables EROs to plan more effectively and meet the needs of a variety of disabled people who all encounter different barriers. Gathering data on voters’ preferred formats would enable EROs to send forms and information in that appropriate format and avoid having to make assumptions about voters’ needs. For instance, while Braille is used by some blind people, other formats may be just as important for blind and partially sighted people, including large print.

The registration form could also capture requirements to enable physical access to the polling station or for the support that voters may need in casting a vote. Provided that such information is shared with a returning officer, it could be used to ensure that those needs are met in the run-up to polling day and on polling day itself. It should be obvious, for instance, which voters may need a large print ballot paper and how many copies need to be provided at one or other polling station.

Recording information on access needs could not only be used to inform planning by electoral administrators, but is consistent with the Government’s goals in introducing individual registration to encourage individuals to take responsibility for registering themselves to vote. It should also be up to an individual to specify what alternative format they prefer. It is well known that the transition to IER is taking place in a climate of significant pressures on electoral budgets. Providing alternative formats involves some cost, but it is important to recognise that such a provision would not place any additional duties on EROs other than those they already have. Rather than increasing costs, such a measure would allow existing resources to be used more effectively.

I have tabled the amendment to support the recommendation made by the Electoral Commission for a scheme to be piloted that would involve EROs asking for individual access needs of electors at the point of registration. Piloting that would provide valuable guidance to EROs on the most suitable system for maintaining registration forms and their associated access needs records, as well as allow the Government to assess the merits for such a provision to be rolled out.

I hope that the Minister decides to accept the amendment, because I remain unaware of the validity of any claim that under the current legislation the Government already have sufficient powers to introduce the pilot—a view supported by the Electoral Commission and disability groups such as Scope, which have already impressed it on the Government. However, if it is asserted that that power already exists in other legislation, I can tell the Minister that the amendment would specifically ensure that the registration process itself is used to identify and meet access needs. No other legislation provides for the registration process to be used for that purpose. Given that, I believe the registration process to be the most effective mechanism for achieving both improvements for disabled people and benefits for electoral staff.

[Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend for tabling the amendment and wish that I had had time to sign it, because I am with him entirely—in spirit if not on the Order Paper. Is not the function of this probing amendment, as he says, to identify the need to husband our existing resources far more effectively, rather than taking a more scatter-gun approach that will not address the fundamental needs of disabled people?

[Dr Offord]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. He is entirely right. This will be an opportunity to define what people need so that we can ensure that EROs’ resources are used most effectively and that the electoral registration process is suitable for blind and partially sighted people.

It may be asserted that such a provision already exists in the Bill, under the power to make regulations in clause 2. That will give the Secretary of State the power to prescribe the type of evidence that a person must provide to establish eligibility to register to vote. The Government could argue that that includes a power to ensure that access needs are recorded at registration, but I believe that the clause is limited to prescribing evidence that is needed to establish eligibility and therefore cannot be used to achieve the same purpose as my amendment.

I believe that the Minister is a considerate man. If he chooses not to accept the amendment, will he please explain where he believes the power currently lies for the Government to carry out a pilot scheme in order to provide assurances about how information, forms and notices relating to the electoral process in alternative forms will be provided to blind and disabled people at future elections, and will he indicate when that will be achieved?

[Mr Kevan Jones]

May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Scott, and say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship for the first time?

I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on tabling the amendment. It has two aspects: first, it is clearly about people’s right to vote, and secondly, it rightly raises the issue of registration in the first place. It is often assumed that people who are disabled, partially sighted or who have no sight will fill out the registration forms when they receive them or have someone else do it for them, so what he proposes is very important.

The key point, to return to the previous debate, relates to the annual canvass, because the only way of finding some of these individuals is to knock on doors and assess their needs. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the format of ballot papers and the information people receive on how to register. He said that there are potentially around 15,000 disabled people in each parliamentary constituency, so we are not talking about a small number of individuals. It has long been one of my gripes that in certain areas where I have acted either as an agent or a candidate, many returning officers have only recently taken note of accessibility to polling stations, let alone of the suggestion for making registration information and ballot papers more accessible.

