Draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017 Draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England and Wales) Order 2017 Draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (Scotland) Order 2017 Draft Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2017

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2017 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England and Wales) Order 2017, the draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (Scotland) Order 2017 and the draft Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2017.

[Chris Skidmore]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David.

The instruments will together enhance the operation of electoral registration across Great Britain. Three of the instruments will enable piloting on the annual canvass in selected areas this year, while the fourth will enhance the operation of individual electoral registration in Scotland, to allow cost savings for electoral registration officers throughout the year. I will turn to an explanation of that separate measure after describing the pilot-related instruments.

Some Members will be aware that individual electoral registration was successfully introduced in 2014. For the first time ever, it enabled people in Great Britain to apply online to register to vote. Nearly 24 million people have applied to register under IER, 18 million of those online. It is clear that citizens want to register quickly and easily, and we are striving to build on the successes of IER and move away from an old-fashioned, paper-based bureaucratic system towards one that is modern and flexible, meeting what we all expect from electoral registration.

A key component of the electoral registration system is the annual canvass that takes place each autumn, when every household in the country receives registration forms. The fundamental objective of the annual canvass—namely, the maintenance of a complete and accurate register through regular data collection—is, and will continue to be, a Government priority. However, consultation with EROs and local authorities over an extended period has indicated that the annual canvass in its current form is not a sustainable way to achieve that aim and is time-consuming and expensive.

The process requires electoral registration officers to send an annual canvass form—the household enquiry form—to every property in their area. The HEF asks residents to set out whether there have been any changes in the composition of the household since the last year’s canvass, so that EROs can identify whether any residents should be removed from the register or invited to make an application. Response rates to the HEF are significantly lower under IER, as it is no longer a registration tool, and yet where no response is received, EROs are still required to issue up to two further forms and to carry out at least one visit to the property. Electors will therefore receive up to three letters and a visit from their local ERO team, even if they are already registered, solely for the purposes of information gathering.

The reality is that household churn across the country is only about 12% per annum, thus the majority of canvass activity is redundant. Over half of households do not even respond to the initial HEF, meaning that EROs are required to chase them, despite the fact that 88% of households will be a “no change” on the electoral register.

While the Cabinet Office currently provides direct financial assistance for registration linked to the introduction of IER, the total costs of the annual canvass are extremely high, at some £65 million per year. The process is therefore costly to EROs but also very frustrating for them. From knowing their local area or having access to local authority data, EROs may well be aware of the registration status of households in their area. The system currently in place by law, however, does not allow them to draw on their own expertise or other information held by the local authority. It does not allow citizens to tell us once of changes to their registration. It does not enable EROs to focus their resources in the most targeted and effective way.

What is needed is a more effective and efficient system that targets resources on reaching out to under-registered groups to add new names to the register, rather than confirming names that are already on the register. To ensure that ours is a democracy that truly works for everyone, the Cabinet Office is working with EROs across Great Britain to pilot alternative approaches to the current paper-based, inflexible and prescriptive annual canvass.

Three initial pilots were conducted successfully by the Cabinet Office during the 2016 annual canvass process in three areas of England: Birmingham, Ryedale and South Lakeland. The early results from the pilots last year were very promising, with provisional figures indicating that the cost of the alternative canvasses was substantially lower than that of the legislated canvass, due to the reduction in printing, paper, postage and staffing costs. For example, Ryedale estimated that the new methodology it employed resulted in an 89% saving in staff time and costs. Postage was reduced by 50,000 envelopes and simple household notification letters were issued, making the process for administrators and citizens much more straightforward.

Last year, I visited the electoral services team in Birmingham, which reduced its canvassing costs by £160,000 compared with the year before. Birmingham had already been using data to target its canvassing resource at areas of high churn—an innovative approach that is data-driven and efficient. The Cabinet Office and the Electoral Commission are analysing the full cost data for the whole process.

The pilots are making a difference and building on the successes of IER. They are moving us closer to a system that is modern and flexible, as we would expect in the 21st century. Resources will be better allocated, less paper will be used and administrative time will be saved. We have learned from the 2016 pilots and refined the processes further, potentially leading to improved savings. The three pilots last year alone led to an estimated reduction in canvassing costs of well over £200,000. That is why we are working with local authorities to trial further changes this year. We have an even greater ambition to test more approaches and alternative ways of canvassing that are just as effective as and more cost-efficient than the current process. By including Wales and Scotland, we are able to inform change to the annual canvass that works across the whole of Great Britain.

