Individual Voter Registration

Siobhain McDonagh Excerpts

Monday 16th January 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Evennett]

My hon. Friend makes a strong point. We have experienced that in my constituency as well; it is another area that we need to tighten up. I am grateful to him for his comment.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that people from Commonwealth countries do not need to be UK citizens to vote?

[Mr Evennett]

I am grateful for that comment. It is a fair point, and I note it and agree with it.

Giving individuals control of their own electoral registration is an important extension of the right to vote. We had a detailed history lesson from the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd about when people got the vote, in what century and so forth. I think, though, that it is people’s responsibility to make the effort to ensure that they are on the register and that they participate. The current system is undoubtedly outdated, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, and dependent on somebody completing a form on behalf of everyone in the household. In this day and age, that cannot be acceptable. People should have the individual right to register.

I welcome the constructive comments that we have heard today about how to improve the proposals from my hon. Friend the Minister. I am sure that he will listen to and take many of them on board and implement the change to the betterment of our democracy, which is the whole point of this approach. The Electoral Commission has been calling for the introduction of IER since 2003 in order to reduce fraud and give individuals

“clear ownership of their right to vote”.

Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg, executive director of Democratic Audit, said: “I welcome the proposals”. He thought that the change was long overdue.

The evidence suggests that electoral legislation will improve the completeness and accuracy of the electoral roll. I passionately believe that it will. We heard about Northern Ireland. Of course, there was a drop-off in the initial stages, but since getting under way it has returned to a reasonable registration level—and probably a better one than we have experienced here.

It is true that there is a huge turnover in rented properties. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider whether housing associations can be more helpful and involved in the promotion of IER. They have a role and could help to ensure that the register is more accurate. I am thinking, in particular, about literature and encouraging people to participate by getting themselves on the register.

I hope that the Government will assure us that there are sufficient resources for electoral registration officers to publicise the change and undertake the tasks. Maladministration should not get in the way of democracy. I also encourage the Minister to look at the necessary legislation and encourage councils, where possible, to improve data sharing between departments. The accuracy of the electoral register would improve if social services and council tax departments could advise their electoral registration departments of any changes so that the latter can pursue them with the relevant households.

My own council, Bexley council, is considering a “tell us once” policy in respect of all administrative changes, and I urge other councils to try to do the same. It would certainly help if people, when they move or have social services changes, can inform the council once, rather than having to contact endless numbers of departments. I believe that that would improve the electoral register.

I welcome the Government’s conciliatory, constructive and moderate approach to this issue and the commitment from my hon. Friend the Minister that care will be taken to introduce the new system without losing voters from the register. I welcome the sensible change that will take place over the year and the fact that, we hope, there will be more people on the register and more people wanting to vote. It is part of our job to encourage people to participate more in the democratic system, so we need not just to get them on the register but to get them out and voting. I hope that changing to individual registration might be one way forward.

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[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I rise not to oppose individual registration but to ask Members from all parts of the House not to throw away household registration without understanding the benefits it brings. No system brings perfection, but in the words of the great Joni Mitchell, “You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.”

I would suggest that in my constituency and other urban areas such as south London under-representation on the register among young people will be made worse by the quick introduction of individual registration. That was brought home to me at the last election. As I walked through Mitcham town centre on election day 2010, large numbers of young people came up to me and said, “Oh, hi Siobhain! I just wanted to say that we’ve been out to vote.” I thought, “Great!”—I did not ask who they had voted for; the point was that they had been out to vote. It made me think about mums as electoral registration officers as often it is the head of the household who puts those young people on the register, and getting those young people to sign a form to get on the register, which requires their name, address, date of birth and national insurance number, will be a difficult feat that will take several years.

I ask the House not to despise our experience of actual elections. Who was it who told us that the Child Support Agency did not work, if not our individual voters and constituents? We all know how difficult it is to get people to register and to vote. We also know the practical difficulties with all the mail that we receive in our households every day, where somebody can come along, pick it up and throw it in the bin. Where there are four, five or six electoral registration forms, how successfully do we really believe each one will actually be completed?

Much mention has been made of the 11% reduction in the electoral register in Northern Ireland, but Northern Ireland as a community is so far removed from my constituency as to be another continent. We have a different turnover of people on the electoral register; we have a different, multi-ethnic make-up. Who is it who does not vote? It is, yes, young people and people with private tenancies or in houses in multiple occupation; but it is also some—but not all—ethnic minorities. If we look at America, which has individual electoral registration, as well as a difficult history of voter representation among some communities, we see that registration among the under-25s is about 58.5%, while six in 10 of those who rent privately are not on the register. Conversely, 80% of those with an income of over $100,000 a year are registered. Therefore, those who are rich are two thirds more likely to be on the electoral register than those who are poor.

