Political Parties and Elections Bill

If the intervention is about data protection principles, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be a little patient as I shall come to those when I have finished outlining what the scheme is. Everyone will then be a little wiser—although perhaps only a little. As I have said, the data-matching schemes will operate on a pilot basis. The local authorities participating will be selected through an open and transparent process involving the Electoral Commission as well as the Ministry of Justice, and there will be a set of criteria for the electoral registration officers who participate. We intend to publish details of the process before the summer recess. I am keen to ensure that Members on both sides of the House have the opportunity to contribute to the design of the process, and I will consult the parties before that point. In doing so, as I hope it is recognised we have tried to do throughout the passage of the Bill, we shall seek consensus. The clauses require the Electoral Commission to conduct a review of each pilot and publish a report on its findings. We believe that the pilots will help us all to understand what information would be useful to electoral registration officers in maintaining the accuracy and comprehensiveness of their registers. They will also identify which data-matching schemes would help to secure registration rates when we move to a system of individual registration in Great Britain. We are absolutely clear that any data matching must be carefully controlled and scrutinised. What we are proposing is not new. Both the overall approach and the provisions are closely modelled on provisions that Parliament approved in 2006 for application in Northern Ireland. I shall spell out the safeguards that will apply. The clauses themselves set out explicitly the purposes for which the data supplied must be used by an electoral registration officer. Only data relevant to electoral registration may be provided by the public authority. The public authority providing an electoral registration officer with data would be consulted on the release of information, and proper safeguards would be put in place in each order to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Each order putting in place a data-matching scheme would be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, giving the House the opportunity to determine whether it was acceptable to proceed.