My Lords, this amendment is part of a group tabled in my name along with Amendments 5, 8, 10, 14 and 15. Together, they provide for an extended carry-forward of non-individually registered electors unless this is deemed unnecessary.
This group of amendments is one that I hope noble Lords on all sides of this House will welcome—indeed, names from the Labour Front Bench are attached to one of them. The amendments aim to give reassurance that the electoral register following the implementation of individual electoral registration will be as complete and accurate as possible.
My noble friends and I have set out the steps incorporated into the plan for implementation of individual electoral registration under the Bill that will help to achieve this outcome. These include: the confirmation of around 70% of existing electors through data matching; a transition period that includes the general election, when non-canvass-period registrations are likely to peak; and the numerous steps to encourage registration that are built into electoral registration officers’ duties
However, having listened to arguments in this House and elsewhere, we can see that there is a desire for a further safeguard such as that proposed in the amendments. Their effect is to postpone to December 2016 the final date for the transition to a register made up entirely of individually registered electors following a third canvass under the new system.
The Secretary of State will, however, have a power to take that final step in 2015—in keeping with existing plans for implementation of IER—if they are satisfied that the transition to IER can be concluded at that
point. Perhaps I might stress, mischievously, that this will be after the election, and the question as to who the Secretary of State will be and which party or parties they represent is of course a matter which none of us at this point knows. Let me be clear that it is this Government’s intention to continue to work towards concluding implementation in 2015, but we will review that position ahead of making a decision.
If the decision is made to conclude the transition to IER in 2015, an order subject to the negative procedure will be made by the then Secretary of State in the three months after 1 June 2015. When the annual canvass period concludes that autumn, those entries carried forward from the pre-transition register published in spring 2014, where the elector has not been confirmed through data matching or successfully applied under IER, will be removed from the register. The revised register published on 1 December 2015 will then be made up only of individually registered electors, as under the current plans for the implementation of IER.
If the order is not made, this process will be delayed by a year and will take place following the 2016 canvass, with the December 2016 register containing only individually registered electors.
I have mentioned some of the factors built into the transition to IER which the Government feel will support the maintenance of the current level of completeness. I remind noble Lords that we intend, with the encouragement of the Electoral Commission, to move through the transition and complete it as rapidly as possible, subject to confidence being built that we have successfully managed to capture the maximum possible number of individual electors.
The amendments enable the change to an IER-only register to be left until 2016, but we are confident that the Secretary of State of the day will feel able to make the order to take the final step of transition in 2015. However, we recognise the hesitations in the House, and have thus provided that additional safeguard. I beg to move.