Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2013

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2013 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2013.

Relevant document: 9th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the statutory instruments before us today provide the detail of the transition to and operation of individual electoral registration, which replaces the current household registration system. The description of electoral registers and amendment regulations also make changes relating to the edited versions of the electoral register and to elements of the conduct of elections.

I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, to this long-running saga. We considered first what became the Electoral Registration and Administration Act, and then the numerous statutory instruments that followed. The Bill team assures me that there are no more than 29 to come. The good news that we have today is that the data-matching exercise has turned up around 78% of voters being matched through the system. The query attached to that is that the data matching is much higher in areas that have a static population than in areas that have either a mobile population or a large number of second homes. That is why Argyll and Bute comes 20th in the list of lowest matching areas but urban areas and areas with a high number of students are also among those where the percentage of data matching comes out much lower than in other areas.

To ensure that as many existing electors as possible remain on the register during the transition, the Government announced in their official response to pre-legislative scrutiny on IER that part of the transition would involve a data-matching stage where all electoral registers in Britain would be matched against trusted public data sets. Where a positive match is made between an entry on the register and information in the data set, that person may be confirmed. The dry run, as I have already said, found that about 78% on average of those submitted to the Department for Work and Pensions could be confirmed by data matching. The results were better than we originally anticipated.

Furthermore, using a combination of national and local data could lead to an even greater overall average match rate of as much as 85%. This high rate means that fewer electors will need to make IER applications during the transition. EROs will then be able to focus their resources on unconfirmed electors and those eligible citizens who were not on the register already. As we have discussed before, we already have an existing problem in that the number of voters who are not on the existing register has steadily grown over the past 10 years.

Cabinet Office officials have recently written to each local authority, giving them their indicative funding for implementing IER next year. Each allocation is based in part on the results of the confirmation dry run to ensure that sufficient funding is provided for the work required of each ERO to produce as complete and accurate an electoral register as possible as we move to the new system. The Government expect the allocation to cover all the costs in the majority of authorities but will consider funding additional costs in individual cases if they are precisely and strongly supported by evidence and have not already been recognised.

Each of the instruments before us today relates wholly or partly to IER. The transitional provisions order sets out the activities unique to the transition—due to begin in June 2014 in England and Wales and after the referendum of September 2014 in Scotland. Many of the regulations in the description of electoral registers and amendment regulations set out the operation of IER from that date, through transition and into the period of business as usual. Under these regulations, each ERO will still be required each year to carry out a full annual canvass of households, sending out a canvass form to every residential property.

Unlike the process under the household registration system, completing this form will not get a new elector on to the register. A household inquiry form will be used to find out who is resident. If people have not moved, they will be retained without further action being required beyond returning the form or informing the ERO that there has been no change, just as under the current system. However, if the residents recorded on the returned form have changed, any new electors will need to apply individually to register.

As is currently the case, there will be a duty on EROs to follow up where they get no response to these canvass forms: the household inquiry forms. If no information is forthcoming, a further form will be sent. If necessary, a third form will be sent and a canvasser must visit the property. The occupier or the person responsible for the property will have a duty to respond. The existing criminal offence for not responding will continue to apply. Where an ERO finds out about a person who appears to be eligible, whether through the household inquiry form or through other information, they must invite that person to register. As with the household inquiry form, the ERO must also follow up any non-response to an individual invitation to register and may require the person to make an application. In addition to the criminal offence of failing to respond to a household inquiry form, the ERO has the option to impose a civil penalty on an individual who fails to apply if required to do so.

The application to register is a key part of IER. It is central to the individual nature of the new system as it means that each elector who is added to the register will have made their own application to register. It is also vital that it is convenient for applicants both in the information required and in its design. The Electoral Commission is currently working on the forms for IER, which include the new household inquiry form, the letter inviting a person to register and the IER application. Officials in the Cabinet Office are working closely with the EC on the development of these forms, which are being user-tested to ensure that they are convenient for electors and minimise inadvertent errors in applications.

For the first time, online registration will be enabled, thus modernising the registration process and making it more accessible, especially for those registering from outside the UK, such as service personnel and other overseas electors. Paper forms will be retained for those who prefer that method of registration. As part of the commitment to tackle fraud, a central feature of the new application forms and of the online application portal also enabled by these regulations is that applicants must provide personal identifiers—namely, their date of birth and national insurance number. These will be used to verify their identity through data matching against records held by the Department for Work and Pensions. Electoral Commission research shows that 95% of people would be able to provide their NINo if required. If they cannot, applicants will be advised where they can locate it.

However, it may be that someone cannot provide their date of birth or NINo, that they are in the minority of applicants whose details do not match DWP records, or that the ERO considers for some other reason that additional evidence is necessary to verify the applicant’s identity. For these situations, the regulations set out a robust but accessible exceptions process using prescribed documentary evidence or attestation by another elector in the same area who is of good standing in the community.

