Electoral Administration Bill

Obviously, I am not in favour of bogus people being on any register. However, I am concerned that the present system allows for a massive amount of under-registration of real people, and that even more people might not register if we pursue the issue of personal identifiers and personal individual registration in the present circumstances. I want to see the most secure voting system possible, and I am in favour in principle of individual registration. I want us to get there in due course, but I want that to happen at a time when the level of registration is much higher, when more of the real people who are currently missing from the register are on it. We can all go out and see, sometimes in local authorities of our own political persuasion, that the effort put into electoral registration amounts only to sending out two forms to households. In many cases, the forms do not get returned, but the system then gives up on those individuals. There are local authorities across the country that does not think that this is a priority. They do not put money into it, and most councillors are not awfully interested. All right, they have other things to do—they have education and social services systems to run and the environment to look after. Those are very big issues. The councillors concerned get lots of letters from their constituents about them, and they quite rightly respond to them. Electoral registration often comes quite far down the list and, provided that there is no specific requirement for it to be put on the agenda and for electoral registration officers to carry out specific duties that can be monitored and scrutinised by the local council and the Electoral Commission, we shall continue to have the system that we have today. I accept that the Bill takes us forward in regard to trying to get the levels of registration up. I hope that the Minister will give us reassurance on a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd. If we are putting extra money into the system, how can we be sure that it will be spent on the system? Some local authorities will take the grant and use it for other purposes. How can we be sure that the £70 million—and there will be questions as to whether that is enough—is spent on improving the system? Hon. Members on both sides of the House have expressed their concern whether, even if we improve the level of canvassing, it will really catch the people that we are worried about, who do not fill in or send back the forms. It is that much harder when we are dealing with people living in houses in multiple occupation.