Electoral Registration

Debate between Meg Hillier and Sadiq Khan

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I shall come to the data-matching shortly, but we have considered those on the register in December 2013 and those on the register in December 2014, after the data-matching. An estimated 1 million voters have dropped off the electoral register. For 1 million to be missing in a year is bad enough, but the trends in the groups that are unregistered is also worrying. Data coming in from local authorities are showing serious drops among students and those turning 18. In the patch of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), the number registering fell from 630 to 114 in just 12 months. As has been said, the figure for attainers registering in Liverpool has slumped from 2,300 to just 76. Three areas with large number of students —Cardiff, Newcastle and Brighton—have seen drops of between 9% and 10.5% in the numbers registered.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I represent one of the youngest constituencies in the country, with an increasing number of young private renters—there are more private renters than home owners in the constituency—and people who move frequently drop off the register. I pay tribute to my borough of Hackney, which has put money and time into bringing the register up again. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the cost of doing so is also a problem for local tax payers?

[Sadiq Khan]

To give Members an idea of the scale of the challenge, local authorities now have to write to each individual voter rather than to each household, which is a huge expense. To be fair—because I like to be fair—the Deputy Prime Minister has finally woken up—