Electoral Administration Bill

I apologise if I inadvertently mischaracterised the hon. Gentleman’s argument. If anything, however, his intervention adds to the lack of consensus rather than clarifies the position. As has been said, the Electoral Commission found that up to 3.5 million people in England and Wales and an unknown number in Scotland cannot vote in elections because they are not registered. Individual registration and the use of national insurance numbers could make that situation worse. There has been disagreement about the position in Northern Ireland, but when individual registration was introduced there, registration levels dropped. In one Belfast ward, registration dropped from an already low 41 per cent. to just 23 per cent. Some hon. Members argued that registration levels were 150 per cent. across the Province and dropped to 90 per cent., but that Belfast ward, albeit an extreme example, shows that there was a catastrophic drop from an already low starting base. However, individual registration has benefits for the security of postal voting, particularly through the collection of personal identifiers such as a signature and date of birth. We have therefore provided in the Bill for the collection of personal identifiers, but to test and evaluate their impact on registration levels we intend to proceed through a programme of pilots that we shall discuss in relation to a later group of amendments. Proceeding in that way will ensure that our approach is evidence-based and will prevent us from introducing policies that serve one leg of the stool to the detriment of another. Amendments Nos. 18 and 20 seek to extend the full Northern Ireland individual registration system to Great Britain, including inter alia the use of national insurance numbers. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) drew the attention of the Committee to the Northern Ireland provision for three-month residency. That provision was introduced because it was feared that once an election was announced, residents of the Republic of Ireland might cross the border and register in constituencies in the north. Because Northern Ireland citizens can vote in UK elections they could then take part in such elections. There is probably consensus that that is unlikely to happen.—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire is shrugging his shoulders, but it would be far-fetched to believe that there were hordes of people in the Republic of Ireland waiting to come over here so that they can take part in our elections. That scenario, however, is dealt with in the amendment. A controversial provision in amendment No. 18 deals with national insurance numbers. In Northern Ireland, national insurance numbers are used to share data with the Department for Work and Pensions. That process allows external confirmation of a person’s identity and is useful in relation to security. It is possible, however, because Northern Ireland is relatively small—1.1 million electors—and has a centrally held register. By contrast, Great Britain has around 43 million electors and more than 400 locally held registers. The infrastructure is therefore simply not in place for the Northern Ireland-style use of national insurance numbers to be extended to Great Britain at this time. In that context, we believe that the collection of national insurance numbers would add nothing to security and simply deter people from registering to vote. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome has pointed out, many people do not know their national insurance number, and we believe that they would not take the extra step of discovering it in order to register. When we have the co-ordinated online record of electors, which we will discuss later in Committee, we could use a national insurance system in Great Britain as in Northern Ireland. The Bill allows for such a system to be added both in pilots and at roll-out at a later date via an affirmative order, and the provision is included in clause 14. In short, amendments Nos. 18 and 20 would introduce a policy which, although it is not currently appropriate, could be of use in the future. However, since the Bill already provides for that possibility, and since the time is not right for its implementation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.