We get rid of the annual canvass at our peril. At the moment, with one electoral form per household, only 65% of people in even a wealthy borough such as Merton in my constituency return their forms without the canvass. That figure later goes up, to 97%, because of the canvass and the encouragement, and also because of the threat of fines. That is what gets those forms returned and gets the canvass up, and at the moment we are asking for one form from every household. We are not asking for multiple forms.

Data matching is presented as the holy grail that will sort this issue out. However, as we have discovered from the investigation done by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), the electoral register is the most accurate of all our databases. Electoral registration officers have told us that when they cross-reference with the Department for Work and Pensions register, it tells them what they already know. It does not tell them what they do not know. Indeed, each of the Government’s six pilots to look at individual registration has faced increased costs, of between 50% and 100%, for electoral registration officers. I ask all Members here this evening: how likely are their councils to increase their funding by that amount, at a time when they are reducing spending on social services, education and all the things that our constituents come to see us about?

There is talk of fraud in electoral registration, but I would suggest that our problem is not an inflated electoral register but one whose figures are too low. My anxiety is not related to party considerations. I will fight in my constituency to win as many votes as I can get; like most Members, I love elections. I love the fight, and the arguments about the issues. That is what encourages us to get involved, and it is our role to get as many people as possible on to the register. However, if we do anything to alienate those groups in our society that are already alienated, we will bear the brunt of that action. The riots that we saw last summer will be repeated if more people begin to believe that they have nothing invested in the system.

I believe that registering and voting involve a social contract. People register to become part of the system and, in return, they can claim the benefits that they are entitled to, and they can get a library card, a driving licence or whatever. If we undo that social contract, we will find it very difficult to put that genie back in the bottle and get more electors on to the register. Individual registration is fine, but the Government should not get rid of household registration until they are absolutely sure that the young men and women of 18, 19 and 20 in constituencies such as mine will register to vote without the benefit of their mum registering them.

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[Mr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

We have heard a lot this afternoon about lack of registration, but I am particularly keen to talk about the number of fraudulent applications on electoral registers. As a consequence, I welcome the Government’s plans for an overhaul of the electoral registration process.

Ever since the introduction of the Representation of the People Act 2000, which allowed postal voting on demand, we have witnessed abuses across the country. Under election law, anyone from a Commonwealth country can vote in a general election if they are resident in the UK, but names can be added to the electoral roll and people can become eligible for a postal vote without anyone checking their identities or whether they are actually in the country. At the last election, the Metropolitan police examined 28 claims of major abuses across 12 London boroughs against accusations that political activists were packing the electoral roll at the last minute with the names of relatives living overseas, or were simply inventing phantom voters.

During my election campaign in 2010, we saw an increase in the number of postal vote applications from homes in multiple occupation. It was certainly a contrast to the number of voters in single-family homes. I have also received many anecdotal comments from constituents who witnessed the fact that there were duplicate names and mass entries on the register from houses and flats with a small number of bedrooms. I have discussed the issue with my local authority, which has confirmed its active interest in such irregularities.

I stress that I have no criticism of the professionalism of the electoral returning officer and her staff. They find themselves in a position where they have to follow the registration process, which includes sending two forms to households and if no response is received following that up with a canvasser. In some cases, local authorities remove the names, but Barnet allows names to roll over to the following year. The Government’s proposals will remove that uncertainty and we shall know exactly who is in the property and when.

In September last year, I raised with the Leader of the House the problem of individuals who make multiple applications at different addresses by registering at a property they own but at which they do not reside. He said in his response:

“It is an offence to provide false information to electoral returning officers, and if that happens I hope they would pursue it. As my hon. Friend will know, we are introducing individual electoral registration, which will reduce the opportunity for fraud because people will have to provide some evidence of identity before they are added to the register.—[Official Report, 8 September 2011; Vol. 532, c.561-2.]

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Will the hon. Gentleman address the point that his Government’s assessment of the proposal admits that fraudulent over-registration is rare?

[Mr Offord]

The Government can say that, but I can only speak on behalf of my constituents; we have found evidence to the contrary.

I have reported some of my suspicions to the Metropolitan police but their response was a scratching of their collective head. I reported the accusations to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan- Howe and received a response from Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin of the specialist crime directorate who advised me:

“As you correctly state it is within the will of the Police to investigate issues relating to Electoral Offences…In exercising this discretion the Commissioner must take into account the public interest in pursuing a criminal investigation.”

The list cited by DCS Martin for lack of action by the police included

“whether an alternative remedy is available, whether an investigation has been undertaken by a regulatory body or governing profession, whether civil as opposed to criminal proceedings would lead to a more appropriate solution, whether the matters have become stale, the extent to which criminal proceedings may amount to an abuse of the legal process, the proportionality of instigating a police investigation having regard to the stigma which attaches to a criminal conviction”.

