My Lords, I shall speak first to Amendment 58 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Tyler. Unlike the intention of other amendments within this group, we do not wish to decide today that the transition to individual electoral registration need necessarily take longer than the Government hope. However we very much want to make sure that Parliament has the opportunity, if necessary, to lengthen the transitional period in order to protect the comprehensiveness of the register. That is the purpose of Amendment 58.
We understand from recent discussions we have held with the Electoral Commission that it will not be sure about the success or otherwise of this transition until some point in 2016. Therefore, we think it is highly desirable that there should be some opportunity to extend that period. We know that throughout the process the Electoral Commission will give advice to Parliament as the transitional phase continues, and Parliament will have regard to that advice, but we feel strongly that Parliament must be able to act upon that advice rather than just receive it. However we think it would unfair to say that the Electoral Commission should be the sole arbiter of whether progress towards individual electoral registration has succeeded sufficiently well that the register could be considered to be in a fit and proper state for the various purposes for which it is used.
The Committee has heard previously about our recommendations to try to ensure that the process is a success. We considered them on our first day in Committee. We on these Benches were particularly concerned about things such as the position of attainers—16 and 17 year-olds. We wanted to know how we can track down people in the private rented sector and how we might make use of the DVLA database of drivers to find huge numbers of adults. Even if we do not use the whole DVLA database, we are anxious to know how people who notify the DVLA that they have changed their address might be incorporated into the system of electoral registration.
All those different methodologies to try to improve both the accuracy and the comprehensiveness of the electoral register involve new technology and new processes, and we cannot tell at this stage how successful or otherwise they will be. The current round of pilots has yet to be properly evaluated. Although we want to make individual electoral registration a success under the timetable set out in the Bill, we think that it is important that there is a safeguard in such an important issue for our democracy, so that Parliament has the opportunity to say, “We are not sure that this process has been sufficiently successful for us immediately to change over to individual electoral registration exclusively and drop the carryover”.
We know from many debates how the electoral register is in a different state of order in different parts of the country. We would want to know that it is in a better state of order in all parts of the country before proceeding. We think that we need more flexibility.
We know that Ministers might even welcome the idea that Parliament has to approve the final completion of the transitional phase and the use of the new
electoral register without carryover if it helps bring pressure to ensure that that transitional process is carried out successfully. It is not necessarily delay or dilution, but flexibility which we seek. We hope to hear from the Minister that consideration will be given to allowing Parliament to decide later in the process whether it is really safe to proceed as is envisaged for 1 December 2015 or whether carryover needs to continue for a little longer. We may be dealing with new boundary reviews starting on the register on 1 December 2015, and important elections are due in Scotland and Wales and many English local authorities in 2016. It is vital that the register is in good shape for those purposes.
Amendment 50 deals with the distinct issue of the treatment of postal voters in the transition to individual electoral registration. I have instinctive sympathy with the Government’s view, which the Electoral Commission appears to share, that the postal voting system may be more open to abuse and therefore ripe for reform than the in-person system. However, the purpose of the amendment is to test the evidence for that contention.
In 2006, the previous Government accepted an amendment in my name to the Electoral Administration Bill, now enacted, which greatly improved the security of the postal voting system by requiring anyone voting by post to sign a personal application to say that they wanted to vote by post and to sign an accompanying certificate with the postal vote so that we could be certain that the person who applied for the postal vote was the same person who was returning the completed ballot paper.
It is possible to see how voters impersonating people in person can more easily get away with impersonation. It is not difficult to go to a polling station, give a name and address and be handed a ballot paper. You might not choose the name of someone famous or someone who always votes, because they may turn up subsequently and dispute the fact that they have already been given a ballot paper and demand a subsequent ballot paper, and there may be an investigation, but we know that many people never vote. A party could be involved in an election, find out that someone has no intention of going to the polling station and vote on their behalf. Indeed, in my experience in Liverpool in the 1980s, when the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, was trying to organise reforms of the Labour Party in that city at the same time as I was trying to beat the then Militant-led Labour Party, there was widespread impersonation at the polling station organised by the Militants, who did not have sufficient support from ordinary voters but could impersonate large numbers of them.
It is not as simple as saying that voting by post is clearly open to fraud and abuse but that voting in person is not, but the Bill proposes that you must be registered under the IER system if you are to vote by post, but that you do not have to if you vote in person. I wonder whether that is justifiable and whether we should insist that postal voters are registered under the new system if they are to be able to exercise their right to vote in the 2015 elections.
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