This has been a very brief description of how the new system will work. Where households have not moved or changed in composition, they will need simply to complete a household form or inform the ERO, just as they do currently. For new applicants, this new, separate application will be needed. Making the transition from the current system to IER is a significant change, and we have included steps in the transitional provisions order to ensure that it is as convenient as possible for voters.

I have already described how we will use data matching to confirm a large majority of existing electors on the register at the start of transition. Following this data matching, every elector will receive a letter. Most electors will be informed that no further action is required but a minority will be invited to register. They will then have until December 2015—more than a year, in most cases—to apply under IER.

In houses where electors registered during the postponed 2013 canvass, the letters to individuals will, for this canvass only, replace the requirement to send a household inquiry form. Where electors have not been heard from since 2012 and were carried forward during the postponed canvass, or there is no one registered at a property, the ERO will send a household form. It also has the flexibility to send these forms where it thinks that this is the best way to find out about new electors—for example, in areas with high population turnover.

Electors who returned forms in the 2013 postponed household canvass will remain on the register throughout the transition. People who have not yet registered through an IER application or been confirmed by data matching will be able to cast a vote in the 2015 general election on the basis of their pre-IER registration. However, as the fraud risk is most acute around postal voting, only those who are individually registered will be able to cast an absent vote once the revised register is published in December 2014 in England and Wales, and on 28 February 2015 in Scotland. Voters who are absent, with postal or proxy votes, will be informed of the need to make a new application if they have not been confirmed or have not made a successful IER application.

The Representation of the People (Provision of Information Regarding Proxies) Regulations 2013, which are UK-wide, allow EROs to check that someone resident in another area is or will be a registered elector and therefore eligible to act as a proxy when appointed to do so by an elector in the ERO’s area. In other words, someone who casts a proxy vote for someone else has herself or himself to be on the UK electoral register. In the 2015 canvass period, EROs will send a household enquiry form to every residential property as usual. They are also required to send out another invitation to those remaining electors who were not confirmed by data matching in 2014 and who have not yet made a successful IER application.

As the then Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform told the House of Commons, and as set out in our implementation plan, the Government’s aim is to conclude the transition to IER after the 2015 canvass period. We are confident that those non-IER entries remaining on the register at that point will be out of date or inaccurate. The Minister of the day will have to lay, and Parliament approve, an order in the summer of 2015 to enable the end of the transition in that year; otherwise it will continue until the end of the 2016 canvass. The decision will be for the Minister and the Parliament of the day after the 2015 general election, but I am confident that they will be content with the progress of the transition and will bring it to an end in 2015, which will mean that the register published in December that year will be made up of individually registered electors only.

The Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Description of Electoral Registers and Amendment) Regulations 2013 introduce a number of measures designed to make sure that electors can make a fully informed choice about whether their details appear in the edited register. Among other changes, electors’ edited register preferences will be carried forward indefinitely, so electors will no longer be asked to opt out each year. The changes provide for improved descriptions of the two registers that will ensure that the information for electors is as clear and user-friendly as possible, and a new, more transparent name: the open register.

The same regulations make a number of improvements to the running of elections that are designed to help voters participate effectively in elections and reinforce further the integrity of the voting process. The proposed changes implement electoral administration and conduct provisions in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. The changes will enable postal votes to be despatched further in advance of polling day, which will be of particular help to those in remote locations, such as persons overseas, including service voters, as more time will be given for them to receive, complete and return their postal vote to be counted. We are also making improvements to the design and layout of voting forms that are intended to make the voting process more accessible and easier to understand.

Provisions on these matters were included in amendments previously made to the European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2013 in order to apply the provisions to the European Parliamentary elections in 2014. These amendments have recently been debated by Parliament, which has thus had an opportunity to consider the changes. I do not therefore need or intend to go into detail on them today, although I will, of course, be happy to answer any questions on them. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am grateful for almost everything that has been said in this debate. We all agree, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, said, that it is extremely important, first, to get maximum registration, and then to get maximum turnout. We also accept that both of these are difficult and have become more difficult; and that the question of the legitimacy of government is, of course, caught up in this. We are all well aware that we might possibly elect a Labour Government at the next election with 35% of the votes cast on a very low turnout. I can imagine what the Daily Mail would say about the legitimacy of that Government.

We have a shared interest across all parties, first, to make sure that we maximise registration and then—this is something on which we need to have some active cross-party conversations—persuade our deeply alienated electorate, let alone our deeply hostile media, that politics is an honourable profession; that voting is important; and that maximising the turnout at the next election has to be seen as a civic duty and not as something that, as some newspaper columnists tend to suggest, will only encourage the bastards.

