Individual Voter Registration

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

She did, but she was talking about our proposal to allow voters to opt out by having a simple tick box on the form. We listened carefully to what the chair of the commission said, as did others, and the Deputy Prime Minister and I have confirmed that we are minded to change those parts of our provisions. The thing that she was concerned about that might have a direct effect, because people might tick the box, could also send out the message that we were less interested in people registering to vote. We have already accepted that that could have those consequences, which is why we have said that we will change it, and I think that that acknowledgment has been welcomed by the commission and its chair.

My final point on the motion is about the way it finishes by simply stating as a fact that moving to a system of individual registration

“will lead to large-scale under-registration.”

I simply do not think that there is any evidence to support that proposition. The motion is not quite in the spirit and tone with which the right hon. Gentleman introduced it. When the debate finishes, I urge my hon. Friends to oppose the motion, but to do so in the same constructive spirit with which he introduced it.

Let me say a little more about our proposals. I am happy to take interventions, but I will try to be mindful of your point, Mr Speaker, about the number of Members who wish to speak. I am pleased that the overall shift to individual registration is supported by all parties in the House—it was in all three main parties’ manifestos. The Electoral Commission supports it, as do the Association of Electoral Administrators, a wide range of international observers and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, whose Chair was present for the earlier part of the debate. There is much cross-party agreement on the principle and I recognise that we are effectively arguing over the detail.

The old, or current, system, involving the old-fashioned notion of a head of household who registers everyone else, is a little out of date and, as Members on both sides of the House have acknowledged, gives one person the ability to affect other people’s registration. We do not adopt that approach in other areas where people interact with the state, and the Electoral Commission has stated very clearly that the

“‘Household’ registration system means there is no personal ownership by citizens of a fundamental aspect of their participation in our democracy—their right to vote. This is too important to be left for anybody other than the individual”.

The Government agree, and I could not have put it better myself.

There is also a risk of fraud. The issue is not just about the fraud that actually takes place, but the risk of it, and even international observers, when they come and look at our system, note that we are very lucky to have a relatively low level of fraud. That is not because of our system, it is despite our system, and we would not be doing our jobs properly if we left in place a system that was open to fraud, even if we have been fortunate enough not to have had a huge amount of it to date that we know about.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I do not necessarily accept the proposition that fraud is a major issue in Britain, but the reason for making the suggested changes within this time scale—that they were so important that they had to be speeded up—does not get away from the fraud that can be perpetrated, for example, by someone simply turning up at a polling station and saying that they are somebody else. In a flat-share situation, somebody may not have registered, but, if somebody else has and they have moved away, the former can turn up and say, “I’m Joe Bloggs, and here I am.” As long as they are the right gender, they are able to vote, so if fraud is such a major issue should we not look at what happens when people turn up at the polling station?

[Mr Harper]

That point has been made, and I looked at it when I visited Northern Ireland, which, for historical reasons and for the reasons it introduced the system ahead of us, requires people to have a form of photo ID when they vote. When that was introduced, it meant that many people were not able to vote, but it is now working smoothly. It has been suggested to us that we should adopt that system. The Government have decided not to do so, but we will listen to the evidence, as it certainly happens in one part of the United Kingdom. As far as I understand—I stand to be corrected—it currently works pretty smoothly, and for those electors who do not have their own form of photo ID, such as a passport or driving licence, there is a specific and very simple electoral ID card, with no database behind it, which they can use to prove their identity—and their age, for all sorts of other interesting purposes that to young people are probably more attractive than being able to vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore]

I am not convinced that the current proposals will address the problem that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I wonder what his view is of the coalition Government’s decision not to go ahead with the system proposed by the previous Government, which would have enabled such cross-checking. Under the current proposals, so long as an elector provides their local electoral registration officer with their identifier, they could still register in more than one place, which I think is what he believes to be a problem.

[Dan Rogerson]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I have discussed this with the Minister informally and in meetings, including one that involved the constituent I mentioned earlier. I am seeking to urge the Minister to do all he can to provide local electoral registration officers with the tools they need for cross-checking so that they can be confident that the people who are presented to them are resident in the community. In the best-case scenario, we have people who are on the register and who scrupulously ensure that they vote in two places only in local elections and only in one place in general elections. Of course, some of them might vote in both places in a general election, or even in three or four places. Realistically, what electoral registration officer will have the wherewithal to indentify where an elector’s other properties are and to get hold of the marked register for those places in order to perform that cross-checking? I am genuinely concerned about that and hope that the Minister will take my comments on board and look at what can be done.

There are further connected issues. If we as a Government are moving towards more consultative referendums locally on planning and local plans, I can see a slight diversion of interest in an area between those who have a second home and those who are trying desperately to secure an affordable home when it comes to what the local plan says about, for example, the provision of affordable housing and where it might be located.

The same thing might be said of a referendum under the Localism Act 2011 to vary council tax upwards in order to provide local services, with local authorities quite rightly having to make the case to the electorate on such issues. People who are not so involved in the services in an area may still have a view on having to pay for them. The flipside of that argument is no taxation without representation, but that does not apply to council tax. With business rates, people have a big stake in a local community, but they have not had the opportunity to vote in local elections for a long time, and we should see people who have the luxury of a second property as being more in line with people who operate a business in that area, rather than as a resident paying council tax. I urge the Minister to ensure that that question is addressed as we move forward.

