Individual Electoral Registration

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of individual electoral registration.

For Parliament, 2015 has been a year for celebrating our democracy. Across the country, in schools, festivals and in the media, people have joined us in celebrating a journey that started 800 years ago with the signing of Magna Carta and led to our sitting here today. However, this year could end with a body blow to our democracy that could have repercussions for years to come.

The transition to individual electoral registration should reach its end in December 2016; instead, it has been brought forward by the Government to December 2015. The effects could be disastrous. According to the latest projections from the Electoral Commission, 1.9 million people are at risk of being removed from the electoral register. That number will drop as canvassers go door to door this autumn. Nevertheless, reasonable estimates produced by the Labour party suggest that close to a million people will be dropped from the register. That is a million people whose voices will no longer be recognised and who will be ignored when the Government begin to redraw the political landscape with the new boundaries.

That move goes against the advice of the independent Electoral Commission. It will not be subject to a vote in Parliament nor, apart from now, will MPs be given a certain chance to debate the important issues at stake. That is why today’s debate is so important. We need a Parliament that represents all its constituents in all its constituencies, but instead my borough of Blaenau Gwent had lost 1,736 people from the register by the time of the general election. It is projected that Wales will lose 68,000 people from the register in December, and that is unacceptable.

When the Labour Government legislated for the move to IER we put in a transition period with strong safeguards, but we can see from the numbers squeezed off the register by the current rushed transition that the Conservative Government’s haste will soon leave many people repenting at their leisure. There might be a view that this was a safe time to finalise the transition, as we have just completed a general election.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on an issue that is absolutely key to our democracy. Does he agree with me that if there is to be the change to IER, together with the forthcoming change to the constituency boundaries, the Government’s responsibility to increase the safeguards, rather than bring forward the date by a year—as has happened—will be reinforced?

[Nick Smith]

The MP for my neighbouring constituency makes an important point, which gets to the crux of our discussion. May 2016 will feature big elections for the Welsh Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Mayor of London. People’s votes, across the UK, will be vital in shaping the country once more, and the boundary review of 2016, on which my hon. Friend touched, will shape it on a much more fundamental level.

Those people who are removed from the register in December 2015 will not be counted for the purposes of determining their representation in Parliament. If the shape of a constituency is drawn based on its reduced number of voters, we will soon be faced with a distorted electoral map. Large urban areas with multiple-occupancy housing and regular home movers are the areas that are set to be hit and, on a party political level, the urban areas affected coincide with traditional Labour representation. I would like to think that the Government would not rush in the IER process to tip the scales in their favour for future elections. However, how can we have confidence in the boundaries, even in London, when Hackney faces a nearly 23% drop-off in the number of registered voters? The average loss in Britain is calculated at almost 4%. The 10 poorest areas in Britain face an average projected loss of 6.2%.

We are in danger of shrinking the voice of our poorer communities. For people in those communities, falling from the register has consequences beyond that of losing the vote. It means, for example, losing the chance of obtaining safe, affordable credit in areas where loan sharks may ply their trade. It means public service provision dipping even lower, affecting everything from school places to GPs. My major concern is that it is already too late to fix that problem before the December deadline.

The student population is a good example of my last point.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should note the Association of Electoral Administrators’ recommendation that legislative changes should be implemented to allow electoral registration officers to block-register people in institutions such as sheltered accommodation and university halls of residence?

[Nick Smith]

My hon. Friend makes an important point on behalf of those people who do the hard yards in our democracy—electoral registration officers. They do not have a fashionable local government job, but they do their very best to boost our democracy and, as my hon. Friend says, they have been undermined in this instance.

To be fair, before the 2015 general election coalition Cabinet Office Ministers, the Electoral Commission and the National Union of Students sent a letter to university vice-chancellors across the UK asking for their support to ensure that students were registered to vote. Consequently, there was a big drive in universities to boost registration—fair do’s. We are now in a new academic year, however, with thousands of admissions to and departures from the universities, so the HOPE not hate group rang 54 universities asking about their work this year. Every university that responded said it was scaling down its efforts as there was no general election this year, with just four of them referring to plans to inform the new intake about voter registration in their welcome packs. That is a microcosm of the larger problem in high turnover areas. Without a sustained programme of action, any voter drive will work for a short period only.

