The measures are proposed for areas where there is about a 30% to a 33% turnover of population each year. To whom will the electoral lot write if people have moved on? The proposals do not reflect the practicalities, problems and inconveniences that arise.
The Bill reminds me of when the police tried to counter football hooliganism by inconveniencing the majority of law-abiding football fans by treating all football fans as hooligans. It did not stop hooliganism. It was only when the police started to identify and target the trouble-making few that widespread hooliganism was stopped and the law-abiding many felt safe again. If we want to deal with the fraud, we need to target the potential fraudsters much better.
By all means we should ensure that no one votes who should not vote, but surely a far more important task is ensuring that everyone who is entitled to do so can cast their vote. The whole approach is simply back to front. Our first priority should be to get on the register the 6 million people who are not on it—I do not know whether by a slip of the tongue I said 9 million. Even the benighted Electoral Commission admits that the figure is about 6 million. The Bill proposes all sorts of cross-checking of official records, but largely with the object of getting people off the electoral roll. We should cross-check official records and private databases with the object of adding people to the register. The Bill’s object is wrong. Getting more people on the roll should be the main task of all involved in the electoral system: registration officers, the Electoral Commission, the Boundary Commission, civil servants, Ministers, holders of private sector data and political parties.
The Bill is back to front, dealing with a minor problem compared with the glaring scandal that 6 million of our fellow citizens are not on the electoral roll. Even if there
are 10,000 fraudsters—I do not accept that there are—we are paying far more attention to them than to the absence of 6 million people who should be on the electoral register. The whole damn thing is back to front and it is about time we took our duties seriously and discharged our obligations in the way in which my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Mitcham and Morden suggest. We should go out there, day in, day out, using every possible method we can devise to get on the register people who could legitimately be on the electoral register. The Bill has a cock-eyed priority.
4.38 pm