All those mean that the police will not take any action.

The Government say that, in addition to trust and security, ensuring that the electoral register is as complete as possible is central to the credibility of our electoral system and the basis of our democratic process, and we all agree on that here today, but the current system for registering to vote relies on trust that those who register are indeed eligible.

As Labour Front Benchers have tabled the motion, they need to answer some questions, particularly about a candidate in the Greater London authority elections who resides in Westminster, in Westbourne Grove, and registers himself on the electoral register with his girlfriend at his permanent residence, but has continued to allow himself to be registered at a second property he owns in the London borough of Barnet that is inhabited by his tenant. If that is not legally wrong, it is certainly morally wrong, and it is dishonest to mislead voters into presuming that the candidate lives locally.

Where would Labour Front Benchers say that that person lived? For sure, many Members of the House have access to two properties, and the law states that people who have two homes are allowed to register at both addresses, but it is an offence to vote more than once in a general election, although such people may vote in both areas at local elections. The Representation of the People Act also states that the person may register only at an address where they are freely able to return. That means people such as students living at their parents’ home, or even MPs returning to a family home in their constituency who have a property in London. It does not include landlords who rent out their properties and then decide that it may be electorally advantageous to them to maintain their entry on a second electoral register elsewhere from their permanent residence.

I shall vote against the Opposition motion—not solely on partisan lines, but because the measures outlined by the Government will address concerns of which I have experience. The proposal that every elector will have to register individually and provide identifying information that will be used to verify their entitlement to be included on the electoral register is vital. Only once their application has been verified can a person be added to the register.

In addition, the Government’s proposal to change electoral registration legislation to put in place a framework that reflects more closely how people choose to engage with the Government and create flexibility for the system to keep pace with technological developments is another initiative that I welcome. That will help to make registration easier, more convenient and more efficient, opening the way for other methods of registration, such as telephone and online. Those are all areas that younger people are particularly keen on. The idea of completing a paper form that comes through the door each autumn or when people move house is as antiquated as electoral law itself.

These measures will help to restore trust in the electoral system, which has been eroded in the past decade by legislation that was perhaps well meaning, but which was wide open to abuse. I believe that that is what most of us here want, so I shall support the Government on the issue.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

I apologise to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to the House for necessarily being out of the Chamber at about 4 o’clock. I apologise in particular to the Minister, who is always most courteous in such circumstances.

If the House has any sacred duty, and that is arguable, it is that we should ensure that the British people are able to elect those of us who come to this Chamber. That is one of the most important things that any of us in the House can stand up for and fight for. Today, we have a chance to do that, but we need to consider one other thing. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) was right to talk about abuse of the electoral registration system, but the biggest abuse of that system is not the five or six cases nationwide that went to court on fraud charges, but the fact that all of us in the Chamber have at least 10,000 people in our constituency who are not on the register to vote. That is the biggest abuse, and it is the most important thing to put right when we look at individual voter registration.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Is my hon. Friend aware that in the ICM poll for the Electoral Commission, which has been cited as the basis for much of the legislation, barely 2% of people thought that registering to vote was very unsafe, and that 20 times as many people were satisfied with the way in which they registered to vote as the number who were dissatisfied?

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend makes her case eloquently, and she is a great champion of ensuring that members of the public in her constituency and elsewhere are on the register. We need to support that sentiment, and only we in the Chamber can do so.

We do that partly through the activities of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, which I am fortunate to chair. It is an active Committee, and some of its members are in the Chamber: my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths). I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who spoke on behalf of the Committee when I was absent due to ill health when this matter was last debated.

We have worked together, and we have worked with the Government, to try to make the proposal better. Given the exchanges that have taken place, the House is in severe danger of doing the job that members of the public elected it to do. The Government have submitted a pre-legislative proposal to the Select Committee, which is how things should happen. The Select Committee responded with non-partisan efforts to determine a better Bill and to make better proposals, some of which have already been heard by the Government. Today, we are having a measured debate. There may not be a great drama if we tend to agree on a number of the issues, but that is what the House should do when proposed legislation is introduced, so that we end up with better legislation.

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[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

This debate, which is on voting in this country, is one that is naturally at the heart of our democratic process. In the past, electoral fraud was a small, minor problem, and few people worried about it, but in my view that has changed. The prevailing view is now that electoral fraud is much more widespread than it once was. The numbers being investigated and convicted show that we are certainly going downhill at a rate of knots when it comes to accountability.

