Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, which (a) national and (b) local authority databases may be interrogated by electoral registration officers.

Electoral registration officers have extensive powers in the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 (RPR) and equivalent Regulations in Scotland. Regulation 23 allows an ERO to require information from any person for the purpose of fulfilling an ERO’s duty to maintain the electoral registers. This includes seeking to identify electors missing from the register who appear on other data sources. Failure of a person to comply with an EROs’ request under this regulation is an offence and could result in that person being subject to a fine.

Other regulations within the RPR (35 and 35A) also allow an ERO to inspect, for the purpose of his/her registration duties, records kept by their local authority (including across different tiers of local councils) and any registrar of births, deaths and marriages.