Labour is doing its bit with the “missing million” push this weekend, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Gloria De Piero). It is one of our biggest registration drives ever. Labour students will be around campuses, colleagues will be touring community groups and local parties will be going door to door. That sort of work cannot, however, be sustained by volunteers alone, no matter how committed they are. A lot of the push has had to come from local authorities, who deserve credit for working hard despite the wider cuts and the new demands of the IER system.

Although information such as dates of birth and national insurance numbers is a good protection against fraud, it places further demands on electoral registration officers and that is why we need to support them by using all the available tools to find as many voters as possible. That means Departments and local authorities linking up their information and streamlining their processes. On this side of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) deserves credit for doing that with his local university, the University of Sheffield, where they have integrated voter registration into the student registration process, leading to 64% of students registering to vote. That is a success story—fair do’s.

The more innovative methods we can use to take advantage of what we already have, the better. In my work on the Public Accounts Committee, I have seen some of the new ways in which Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is working. Since 2012, it has been making use of credit reference agency data to good effect. It has checked addresses and other information to see if everything is up to date and correct. That helped HMRC to reduce tax credit losses by £280 million between 2011 and 2014. Further afield, in California, a Bill has recently been signed that allows residents to be registered to vote when they obtain or renew a driver’s licence or a state identity card. The point is that we need to use more good and accurate databases to increase voter registration to protect and build our democracy.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to intervene in the debate. I compliment my hon. Friend; he was an excellent agent in Islington South in 2005 and has been an even better MP since for Wales.

Is it not right that we should all be democrats? We should all be trying to work to ensure that as many people as possible exercise their democratic right to vote. It is extraordinary, is it not, that the Government seem to be putting barriers in the way of people being on the register in order to exercise the power they should have simply because they are citizens?

[Nick Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She does a brilliant job of boosting voter registration in Islington.

The Government are rushing the introduction of individual electoral registration. Next year’s elections are important and the boundaries for future constituencies will rely on an accurate register. The Government say that they want to boost our democracy, but their action undermines it. How many times have we, in this place, around this room, knocked on doors come election time, to be greeted by a person who has lost their opportunity to vote because of a registration problem? I see lots of nods. Why do we want to reject hundreds of thousands of students across the country by squeezing them off the register and telling them that their vote does not matter? Why do we want to undermine our voting system and threaten to exclude private renters, people from black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, the unemployed and lower-paid workers?

The Government must listen. They must hear the genuine concerns and allow more voters on to the register; otherwise, they do our democracy a great disservice.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I was just coming on to that. I want to address the fundamental point about how we are going to deal with the problem of under-represented groups on our registers, which is crucial and underlies many of the concerns.

Let me move on to the timing of the transition to IER. As we have heard in many speeches today, there is a presumption that this process is going remove eligible voters from the electoral roll. I want fundamentally to question that presumption. During the course of a year a large number people on the electoral register—a very large number in some places, and in other places fewer people—move house. Some sadly die, and there are fraudulent entries in some parts of the country, although not in all—the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) rightly said that fraud is not an issue in all parts of the country. That is the natural state of any database. It is natural for any electoral register to contain such data errors.

We have to sort through the 1.9 million people whose entries are incomplete and who had not made the transition as of the general election date of May this year to find which are genuine voters with a pulse—people who are eligible to vote. We need to identify them, confirm their ID in the way that we have been discussing and ensure that they are confirmed on the electoral register. Then the only entries left will be the people who are no longer there—the people who have moved, died or were never there in the first place because they were fraudulent.

[Nick Smith]

Will the Minister give way?

[John Penrose]

I will in a second. Let me finish this point.

That crucial distinction is absolutely central. It is not my intention—I am a democrat, like everybody else here—to get rid of any valid elector from any electoral roll anywhere.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I will give way to the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent first.

That is why we have made it so simple for people to register to vote and why by the end of the year, with the £3 million of extra funding we have introduced, the remaining 1.9 million entries on the electoral roll will have been contacted up to nine times over the past 18 months—in some cases, more. They will have had their doors knocked on and their phones rung, and they will have had letters and emails. At the end of that process, the chances of a genuine voter with a pulse who lives in a particular area being disfranchised are vanishingly small. Even if, by some terrible mischance, after all that effort they are genuinely disfranchised and should be able to vote, it takes less time than it takes to boil an egg to re-register.

[Nick Smith]

It is good that people can vote online now, and I know it is a very efficient process. Of the 1.9 million people we are all worried about, what is the Minister’s assessment of how many will be registered after the numerous interventions he is talking about? How many extra people does he believe will be on the register?

