Orders of the Day — Electoral Administration Bill

House of Commons, 8 November 2005.

[Sir Michael Lord in the Chair]

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

I advise the Committee that the first joint report of last Session from the Constitutional Affairs and Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committees on Electoral Registration and the evidence taken before the Constitutional Affairs Committee on 2 November are relevant to today's proceedings. Copies are available in the Vote Office.

Clause 9 — Registration officers: duty to takenecessary steps

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I beg to move amendment No. 14, in clause 9, page 6, line 15, at end insert—

'(1) Each registration officer must take all necessary steps to remove individuals from the electoral register who are no longer eligible to remain on the register once they cease to be eligible.'.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

We welcome the intention of the Bill and the Government's belated recognition that all is not well in our once-envied electoral system. It is in urgent need of attention because there is much work to be done following years of neglect. While we support many of the Bill's provisions, there are problems with what it fails to include. That is certainly the case with part 2, and specifically with clause 9. The Bill contains many ideas, but very little is offered in terms of immediate and substantive reform of the electoral system.

A survey conducted by MORI earlier this year found that 54 per cent. of the public think that postal voting has made it easier to commit electoral fraud. An even higher percentage thought that electronic voting would increase fraud: 74 per cent. thought that that would be the case with voting by text message and 55 per cent. with voting by website. What is needed is genuine reform that will re-establish the integrity of the electoral system. What is also needed is a Bill that will crack down on the fraud that is detracting from the electorate's faith in our democracy. What we have, however, is a Bill that promises a lot, but does not deliver as much as it promises.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the MORI poll, which I think was conducted in May and June. Is he worried that such scientific research was conducted during a period in which there was wall-to-wall coverage in the press and on radio and television about postal ballot fraud? Surely, if changes are going to be made on the back of such research, it would have been better to carry it out at a more stable time.

Edward O'Hara (Labour, Knowsley South)

Order. Before the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) proceeds, I should like to draw the Committee's attention to the terms of the amendment. We are not at this point having a general debate on the Bill.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

To answer the question put by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), yes, if a survey were conducted at a different time, it might produce a different answer, but he will appreciate that there are real concerns about the integrity of our voting system. I certainly do not think that the Government would deny that.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I hope that my question is precisely on the matter for debate. One issue involving clear mischief is the repetition of names, either because people have moved and should have come off the register at address A when they registered at address B, or because they have registered in the same name at more than one place. Do the amendments, or the Bill, deal with that mischief? If not, can we ensure between us that we do so? The Minister and I know that this is an issue not only in our borough but elsewhere.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

That is an issue that we shall come to later.

We must be careful not to confuse the overriding need to preserve the integrity of the electoral system with the important but nevertheless secondary issue of increasing voter turnout. The registration process should provide an accurate, comprehensive and secure foundation for the conduct of elections. Registration is the building block on which all else rests. Without a credible system, talk of increasing voter turnout would only be counter-productive. We believe that British citizens should want to vote and should be proud of our democratic system. We also believe that steps need to be taken to facilitate that by making voting more secure and more accessible, but we do not believe in focusing on making it so easy to vote that people will vote just because it is easy to do so, rather than out of genuine democratic interest.

For these reasons, I want to focus on what needs to be done to ensure confidence in the integrity of our system. Preventing offences is clearly a more effective way to build public confidence than prosecuting offenders.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I want to ask the hon. Gentleman to address an essential point. Do the Opposition believe that it should be a priority for electoral registration officers to maximise the number of people on the register, to ensure the highest possible turnout at elections?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

We believe that and we support the provisions that say it, but we want electoral registration officers also to be responsible for ensuring that people who should not be on the roll are not on it. Indeed, the integrity of the system is, from our point of view, the priority issue.

Registration is the biggest single issue about which the Electoral Commission receives inquiries from the public. Between the start of February this year and polling day, the commission fielded almost 36,000 telephone calls about registration, representing two thirds of all inquiries. There were a further 318,000 visitors to the commission's voter registration website. Young people are most likely to be unregistered, with 16 per cent. of 18 to 24-year-olds unregistered—double the national average. The figure is similar for ethnic minorities and the unemployed, among whom 17 per cent. are unregistered.