The three orders establish further pilot schemes under sections 7 and 9 of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. As some Committee members may be aware, section 9D(3) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which was inserted by the 2013 Act, requires an annual canvass to be conducted in the manner prescribed in the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 and the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 2001. The orders we are discussing disapply that requirement for the 23 participating EROs in areas of England, Wales and Scotland.

The orders instead require EROs in the specified areas to attempt to make contact with a person at each residential address in the area for which they act at least once between the date the relevant order comes into force and 2 February 2018. The manner in which they do so, however, and whether they take further steps if no information is received at a particular address will be at the ERO’s discretion. That will enable EROs to test new and innovative approaches to canvassing, including using data, such as council tax data, the local land and property gazetteer and internal local authority databases, to determine whether chasing responses to ERO inquiries is necessary. Such approaches have been developed by working closely with the Electoral Commission, which is supportive of the pilots.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend say whether EROs will be directed to make extra efforts where buildings or residences have a very high turnover of residents? I am thinking in particular of houses in multiple occupation, student halls of residence and old people’s homes. Although it may be okay to send one letter to 88% of houses, a small number of houses have a disproportionately high turnover of residents. What steps will EROs be asked to take in that regard?

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, which strikes at the heart of why the reforms are needed. We are not introducing measures that prescribe in law that every household should be treated equally, even though we know that 88% of households have no change. The resources that are freed up by these reforms will allow EROs to target individuals where there is a greater difficulty with under-registered groups.

Let me give some examples of innovative activity that has been trialled. In Grampian in Scotland, electoral registration officer Ian Milton has been developing a system by working with a tenancy deposit scheme company, which notifies him when tenants have left a property. That enables him to know that the building has been left vacant and that he needs to send electoral registration materials to the property.

In Sheffield, the Cabinet Office part-funded a pilot to the tune of £10,000, which enabled a data-sharing agreement to be developed between the University of Sheffield and the Sheffield ERO. It has seen student registration rise from 13% to 76% at the University of Sheffield. EROs know their local area well and there are new ways in which they can target the people they know are removed from the register or change addresses frequently. EROs can use their resources more effectively to increase the size of our register nationally.

On the ongoing pilot schemes that we hope to take forward into 2017, the extra 23 areas in addition to Birmingham, South Lakeland and Ryedale were chosen using robust research methodology to ensure a spread of electoral register churn, population size, the pilot model chosen by EROs and region. In each area, the EROs will operate control groups and pilot groups so that the results of the approaches can be evaluated rigorously. Four models of piloting activities will run with the EROs in the 2017 pilot scheme, based on proposals from EROs themselves. Each participating ERO has chosen the model that they would like to apply in their area, based on their local knowledge and expertise.

Each innovative model reduces the number of paper communications sent to electors, utilising means such as telephone and email channels, and one model uses existing local data to determine where best to focus resources. Those ideas have all come from experts on the frontline and are designed to improve the citizen experience as well as ease administrative burdens on hard-pressed electoral teams. The elector will benefit from the local authority being able to redirect resources, as I have discussed, and target canvassing more effectively towards under-registered groups.

If successful, the pilots will demonstrate that the annual canvass process does not need to be so prescriptive and that a number of alternative methods to the annual canvass exist, which are just as effective and more cost-efficient, potentially saving at least £20 million nationally from the cost of electoral registration each year.

Although the Cabinet Office provides support for local authorities to offset the cost of the annual canvass—last year it was £26 million—the pilots will provide evidence for wide-ranging changes to free up local authority resources. It is important to note that the canvass itself is purely an information-gathering process. The pilots will not alter the requirements for the registration process and for individuals themselves to be invited to register to vote.

The Government have consulted widely, including with the Electoral Commission, on the pilot proposals. The commission has been very supportive of the plans and has been involved from the start in the early stages of the pilots’ development. The Electoral Commission has also been consulted on the orders, about which it is content, following Cabinet Office confirmation that section 13 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 remains applicable to participating local authorities during the pilot.

Consultation has also taken place with bodies such as the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and the Scottish Assessors Association. That is in addition to the work that the Government have been doing with interested councils directly, which has helped shape the four pilot models. The Information Commissioner’s Office was consulted during the development of the pilots and is content that the pilot orders do not raise any new or significant data protection or privacy issues. We have a privacy impact assessment also, which is set out on the Table. Equality impact assessments have been completed to ensure that under-registered groups, as well as groups protected by virtue of the Equality Act 2010, will not be negatively impacted by the pilots. Privacy impact assessments have also been completed to ensure that no new negative privacy impacts under the Data Protection Act 1998 will arise.

