I shall address my brief remarks to my amendment 35. It is a probing amendment, whose purpose is to raise and discuss concerns that have already been expressed about the duties of electoral registration officers. A constant theme running through all our Committee discussions so far has been the capacity of EROs to deliver their duties responsibly and effectively to ensure both the accuracy and completeness of the electoral list.
On Monday, we discussed the different approaches taken by local authorities and the need for some measure of standardisation—in the invitations sent out to encourage people to register, for instance. Local authorities have acted in different ways, but it is important to maintain the obligation on all EROs across the country to get everyone entitled to register to do so. I think all parties are agreed on that objective, but there has been some concern that the Bill as it stands will not achieve it. The Electoral Commission, among others, is concerned that schedule 4 will “dilute”—its word—the current responsibilities and requirements of EROs. That is particularly worrying given the findings of the Electoral Commission’s “Report on performance of Electoral Registration Officers” in Great Britain, published in June 2012. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), it expressed particular concern about the issue of house-to-house inquiries, stating:
“ Currently, section 9A(1) requires an ERO to take ‘all steps that are necessary for the purpose of complying with his duty to maintain the register under section 9’.
Section 9A contains a list of non-exhaustive steps which include, on occasions, making more than one visit through house-to-house inquiries.
The Electoral Commission feels that the duty in its current form works well and is an important tool in ensuring that EROs do all the work that is necessary to guarantee accuracy and completeness, including the conducting of house-to-house inquiries when, critically, other methods—we have heard a great deal about, for instance, data-matching pilots and aspirations for online voting—have not yielded the appropriate information. The commission remains baffled by why the Government would want to change the present arrangement.