The reason for having a pilot is that it would show some new methods for achieving that and indicate whether they could be rolled out nationally. We also need to think a little out of the box on this. I know the Electoral Commission has done that before, but it has always shied away from postal voting and e-voting, for example, which for many partially sighted people would be better than going to a polling station. My mother is partially signed but does not read Braille, so the suggestion that she could vote by computer, for example, would be a good one for her.

Such pilots would be worth doing. We had a pilot in Durham several years ago and, overall, texting, a full postal ballot and e-voting were very successful. The Electoral Commission’s report was very positive, but unfortunately, as I said in the previous debate, it got cold feet because of some of the headlines about electoral fraud. I think that allowing the possibility of electronic voting for disabled people would be a step forward and that what the hon. Gentleman proposes would be a way of trialling it in certain areas.

It would be important to involve not only the major national charities so that they can talk about this, but the many local voluntary groups that support disabled individuals in the home. Care workers and local authorities could certainly play a role, and housing associations and others could identify where there might be large concentrations of people with physical or visual impairments, which would be very valuable. I wonder whether part of the pilot could put an onus on electoral registration officers to work with care homes, sheltered accommodation and local charities and support groups to be able to identify these people, first to ensure that they are registered in the first place—I am sure that many should be but are not—and secondly to explain the process to them.

When canvassing, it never ceases to amaze me how many people I come across who clearly need a postal or proxy vote because of a physical disability but who do not have them, either because they do not understand how the process works or because they think that they would somehow have to struggle to the polling station and know that physically they could not get there. Therefore, the pilot could be not only for testing the different methods for providing information in the largest type and Braille or for e-voting and other things, as the hon. Gentleman said, but—the Minister should take this on board—for explaining to many disabled people the different ways in which they can vote, because from my experience I do not think that many understand postal voting or recognise that they can apply for it.

I remember that under the old system someone had to tick a box and get a doctor or state-registered nurse to sign it, which was a bit of a palaver, but this would be a way of extending access to a group of people who, as the hon. Member for Hendon rightly identified, are perhaps not at the top of people’s priorities in the electoral process. They are—I think he would agree with this—a constituency that has a lot of issues that local councils, MPs and others need to take into account. The one way they can hold their elected officials, whether councillors or MPs, to account is through the ballot box, but if they cannot cast their vote or do not know how to do that, or if it is physically impossible for them to access that process, that constituency is hindered.

I support the amendment. It would be a valuable thing to pilot the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions in areas so that lessons could be learned. It would be a useful process to have ongoing pilots because they would provide a body of evidence for electoral returning officers, not only showing new ways of doing things but, in some cases. making them mandatory to ensure that, as he said, people are asked about disability, because if they are not how will a returning officer or anyone else know what the individual’s needs are?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Heath]

I repeat that every electoral registration officer has a duty—a very important duty—to make sure that the register in their area is as complete and as accurate as possible. That is their duty, irrespective of this Bill.

[Dr Offord]

I am gratified by some of the Minister’s comments, if not all. I hope that I made it clear that I do not believe that the amendment would be an additional financial burden on EROs. I said that although providing alternative formats would introduce some costs, it is important to recognise that no additional duties would be placed on EROs. It would be more cost-effective in terms of the money that they spend in relation to registration rather than costing local authorities more. I would very much hope that local authorities would be willing to take out a pilot scheme.

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s intervention. We have previously provided additional resources for pilot schemes where that is justified. However, as he says, his suggestion would simply encourage EROs to do their job more effectively using the information that they ought to have available, and that is why it commends itself to me.

On the whole, the Bill is good news for people with disabilities, because it deals with a number of issues that some of us have argued for some time ought to be dealt with. For instance—this is not the subject of the amendment, Mr Scott, but I hope that you will forgive me for responding to a point raised by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge—we have provided additional time within the timetable, exactly as Scope and others argued, to enable access issues to be better incorporated. The hon. Lady rightly mentioned issues to do with polling places. It would be wrong to go into detail on that in the context of this part of the Bill, because it is the subject of a clause in part 2. However, making sure that the polling places review is more closely aligned with UK parliamentary elections, thereby allowing it to examine the accessibility of proposed locations, ought to ensure that we do a better job than we do at the moment. I agree that in some areas access to polling stations is not desperately good and ought to be better. That is not confined to rural areas rather than urban areas or urban areas rather than rural areas; it is often partly about what is available and partly about the ingenuity and resolution of the ERO in doing the best job within the confines of the resources. There is a lot more that can be done.

