Political Parties and Elections Bill

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. The passage from which I am quoting does not make any specific reference to illiteracy, but it is another problem, a barrier and something that we must address if we are to fulfil and deliver on both the fundamental principles that I have suggested. The Electoral Commission report continues:""While these findings relate directly to Northern Ireland, they are not unique and reflect the wider picture across the UK. They present a major challenge to all those concerned with widening participation in electoral and democratic processes."" We believe that the way forward is to combine the implementation of individual registration—on a careful but fixed timetable—with significant new measures to increase registration, so that we do not jeopardise the reach of the register in seeking properly to improve its integrity. Today, I am announcing the historic steps that we are taking to entrench those two fundamental principles of electoral registration, which underpin our democracy. The Government have already been taking significant steps to increase registration. The Electoral Administration Act 2006 placed a statutory duty on electoral registration officers to take all necessary steps to maintain the electoral register, including sending the annual canvass form more than once, making house-to-house visits and inspecting records that electoral registration officers are permitted to inspect. Much of that is common sense, and many electoral registration officers are doing excellent work in maintaining and expanding their registers.