My second point, on which I disagree slightly with the report by the Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, is about the edited register, which does a huge amount of good for business. We have heard already about tackling credit card fraud, and the agencies that pursue it often use the edited register. The Salvation Army and others do fantastic work in reuniting separated families, and it has told me how much it relies on the edited register to do so. Many other practitioners in the field reunite people who have been adopted with their birth parents, and other family members who have lost contact with each other.

Work is undertaken on dormant assets and matters of probate, and the people involved all make use of the edited register, so I hope that when the Minister comes to legislate he will think carefully about how that aspect of the register is treated. I accept that for reasons of safety people should be able to opt out, and we have that safeguard in place already, but when the edited register meets so many demands in society it ought to be a provision that we retain. Charity fundraisers, a category that I did not mention, also make great use of the register, so before we throw it out we should look at what it achieves.

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on the importance of a canvass in the run-up to a general election, and many have made the point that a 2014 canvass would help a great deal with preparations for the next general election. So, although I shall happily support the Government tonight, I urge the Minister to consider carefully the key issues of the edited register and second-home voters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I want to address one or two issues that have not yet been fully addressed. Reference has been made to the use of data matching to find out where people are so that letters can be sent to get them to register. It is very important that we assess how effective that is, and I hope that the Minister is minded to bring forward the reports on that at the earliest possible opportunity and that we have access to that information when we debate the proposed Bill.

Data matching will not be easy. It is said glibly, “We will have data matching”, but the Select Committee was told that some of the exercises have proved to be a lot more difficult than people anticipated. In Southwark, for example, 25% of Department for Work and Pensions records could not be reconciled with the records held by the local authority. That does not surprise me, especially in a place with a lot of flats and tenements. Addresses in Edinburgh, for example, can be recorded in a number of weird and wonderful ways. Traditional approaches, such as numbering each flat 1, 2, 3 and so on, have been replaced by abbreviations such as PF1, PF2 and so on. Someone might apply for a benefit and put their address as 3/1, but another person might record that address as PF2. Data matching is not, therefore, a magic implement, and we must have the opportunity to assess whether it has worked.

The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) suggested that the issue of the boundaries is irrelevant because the register has been set for the current boundary review. Indeed it has, but the problem will arise in 2015, when the register used for the boundary review will not be the one used in the preceding general election. The Committee has suggested that it would be sensible to use the register as it stands at the general election earlier that year, because it contains the carry-over. That approach would run the least possible risk of our ending up with another set of boundary changes based on a low level of registration. While a low level of registration is not inevitable if we really work at it, the Northern Ireland experience tells us that it is likely to happen at least in the first instance. Whatever happens in the more distant future, I hope that the Government accept that particular recommendation.

[Mark Durkan]

Northern Ireland has had more frequent and relatively positive mentions in this debate than in any other debate in which no Northern Ireland Member has sought to catch the Speaker’s eye. In respect of the snakes and ladders experience that Northern Ireland had with individual electoral registration, I encourage Members to note that registration efforts post-election tended to be especially difficult. The Minister has said that he will rely on a canvass in 2015 after the general election, but registration post-election often means that people assume that because they voted at the election they do not need to register. That is one of the lessons that need to be learned.

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, which supports the point that I was trying to make.

I am also concerned about the issue of postal voters. I am not suggesting that the system is perfect because voters already have to overcome certain hurdles. The signature issue clearly causes problems, especially when signatures change, and people’s votes have been discounted for that reason, but people—especially older people—have been used to getting a postal vote regularly for some time. I am sure that coalition Members have gone door-knocking and have encountered people who say, “I think I have a postal vote, but I’m not sure.” We are usually very reassuring, saying, “Don’t worry, it will come.” During an election campaign, we might say that they are coming out next week. The problem is that many people in that situation will not appreciate that to get their postal vote they will have to go through the individual registration process. Yes, they will be left on the register, at least until May 2015, but they will lose their postal vote. If they lost their postal vote, many of them will simply not be able to register their vote, and that is a very important point.

Given that we have certain safeguards in place for postal voting, and we are allowing the general carry-over, I do not see it as such a big change to suggest that we carry over the postal voting aspect of people’s registration at that stage. As the system beds in, that will probably become less necessary, but at this initial stage there is a great risk that people will discover that they are unable to vote in the next general election—not to mention the boundary issue.

What we really need to do on registration—and no one has done it well enough, although some local authorities are better than others—is to look at imaginative ways to get more people registered. Registration differs so much across cities—even across a ward. I was out door-knocking only yesterday and in one street of terraced houses almost everybody was on the register. Just around the corner, I found a block of six flats where only two households were registered. The two places are not fantastically different sociologically, but flats tend to have higher turnover, and that is the important difference. If we crack that problem, it will make a tremendous difference, but individual voter registration alone will not do it. In fact, the opposite is true, because it will be difficult to get people in multiply occupied flats to register.

The best electoral registration is where local authorities put a lot of resources into doing it and target, not necessarily everybody—a universal door-knocking exercise is not necessary—but those places where there are known to be deficiencies. We know where they are, and that would build up registration, which should be the priority at the moment. On top of that, I hope that the Government accept the recommendations made by the Select Committee on the proposed Bill.