And on the basis of the way we have conducted our business in this Committee so far, I have also made an assumption about the hon. Gentleman. Let us leave it at that.
On amendments 39 and 35, it will come as no surprise to my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion to learn that I shall repeat what the Minister with responsibility for constitutional reform, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), said in an earlier
debate on this measure: far from diluting the requirements on registration officers, under the new registration system we are strengthening the existing duties.
This Bill amends the Representation of the People Act 1983, and I accept that it can be a little difficult to follow how one qualifies, and relates to, the other. I shall try to explain that, therefore. The Bill sets out new requirements on registration officers, amending the previous legislation. My audience’s eyes will glaze over if I mention too many related sections, but one of the duties under section 9A of the 1983 Act is that the register must contain those who appear to the registration officer to be entitled to be registered. That presents a problem under the new system, because we do not want registration officers to confine their efforts simply to those who appear to be entitled to be registered; we want them to go out and seek out people, because we want the register to be complete. The duties are now expanded, therefore, so the registration officer has to go out and find people who are not on the register, and of whom he is not aware, and then include them on it. Therefore, a different process is engaged. At present, the provision in question also ignores the fact that there must be an application for registration before a person is added to the register. It is a key point that, at the application stage, the electors will be verified.
Those two important parts of the new system must be included in the new legislation, which is why the Bill amends section 9 to ensure that the description of the register in respect of individual registration is accurate. The register is to contain only those people who are “entitled” and have been through the application system. It also amends section 9A to make it clear that registration officers must do more than just take the specific steps laid out in the legislation in a tick-box manner and include in the register those people who made an application. Those requirements will remain, and must be fulfilled, without exception, but the Bill adds an express general duty to take all other
“necessary steps…so far as is reasonably practicable”
to compile as complete and accurate a register as possible.
The qualification of “reasonably practicable” applies to the standard of completeness and accuracy of the register that must be reached. It must be as complete and accurate as is “reasonably practicable”, which is a very high level, but there is an acceptance of the fact that no register will be absolutely perfect. It would not be right to set out in legislation a requirement for registration officers to achieve an unreasonable or impracticable level of completeness. However, the steps the ERO must take are not qualified. EROs must take all the necessary steps to achieve a register. That is not qualified as being steps that are “reasonably practicable”; they must take all the necessary steps to provide a register that is as complete and as accurate “as is reasonably practicable”.