Electoral System (Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 Committee Report) — House of Lords, 2022-03-11
Topic: Civil Rights
Christopher Rennard (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, the members of the Select Committee are to be congratulated on their report. I am sure that their recommendations benefited from the presence of so many members with substantial experience of election campaigns, including of course my late noble friend Lord Shutt of Greetland, who stood for my party in seven general elections, as well as many local ones. The Motion to take note of the report was very ably moved by his colleague on the Select Committee, my noble friend Lady Suttie, with whom I worked closely in what proved to be the most successful general election campaign that our party has ever fought The committee’s work demonstrated the value of looking again at legislation which, with hindsight, had left much room for improvement. At the heart of the issues it considered was the fact that there is no right to vote without being registered to vote. As the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, noted, the Electoral Commission’s most recent estimate indicated that between 8.3 million and 9.4 million people in Great Britain who are entitled to vote are not correctly registered, and around 400,000 people in Northern Ireland are in the same position. As he said, the situation may be worse than that The Select Committee rightly drew attention to the priorities of improving both accuracy and completeness in the electoral register, but the Government’s response was to sound as though they agreed with the principle while agreeing to do nothing significant about it. When individual electoral registration was introduced, Parliament agreed that complying with the registration process would remain a legal requirement and that failing to comply could result in a fine of up to £1,000. The Government’s response to this report says they believe that registering to vote is no more than a civic duty and claims the Government "encourages all eligible citizens to do so" Perhaps the Minister might tell us later of any example he can find of a legal requirement which is fairly described as simply a civic duty, an entirely voluntary action. Where else can you be fined if you do not do something which is a supposedly voluntary action The report takes up the point that I made strongly in my evidence to it. I pointed out: "Some councils send letters and forms specifically mentioning the possibility of fines if people do not co-operate with the process, whilst others make no mention of it. Whilst prosecutions are very rare, the reference to a legal obligation to comply with the process is very important and makes a difference to the rate of response to such communications." Awareness of the possibility of being fined increases significantly the rate of response for forms requesting registration. The committee asked the Government "to provide greater guidance in this regard". If the Government really wanted to see more people registered, they would ensure that the obligations and potential fines are made clear, specific, and prominent in all written communications, not just where an individual electoral registration officer or local council chooses to do so. This is necessary because research conducted by the Electoral Commission showed some years ago that 60% of people think that the electoral registration process is automatic—this is why many people do not reply to communications about it The Government do not show much sign of genuine interest in maximising registration. How can I justify saying that? It took four years from when a Minister first agreed with me that it should be possible to include information about registering to vote when young people are notified of their national insurance numbers before the Government acted, and then in a minimal way—four years to add six words to a document letting young people know of a website through which they could find out about voting. And the information on the form about voting is just about the least pressing invitation to register that could be imagined I raised the issue of many young people being missing from electoral registers in the recent debate on a Private Member’s Bill about the voting age. In response, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Chisholm, praised the efforts of the voluntary organisation Bite The Ballot but seemed to be unaware that that organisation had to close more than two years ago. This was because the Government withdrew funding for its excellent initiatives, such as organising a national voter registration week. So, will the Minister say today what the Government will do to restore funding for such initiatives?