Individual Voter Registration

I want to address one or two issues that have not yet been fully addressed. Reference has been made to the use of data matching to find out where people are so that letters can be sent to get them to register. It is very important that we assess how effective that is, and I hope that the Minister is minded to bring forward the reports on that at the earliest possible opportunity and that we have access to that information when we debate the proposed Bill. Data matching will not be easy. It is said glibly, ““We will have data matching””, but the Select Committee was told that some of the exercises have proved to be a lot more difficult than people anticipated. In Southwark, for example, 25% of Department for Work and Pensions records could not be reconciled with the records held by the local authority. That does not surprise me, especially in a place with a lot of flats and tenements. Addresses in Edinburgh, for example, can be recorded in a number of weird and wonderful ways. Traditional approaches, such as numbering each flat 1, 2, 3 and so on, have been replaced by abbreviations such as PF1, PF2 and so on. Someone might apply for a benefit and put their address as 3/1, but another person might record that address as PF2. Data matching is not, therefore, a magic implement, and we must have the opportunity to assess whether it has worked. The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) suggested that the issue of the boundaries is irrelevant because the register has been set for the current boundary review. Indeed it has, but the problem will arise in 2015, when the register used for the boundary review will not be the one used in the preceding general election. The Committee has suggested that it would be sensible to use the register as it stands at the general election earlier that year, because it contains the carry-over. That approach would run the least possible risk of us ending up with another set of boundary changes based on a low level of registration. While a low level of registration is not inevitable if we really work at it, the Northern Ireland experience tells us that it is likely to happen at least in the first instance. Whatever happens in the more distant future, I hope that the Government accept that particular recommendation.