European Union Referendum (Voter Registration) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: Civil Rights
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, let me start by repeating the Government’s thanks for the broad cross-party support for this measure and to those who have worked so hard behind the scenes, in the Cabinet Office as well as in the Electoral Commission, to address the situation in which we find ourselves We all agree that the referendum is one of the most important moments in our democracy for over a generation, and it is therefore critical that as many people as possible have their chance to vote in it. The public’s appetite to vote was clearly shown on Tuesday night, when the "Register to vote" website crashed. As I said yesterday, in the hour before it did so, 214,000 people had applied to register—three times the previous peak, which was seen just before the last general election. This dark cloud of an IT glitch has a silver lining, as it was caused by a great surge of public engagement From early yesterday we discussed with the Electoral Commission the best course of action to address this unprecedented issue. Given its central role in running the referendum, the Electoral Commission called on the Government to introduce legislation to extend the deadline for registration, and this statutory instrument does that by extending the deadline to midnight tonight. The application deadline is set by legislation, so new legislation is required to allow electoral registration officers to accept applications submitted after the original deadline. This is a technical change specific to the EU referendum and therefore secondary legislation is the most appropriate mechanism We have acted quickly but responsibly. Working with the Electoral Commission we have carefully examined the options and have come to the most appropriate and proportionate response. The legislation we are debating now was laid before Parliament yesterday evening. We have had to proceed with some haste but have taken the time necessary to ensure that our approach is legally watertight. In its briefing to Parliament the Electoral Commission has recommended that Parliament approve these regulations What does this instrument achieve? Very simply, it will, as I have said, extend the deadline for registration by 48 hours to midnight tonight. This is achieved by shifting the publication of the final register to be used for the referendum to the third working day before the poll—Monday 20 June—rather than five working days as currently provided for. To ensure that all applications are still subject to proper scrutiny, the period given for objections to an application remains five days. Registration officers will still have the full five days to process applications and require applicants to provide additional information, if needed, to satisfy them that those applicants are eligible to vote in the referendum. We are making no changes to the necessary verification processes and the same standard of verification will continue to apply to applications made in this extended registration period. We are cutting no corners. We want to give those who want to register more time to do so, but in a way which ensures that applications are subject to proper scrutiny before people are added to the register These regulations make no change to any other deadline date associated with the referendum. The deadline for applying for a postal vote expired at 5 pm yesterday. This means that anyone who has not properly applied to register by that point and has not applied for a postal ballot will not be able to vote by post in the referendum. But anyone who registers now and does not want to vote in person at their local polling station on 23 June, or is unable to do so for whatever reason, can still apply to appoint a proxy. The deadline for a standard proxy application is unchanged by this instrument and remains 15 June The change to the referendum deadline will apply in England, Wales and Scotland. The issue we are seeking to fix is in relation to a failing in the online registration service. Online registration is currently available only in Great Britain. The registration system in Northern Ireland is different in a variety of ways. In particular, digital registration is not yet available there, so there is no problem to fix in Northern Ireland as no one there experienced an issue registering to vote on Tuesday night In light of the regrettable outage to the system on Tuesday night, since then we have worked hard to ensure that it is more robust and better able to handle large numbers of simultaneous applications. The capacity for the "Register to vote" website was doubled yesterday. It is now four times what it was for the 2015 general election. We have also developed a system to manage any particular spikes in activity. I am pleased that people have got the message that registration for the referendum remains open and are taking the opportunity to register so that they can have their say. According to the latest figures I have, some 300,000 applications have been made since 10 pm on 7 June Let me end by apologising for the system having failed and the disruption that caused to members of the public applying to register. Although we have acted as quickly as possible to address this, I reiterate the Government’s clear commitment to conduct a full analysis of what went wrong so that we can learn the lessons for the future. If there are ways to better manage such problems, we will make sure that we identify them. I repeat my thanks to noble Lords for their support for this measure. I beg to move.