Electoral Commission

No. We have spoken about these matters a great deal during our consideration of the Bill. When I spoke on the matter on Second Reading last October, I recalled that an electoral registration officer for the Trafford local authority had said that, in his view,"““whole areas of the electorate would not respond””" to requests for individual registration, especially the poorest responding groups, such as young people. The registration officer for Salford local authority said more recently that he thought that moving to individual registration would have an impact on the register that would be"““a throwback to the days of the poll tax””" because it would make the registration numbers drop like a stone and they would not recover for many years. I have referred to the cohort identified by the Electoral Commission of young people who do not register or vote when they attain voting age and become less and less likely to register and vote. That links to targets that the commission has set, so I am surprised that it has taken such a stand on registration over the past eight or nine months.