Electoral Administration Bill

I want to make a couple of brief comments on matters to which other hon. Members have not referred. On over-registration and under-registration, my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) has referred to Westminster city council. I think that connecting the electoral register to other local government functions creates a problem. Westminster city council not only has a problem with people with two homes, but links residents’ parking permits with the electoral register. The difficulty is that if someone with a parking permit moves on, it is definitely not in their interests to tell Westminster city council about the change of address, if they want to keep the permit. Linking other functions to registration also creates under-registration. When electoral registration was connected to the payment of the poll tax, we saw the first catastrophic drop in registration. Those of us who campaign in elections know that it is common to visit a house in which a couple, or perhaps a family, live, but only the woman of the household is registered, which possibly allows people to claim a council tax discount by having only one adult in the household. It is interesting that Electoral Commission research shows that 8 per cent. of men are not registered, compared with 6 per cent. of women. If we want to improve the integrity of registers, which is an objective for all parties, we should make it clear that local government should start to split functions and not link items such as residents’ parking permits with the electoral register, which causes problems. I disagree with the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) that encouraging registration is somehow a political activity. Encouraging participation and registration is a proper function of councils, and we must get over the idea, which some local government officers have, that it is not.