Electoral Administration Bill

We have had an extremely useful and enlightening debate. It has been our first canter around issues regarding individual registration, the forms for such registration and the nature of piloting, with which I will deal in a moment. First, however, I want to respond to several specific points made during the debate. I entirely agree with the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) that we need a campaign to increase the numbers on the register. The entire purpose of the two-and-a-half-hour debate that we had earlier was to set out the basic parameters of that campaign. At a later stage, we will talk about the performance standards to which we will expect electoral registration officers to perform. We are thus in agreement about the need for such a campaign, and I welcomed the commitment that he gave. The hon. Gentleman said that everyone who has studied the matter has concluded that individual registration will improve security without having an impact on numbers on the register. However, not everyone agrees with that. Several hon. Members who spoke, the EROs who contacted my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley), and my electoral registration officer, Mr. Edward Duffy from Renfrewshire valuation joint board, certainly do not agree. Mr. Duffy wrote me a letter last week that said:"““Of course having identified residents, there still remains the problem of trying to persuade them to complete and return the canvass form. This is likely to become more of a problem with the requirement to collect signatures and dates of birth.””" That view of an experienced registration officer is echoed by registration officers throughout the country. It is not just Labour Members who are saying that collecting information from people on individual or household forms might impact negatively on the register. That is why we propose to follow the route of piloting, which we will discuss in more detail during our consideration of the next set of amendments. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) raised the legitimate concerns that have been expressed by Scope, Sense, the Royal National Institute of the Blind and other bodies about the design of any such form. The Department has not produced any mock-up forms, so I am not sure of the provenance of the forms to which she refers. We will not create any such mock-up forms or proceed on the matter without consulting the organisations to which she rightly drew attention. We give a firm commitment that if the process moves forward—the Bill allows for individual identifiers—we will consult those organisations and others with a vested interest in ensuring that we get the design of the forms right. My hon. Friend also said that several of those organisations have reservations about the requirement on national insurance numbers that is proposed in amendment No. 18, for reasons of complexity. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly said that there was a need to take action on fraud. He also acknowledged, graciously, that we are taking such action. The new fraud offences regarding both registration and applications for a postal vote have tough sanctions. We are not sanguine about fraud—there will be zero tolerance of it, as it has been said—and we are proceeding with tough new measures. The hon. Gentleman said that the requirement to give a signature and date of birth was not a difficult barrier, but that is a point of contention. My electoral registration officer thinks that it could well be a barrier, as do the registration officers of the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley. There is no consensus that the measure would not have the undesired consequence of increasing what have been described as the catastrophic drops on the register. The hon. Members for Somerton and Frome and for North-East Hertfordshire talked about the so-called transitional arrangement proposals put forward by Sam Younger. We must remember that Mr. Younger was setting out a fallback position, in a sense, because he does not want the pilots. We are thus effectively having this discussion the wrong way round because we should talk about the pilots first. I have read the letter that Mr. Younger sent to my right hon., learned and noble Friend the Secretary of State, which I noticed was faxed to him at 6 pm on Friday evening. The letter makes serious suggestions, so the proposal clearly must be studied with a view to its possible ramifications. A prima facie reading of the letter leads me to ask two questions about the proposal. If it will be voluntary to provide such information on the form, will that provide the increased security that people want? Secondly, would it not add to the confusion surrounding the forms if there was a space for people to provide their dates of birth and signatures, but they did not have to fill them in if they did not want to? People would say, ““If I don’t fill this in, will I be somehow worse off than if I do?”” We could explain to them that they would not be worse off because it would be voluntary to provide the information, but that would add to the confusion about which my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley spoke when she cited the MORI polls. People find such forms confusing enough as it is, without adding another layer of possible confusion. However, I have made only a prima facie reading of the proposal. We will give it greater study, but I am not immediately attracted to it.