The hon. Member for Hendon will recognise, I hope, that we are not only fully seized of the issue he raises but determined that we can and should do better for people with disabilities. We need to work closely with organisations that represent those people to make sure that the draft secondary legislation that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), has published—it is a good job he has done so—takes these issues into account as comprehensively as possible. I am prepared to give a clear commitment that the Government are more than happy to consult those organisations further—with the Electoral Commission and with anybody else, including the hon. Member for Hendon himself if he so wishes—to make sure that we have done that and that when the final regulations are approved by this House they meet the requirements that he has put forward.

It is right that we take whatever steps we reasonably can not only to ensure that our arrangements are as inclusive as possible, but to bring in innovation where possible. The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge is right that some aspects of modern technology are hugely beneficial to people with disabilities. We will test that as part of the registration process, as she knows. I think that that is another huge advance. Those are things that we ought to do, if we can.

Finally, I say to the hon. Member for Hendon that we do not think that there is a difficulty with the powers in the Bill in giving electoral registration officers and the Electoral Commission the opportunity to do this work. If there is any difficulty, I undertake to look at the powers again to ensure that there is no gap. We are certainly prepared to introduce something else if necessary, but on my reading of the powers it is not. On that basis, I hope that he will withdraw his amendment so that we can discuss the matter again before the Bill reaches its conclusion.

[Dr Offord]

I am grateful for Members’ contributions and want to make a few comments about them.

The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) mentioned annual registration of the right to vote. We currently have that. As I am sure he is aware, the Polls Apart survey at the last general election showed that 67% of polling stations presented one or more access barriers to disabled people that might have prevented them from voting and that 47% of postal voters experienced at least one access problem. Even with the current system of annual registration, we are experiencing problems. Any change to that system will not increase the access of disabled and partially sighted people.

The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) represents an area of the world that I know well, as I stood in Barnsley East and Mexborough many years ago and tramped up and down the hills of Sheffield, Hallam as we attempted to win that seat, unsuccessfully, in 2001. She made a good point in asking what disability is. One person’s disability is not another person’s. She mentioned dyslexia, which on face value I would not consider to be a disability. However, if I suffered from it, I would probably view it differently. I can think of at least four Members of this House who have a visible disability and each one of them has very different needs. I will not name names, but I am sure that Members can imagine that people who are partially sighted have different access needs from those who are in a wheelchair.

I met a physical disability group called Disability Action in the Borough of Barnet, which is located in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). One of the issues it raised is the siting of polling stations. One polling station in my constituency is located in a portakabin in a pub car park. There have been occasions when disabled people have been required to vote outside the polling station because they were not able to access the ballot box directly. That is incredible in this day and age. I had hoped that my amendment would address such issues.

I was gratified by the Minister’s response, particularly on the register of visual impairment. Along with the intervention of the hon. Member for North Durham about blue badges, that reminded me that there are opportunities for electoral registration officers to identify people who may need assistance. I believe that we need political will in our local authorities to ensure that those opportunities are taken. I hope that the Bill goes some way towards achieving that.

I believe that the Minister has more than left the door open. I will be watching the passage of the Bill and will be pleased if any concessions can be achieved elsewhere. He used the word “assurance” and I hope to hold him to account on that. I would like to be part of any process to take the proposal forward. On that basis, I say categorically that he has assured me at this stage. I will seek leave to withdraw the amendment, with the provision that he maintains his gaze on this matter. I assure him that I will. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

[Angela Smith]

Clause 9 allows for flexibility and contingency in the way that individual registration is implemented and it allows for the Government to test changes to our system before rolling out individual registration nationwide. However, we have had no concrete details so far on how the changes will be phased in. As I indicated in the debate on clause 6 and the related amendments, many questions about implementation remain outstanding. That is why the Opposition want to take this opportunity to place on the record our agreement with the Electoral Commission, which has made it clear today that it is essential that the Government publish a detailed implementation plan as soon as possible to show what needs to be done to deliver the changes outlined in the Bill.

Last week, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), said that he was confident that there would be no backlog in voter registration because the IT system to be used for data-matching purposes would be properly tested before widespread implementation.