Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Tom Harris Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sheila Gilmore]

I shall address primarily the issues around undertaking a good door-to-door canvass, because the experience of various electoral registration officers throughout the country is that, when that happens, they end up with a much more complete register than when any number of letters are simply sent out to drop on people’s doorsteps.

That is true of various other bureaucratic interventions that a local authority or, indeed, any other authority might want to make. I remember having much the same discussion about how to collect rent arrears effectively from tenants when I was the convenor of housing on Edinburgh city council. The habitual process was to send out letter one, letter two, letter three, but people who for whatever reason were not minded to pay much attention to that tended to disregard them and did not take them seriously—however well or clearly they were framed. That is a lesson in the fact that dropping lots of letters through people’s doors is not necessarily particularly effective.

When the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was considering the Bill, we had evidence from some electoral registration officers who had achieved a much higher level of registration than others—largely through such things as regular door-to-door work. They put in that additional effort so they were gaining, even in areas, comparable with areas with much lower levels of registration, where it was otherwise difficult to register people. It was not that the EROs were in leafy suburbs where it is easy to get people registered; there was a return on the work put into some quite difficult areas.

In the inner-city areas of Edinburgh, there is the problem of a lot of multi-occupation—not just students, although there are student flats, but a large number of other shared accommodation. The Government want far more shared accommodation for young people, certainly in respect of the benefit system, so the issue will become even bigger.

We know what happens when letters come through the door of such households; they get stacked up somewhere. We also have issues, which I hope will be resolved, with how the addresses are labelled. Anybody who has done door-knocking and leafleting in some of our traditional tenements in Scotland invariably finds a little pile of undelivered mail sitting on the stairs; it has not been accurately addressed or people may have moved on. Trying to find out whether they are still there can be very confusing, partly because of the bizarre numbering system for our tenement buildings.

We call the first flat on the third floor, for example, 3F1. We also have PF1, PF2 and so on, which is the ground floor, although I still do not know what “P” stands for, while in other flats the ground floor is referred to as “G”. Traditionally, people called them something completely different. In shared accommodation, where people might well not pass on letters, the knock on the door—a personal approach—may yield results. It is important that we do not just say that it can be done, but that it should be done. A further issue is how we put the resources into doing that; it is resource-intensive, which some local authorities might find difficult.

However, I am reassured that the Minister has told us that he will look at the allocation of resources for electoral registration this summer; I hope that he will take the issue that I have mentioned into account when he divides up the resources to be made available for that purpose. If we do not take the resources into account, even saying “must” rather than “may” will lead us into problems.

[Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

Mr Amess, I apologise for not having been present for the other part of the debate; I was detained elsewhere. I also apologise for my tie, a father’s day gift from my six-year-old son. I promised him I would wear it in the Chamber at some point. [Interruption.] He is not watching me from home, I hope; I expect him to be in bed, but you never know.

I want to speak briefly to amendment 7 because I genuinely believe that it goes to the heart of our long debate about the importance of electoral registration and of voting itself. When I was first elected, one of the first failed campaigns on which I embarked was to try to persuade the then Government to make registering to vote compulsory. That will sound odd in the current context, but, as was the case 10 years ago, most people today are under the impression that it is against the law not to register to vote. Of course, it was always compulsory to return a completed electoral registration form, but it was never compulsory, and still is not, to register to vote and have one’s name on the list. That is wrong. I am absolutely opposed to compulsory voting, but it would send an important and powerful message to the country if the Government were to say, “It is entirely up to you whether you wish to vote, but we must use all our powers to make sure that when polling day comes you have an opportunity to vote even if you do not wish to take it up.” That commitment should have the force of law and perhaps a financial penalty attached for someone who does not vote.

[Nick de Bois]

Does not the hon. Gentleman think that by, in effect, criminalising people if they fail to register—[Interruption.] I will be grateful if the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) lets me finish my point. Putting the heavy hand of the state into the system again could have the counter-productive effect of switching more people off from the system.

[Mr Harris]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has intervened, because I wanted to refer to comments that he made in an intervention a few minutes ago. As my hon. Friend said, it is already a criminal offence not to return a completed registration form, for which there is a potential fine of £1,000. The hon. Gentleman may well not agree that that should be the case. That speaks to a fundamental difference between how his party and my party see civic activity. I believe that although voting should not be compulsory, it is a civic duty that, in the past, we took for granted. Turnouts in the elections following the second world war were about 80% because voting was something that everyone did. That is no longer the case, and we in this House have to bear some responsibility for that increase in the lack of activity and engagement in the political process. The Government have an important role to play in making sure that when it comes to polling day, every adult in this country has the right to decide whether to vote.

