Question

To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, what estimate the Commission made of the number of electoral registration officers who have not fulfilled their statutory responsibilities in each of the last 10 years.

Electoral Registration Officers (EROs) have a statutory duty to maintain the electoral registers and to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that all those eligible (and no others) are registered. While the Electoral Commission sets standards for and monitors the performance of Electoral Registration Officers, these do not relate directly to this statutory duty. For this, EROs are independent statutory officers who are directly accountable to the courts.