Electoral Administration Bill

I agree. Local authorities’ allocation of resources needs to be examined carefully. I tabled a parliamentary question which asked for the amounts of money spent by each local authority in England on electoral registration to be specified. The answer stated that the figures are not collected centrally. I asked my Labour Assembly colleague in Wales to table the same question. The information is collected centrally in Wales and, of the 22 authorities, lo and behold, those that spent the most per capita on registration had the best registration rates and those that spent least had the worst rates. The Bill allocates an extra £17 million of resources to electoral registration. I ask the Under-Secretary to consider the matter carefully, because that extra money has not been ring-fenced but will be given as part of a local government settlement. I believe that, if £17 million of a budget of, for example, £120 billion is not ring-fenced, local authorities, perhaps of a different political persuasion, that have no interest in electoral registration, could cream it off. I therefore ask the Under-Secretary to look into that because registration is not only for local government elections but for European and parliamentary elections. The money should be ring-fenced. Some members of political parties throughout the country will try to preserve their positions—as council leaders, cabinet members and so on—in a local authority and will not want more poorer people on the register who may threaten their incomes and livelihoods. We need to deal with local authorities that are dogmatic about the matter. When we say, ““These are our new standards””, but they say, ““We won’t obey them””, and when we say, ““Here is the money””, but they say, ““We won’t spend it””, we need a last resort. We need to tell truculent, politically motivated authorities, ““We’ve given you the resources. Here are the new guidelines. If you don’t use them, we’ll give you one of three options. Because electoral registration is so poor, we’ll take the responsibility from you and give it either to a neighbouring authority or the Electoral Commission, or we’ll privatise it.”” We need to be as blunt as that with local authorities that refuse to implement the proposed legislation.