My Lords, I will come on to the question of resources and implementation later in my response but, as I said at the start of my speech, the expansion of the franchise does not change the principle of the franchise. People who have been abroad for up to 15 years are able to vote and these measures are expanding that further.
I was going to add more on the process of using attestations to demonstrate the connection to the UK address, as this was asked about by several noble Lords. It is important to make this work, so that an eligible applicant has every opportunity to demonstrate their eligibility. We anticipate that an electoral registration officer will be able to verify most applicants’ connection to their qualifying address using register checks or DWP historic address matching. Where this is not possible, applicants will be able to provide documentary evidence or, failing that, an attestation. This is in alignment with the processes for verifying identity. We have considered feedback from stakeholders on the different types of documentary evidence that an overseas applicant may have available to them and enabled electoral registration officers to consider a wide range of documentary evidence, providing that it contains the applicant’s name and qualifying address. This is a hierarchy of processes that applicants must go through. Attestation can only be used if those other processes have not been able to establish the information needed.
The attestation process is a long-established process for voter registration and, as I said before, used only where other methods of verification have been exhausted. Attestors are subject to certain requirements and must provide information that demonstrates that they meet those requirements. They must declare that all information in an attestation is true and acknowledge that it is an offence to provide false information to an electoral registration officer. The Government believe that these instruments strike a balance between the accessibility and integrity of the attestation process by introducing new limits on the number of individuals an attestor can attest for within an electoral year. The Electoral Commission provides guidance for EROs on verifying attestations and has the power to reject those attestations.
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I now come to the additional costs and resources implied by these changes. As I said in my opening remarks, the Government have already committed to funding the additional costs incurred by electoral administration teams from all changes to electoral administration by the Elections Act; this is covered by the new burdens doctrine. This will include funding the additional costs incurred by local government for the registration of newly enfranchised overseas electors. The administrative cost of extending the franchise
for overseas electors has been extensively modelled, with the help of local authorities and other sector stakeholders. New burdens funding will be provided via an upfront grant in spring 2024, with local authorities able to bid for additional funding via a justification-led process, to ensure that local authorities have the resources that they need when they require them. The impact assessment published alongside this statutory instrument set out estimates for how much this would cost. The central estimate put it in the range of £40.8 million over a 10-year period.
Noble Lords asked about the systems that we have in place to ensure the integrity of our donations regime and our broader electoral system. UK electoral law sets out a stringent regime of donations controls to ensure that only those with a legitimate interest in UK elections can make political donations, and that political donations are transparent. The same transparency measures will apply to those who are empowered to vote and donate through this expansion of the franchise, as applies to existing voters. Money from a foreign or unknown source is illegal.
The Elections Act 2022 further tightened the law on political finance, making it harder for foreign influence to take place in elections. The Electoral Commission has been given more powers to access Companies House information through powers under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023, which will strengthen the application of existing political donation laws. The Government’s Defending Democracy Taskforce ensures that we have a robust and joined-up response to the range of threats facing our democratic institutions. Through the National Security Act 2023, a new foreign influence registration scheme and new foreign interference offences will strengthen the resilience of the UK political system against covert foreign influence. During the passage of the then National Security Bill, the Government further committed to undertake a consultation on enhanced information sharing between relevant bodies to help identify and mitigate foreign interference in political donations. The Government will lay a report on that before Parliament by the end of next year.
The noble Lord, Lord Khan, asked how we will monitor the impact of the changes made under these provisions. As with any legislation initiated by the Government, we are committed to monitoring overseas electors changes. In the Elections Act, the Government committed to undertake post-legislative scrutiny no less than four and no more than five years after Royal Assent.
I turn to my noble friend Lord Hayward’s concerns about the increased burden on administrators. I have addressed funding but let me say that we have sought to minimise as far as possible the new burdens on administrators by working closely with the sector and the Electoral Commission in the policy design. Improvements to the registration process, including enabling the electronic submission of documents and digital improvements to identity verification, will make applications easier to process and reduce the potential for a back-and-forth between electors and administrators. The increase in the registration period for an overseas elector—from one year to up to three years—will ensure that more electors remain registered between elections, which will both benefit the elector and reduce
the burden on administrators. We are committed to ensuring that the sector is prepared to implement these measures across the UK from 16 January 2024.
Further, on the security of the Electoral Commission, my honourable friend in the other place, Minister Hoare, who leads on this area for the department, met the Electoral Commission—today, in fact. It was the latest in a series of regular meetings that Ministers have held with the Electoral Commission, so we remain in close contact with it.
I am conscious that I have not addressed a number of further questions, and I commit to doing so in writing, but what I have done is set out the principle behind why these changes are taking place and the safeguards we have put in around them. In the light of that, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Khan, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.