[John Penrose]

I do not have that number yet because, as a number of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues said, the autumn canvass is still going on. Because by definition those people were, without getting too Rumsfeldian about it, known unknowns, we were not sure how many were genuine people with a pulse and how many were data errors. Nobody will know the answer to that question until the autumn canvass process is complete.

Given that over 18 months those people will have been contacted nine times—in some cases more—in a variety of different ways, the chances of genuine voters being disfranchised is tiny. The fact is that the only entries left on the register, which will then be deleted, are the ones who are no longer there, not real voters. I hope we can all sign up to that crucial distinction. I am sure—we have heard this from a number of colleagues—that we would all sign up to the principle of keeping a clean register, which underpins the health of our democracy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Smith]

It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. We have had a really good debate. I want to thank Opposition colleagues who have contributed and added value. Strong contributions included that from my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who made an important point about the equality impact assessment.

[John Penrose]

I have just remembered that I did not answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes). There was indeed an equality impact assessment.

[Nick Smith]

My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) talked about the fundamental importance of registration for our democracy. The hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) had some good ideas about voter vouchers for 18-year-olds. The hon. Member for Edinburgh East (Tommy Sheppard) talked about how exciting campaigns can boost registration, which is the gold standard for us all.

We want exciting campaigns that energise our voters and promote democracy. We had interventions from my hon. Friends the Members for Neath (Christina Rees), for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell). My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) probed an important point about student registration.

In this important debate, I have tried to emphasise that bringing forward individual electoral registration at this time is a body blow to our democracy. Colleagues have highlighted under-registration in their constituencies, where key groups of people, such as those in rented accommodation and young people, are being squeezed off the register. The Minister made some constructive comments, and I look forward to reading his speech once he has given it in a few days. I would be grateful if he sent me a link.

[Wayne David]

He could send a copy to all of us.

[John Penrose]

indicated assent.

[Nick Smith]

All here present are good democrats who want to see progress in this area. Nevertheless, the Minister has failed to provide the Government’s assessment of how many of the 1.9 million people will be on the register after the Government’s intervention. It is a shame and a great pity that he failed to answer that important point. The Government have failed to listen to independent organisations such as the Electoral Commission and have done our democracy a disservice as a result. I hope that the Minister will take on board the messages of today’s debate, rethink the Government’s strategy and decide to build our democracy, rather than undermine it.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of individual electoral registration.

Greece

Nick Smith Excerpts

Monday 29th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I can absolutely give that assurance to my hon. Friend and his constituents in North Devon: we are never going to join the euro. Because of all the conditions that come with membership, we do not think it would be in the economic interests of the United Kingdom. We have consistently held that position. I pay tribute to the person I used to work for and who has now left the House, William Hague, who stood out against the consensus in the late 1990s and helped keep Britain out of the euro.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The Chancellor has said that UK citizens with deposits in Greek banks are not covered by our UK compensation scheme. How many UK citizens are affected by that and how does he plan to help them?

[Mr Osborne]

As I said in my statement, there are four branches of Greek banks in the UK. They have total deposits of about £200 million, which is, of course, a significant sum of money, but it is not that large compared with many other banking deposits, and the number of account holders is relatively low. I have made it very clear today that those account holders are not covered by the UK deposit protection scheme. I should also say that most of those individuals are not British citizens.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Nick Smith Excerpts

Friday 20th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), with whom I once spent an interesting and good week in a minibus in Nigeria, where we were supporting democracy with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

The Chancellor thinks we have never had it so good, but we in Blaenau Gwent know that is a long way from the truth. The only local growth we have seen under the Tories has been in food banks, payday loans and charity shops. More than 900,000 people used food banks last year nationwide. In my constituency, the payday loan company Wonga loaned more than £l million in my borough in just one year. Our valley towns have become run down, and there is no sign yet of that trend reversing. My constituents do not need empty claims that things are getting better; Blaenau Gwent needs jobs.

In recent years there have been some fantastic examples of good projects in the borough to boost our local economy, but the Chancellor does not deserve a shred of credit for the improvements that have occurred where the Tories have failed. Our housing association, Tai Calon, has invested over £100 million after negotiating with local banks to improve the quality of its social housing. Thousands of residents now have better kitchens and improved insulation.