Among the groups in society where registration rates are below average, lower turnout rates have also been recorded. Younger voters—those aged 24 and under—are almost half as likely to vote as the population as a whole.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

There is a legal duty to return the electoral registration form. Over the past five years, how many people have been fined for not doing so?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point that I will make on a later group of amendments. I believe that the answer is none or a negligible number.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

On postal ballot fraud, can the hon. Gentleman give the figures for the number of successful prosecutions at parliamentary or local government elections over the past two or three years?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I cannot, but I would be interested to hear those figures from the Minister.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

rose—

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

No, I shall make headway.

Longer-term analysis by the Electoral Commission suggests that there is a disfranchised generation that, as it gets older, will not turn out in greater numbers. We hear little as to what the Government propose to do about that. Increasing political awareness and interest must surely be at the heart of any attempt to increase turnout. If that issue is not tackled in conjunction with the Bill, increasing duties on electoral registration officers will, we agree, have little effect.

The commission raised particular concerns about the existing registration system, under which the head of household is much more likely to be registered than other eligible people in the home. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) will deal with that point later. We believe that individual registration is very much tied in with amendment No. 14, which is why I have taken some time to put the two together.

Clause 9, which will insert proposed new section 9A in the Representation of the People Act 1983, sets out a non-exhaustive list of the minimum steps that must be taken by the electoral registration officers to identify persons eligible for registration as electors—for example, making repeat house-to-house inquiries in connection with the annual canvass.

We support that clause and believe that there should be clear duties on registration officers to promote accurate registration. Nevertheless, the clause could go further in promoting not only registration, but an accurate register. We must recognise that over-registration and under-registration are both problems that need addressing.

We must all be clear about the fact that an accurate register that results in fewer people being registered is preferable, from our point of view, to a bloated, inaccurate register. If the registration system is secure and accurate, the risks further downstream in the electoral process are significantly reduced.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

There is a fundamental difficulty with that. If someone's name is inappropriately on the electoral register and he votes, he may commit an offence, but if someone's name is not on the electoral register, he has no recourse and is precluded from voting by the absence of his name.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point—I agree—but our position is that the integrity of the register in itself must be the priority. If there is no integrity within the electoral register, people's confidence in the system will only decline over time.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

Obviously, the rules can encourage under-registration or over-registration. Has the hon. Gentleman sized those two different problems? What is the percentage of over-registration compared with the percentage of under-registration for any one given register?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I do not have those figures, but I would be delighted to hear them from the Minister.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

May I tell the hon. Gentleman that the figures for under-registration are in the public domain and were produced by the Electoral Commission in September? The figure is between 3.5 million and 4 million people. If single signature or unique identifiers go ahead, there could be a further 10 per cent. drop—another 4 million. We might have 8 million people off the register as a result.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

The hon. Gentleman has been dying to give that statistic, and he has now given it.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

Does my hon. Friend agree that one can have under-registration and over-registration at the same time, because some people, as the hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) suggested, might be registered more than once without such an entitlement? The Government were happy to introduce a Northern Ireland electoral fraud Bill that was designed to prevent the phenomenon of some constituencies having more people registered than there were electors.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I agree with my hon. Friend: there can be over and under-representation on the same register, but the priority is to ensure that the register is as accurate as possible. That is the starting block of our democracy.

The amendment would ensure that registration officers had a clear duty to remove individuals from an electoral register who should not be on it. People who are no longer resident should be removed from the register, particularly in urban areas with a high population turnover. Keeping electors on the electoral roll who are no longer resident opens the door to election fraud. The amendment is designed to tackle the current problem of over-registration by creating this new duty for electoral registration officers to remove individuals from the register who are no longer eligible to be on it .

