Individual Voter Registration

I think, Madam Deputy Speaker, that is your rather clever way of telling me not to take so many interventions and not to be quite so generous to colleagues, so I will listen to you very carefully and move on. However, I confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) that we will continue to use the household registration form. I wish to give an example of how I believe we can improve things. On my visit to Northern Ireland, I visited Grosvenor grammar school in the Belfast East constituency and met the excellent head teacher, Mr McLoughlin, together with the head of the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland. I had a look at one of the outreach exercises there, in which people go into schools and work with 16 and 17-year-olds to get them on the register in time, so that when they turn 18 they can vote. I saw 164 16 and 17-year-olds get registered to vote. Interestingly, Northern Ireland now has a higher rate of attainers—16 and 17-year-old soon-to-be voters—being registered on its system than we do in Great Britain. The lesson of that is that if we allow electoral registration officers to be more innovative and sign up voters directly, rather than relying on the head of the household, we can do better than we do today. I hope that will reassure the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd, notwithstanding the fact that he is not in favour of the procedure. I have already mentioned that we have said that we will change the opt-out provision. The final point that I wish to put on the record is about the transitional arrangements for 2014-15. I have said that we will undertake a modified canvass in 2014, and I explained in response to an intervention some of the rationale behind that. I have explained why we do not want to run a full canvass and then write to everybody shortly afterwards. The clear advice that we received from administrators was that that would be confusing and not very effective, as well as coming with a very large bill. I believe that given what I have said, and given what will be in our response to the Select Committee's report, which Members will see in the not-too-distant future, they will be reassured about how we are addressing the issue. Today, they can do what I asked them to do at the beginning of my remarks and vote against the motion in a constructive spirit and with confidence that we are listening carefully to the concerns that have been raised.