Electoral Administration Bill

No. The hon. Gentleman’s case rests on an assumption. It was well documented that many people had registered themselves at a number of address throughout Northern Ireland, and there were also people on the electoral register who had died many years before but still managed to come out to vote. There are some dangers in not coming out in person to vote, but the dead could still do so by post. Those issues, however, can be dealt with by other legislative changes. Many of the people who were removed from the register should not have been on it in the first place. I accept that the greater the number of personal identifiers included on the registration form, the more difficult and off-putting it is to fill in the form. I do not think that anyone can provide any precise statistics about the impact of such a measure, but in Northern Ireland people were not put off registering because they were asked to give their signature and date of birth. They were not even put off by being asked to include their national insurance number. I accept the Conservative argument that the national insurance number offers an advantage in cutting out fraud. There were two linked problems in Northern Ireland. The requirement for individual registration, rather than registration by the head of the household, reduced the numbers on the register considerably. The decision was right, but the requirement to register annually was problematic. If it is difficult to comply with all the additional registration requirements, it becomes increasingly frustrating to do so every year. All the political parties in Northern Ireland supported the Government’s decision to change the requirement for annual registration, as has been said. Annual registration may not be necessary if we tie down the requirements for personal identifiers. We will deal with many of those issues later in Committee, so I simply wish to secure an assurance from the Government that everything in the clause, which I fully support and which they are right to introduce, will be included in the Northern Ireland legislation. There is no inconsistency between the clause and the Conservative amendment. It is entirely legitimate to attempt to comply with the two main requirements of the legislation. We should attempt both to increase participation in the democratic process by ensuring that as many people as possible are registered and to remove people who are fraudulently registered. One may quibble about whether or not it is their first duty, but it is the electoral officer’s duty to make sure the register is as accurate as possible. If the provisions in clause 9 had applied to Northern Ireland, the fall in registration would not have occurred. Such provisions, combined with an end to annual registration, could lead to a marked change in Northern Ireland.