Question

To ask the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission, what assessment the Commission has made of the effect on trends in the level of voter registration of information sharing between Government and local authorities.

In 2011 and 2012, the Electoral Commission carried out an evaluation of the Government’s pilots to test the extent to which data held on national public databases could assist Electoral Registration Officers in maintaining their electoral registers. Its evaluations found that the principle of sharing data had potential but that the approach, as piloted, was not effective.

The Commission has recently undertaken feasibility studies examining how publicly-held data could be used to improve registration. The findings will be published in the summer.