The Welsh Labour Government, backed by European money, have improved, and continue to improve, our transport links. Road and rail are the arteries of any healthy economy. The Heads of the Valleys road improvements will allow commuters to get to the jobs they need and businesses to bring their jobs to Blaenau Gwent. That will also allow access to the Circuit of Wales project. Pleas to get the Conservative Government to back the project have so far fallen on deaf ears. In contrast, the Welsh Labour Government have provided important seedcorn money. Let us hope that the developers can now raise the £300 million needed to bring that venture to Blaenau Gwent.

Although we have not been cash-rich, with the Tories ensuring that their economic recovery passes us by, we are a borough that is rich in culture. Our brass bands and choirs have produced great talents that are still picking up national awards and acclaim to this day. The right hon. Member for Somerton and Frome nods—he knows the brass band world. It is obvious that, when we give our youngsters a culture of success, they produce time and again. The future of Blaenau Gwent is about not only celebrating our beautiful landscape—and we have plenty of that—but ensuring that those young talents are realised. The Circuit of Wales could bring thousands of jobs to the area, which is why we need to produce the work force to match.

The Labour-led council has improved the bricks and mortar of our schools, so now it is up to the professionals to deliver. That is why I am proud of Labour policies such as the jobs guarantee scheme, which will see 18 to 24-year-olds who have been out of a job for a year offered a paid role for six months. That is a massive deal for young people trying to get on to the employment ladder and will make a big difference in places such as Blaenau Gwent, where 16.2% of youngsters are still out of work. The Chancellor’s policies, however, have passed Blaenau Gwent by.

We were the birthplace of the NHS, but the Chancellor found no time to discuss the extreme budget cuts that could put it at risk. Tory tax changes such as the VAT rise have left families poorer than they were when the Government came to power. Working families are worse off while millionaires enjoy tax cuts. The coming election remains a choice between a Tory plan that is failing working families and Labour’s better plan, which will put working families first and save our NHS. We need a Labour Government for a better future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point, and there has been an increase—[Interruption.] It is a point that bears repeating. Members really should take in the fact that, under this Government, we have seen a significant increase in HMRC’s yield. HMRC is more effective than ever in dealing with tax evasion and tax avoidance.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Two thirds of people getting tax credits are in work, so why does the Chancellor want to cut tax credits again? That will penalise hard-working families.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 4th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

I am sure that the Chancellor can explain that, but as I am already at the Dispatch Box, I will answer the question. The UK has very much led the way in the OECD base erosion and profit shifting process, ensuring that the international tax system is fit for purpose. We have made good progress on that, but there is still work to do.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

18. Does the Minister think that there is any link between the deep cuts to HMRC staff, particularly in Cardiff, and the uncollected tax that is rising under this Government?

[Mr Gauke]

As I say, what has happened under this Government is that the yield brought in by HMRC has increased year after year. The tax gap is lower for 2012-13 than it was in any year under the previous Labour Government. In truth, the record of HMRC is one of getting more from less, but we have invested in the areas that bring in money on tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gauke]

The hon. Lady raises an important point and I hope that we can say more about the steps that we can take to help businesses in Northern Ireland in particular that have been affected by this issue.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

9. What recent representations he has made to institutions of the EU on the cap on bank bonuses.

[The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Andrea Leadsom)]

The Government are challenging the bank bonus cap provisions under EU capital requirements directive IV. We think that those rules will undermine the progress that we have made to make sure that bankers’ pay is aligned with long-term performance and that there are no rewards for failure or wrongdoing.

[Nick Smith]

The Chancellor was much too complacent earlier. Youth unemployment in Blaenau Gwent is still way too high. Why do the Government refuse to repeat the tax on bank bonuses? That could fund guaranteed jobs for young people throughout the UK.

[Andrea Leadsom]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Government have instead introduced a permanent bank levy on bankers’ balance sheets, which, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, will raise £8 billion during the life of this Parliament, and up to £18 billion by 2018-19, so they are paying a fair share towards our economic recovery.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the difference between the rate of inflation and the rate of growth in average earnings since May 2010.

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

Times have been tough for hard-working people. As Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies said on 6 December:

“There have been very significant falls in real earnings as a direct but delayed result of the 2008 recession, essentially.”

As the Bank of England and the IFS have said, the best way to support living standards is to improve productivity and by sticking to the Government’s long-term plan to build a stronger economy.

