Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising these important issues. In reality, the only difference between the noble Baroness and me is the question of where we put this—in primary or secondary legislation. The critical factor for the Government was to make sure that we had the flexibility that secondary legislation gives us to be clear about what kind of evidence ought to be available. Noble Lords who were present in Committee or who have had the benefit of reading Hansard will know that the purpose of anonymous registration is to protect vulnerable people whose safety may genuinely be at risk if their address were made public. It is not an ex-directory system; people cannot say, ““I do not want to be part of it, I wish to opt out””. It is specifically for those in danger. We have indicated—Amendments Nos. 16 and 17 relate to the evidence that a person must provide—that we want to ensure that an independent witness or official body will support the fact that the individual may be in danger. We agreed that an applicant must provide evidence in support of an application and that the evidence has to be provided by a body qualified to attest that an applicant’s safety is at risk. As I have indicated, we want to keep the flexibility in determining what evidence is sufficient to support an application by affirmative order, allowing for parliamentary scrutiny and flexibility in the evidence that can be prescribed. We have no desire to do anything other than debate the issues fully, but we want to be flexible about what they might be and recognise that circumstances may change. For example, one of the groups that we are in the middle of consulting is the Network for Surviving Stalking. We do not have any results of consultation yet, but I am keen to keep the noble Baroness in touch with what comes forward long before we get to the point of putting down any regulations. It is not that many years since stalking was not something that was described or thought about as a particular issue. It has become an issue, certainly in the past 20 years, during which we have, in my experience, taken it much more seriously and recognised it as a genuine problem. Having the flexibility in regulations would enable us to think about people who could be at risk in particular circumstances and think about who could provide evidence. We are talking to Refuge, Women’s Aid and other bodies that deal with victims of domestic violence. There will be issues relating to the police and the protection of those who are served with an injunction under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 or a non-molestation order granted under the Family Law Act 1996. Signed statements from police officers would be the kind of evidence that we are describing. We hope that we will be able to pass the regulations and implement anonymous registration shortly after the Summer Recess, when we will be able to be clearer with the noble Baroness and noble Lords about exactly what type of evidence we wish to bring forward. It will be evidence that noble Lords will identify with quickly and understand to be of great importance. The secondary regulation part of it enables us to be flexible and perhaps to bring in other bodies that may be able to provide verification or indeed recognise circumstances of particular groups of people or individuals whom we are unaware of at the present time. Amendment No. 17, as the noble Baroness will be aware, requires a registration officer to register a person in the usual way if their anonymous registration application fails. Although I can see what the noble Baroness is trying to get to, in Committee I tried to indicate why we felt that we had to oppose the amendment. Because the scheme is designed to protect the vulnerable whose safety may be at risk if their name and address were to be included in the event of their application failing, I do not think that they would apply in the first place. Under the present scheme, people would apply for anonymous registration, and, if we felt that they did not warrant it, they would then be invited to register as normal. If we were to say, ““If your anonymous registration fails, we will register you regardless””, that would probably deter people who would not fail because their case would be so clear-cut. If the individual was a victim of violence or intimidation, we would risk the possibility that they would not take the risk of being put on in other circumstances. It is difficult for us to do that because it would be an undesirable outcome. It is better that, if someone’s registration fails, they are sent the annual canvass form in the normal way in due course, which will be their method of registering. I can see the principle behind the noble Baroness’s suggestion, but I hope that I have explained why we would prefer the provision to be in secondary legislation and why we would be nervous about the automatic transfer across. It would deter from registering people who are victims and whom we should do all that we can to encourage to participate in our democracy.