My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment 42. These are minor amendments and are intended to ensure that as many eligible applicants as possible are registered by removing a restriction on rolling registration applications being added to the revised register. Removing this restriction would not affect the entitlement of people to object to an application for registration or the registration officer’s duty to determine objections. Rolling registration was introduced by the Representation of the People Act 2000, the provisions of which set up a 14-day period prior to the publication of a monthly update or a revised register during which successful rolling registration applications may not be added.
Under the household registration system, this 14-day limit does not cause any great problems as different rules apply to the compilation of registers used for elections, and the revised register, which is usually published on 1 December, is published following the canvass period. Because a returned household canvass is a de facto application to register, few rolling registration applications are currently made in the canvass period. However, under IER, all applications to register will be akin to rolling registration applications. Having a 14-day period when these cannot be added to the revised register could cause a problem and potentially harm the completeness of the register. The amendments remove the 14-day limit in relation to the publication of the revised register.
As I said, these are minor amendments, but they are supported by the Electoral Commission, which said that it did not believe that there was any significant rationale for retaining the current 14-day period. Indeed, the Association of Electoral Administrators did not feel that there was any administrative reason to keep the limit. For those reasons, I beg to move.