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for getting on to the terms of amendment No. 14. I understand that, under the 2000 legislation, electors are removed from the register and safeguards are in place, especially where no electoral registration form is returned. What additional over-registration is the hon. Gentleman trying to reach with this amendment?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

The hon. Gentleman will find that the situation varies dramatically from place to place. Best practice across the various electoral districts is a serious issue. The point of the amendment is that electoral registration officers should have a duty under the Bill in relation to those who should not be on the register, as well as in relation to those who should be on it. The wording of the amendment is no less important, if not more important, that that in the Bill.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

Will my hon. Friend explain to the Committee how this amendment, which I broadly support, would work in the case of someone sentenced to imprisonment? Would that not impose a duty on registration officers to remove such an individual's name from the register for the period of his incarceration?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

Yes, that would be correct. That is the law and electoral registration officers should be checking up on that.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

No, I will make some progress.

We acknowledge that the Secretary of State is given powers to add to the list contained in clause 9 but believe that the Bill should go further and that EROs should have an obligation under the clause to ensure that proactive steps are taken towards an accurate register, which would include removing individuals from the register who are no longer eligible to be on it.

We also acknowledge that clause 61 provides for the Electoral Commission to set performance standards for electoral administrators and that it envisages that the commission will set further standards for EROs to complement the minimum ones set out in clause 9, but is that not just another example of a clause that talks the talk but does not quite walk the walk, of which we will see a lot during consideration of the Bill? Why should we not clearly set out those further standards and all the duties and expectations of EROs in this clause? Obviously, we accept that some flexibility to add or modify the duties is desirable. Why not be a little bolder and set clear duties on the EROs? They would work more effectively if they knew their role and if their responsibilities were clearly defined.

I acknowledge the excellent work done by registration officers and other electoral staff and administrators. We must realise that increased burdens require increased training and possibly increased staffing levels. Has the Minister done any impact assessment of the additional costs that could be involved and how exactly they will be funded? It must be said that the Government's record in introducing new duties for local government and then providing inadequate resources is renowned. There are many instances of local authorities having to subsidise new duties because of insufficient Government funding. These are the issues that need to be addressed if the Bill is going to work.

The increased level of under-registration has also been of concern to all those involved in elections, but it is a distinct issue. In their report "Understanding electoral registration: the extent and nature of non-registration in Britain" of September 2005, the Electoral Commission estimated that 3.7 million people across England and Wales who are eligible to vote are not registered to do so. That means that approximately 8 per cent of those eligible to vote are not registered. I shall discuss that in more detail later.

Under the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001, there is an obligation on the head of the household to return the registration forms. Clearly, that is not being done and the fine that can be imposed is simply not being put into effect. Making individuals more accountable could be better achieved under a system of individual registration, where a duty to register would be easier to enforce and the obligations imposed by the amendment would be more easily enforced as well.

It is widely recognised that non-registration is not spread evenly across the population but is worse in certain areas and among certain sections of the population. That point demonstrates that individual registration will not necessarily increase voter turnout. Non-registration should be combated by targeting those parts of the population where it is particularly prevalent. If that is done in conjunction with the introduction of individual registration, we will be taking effective steps towards combating both over and under-registration.

We generally agree with the principle of the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) and with the idea that there should be duties on electoral registration officers both to keep an accurate register and to promote electoral registration. On a cautionary note, increasing political awareness and interest surely must be at the heart of any attempt to increase turnout. If the issue is not tackled in conjunction with the Bill, increasing duties on electoral registration officers may have little effect.

On the amendment tabled by the Liberal Democrats, we welcome any amendments that have the potential to deliver better access to electoral registration and voting for disabled people. However, I wonder whether the reference to the Disability Discrimination Act 2001 is correct and whether it should be 1995 or 2005.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

2005.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I thank the hon. Gentleman. We support the intention of the amendment and would appreciate it if the Minister looked further into the matters facing those with disabilities. The Bill should ensure that the voting process is accessible, from registration to the casting of the ballots, to all those with disabilities. We should certainly do all we can to ensure that the Bill complies with the disability equality duty contained in section 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe tabled amendments Nos. 28 and 29, and we support the general intention behind them, particularly in relation to how they could facilitate the better implementation of individual registration. On individual registration, we recognise that some form of roll-over measures may be needed, based on the experience of Northern Ireland. We concur with the views put to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee that we should move swiftly to individual registration with vigorous data swapping between electoral registration officers and utilities, the Post Office, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and others.

