Representation of the People Bill

Lord Pack Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 2nd November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his intervention, which was slightly longer than I had hoped for, since I want to keep to my time. As I say, there is a system; we were told it is impossible, but what have the Northern Irish done? They introduced a read-only system and have done that themselves. It operates effectively in Northern Ireland without any problem.

These massive changes are, I believe, unnecessary—although, yes, they were advertised—and without great benefit. I will quote now from the impact assessment, to which I may return on another occasion. On page 113 it says that

“we assume that the completeness of registers will increase by 3 percentage points (from 85.9% to 88.9%) by the end of the 10-year … period”.

Are we going through all these changes for that?

In conclusion, I must pick up the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, on his comments about my support for automatic registration. I believed that I had made it absolutely clear that I support it for attainers, whatever age they may happen to be, because I want to introduce them to the democratic system. Thereafter, I do not support automatic registration for that very small gain.

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, we have heard two interesting contrasting themes in this group. Some of us are very keen on automatic voter registration and want to see it introduced sooner and better. Others are nervous about the potential implications of automatic voter registration. I think it is worth starting with a recap of the reasons why something like automatic voter registration is required, particularly as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, eloquently put the case against.

In part, it is because making good use of data is, when done well, an effective way of improving services and reducing administrative burdens. It is worth contrasting how a registration process would start under AVR with the current system. Several noble Lords have expressed concerns about how a database might result in registrations flowing from that data. However, under the current system anyone can request and be sent a paper form that they can fill in, without having to provide a national insurance number. That, under our existing system, is enough to start the process rolling for registration. If we are relying on the right, good-quality datasets, that is a much more secure starting point than anyone being able to request a paper form that anyone could fill in. It is also worth bearing in mind that the current system was very well described by one of the international experts in elections we are lucky to have in this country: Professor Toby James. He called it a

“Victorian system in need of repair”.

I think this Bill’s efforts to repair it are very welcome.

A good example of that is the surge in registration applications we typically have in the run-up to a general election. The Electoral Commission’s latest research estimated that between 7 million and 8 million people are either missing from the electoral register or registered at the wrong address. There is a substantial problem that needs addressing. We have heard that in the run-up to a general election there is a surge in applications; for example, last time, there was a surge of nearly 3 million. As was rightly pointed out, many of those were duplicate applications. When you strip those out from the numbers and compare that with the 7 million or 8 million missing and wrong addresses on the register, even the general election surge is not getting us that far towards fixing the problem.

Action is needed. Of course, we should not therefore think that any action is wise. But I hope, therefore, we will hear positive noises from the Government, particularly on Amendments 49, 50 and 52 from my noble friends Lord Rennard, Lord Wallace and Lady Thornhill, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Royall and Lady Bennett, all of which in different ways would improve the supply of data into the system.

My Amendment 58 would provide ward-level data, which I think is important, particularly with local government reorganisation increasing the size of many councils. Council-level data will not tell us how well or how badly registration systems are working in future; we need that data at ward level. We need it to understand how the system is working. We need it for researchers and experts to figure out whether the promises are being delivered. We need it for the campaigners, of all parties and none, who are trying to improve involvement and engagement with democracy, to be able to see where their efforts are most needed. We need it for media, and indeed for us politicians, to be able to understand how systems are working.

I turn to some of the other amendments in this group. On Amendment 8 from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, I must admit I am not convinced by the case that the noble Lord made. Under the current system, with a voting age of 18, we register attainers with some aged 16 and most aged 17. The current system is that some people who are two years below the age for voting get registered as attainers. That is because of the use of the 1 December cut-off date and the following one-year window, which means that some people may be more than one year away and need to be in the records.

If we are changing 18 to 16, it seems absolutely sensible that 17 and 16 should, in turn, also get reduced by two years to 15 and 14. Therefore, with respect, the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, would achieve the opposite of what he argued for. We have an existing system that is well established, that people are used to using and that works; by reducing the years across the board, we are essentially transferring the existing system over to the new voting age, rather than creating a new system that would not work with the 1 December window and following 12-month period.