Individual Voter Registration

The freeze date for the next Boundary Commission review is December 2015. There will be a carry-over to the general election in May 2015, but there will be no carry-over to the 1 December deadline so we could see a reduction from 90% registration rates to 60%—an extra 10 million of the poorest people not on the register. If we think the boundary review is bad this time, it will be 10 times as bad in December 2015. I warn the Liberal Democrats again: they have bitten off more than they can chew and should think carefully. I ask the Minister to listen not to me—he probably thinks I am biased—but to the Electoral Commission, and to the Electoral Reform Society which has described these measures as ““catastrophic””. I ask him to listen to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and the academics. All those bodies and people have massive reservations about these proposals. The Minister mentioned developing countries. If we saw a developing country trying to shift a third of its poorest voters off the electoral register, we would send in observers in a heartbeat. We will become the laughing stock of the world if the Minister and his coalition partners introduce the legislation as proposed.