European Union Referendum (Voter Registration) Regulations 2016 — House of Lords, 2016-06-09
Topic: Government Operations
James Bridges (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I begin where I ended and repeat my thanks for the widespread support for this measure. Obviously, none of us wish to be in this situation but, that said, we are where we are I shall try to address as many of the points that have been raised as I can. If I fail to address all of them, I will obviously write to noble Lords. The noble Lord, Lord Maxton, asked about extending the date for postal votes. I am told that to do so would compromise the timing of returning such votes. I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Trefgarne for what he said about the scrutiny of this SI. We are obviously in an unprecedented situation and I thank him for his support The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lord Hayward both raised the issue of duplicates. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, knows a great deal about electoral matters, as does my noble friend. I do not want to get into a deep rabbit hole now but, as I said yesterday, we are considering ways in which the IER Digital Service can be enhanced. I note what the noble Lord said about these points. I am sure that we will continue to debate these matters further. The duplicates issue is one of the things this whole saga has thrown up. We need to look at it as part of the lessons learned process. I absolutely heed the points he made about the experience we have had so far. Attainers is one of these issues to which we come back again and again. I hope he will forgive me for saying that I need to get back to him on the Law Commission point. I am sorry that our minds have been somewhat distracted over the last 24 hours or so. I cannot give a full answer on that My noble friend Lord Hayward and the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, referred to working closely with EROs. We have been working extremely closely with EROs. As I said yesterday, we will certainly honour our commitment to cover reasonable costs. We are very grateful for their hard work. We will continue to remain in touch with them as time proceeds I will need to get back to my noble friend on the specific points he raised about postal votes. However, I can confirm that postal votes are opened only at the close of play of the referendum The noble Lord, Lord Wills, asked about promoting and communicating the decision. I thank him for the time he gave me this morning to discuss this matter. I need to remind your Lordships that obviously, the Government are prevented from publishing material that is, "designed to encourage voting at the referendum", by Section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. As the noble Lord knows—I mentioned it to him this morning—that provision obviously does not apply to the Electoral Commission. Since this morning, I have been in touch via my officials with the Electoral Commission, which obviously—although I put it on record again—is an independent body. I am assured that it is taking several steps today to make the public aware of the extension to the registration deadline. I have a list of things that body is doing: for example, promoting the message across social media; sharing communications and messages with regional counting officers; continuing its paid advertising promoting the EU referendum; and pointing people to the About My Vote website. The proof of the pudding will obviously be in the eating. Before I rose to speak, I looked at the number of people who are registering. That is running at about 2,000 who are online now, as far as I can see. Therefore, it is clear that the message is continuing to get out. We shall see how things progress during the evening and when the debate takes place this evening.