Although the purpose of the pilots is to give EROs the space to innovate and test alternative, more effective approaches in relation to the annual canvass, I want to underline that the integrity of the register will always and absolutely be maintained throughout the pilots. EROs have a duty under the Representation of the People Act 1983 to maintain their registers, and nothing in the orders will change that.

The draft Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2017 will allow Scottish EROs to benefit from the same cost optimisation measures that have been available to English and Welsh EROs since last year. That will be achieved by amending the registration application forms for Scotland to allow applicants to identify that they are the only person resident at the address aged 14 or over. They also provide discretion to EROs on whether to canvass a property within 12 months of an indication of single occupancy. Allowing EROs to make that choice decreases the amount of resources spent on processing applications and increases the efficiency and speed of the registration process.

Secondly, the regulations will modernise the system of registration by enabling Scottish EROs to send invitations to register and ITR reminders by electronic means if they wish to do so, replicating what has been in place in England and Wales since 2016. That will deliver a quicker and more efficient service to electors, who expect electronic communications when registering in this age, as well as enabling cost savings.

The regulations will allow an attestor to an applicant’s identity to be registered in any local authority area in Scotland; at present, both the attestor and the applicant must be registered in the same local authority. That will assist those applicants whose identity cannot be verified using the usual matching process and who have to provide an attestation to verify their identity, and will result in more eligible applicants becoming registered to vote, as has happened in England and Wales. The provisions also aim to reduce unnecessary ERO correspondence and contact.

Preliminary estimations project that the regulations will reduce the overall cost of IER in Scotland by around £125,000 for the single-occupancy provision and around £400,000 for email ITRs per year. In addition, the regulations make a minor amendment to correct an error in the existing regulation concerning the requirement to provide fresh signatures following the rejection of a postal voting statement.

The Electoral Commission was consulted during the development of the measures and on the specifics of the regulations, and is supportive of the regulations offering the same provision to Scotland as already exists in England and Wales.

The Cabinet Office and I have worked closely with Scottish Government officials to ensure that the measures can be in place for the 2017 annual canvass and that Scottish EROs are able to participate in the aforementioned pilots. Last November, I met the Scottish Government’s Minister for Parliamentary Business, Joe FitzPatrick, and we mutually agreed for the instruments to make provision in respect of both the parliamentary and local government registers in Scotland. That will be done before the commencement of the relevant provisions of the Scotland Act 2016, which will devolve competence in relation to the local government register in Scotland. That was agreed in order to ensure that Scottish EROs take advantage of these cost-optimisation measures in respect of both parliamentary and local government registers this year, and that local authorities in Scotland are represented in the canvass pilots.

With that in mind, the Government believe that the instruments, which allow for full annual canvass piloting, are a crucial step towards improving the annual canvass and the wider registration process. I therefore commend them to the Committee. I also hope that the Committee agrees that the instrument relating to cost-optimisation measures in Scotland will help to move electors and electoral administrators forward towards an enhanced IER system for both members of the public and EROs, as part of the continued successful implementation of IER across Great Britain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Skidmore]

I thank the Committee for the time it has taken this afternoon to scrutinise the instruments, which will enable EROs in England, Wales and Scotland to pilot new and innovative approaches to conducting the annual canvass, and allow EROs in Scotland to make use of email invitations to register and single occupancy provisions.

Important points have been made by the hon. Member for Hemsworth and the hon. Member for Edinburgh East, and I will conclude by responding to them. The hon. Member for Hemsworth raised the issue of funding. The Government are committed to ensuring that we have a democracy that works for everyone. In order to achieve that, we must have a democracy that is funded. The introduction of individual electoral registration—one of the greatest reforms to the registration process of the 21st century—cost £143 million. We are also funding local authorities to the tune of £26 million a year to implement IER.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether the measures were simply to make savings or to foster democratic engagement. For me, those two go hand in hand. As we make savings from the pilots and the reforms, the costs that are released from the canvass procedures can be used to target individuals who belong to under-registered groups. That is a commitment that I made as a Minister when I introduced “A democracy that works for everyone”; I said that “every voice matters”.

The hon. Member for Hemsworth spoke about engaging civil society organisations as part of the process. I have toured the country speaking to many organisations, from UpRising in Birmingham to Bite the Ballot and the National Union of Students, right across every region in the country. We now have an early general election, but I was planning to publish a democratic engagement strategy, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh East knows from the question he asked me in Cabinet Office oral questions last month.

I remain committed to ensuring that the Government strategy demonstrates how every section of society that is under-registered will be given the right to vote. I published a policy paper in March about the anonymous registration of women who are survivors of domestic violence. We will provide them with a mechanism to have an equal right to have their say at the ballot box. The hon. Member for Hemsworth may call that “tinkering” but I call it fundamental change. Therefore, I see savings and democratic engagement as two sides of the same coin.

