Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017 — House of Lords, 2017-03-30
Topic: Government Operations
Roy Kennedy (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, first, I make my usual declaration that I am a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The four statutory instruments we are debating today are ones that I accept, as far as they go. I broadly welcome the process outlined by the Minister. Certainly, the entitlement to vote and the accuracy and completeness of the register are the most important things we are debating here. That underpins all this. I have some wider comments and one or two questions for the Minister but generally I welcome the orders and regulations and I am very happy that we are exploring new methods of getting people registered to vote On matters concerning elections and electoral registration, it is always desirable to get agreement among the interested parties on the way forward. I accept that that is not always possible but it is a desirable aim nevertheless. Changes should be implemented carefully, should be thought about, should seek to improve voters’ engagement in the electoral process and should command wide confidence. In that sense, pilots are a useful tool to see how certain measures will play out in practice, followed by proper evaluation and informed policy decisions. Can the Minister tell the House why the decision was made to extend these pilots for another year? I cannot believe that the Government have made this decision in isolation. But it is not clear from the papers why they have done so There is no mention of the political parties being consulted on the regulations. Will the Minister confirm that neither the Electoral Commission nor the Cabinet Office team that meets the political parties on a regular basis have brought these regulations anywhere near them? Of course, the Parliamentary Parties Panel is a statutory panel set up under PPERA. If that is the case, does the Minister agree that that is regrettable and should be rectified quickly? The political parties use the electoral register for their campaigning, they understand the registration process, and they have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard in any discussions on these matters I refer the Minister to page 3 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England and Wales) Order 2017; he mentioned it in his introduction. Referring to the annual canvass, paragraph 7.1 in the section headed "Policy background" says: "In its current form under IER, it is proving to be an unsustainable cost burden for local authorities to administer" I thought that was an interesting comment. I must say, it is not the biggest issue that comes up when we discuss finance and budgets and unacceptable cost burdens at Lewisham Council. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, may have let the cat out of the bag by telling us that these issues were discussed in the coalition Government in 2013. Of course, members of that coalition wanted to bring forward these proposals then I had a look at what the Local Government Association was saying and I could not find any mention at all of the unacceptable cost burdens of the annual canvass—not a thing—in its campaigns, press releases or anything else. I then had a look at London Councils and again there was no mention in any of its campaigns or media releases about these unacceptable cost burdens and the problems being caused for local authorities. Both organisations are well known to Members of this House. They are expert at getting their views across to us when they have issues they want to raise with us. But I have had absolutely nothing—not a letter, not an email, not a text message, not a phone call—from these bodies that represent local government Of course, there are many issues that these two bodies are interested in: the housing crisis, the social care crisis, education funding, public health budgets, business rates, pavement parking, homelessness and the lack of funding for that, bus funding, and many other issues—the list goes on and on. Many of these issues are putting local authorities in a difficult situation and putting pressure on budgets, but the Government are not the slightest bit interested in dealing with them. I also had a look at SOLACE and the AEA. Again, they are silent on these issues and do not appear to be campaigning on them at the moment It really is a bit rich for the Government to hide behind the suggestion that there are all these concerns from elsewhere in local government. The Government do not have a good record here. They sped up IER, against the advice of the Electoral Commission. They reduced the transition period for IER by one year. They threw out the consensus on that point. They moved ahead with reducing the number of seats in the House of Commons by 50. They removed voters from the electoral roll, against the advice of the commission, and of course that helped them in their redistribution of parliamentary seats and limited the scope of electors to get involved in local inquiries. At the same time, we all know that they made a record number of appointments to your Lordships’ House. Their claims about cutting costs just do not hold water Democracy costs money. We should cherish it and pay for it. We need an efficient, well-run, properly resourced electoral registration service in every part of the United Kingdom. In comparison with other services, the costs involved are not huge and the Government should be seeing how they can use every avenue of the state to get and keep people registered to vote. They should be learning from other parts of the United Kingdom. How does the Electoral Management Board in Scotland work in getting people registered to vote, compared with what happens here in England and Wales Pilots are good to see how we can efficiently and expertly register people to vote. There is nothing presently in force that stops EROs making any innovation, and many EROs do an excellent job of innovating to get people registered to vote. We should be looking at the incentives to get people on the rolls. What are schools, colleges and universities doing? What can we learn from the schools issue in Northern Ireland? Many noble Lords from all sides of the House have raised that and so far the Government have not been interested at all in bringing it into play in England. We should look also at what we can learn from other parts of the world I worry that the real agenda is just to cut the need to send out a prepaid envelope and a form and to avoid knocking on the door, with very little else under that. I am happy that we have new procedures and new ideas. We have to be absolutely sure that we are not making it any harder to get people registered to vote. I am not confident that so far the Government have done that My noble friend Lord Blunkett raised some very important points. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, spoke about the two local authorities. I do not know that case but if that is the situation, it is regrettable. All the councils that have been invited to be part of the pilot should be part of it when it takes place next year. He made a very important point about savings. I am happy to make savings but, again, the important point in all this is the accuracy and completeness of the register. That must be paramount for all of us. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made some important points about automatic registration. Again, young people and students are a very important group and we must make sure that we get them registered. I know that many councils and EROs have worked closely with universities and colleges. We need to ensure that that happens as well I am happy to agree the orders and regulations before us today, although I worry about the Government’s real intention behind these matters.