My Lords, Amendment 1 stands in my name and in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. In preparation for the move to individual electoral registration, the Government have been running some data-matching pilots, which we welcome. These pilots show a success rate of about 70% of existing electors—that is, from the household register—being confirmed through data matching with DWP data. However, looked at in more detail, the success rate in the 14 pilot areas varies markedly, with a low of 55%—that is, just over a half —of those in Tower Hamlets being matched between the data-matching scheme from DWP and the existing household register.
Having evaluated the pilots, the Electoral Commission said that it,
“found that there was significant variation across the pilot areas. Extra resources will be required by electoral registration officers in these areas where more of the electorate will need to be contacted directly … to encourage them to register individually”.
The commission also noted:
“It was also not possible to test the actual system that Electoral Registration Officers will use under IER”—
individual electoral registration—
“due to delays in the development of the IT system”.
We need to know from the Minister today whether the resources will be made available to electoral registration officers, whether the Government are confident that the IT will be on time and appropriate and whether there are back-up plans if future evaluation indicates ongoing problems.
What we know from these data-matching pilots, which use DWP and similar data, from the Electoral Commission and from the experience of Northern Ireland is how very difficult it is to capture and maintain certain groups of our citizens on the existing household register, never mind the new individual register that this Bill will introduce. If those groups already most likely to be disenfranchised—those in private rented property, the young, students and the mobile—are to be included in the democratic process, it will be essential that every possible effort is made to find those people and invite them to join the electoral register.
This amendment seeks to add some key authorised, official and secure databases to the existing, publicly produced lists that will be checked to find people so that local electoral officers will be able to write to those on such lists to encourage them to register. The groups listed in the amendment—the DVLC, the Student Loans Company, secondary schools, tenancy deposit schemes, and credit reference agencies—are all defined and thus regulated in some way in legislation. They are also covered by good data-protection protocols and have quality governance systems. This amendment would authorise them to provide relevant information to election officers, who can then write inviting those not on the register to sign up.
We know from every bit of research that those who are not, in fact, on the electoral register often assume that they are. This may be because they have other dealings with the state. They may have been issued with a driving licence or even an endorsement. They may be receiving or paying back a student loan. They may
have money held by a tenancy deposit scheme or be at school. Given the move to individual registration, there is surely a right for all such people, many of whom think that they are on the register, to be invited to register, with it being clear that being on all those other lists does not make them a voter. All of this might appear obvious: that such sources of data will be key to finding those millions missing from our existing registers, let alone from the new system. However, without this requirement in the Bill, we fear that such data will not be shared in a timely manner and that many of our fellow citizens will never receive a personalised invitation to register to vote.
Northern Ireland moved ahead of us to individual electoral registration and found that its work with schools was very good at getting pupils to register. However, as soon as those pupils left home, registration fell away. As the Electoral Commission’s report shows:
“The majority of inaccuracies are related to entries for people who were no longer resident at the address”.
It also noted that there has been,
“a significant and worrying decline in the accuracy and completeness of Northern Ireland’s electoral register, largely as a result of an approach to maintaining the register which has not been able to keep pace with population movement”.
It is vital that we do not have a similar significant and worrying decline in our register, which is already perhaps 6 million short of what it should be. This amendment will help; perhaps only in a small way, but it will help. I beg to move.
3.45 pm