In the past, the electoral register was accurate, and fraud was not a major problem. Anyone committing fraud would have needed the bravery to appear at least twice, and perhaps even three times, at the polling booth before they were caught. From what we can tell, that did not happen very often. Today, as a result of postal votes on demand, people can vote without ever having to see anyone. That has led to an unknown number of people listing fictitious residents at their properties and voting by post on their behalf.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain his source for his last assertion—that large numbers of people are registering multiple times—because his Government’s review suggested that there was a negligible amount of such behaviour?

[David Morris]

I am speaking from personal experience. I have stood in three seaside resorts and have come across situations—including in the 2010 election—in which voters have died six months prior to their votes being cast.

Listing fictitious residents has led to an unknown number of people—

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way? Presumably he has contacted the police about that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order.

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[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak, particularly because this has been a debate between experts. I am not suggesting that Members are not experts in the subjects of other debates, but we have all won elections so we should know what they are about.

As other Members have said, the tone was set correctly at the beginning of the debate by the shadow Secretary of State and by my hon. Friend the Minister, who engaged in a constructive dialogue on the principle on which we are all agreed of individual voter registration.

I want to take a different approach from other hon. Members, although I support much of what they have said and have listened to the practical comments about the definition of a public duty and so on. I fully understand that, but it must be right in this day and age when we rely so much on democracy and the individual voter casting their own vote in secret that we should expect that that voter takes—and learns—responsibility by registering. I take a certain degree of umbrage at what was said by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), although I know where she is coming from. She talked about mums doing the registering, whereas in other cases fathers do it and in others those whom everyone calls the heads of household do it. As an ex-teacher, I would ask how someone learns—

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I will, if the hon. Lady will let me finish. How will someone learn that voting is important and that it is the responsible thing to do if someone else starts the process and puts them on the register? How will they feel that it is important? I am sure that we have all stood outside polling stations doing important things during elections and have seen that a significant number of people who are registered to vote do not have a clue about what to do, what to tick or cross or where to do it. I take on board the points made by the Minister about Northern Ireland and the education system. Perhaps we should debate on another day what we should do in our education system. As an ex-history teacher I might suggest that part of the problem is the fact that narrative history has gone, which means that many of our children have no idea about the amount of effort that went into getting the right to vote. Where do we start to instil the sense of responsibility? I agree that we should start with registration.

I said I would give way to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I do not want to affect the time left for others who want to make speeches, but I am happy to have a chat with the hon. Gentleman afterwards.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I am always willing to have a chat afterwards, particularly with the hon. Lady.

My constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), talked about fraud. I know that Labour Members have said that there are only one or two examples, but I have a suggestion for the Minister. I know that he is a listening Minister, as has been proven by this debate, on certain points. There are higher allegations of fraud in particular areas. There is not a massive amount of proof but, according to the polls, a third of the population believe that there is something dodgy about the way we vote. I commend the Minister for saying that we must try to prove to people that this system is as safe as we can get it and that individuals must therefore be responsible for registering, so that they cannot say that somebody else filled in the form for them. That message is vital. I think that somewhere there are draft proposals that people who act as proxies should by definition be registered voters. I fully support that, but I urge the Minister to go back to the old system for proxies.

With proxies, there has always been the allegation that something dodgy is involved because somebody has someone else’s vote. Before 2000, when certain laws were made a little more lax, when someone went to get a proxy they had to have a witness. Once we dropped the witness from those forms, anybody could allege anything because the party worker or candidate could get a proxy off someone and nobody else would know. It was a complicated process and the neighbour was usually the witness, but at least a third party was involved in what was seen as the most tricky element of the system. I urge the Minister to consider reintroducing that.

The issue of fraud was raised with me at the last general election. It did not affect my seat, but, in a certain seat, somebody said that they had gone to vote but somebody had already voted for them, so they came back and rang the different parties in desperation. My party advised them to go along and ask for a tendered ballot. Interestingly, the polling station did not have tendered ballots and some of the polling officers did not even know what one was. I have spoken to a number of people involved in elections who do not know what tendered ballots are and I suggest that we need some education on that. If anyone who believed that someone else had voted for them was automatically given a tendered ballot—I think they are pink, for some reason—those ballots could be stacked up and would provide proof in the polling stations of the level of accusations about fraud in that area.

As I understand it, there is a lack of information for parties, electoral officers in polling stations and the electorate about the ability to ask for a tendered ballot. That is one small practical suggestion that might deal with accusations and counter-accusations of fraud. We could then ask electoral registration officers to add up the number of tendered ballots in various areas, which would give us a better idea of where police investigations were needed and of the extent to which it was believed that fraud was going on. I shall vote against the Opposition motion this evening, because we need as soon as possible to get individual registration and responsibility for the most important act in a democracy—that of voting.