[Nick Smith]

Real wages have fallen in Blaenau Gwent, partly due to poor access to labour markets. What progress is being made to speed up rail electrification for the valleys, which would boost earnings? The Chief Secretary said that he would look into the matter six months ago. What has happened?

[Mr Gauke]

There is an agreement with the Welsh Government on that, but as I said a moment ago, this Government have an infrastructure plan. Up and down the country progress is being made to improve our transport infrastructure. That is part of our long-term economic plan. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that in his constituency the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants is down 20% over the past year.

Consumer Rights Bill

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Hodgson]

I am delighted to be able to speak on new clauses 18 to 21, which stand in my name and those of the hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and other hon. Friends. I add my support to new clauses 8, 16 and 17, which were tabled by my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench and ably argued for by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy) this afternoon and in Committee.

New clause 18 follows directly from the conclusions and recommendations of the recent excellent report by the all-party group on ticket abuse. I want to put on the record my thanks to colleagues across the House and all the outside experts who contributed to that excellent report. We found that the existence of a secondary market for event tickets is justified by the need of genuine consumers to pass on tickets that they can no longer use. To some extent, that is because event holders are not very good at facilitating refunds or exchange mechanisms, even though they sell tickets many months in advance of the event.

On that point, I will speak briefly to new clause 12. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)—he is not listening now—would not allow any interventions, because I wanted to correct for the record some of the errors in what he said. He is right that we have regularly locked horns on the issue, but that does not mean I will sit back and not seek to correct him when I think he is wrong. First, the Opposition are seeking not to ban the resale of tickets, but to regulate and reform the market in the interests of consumers through these very sensible cross-party proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow did not “allude”—I think that was the word he used—to trying to ban the resale of tickets.

Secondly, the hon. Member for Shipley was incorrect to claim that no one gives refunds at the moment. The Rugby Football Union guarantees full refunds for high-demand matches—I am sure that the world cup would qualify—up to an hour before kick-off. It also provides legitimate resale platforms. This ensures that any investment goes back into the sport of rugby. The England and Wales Cricket Board has established ticket exchanges at each venue and centrally so that a supporter who can no longer attend a match or has a spare can legitimately re-sell their ticket. Those are just two examples among many more that are out there.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that new clauses 16 and 18 are particularly powerful, because they would enable us to identify the power sellers—the people who buy tickets on an almost industrial scale, and by doing so corner the market, rip off consumers and push up prices? Unless we do so, it is more likely that £250 tickets for the rugby world cup can be sold for over £1,000, as is happening at the moment. That has to be a bad thing, and we must stop it.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nick Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

It is of course important that we make sure that people have more money in their pockets, and it is particularly important that that help is focused on those on lower earnings. That is why we have focused our attention on raising the income tax personal allowance. We have also, for example, frozen fuel duty and taken steps on energy bills. It is worth pointing out that increasing the personal allowance benefits 40p rate taxpayers by the same cash amount as basic rate taxpayers.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

T9. Eight hundred and twenty-five young people are desperately seeking work in Blaenau Gwent. This month, I will be asking local employers to sign up to offer work experience. Why does not the Chief Secretary listen and introduce a compulsory jobs guarantee to give these young people a chance?

[Danny Alexander]

I warmly welcome what the hon. Gentleman is doing to encourage employers in his constituency to offer work experience. The evidence of this Government’s work experience programme is that work experience is more effective than the future jobs fund and a great deal cheaper to deliver, so it is more cost-effective. He is on the right track in what he is doing in his constituency; his Front Benchers are on the wrong track.

National Infrastructure Plan

Nick Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I might have been able to give the right hon. Gentleman a page reference if he had asked a question about the national infrastructure plan. I think that expecting an answer from me about the voluminous range of papers on HS2 is a little bit too much, but I will make sure that he receives an answer from my friends at the Department for Transport.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Government consider bringing forward the electrification of the south Wales valleys line? That would make a big difference to boosting employment in a deprived area.

[Danny Alexander]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of electrifying the south Wales valleys line. That is why the Government added it to the Network Rail plan; it was not there before. I will certainly look at the case for accelerating it, if possible. The structure of this country’s rail industry is such that Network Rail is given a regulatory set of obligations and has to work out for itself the most efficient way to deliver them, but I would be very happy to ask that question of Network Rail and to share any answers with the hon. Gentleman.