My Lords, our Amendment 39 seeks to resolve concerns raised by the Electoral Commission that the wording in the Bill could weaken electoral registration officers’ existing duties.
It is welcome that the Government propose to add a duty to secure that,
“persons who are entitled to be registered in a register (and no others) are registered in it”.
This is effectively a duty to ensure completeness and accuracy, and I welcome that. However, we do not see the case for diluting that duty with a test that states,
“so far as is reasonably practicable”.
If those words were omitted, the duty would simply be subject to the existing test, which is to,
“take all steps that are necessary”,
making it far stronger. The Government argued at an earlier stage that the “reasonably practicable” test does not make any difference and that electoral registration officers will still comply. That begs the question: if it
makes no difference, why change the wording? It is clear that having these words is more likely to dilute the duty than not having them.
As far as I know, no legal challenges have been brought to the existing test of,
“take all steps that are necessary”,
with, perhaps, a vexatious suggestion that an electoral registration officer should have taken an unreasonable step, such as coercing someone to fill in a form or something of that nature. It is of course understood that the steps taken should be reasonable, but we believe that all necessary steps should be taken, and to that end the words referred to in Amendment 39 should be omitted.
I would be grateful to hear from the Minister why he thinks there is merit in removing those words—or at least a reiteration that there is no intent to change the purpose of those words, even if they disappear from the legislation. We should not like to hear that there is any intention to dilute the duties of the electoral registration officers, and these reassurances will need to be persuasive if we are not to return to this issue on Report. I look forward to hearing from the Minister and I beg to move.