Electoral Registration

Debate between Baroness Berger and Sam Gyimah

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Gyimah]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, but I will not be tempted into that debate.

Individual electoral registration was first introduced by the last Labour Government and has cross-party support—there is nothing sinister or cynical about the transition. As with academy schools in education, Labour was right to seek to modernise our electoral system by introducing IER, but once again we are seeing the measure through while Labour Members seek to disown it. I wonder what has prompted the change of heart on the Labour Benches.

[Luciana Berger]

The Minister talks about the importance of including everyone on the register, but in Liverpool we have lost more than 20,000 people from our electoral register. He said earlier that Liverpool had received a sum of money, but obviously that has not worked so far. What else will his Department do to assist Liverpool to ensure that we get those 20,000 people back on our electoral register?

[Mr Gyimah]

As I said, in addition to the £161,000 of maximised registration funding, Liverpool received £288,000 to help boost its register. If that money was not enough, the city can apply to the Cabinet Office for more funding using justification-led bids. Electoral registration officers have statutory responsibility for maintaining the register, so perhaps the hon. Lady will ask her EROs what they have done with the money.

What has prompted the change of heart on the Labour Benches about IER? Is it because the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan) is trying to taunt the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) in their bids to become the Labour candidate for the Mayor of London? Could it be that the Labour party, rightly scared of the next election, has retreated to the comfort zone of opposition politics and scaremongering about the Government’s policies?