Electoral Administration Bill

I welcome the new measures in the Bill relating to registration, and the new powers given to returning officers to improve access to voting and promote participation. A number of my hon. Friends mentioned the increasing difficulties that electoral registration officers have with registration, particularly in inner-city areas. The standard method for many authorities has been the annual canvass, but on its own that is proving increasingly ineffective. In Salford local authority, registration levels vary from 75 to 92 per cent. by constituency. Happily, mine is the constituency at 92 per cent., so I can feel a little more comfortable, but I know that wards in our authority show a level as low as 64 per cent. Clearly, it is cause for concern that one third of households are not registered. As hon. Members discussed earlier in the debate, we know the groups among which non-registration peaks. In Salford, the election registration officer has difficulty with certain tower blocks near Salford university, where access for the canvass is difficult and where there is a high turnover of occupants, with many students who are registered elsewhere, as has been discussed. Some of the flats are owned by companies, which is a new development, and there are many six-month tenancies, which is a problem when the peak of our registration activity occurs at a certain time of year. In the debate many of us have acknowledged a crisis in registration. The issue needs addressing in years to come. The measures in the Bill that start to address it are most welcome. Data sharing will be a help, to ensure that electoral registration officers get the most comprehensive data for the register. A number of suggestions were made earlier about agencies that might share data on household occupants, such as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, TV Licensing, tax credit agencies, housing associations and arm’s length management organisations. I hope that those suggestions for extra sources of data can be followed up and used by local authorities to help them build and improve their registers. I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister’s caution in not making a change to individual registration. We know that when such a change was made in Northern Ireland, it caused a dip of 10 per cent. in registration. With wards that stand at only 60 per cent., we cannot make a change that would further reduce that figure. In evidence to the Joint Select Committees on electoral registration in 2004–05 the electoral registration officer for Trafford foresaw that"““whole areas of the electorate would not respond””" to requests for individual registration, particularly among the groups, including young people, who we know are already the poorest respondents. The electoral registration officer for Salford told me today that in his view individual registration would be like"““a throwback to the poll tax””," as it would make registration numbers drop like a stone and not recover for very many years. Those were his words. It is known that if young people do not register to vote when they attain voting age, they become less and less likely to register and then to vote. I have talked on the doorstep to people in their early 30s who admitted that they have never voted, as if that were a badge of honour. We should not underestimate the problem. It threatens the future legitimacy of our democracy. On postal votes, I have had substantial experience of leading in local government in all-postal vote pilots. Based on that experience, I have a positive view of that voting method. In Trafford we ran pilots of all-postal voting in 2002 and 2003. In the first pilot, making voting easier by all-out postal voting raised turnout from 33 to 52 per cent. We all felt that once turnout was over 50 per cent. in our local elections, we had more of a mandate and that our decision-making was more legitimate. That is the key issue to balance the other concerns that people have—are we legitimate in what we do in local government? It is important to point out what we thought were the elements that contributed to the success of those pilots. First, there was a drive by the council to ensure that the new voting procedure worked well for our electors. Then, there was the involvement and support of all political parties, good co-operation from and co-ordination of tasks with Royal Mail, and a simplification of the process by designing a ballot paper that was easy to use, with simple, easy-to-follow instructions. Finally, publicity issued by local authorities such as information about candidates, an explanation of the councillor’s role or even a description of a postal vote’s journey is important. My hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) has pointed out the need constantly to explain to people how their vote works and what happens to it, particularly in the case of postal voting. The Bill includes many of those elements: it sets performance standards for local authorities on elections; it gives returning officers and electoral registration officers a new power to encourage participation in the electoral process; and it provides powers to prescribe a different and hopefully simple form of ballot paper. Although the Bill does not mention this, I hope that it will become routine to co-operate with the Royal Mail on the delivery of an increasing number of postal ballot packs. In my experience of local government, some issues cause problems with all-postal voting. We tried a complicated witness statement in the early pilot, but then we dropped it and did not use it again. A complicated ballot form can also cause problems—the June 2004 ballot form in the north-west for the joint elections was far too complicated for many voters. Local authorities that are less than enthusiastic about postal voting are an issue in my region. For instance, some authorities made it difficult for voters to obtain replacements for lost or spoiled ballot papers. The co-operation of the Royal Mail on deliveries is also important. In one case, less than 1 per cent. of the electorate in a polling district of 600 people voted, which suggests non-delivery of ballot papers. Setting performance standards for local authorities in elections is a key step forward. I hope that it will gradually change situations in which local authorities are unprepared, are not proactive, have inaccessible or inconvenient polling stations or obstruct postal voters. Our residents, and younger people in particular, need encouragement to register to vote. I welcome the Bill, which will start to ensure that all local authorities perform to the best standard.