[Lord Wills]

I am very grateful for what the Minister has just said and want to associate myself with those remarks profoundly. I would like to “mark his card” with a particular potential problem on which I hope the parties could collaborate. That is the problem about funding for electoral registration in this context. As the Minister will know, it is not ring-fenced—although I personally believe that it should be. However, because it is not ring-fenced, local authorities under a lot of pressure might well be tempted to skimp, shall we say, on some of the efforts made. The problem could arise, therefore—and it is only a potential problem at the moment—that local authorities with a particular political complexion will not necessarily see it as in their interests to canvass areas that support the other parties. I am sure that the Minister can imagine the sort of scenarios that could occur.

At the moment, there is no protection against that happening. I am not saying that it will happen. Most local authorities in my experience as a Minister were extremely diligent and took their democratic duties extremely seriously. I would be very surprised if it was a widespread problem, but it could be a problem. I welcome the comments just made by the Minister and his reassurance that he will at least explore what might be done to protect against that sort of eventuality.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I hesitate to get into a discussion on ring-fencing, which the noble Lord and I have debated several times before. The good news is that the data matching so far has come up with a much higher proportion than we originally anticipated. That will enable us to focus funding on those vulnerable groups and particular areas that we now know to be the most difficult. We all understand which those groups are. They are young men above all—young men who tend not to open letters and who move around very rapidly—students, young black voters, and other challenging groups of one sort or another. That is the area on which we are currently concentrating. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, and others that the Government are co-operating actively with Bite the Ballot, Operation Black Vote and other organisations that are working to increase the intention and willingness to register within their own communities. We are also working with universities and students to ensure that they, too, are able to raise interest and maximise the registration of those groups in their areas. We are well aware of this and we are doing everything we can.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, asked whether we were going ahead for 2015. So far, things are going better than anticipated. We have not completely gone snap on it, but the IT has demonstrated more resilience than we feared might be the case, so it is on track. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s comments on the open register. There are some wider considerations here, as we all understand, such as the questions of credit references and identity verification for mortgages, and other such things. There is also an issue about overseas voters, since they will be asked to demonstrate that they have been, within the past 15 years, resident somewhere in a particular constituency. All of these things fit in with maintaining an accurate register, let alone the question of longer historical research, which relates to the future of the census—another complicated area on which I will not go into more detail here.

Yes, of course we will review the situation after 2015, and we will be absolutely concerned to do whatever we can about service registration. The question of service voting and registration is becoming a little less difficult than it has been, because as troops return from Afghanistan and from Germany, the proportion of our serviceman living outside this country is going through a relatively rapid decline. Of course they will continue to move around, but arrangements for Armed Forces voters and their spouses will be maintained in as strong a form as we possibly can.

We are absolutely concerned to get good young people’s registration forms. I have already mentioned our work with universities and other groups. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, talked about access to the Government’s risk register. Again, we have discussed this before and I have reiterated that the Government work through a risk register as a matter of course but do not publish it. We have just all agreed where we know the risks are in this shift in registration, but I have to reiterate that we knew where many of these risks were already. It is relevant that we have already had increasing problems with young men, people living in rented accommodation and ethnic minority voters. Those existed already; we simply have to work harder to get through to all of them; that is why we are targeting our efforts.

[Lord Wills]

Very briefly, everyone knew where the risks were with the current system of registration. The question I have been trying to get the Government to address is: does the way in which they are proceeding to introduce individual registration increase those risks, maintain the same level of risk or decrease the risks? Which is it?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, our efforts are intended to mitigate a risk that was already increasing and is likely to increase further. We will continue to need to look at a range of issues. I am well aware that a Labour Private Member’s Bill, which has been presented two or three times in the House of Commons, suggests, for example, that benefit seekers should not be able to receive their benefits unless they are on the electoral register. This provision is not included in the Bill. It is something that the noble Lord may wish to pursue further. There is a range of questions that we still need to consider, but he and I know how difficult this is: first, getting these people on the register and then persuading many of them to vote.

The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, asked how aware we were of the importance of the register for December 2015, because it is likely to be the basis on which the redistribution of seats next time around will be drawn. Again, this is not a new problem. We are already aware that there has been underregistration in a number of cities—a number of safe Labour seats, one has to say. To the extent to which we have managed to raise the level of registration, we will raise it on a much fairer basis for the next redistribution of seats. Again, we all recognise, on a cross-party basis, that these things go together, and that we share an interest in making sure that as many of these vulnerable groups as possible are persuaded to register.

The last question from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, was: who is a person of good standing? I am tempted to say that it is clearly a university professor. However, I take the question as he put it and I promise to write, particularly on the question of how many times the same person can sign a form on behalf of someone else before the ERO begins to question whether they are an appropriate person to sign the form. I am aware of where he is going with that question and I will do my best to answer it. I hope that I have answered all the questions that noble Lords raised, and I beg to move.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his responses, which I am happy with. I did ask some other questions, but I take it that he will respond to them in writing.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Of course.

Motion agreed.