Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

My Lords, this amendment, as has been made clear, concerns the commencement of the provisions relating to the referendum in the Bill. Part 1 provides among other things for the referendum on the alternative vote, for the entitlement to vote in the referendum and for conduct of the referendum. The proposal in the amendment is that the provisions should not come into force until the Electoral Commission has certified that every local authority has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and accurate as possible. It will come as no surprise that the Government wish to resist the amendment. To be fair, it is a variation on a number of the amendments debated earlier in Committee, when debating Part 2, on whether the Boundary Commission’s review should commence until the Electoral Commission had certified that every local authority had taken all reasonable steps. We believe that the amendment would cause a serious risk of delaying the referendum. Reference has been made to the successful amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. Before that debate, I was detained by severe weather and was unable to get to the House, but I have noted what was said and I heard the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, say on other occasions that his intention was not to rule out 5 May, but to provide a lifeboat, whereas this amendment would, to all intents and purposes, rule out 5 May. In fact, the delay could be so substantial, perhaps even indefinite, if the relevant certification could not be provided, that the lifeboat might even be sunk before it was launched. I cannot understand why we should put ourselves in a position whereby perhaps one local authority electoral registration officer was somehow holding back and the Electoral Commission could not provide the required certification. It should also be borne in mind that there is no such obligation in elections where democratic engagement is at stake. Why impose this obligation for the referendum? No one is suggesting that legislation should be introduced to delay the elections for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh National Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly, or indeed the council elections that are due to take place on 5 May until we have received a similar certification from the Electoral Commission. Given that all these elections are also to take place on 5 May, if that is indeed the date when we hold the referendum, I hope that the turnout will be such that the elected bodies taking office following 5 May will enjoy the moral force of turnouts that enable them to discharge their responsibilities. Electoral registration officers across the United Kingdom are already under a statutory duty to take all steps necessary to maintain the registers. Perhaps for clarification, I am advised that it is an offence to fail to provide information to an electoral registration officer when requested. That relates to what the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said. There is a distinction between that and the issue of whether it is an offence not to register. The Electoral Commission also has a statutory responsibility to promote public awareness of electoral registration and elections, and to set and monitor performance standards for electoral services. That then takes us to the report quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, which has been quoted in a number of our earlier debates. There is no disputing the importance of accurate and comprehensive registers, but the commission’s report on the performance standards for electoral registration officers in Great Britain, published last March, showed that just fewer than 96 per cent of electoral registration officers met the completeness and accuracy of the electoral registration records’ standard in the past year. I hope that noble Lords will agree that the available research does not suggest that drastic steps such as delaying the referendum are needed. That is particularly so given that the amendment would also risk imposing onerous obligations on the commission. As the noble Lord, Lord Soley, and my noble friend Lord Newton indicated, that is a different matter from wanting to encourage electoral registration. I hope that it is a given across the Committee that we all wish there to be an increased number of people on the electoral register. Indeed, as my noble friend Lord Tyler and, to be fair, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, pointed out in an earlier debate, during the general election campaign there was a registration drive and a large number young people in particular registered. We had the benefit of those additional people on the registers who are therefore able to vote in the referendum. The Government, as I have indicated in numerous previous debates in Committee, are committed to improving registration rates. We are considering what steps can be taken to support this objective in the context of implementation of individual electoral registration in Great Britain. I have also indicated that a pilot will be launched later this year for local authorities to compare the electoral register against other public databases to identify people who are not currently on the register.