Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Sadiq Khan Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Shuker]

The hon. Gentleman rightly points out that they will not be the electorate then, but in this place we should be better than that.

When we consider foreign policy, for example, we often examine how we set a timetable. There are two ways of setting a timetable for change. The first is by way of a conditions-based response, where we say that there are certain milestones to be hit—certain points at which we consider that the integrity of the process has been governed and understood by all, and the progress that has been made has been secured. The other route is by way of a purely date-led timetable. In the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, the previous Government set out a position where two parallel processes would happen at the same time: the existing register would continue in the way that it had, while we looked at and tried to understand how individual electoral registration affected the details of those people on the register. That strikes me as a wholly appropriate approach, and many Government Members, as they are now, supported those moves. Why for the sake of a year’s change or difference are we now going to cause ourselves trouble and store it up for the future?

We have heard a lot from the Minister about the data-matching trials, which are obviously important in order for us to see whether this shift has a measurable and discernible effect on how the register is produced. He has placed details in the Library today, and I am looking forward to seeing them. However, he said that he anticipates that only two thirds of the people currently on the register will be moved across.

[Sadiq Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

At best.

[Gavin Shuker]

At best. The key issue is that we will not know, even from the pilots, whether that is an appropriate level until early 2013, by which point this legislation will have gone from this place. We will not be able to pull back from the brink if demonstrably lower levels of data matching are shown. The Minister was clear about the onus put on those trials in the first place; it was a key reason why this was an appropriate route to go down. In answer to my intervention, he said that he hoped the number on the electoral register will not decrease, and will instead increase, as a result of these changes. What safeguards are in place if the data-matching trials come back not with a figure of 66% or 55%, which is the sort of figure others have spoken about, but a significantly lower one? Answer comes there none.

Secondly, on the 2015 review of boundaries for the 2020 elections, to which this process is integral, we have very little in the way of answers about how the register will change constituency boundaries, which have already been changed to a great extent. I draw the House’s attention to the quotes from the Electoral Reform Society, which said:

“A substantial fall off in registered voters, weighted towards urban areas, would require the Boundary Commission to reduce the number of inner city seats. This will create thousands of “invisible” citizens who will not be accounted for or considered in many key decisions that affect their lives”.

I believe that that is the situation we are in now, and it might well extend further. That does a disservice to many of the groups that I mentioned.

Finally, I want to draw attention to the issue of young people. Students who are registered in their halls of residence are empowered to vote at a time of significant change and transition in their lives. I hope that they will not be disfranchised, because their voices must be heard if we are to maintain the credibility of the process and draw in new voters, too.