The hon. Member for Hemsworth mentioned the timing on 30 June. It is important, if not critical, that local authorities that are registered for the pilots are given the opportunity to participate through measures passed in this Parliament. That will give them the planning period they need to begin canvass activity in July and August, as happens in most local authorities. He made valid points about whether it was a burden for local authorities to take part in the pilots. We have contacted all the participating EROs in recent days and all have stated that they are happy to participate. Indeed, they are keen and able to deliver. As I said in my opening remarks, we have 26 pilots taking place in areas that have been assessed for their capabilities, but there were 71 applications from local authorities. There is demand out there and this must be locally driven.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the importance of having devolved machinery. He will know that under the Wales Act 2017 and the Scotland Act 2016, when the commencement orders on the electoral machinery come in, we will be devolving significant issues around elections and democracy to the devolved Administrations, within the local government framework. When it comes to further devolution, we are keen to ensure that local authorities are given this opportunity. On local authority scrutiny, electoral registration officers are independent of local authorities and must retain that independence if they are to have an effective role in our democracy.

On the wider issues that the hon. Gentleman raised about registration and the introduction of individual electoral registration, despite predictions that people were going to crash off the electoral register, it is clear now that it has risen from 46.5 million in 2015 to 47.35 million in the figures released a couple of weeks ago by the Electoral Commission. It is important that we have a complete register, as was stated in the Conservative party’s manifesto in 2015, and Parliament has talked about ensuring that we complete the register. However, we must also have an accurate register. Crucially, the Electoral Commission stated in its report released last summer that the accuracy of the electoral register has increased from 86% to 91%.

I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Hemsworth about the need to have a clear and secure system for our democracy. There is ongoing work on the issue of cyber-security and attacks. He mentioned the outing of the gov.uk website in May last year. I have taken measures to ensure that I am confident about this general election and future ones. We now have at least double the capacity that we did when the website outed in May last year, and when it comes to monitoring this general election, all measures will be put in place to ensure that that cannot and does not happen again.

The hon. Member for Hemsworth mentioned the issue of trust and confidence. He is absolutely right that in our democracy, we want to ensure that there are as many people on the register as possible, that as many people as possible get the opportunity to vote and that we target our resources at under-registered groups. However, that will be worthless unless we have the processes in place to ensure that the people on the register are who they say they are and are able to vote in that capacity.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh East mentioned auto-enrolment. We have had this discussion on the Floor of the House. The Government remain committed to individual electoral registration and will not be going down the path of auto-enrolment, but that is not to say that innovative measures cannot be taken forward. For example, when it comes to student registration and tenancy deposit schemes, which I have discussed, we can target effectively individuals who we know have failed to register and thereby maintain the accuracy of the register.

The proposals have support within the electoral community. The Electoral Commission stated on 14 July 2016 that it

“welcomed the Government’s commitment to conduct pilots in streamlining the annual canvass process”.

The Scottish Assessors Association and Electoral Management Board for Scotland stated on 7 December 2016 that they welcomed the fact that alternative means of carrying out the annual canvass were being piloted in Dumfries and Galloway and Glasgow, along with other registration areas in England and Wales. We would not take the piloting measures forward if we did not have the consent and commitment of the electoral community.

I end by saying that it has been an honour to serve on this Committee in my final engagement before the end of this parliamentary Session as the Minister for democratic engagement. It falls to me to state, for the benefit of the House, our mutual respect, regardless of party politics, for those individuals who work behind the scenes tirelessly preparing for elections. A general election has been called. We have local and mayoral elections in some places on 4 May. When it comes to democracy, as Members of Parliament we are very much actors on a stage, and it is the people behind the scenes who ensure that our democracy is the best it can be and one of the best in the world. I pay tribute to the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators and the SAA for all the work they do behind the scenes to implement the law and ensure that our elections are the best in the world and as accurate as possible. As Members of Parliament, we depend entirely upon them and are in their debt.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017.

DRAFT ELECTORAL REGISTRATION PILOT SCHEME (ENGLAND AND WALES) ORDER 2017

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England and Wales) Order 2017.—(Chris Skidmore.)

DRAFT ELECTORAL REGISTRATION PILOT SCHEME (SCOTLAND) ORDER 2017

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (Scotland) Order 2017.—(Chris Skidmore.)

DRAFT REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE (SCOTLAND) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2017

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2017.—(Chris Skidmore.)