It is not remotely, in any way, shape or form, a compromise of civil liberties to say that everyone should be on the electoral register. Apart from everything else, there is an important argument for that in relation to financial inclusion. Often, credit card and finance companies will not give someone credit unless there is some proof that they exist, and that often comes from the electoral register.

The clause betrays the Government’s very lax approach towards voter registration. It is not enough merely to say that electoral registration officers may conduct an annual canvass. I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), because it was in her company that I first canvassed for the Labour party in 1985; that makes us both sound extremely old. The importance of a local authority canvass cannot be overstated. I remember as recently as the late 1980s hearing a knock on the door in the evening, when a local authority officer would hand me my form and ask me to stand there, fill it out and give it back to him. That was not seen as an intervention that was alien to our traditional way of doing politics but as a core element of the democratic process.

The Bill must include an absolute legal obligation for electoral registration officers to conduct a house-to-house canvass, whether it is every year or relates to a longer period. I have worked for local authorities, and I guarantee that “may” will inevitably come to be translated as “won’t”. Unless we put “must” into the Bill, I fear for the future of democracy in this country. On the strength of the arguments that we have heard since 6 May 2010, that state of affairs will concern Labour Members a lot more than Government Members.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons (Mr David Heath)]

It is a pleasure finally to partake of the Committee stage of the Bill and of your chairmanship, Mr Amess.

I say to the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) that I do not think that a great deal divides our intent on these matters. We are clear that we want the most comprehensive register that we can achieve and to ensure that electoral registration officers do their job effectively in bringing that about. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) had a little silliness along party political lines, but most Members have made positive points about the need to ensure that as many eligible people as possible are registered.

Some of the criticism of the Government proposals comes a little ill from the party that passed the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, in which there was no requirement for an annual canvass and which abolished the annual canvass, and that said in government that there would be no block registration at Queen’s university Belfast or the university of Ulster because it was no longer necessary. Perhaps some of the points that have been made by Labour Members would have been better addressed to their own Ministers when they were proposing legislation from this Dispatch Box.

[Mr Tom Harris]

rose—

[Mr Heath]

I will give way briefly to the hon. Gentleman, but I will not give way many times.

[Mr Harris]

It is slightly disingenuous of the hon. Gentleman to suggest that Northern Ireland is exactly the same as everywhere in Great Britain, given the threat that there was in 2002 to local authority canvassers, particularly in parts of east and west Belfast. Since there are different electoral registration arrangements in Northern Ireland and have been since the late 1960s, he is being a little ungenerous to the former Government.

[Mr Heath]

The hon. Gentleman is wearing a lovely tie, but his point is not entirely logical. The arguments for getting rid of the door-to-door annual canvass in Northern Ireland were nothing to do with the security situation and everything to do with the system of individual voter registration that was being introduced. That is precisely analogous to what we are doing.

Let me deal with the substance of the points that have been made. There is one clear misapprehension among those who have spoken, which is to assume that there is currently a requirement for the annual canvass to take place in October. That is not the case under current legislation. There is a reference date of 15 October. That is the point at which people are asked to consider where they are resident. That is quite a confusing requirement. I know for a fact that people who are trying to register get confused by it. They think, “Hang on a minute. On 15 October I plan to be visiting my Aunt Gladys in Carlisle. Where should I put myself down as being resident?” The reference date is therefore not necessarily helpful to the process of registration. There is not a requirement for the canvass to take place in October. It can take place at any time and is divorced from the reference date.

The canvass usually takes place around October because of the other factors that electoral registration officers have to consider, such as the deadline for the publication of the register, the performance standards set by the Electoral Commission, the data return that electoral registration officers are required to provide to the Office for National Statistics and the usual timing of elections in May. Electoral registration officers will still have to take those factors into account when making arrangements for the canvass.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) has discussed this matter with an expert panel of electoral registration officers and electoral administrators. It has welcomed the removal of the reference date, which it agrees is confusing, and sees the advantage of the requirement for an annual canvass as it is put forward in the Bill. It provides flexibility, but at the same time there is an implied date that officers can work around. They can extend the canvass period if it will help the completeness of the register, but they will still be canvassing at approximately the same time. I hope that that at least helps Members understand what is proposed.

Amendment 8 is about what factors the electoral registration officer takes into account in preparing the canvass. Proposed new section 9D(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which will be inserted by clause 4, states:

“Each registration officer in Great Britain must conduct an annual canvass in relation to the area for which the officer acts.”

That follows the wording of the canvassing obligation in existing legislation. Registration officers are therefore already required to canvass their whole area, and we do not need to set out in new primary legislation the precise categories of property that a registration officer must contact to comply with the requirement to canvass their area. The electoral register and the local land and property gazetteer use the same address data.