Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the advantages or disadvantages to the electoral process of implementing a scheme requiring students, as part of their registration with a college or university, to be given the opportunity to indicate whether or not they would like to be included on the local electoral register, having this information securely transferred to the local authority to check the student’s eligibility to vote and, if eligible, adding the student to the electoral register.

The Government part-funded the University of Sheffield pilot, integrating electoral registration with the process of student enrolment, and has encouraged other providers of Higher and Further Education to implement a similar system.

An indicative assessment shows this project had successful outcomes. For example, in the 2015/2016 academic year, the university had 76% of eligible students registered to vote compared with figures as low as 13% for similar sized universities. The Government will further evaluate the University of Sheffield pilot to understand – in detail – the impact of the pilot and its critical success factors. We understand a number of institutions have already introduced a similar approach, or are actively considering doing so.

At the same time, we believe it is unlikely that any single approach would work in all cases. For example, the Sheffield system would not work in areas like London, or with Further Education colleges, where many students live in a different authority area from their institution, impeding the supply of information between the institution and Electoral Registration Officers. Furthermore, smaller institutions would be less able to absorb the costs associated with implementing such a system, risking the withdrawal of money from the frontline, such as providing the most up-to-date ICT equipment. For these reasons – amongst others – we believe it is right that each institution and local authority is able to choose what works best for them rather than introducing any kind of requirement for institutions to integrate enrolment and registration. Indeed, we are already seeing Higher and Further Education providers working closely with Electoral Service teams to deliver innovative ways to increase the number of students on the electoral register. The Government supports the Electoral Commission and Association of Electoral Administrators who are sharing this good practice.