Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Matthew Offord and Angela Smith

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Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.