Amendment No. 28 places a welcome duty on registration officers to use the records and resources available to them to ensure an accurate register. As I have said, we believe that that should be the foundation of the electoral process. We also believe, however, that access to information should not be unfettered. While we support the intention of the amendment, it might be better to specify the type of information available for data sharing in this primary legislation. It may also be necessary to consider safeguards beyond the Data Protection Act 1998 to prevent unfettered access and possible abuse of information. I should be interested to hear the Minister's views.

We have similar worries about amendment No. 29. Effective and unencumbered data sharing would clearly make for an accurate register, but adequate safeguards would again be necessary. We support the use of data matching against other public registers to enable potentially eligible electors who are not yet registered to be identified and targeted more effectively. The implications of sharing information between local authorities, Departments and other agencies require detailed consideration by the expert agencies.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I was interested by the Opposition's approach. I was more heartened at the end of the speech by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) than I was at the beginning, once he had made it clear that he broadly supported measures aimed at improving the level of electoral registration. The wording of amendment No. 14 suggests that the Opposition's remit is to get people off the register rather than on to it. That was the major problem that I, along with many other Members, raised on Second Reading.

Currently, electoral registration is not fair. It is biased, and discriminates against people in inner-city areas, people in housing with multiple occupation, people who are young, people who are black and people from the Asian community. We must therefore find a better system to achieve fairer registration that more accurately reflects people's entitlement to register. I accept that people who have no entitlement should not be on the register—that goes without saying—but we must address this major problem as well.

I have a view on the moves we should be making and the long-term objective of completely revised electoral registration, and my amendments conform with that view. The annual canvass with a bit of information coming from one or two databases—such as council tax information—is a pretty inefficient way of compiling an electoral register. Over two or three months, a great deal of effort is put into going around and offering people the opportunity to provide information that is already available to electoral registration officers because the form was filled in a year earlier and nothing much has changed.

The joint report of the Constitutional Affairs Committee and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister Committee drew on evidence that we had seen in Australia, where electoral registration information is obtained from various databases and used to follow up individuals whose circumstances have changed. By doing that, rather than conducting an annual canvass of everyone, the authorities managed to produce a register which they told us they considered to be 98 per cent. accurate.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Yesterday I spoke to Sam Younger, head of the Electoral Commission. He shares my hon. Friend's view that filling in a form every year is not necessary, believing that once per parliamentary term or once every four years would be acceptable. Would my hon. Friend support that?

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Yes, I would be content to move in that general direction. I also feel that the whole House should thank my hon. Friend for all the work that he has done, and for gathering information and statistics about the extent of under-registration.

If we adopted a system under which data from a variety of organisations provided the basis on which electoral registration was carried out, we could, if we wished, also conduct an audit check by means of a canvass, say every three years. Electoral registration officers could then use their resources more effectively and spread out the check over a period, rather than trying to target everyone, irrespective of whether their circumstances had changed, within three months. That is very inefficient. I am seeking, through my amendments, to strengthen the current arrangements with a view to moving gradually towards the situation that I have just outlined.

One issue that emerged strongly during our Select Committee's deliberations was electoral registration officers' concern about whether they have the right—let alone a responsibility—to encourage people to get their name on the register. Their worry was that they might at some stage face a legal challenge, and might be getting into the political arena. Amendment No. 30 seeks to make it absolutely clear that we are not merely encouraging but requiring them

"to maximise the number of those entitled to register who do so."

That would remove any doubt, making it clear that EROs will not face a legal challenge in encouraging people to register. When we consider later clauses, I shall make it clear that I want a duty to be imposed on EROs to produce for the Electoral Commission an annual report on the extent to which they have achieved that objective. Indeed, I want the requirement to maximise registration to be imposed on the commission, as well. The commission does a lot of good in giving advice, but it would be worth while imposing on it the duty positively to achieve that objective.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

That excellent suggestion has my full support. However, local EROs should produce such reports not only for the commission but for their local electorates, to let them know how they are performing. That should be done on a national scale, and should perhaps involve a league table.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Perhaps, and if this House does not require that a league table be drawn up, someone doubtless soon will; perhaps my hon. Friend will have another job to do in that regard. Local council committees can scrutinise such reports annually, and it might not be a bad idea for the commission—should it be given this responsibility—to produce an annual report for Parliament, so that we can scrutinise how well it has performed overall.

On safeguards and scrutiny, our Select Committee hearing examined the idea of using a variety of databases. In general, data protection experts had no problem with that, so long as it is made clear that the information collected can be used for this purpose.

I am certainly prepared to listen to what my colleagues on the Government Front Bench have to say. The wording of my amendment may not be perfect, but I hope that they at least accept the thrust of the idea that we should make it clear that EROs have the right to access not merely information held by a council—it is clear that they already access council tax and benefits information, for example—but wider information. Let us consider a classic case. Local authorities used to have housing departments, whose information could be used by EROs. Housing departments as we traditionally understand them no longer exist, because stock transfers have taken place or arm's length management organisations have been created, as in the case of my Sheffield authority. It is not clear whether EROs have the right to seek information outside the council from arm's length, or completely separate and independent, bodies. It would clearly be wrong if the information historically used by EROs were suddenly removed as the result of a housing stock transfer.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

I have in my hand responses from EROs throughout the country, and it may surprise my hon. Friend to learn that not all take advantage of their current ability to consult local government databases, so a duty needs to be imposed on them to pursue such information. Many of them have said that they would welcome access to central Government databases, in order to improve their registers.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

The point that my hon. Friend makes is absolutely right. In Australia, for example, driving licence information is used, along with information from private companies, utilities and organisations in the public domain such as the post office. All those bodies have information about people changing their addresses. That is the fundamental basis on which electoral registration officers work, to ensure that the registers are as accurate as possible.

The amendments are not intended to be too prescriptive about precisely which information should be used; I am merely saying that we should broaden it beyond the information available to councils. I want to make it clear that registration officers should have the ability to use information from such individuals and organisations as the Secretary of State designates for that purpose.

My amendment No. 29 attempts to turn the position round by saying that it is not merely for electoral registration officers to have to seek the information; rather, certain organisations that have information about people's change of address—institutions such as universities, for example, which have information about individuals becoming 18 or moving to a particular area—should be required to notify the ERO. In the past, the two universities in Sheffield have adopted different approaches to supplying information about halls of residence. It is wrong if one set of students is more likely to be on the register than another, simply because of a particular decision of an individual officer within a university.

My amendments incorporate the various issues that I have mentioned. My Front-Bench colleagues may point to deficiencies in the wording, but I believe that there is a great deal of support for what the amendments are intended to achieve. We need to recognise that we have a serious problem of under-registration and that much data within councils, other public bodies, utilities and the private sector are readily available—all of which would make EROs' job much better and lead to a more accurate register. Many people not currently on the register could be on it in the future. I hope that Ministers are minded to accept, if not the precise wording, the intention behind the amendments.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I rise to speak to the group of amendments and, in particular, to the amendments standing in my name and that of my hon. Friends. I shall deal with the generality of the group of amendments first.

I am concerned that the Committee seems already to be getting into an either/or position: either we have to prioritise the integrity of the registration process and the ballot, or we have to maximise the number of people available. I have to say—not just because I am a Liberal—that there is a Goldilocks solution here. We do not want under-registration or over-registration; we want it to be just right. What we need, therefore, are provisions to maximise the integrity of the registration process, while at the same time ensuring that as many people as are eligible to vote are actually on the register and able to vote. I made that point on Second Reading.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

That is not a controversial statement, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that if we introduce too many security measures, it may well have an adverse impact on the number of people prepared to climb the hurdles in order to register to vote?

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I do, actually. If the hon. Gentleman listened to what I said on Second Reading, he would know that I disagreed with Conservative proposals relating to national insurance numbers. Not everyone in the country knows that number instantly, so it could prove an obstacle to registration, but that does not rule out the possibility of using other identifiers with which people are more familiar, particularly if they are more easily accessed. That could help to maintain confidence in the system.

I listened to what the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) said about amendment No. 14. I am afraid that it has changed the context in which we read the Bill. It is absolutely right that electoral registration officers should

"take all necessary steps to remove individuals from the electoral register who are no longer eligible".

Of course that should be a duty. However, making that the first duty, even before there is a duty to create the register, is not sensible. The first duty should not be to remove people from a register that is not yet created. The amendment certainly overstates the case a little.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

That is not what the amendment says.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Gentleman says that that is not what the amendment says, but it is. The clause deals with the duty of registration officers to take necessary steps. The amendment suggests at the end of line 15 that the first duty should be "to remove individuals".

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

It would be all right further down.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

It would be all right further down. That would be the right place, as it would suggest that the register's integrity was an important factor, but not one that outweighed any other consideration.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) was right, when speaking to his amendment No. 30, to stress the need to maximise the number of people entitled to register. I hope that the Bill contains a clear expression of that intention. I understand the objectives of his other amendments, and I admit that I am being pedantic, but the proposal in amendment No. 28 to give EROs not just a power but a duty to inspect

"any records held by any person or organisation as designated by the Secretary of State"

might involve them in rather more work than they had anticipated. We need access to any record, and EROs, as part of their duty to maximise the number of people on the register, should use the information available in a sensible way. Although the amendment is not worded quite right, my criticism is minor and I do not want to take anything away from the hon. Gentleman's intention.

My difficulty with amendment No. 29 is similar. I think that organisations should have a duty to provide information on request, but bureaucratic meltdown might result if the duty were to provide any bit of information that might ever be of value to an ERO whenever a database somewhere in the country was changed. I think that the job that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe wants done would be achieved by inserting into the Bill a duty to provide information on request and by giving EROs the power of inspection, provided that that was in the context of an overall and overriding duty to maximise the numbers of people on the register who are entitled to vote, and to remove those who are not so entitled.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

When we collect data, does my hon. Friend agree that we must ensure that things do not happen that we do not want to happen? For example, the names of people registered anonymously will not appear on the published register. If they move house, or if the details of their driving licences change, must not EROs be obliged to check out the facts, for reasons of personal security, before a name appears on the electoral register that should not appear there?

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

My hon. Friend is right. Multiple entries sometimes appear on the register that one would expect the ERO to notice. I have great respect for the EROs in my constituency, but my opponent in the general election did not register as a voter in my constituency until three months before the election. When he did, he appeared on the register at three different addresses in the same village. That surprised me a little.

Brian Binley (Conservative, Northampton South)

I am especially concerned about how databases are gathered. My business is the creation of databases, and I can tell the House that most of them are almost useless. Accurate information is vital to the election process, so I want to offer a word of warning that EROs should be wary about how it is collected.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point—although I must say that my business is being a Member of Parliament. He is right to say that a lot of databases are corrupted and that when one puts rubbish into a database one gets rubbish out. The register is too important to have rubbish put into it, and I accept the point that he makes.

We have to get through many groups of amendments in the next couple of hours, so I shall not speak at length. I shall briefly introduce amendment No. 1, which I tabled. As the hon. Member for Huntingdon said, it has a typographical error and should read "2005", not "2001". I think that that is what the original text said. All I seek from the Minister is clear guidance for registration officers that it is important to look after people with disabilities in the registration process as well as in the voting process. We are getting it right more and more in the voting process, but I am less convinced about the registration process.

Communication with people with disabilities needs to be appropriate, and that is not always the case. Canvass officers need the appropriate skills to communicate with people with disabilities and registration officers may need to use means of communication that are not the obvious ones. Instead of advertisements in newspapers, they might need to be placed in specialised forms of media that will reach those who would otherwise not be reached. The whole question of household registration as opposed to individual registration also needs to be considered. If one or two people in a house have disabilities, they may need specific and separate treatment to enable them to register correctly.

The Disability Discrimination Act 2005 will—I think—impose a duty on registration officers as of December 2006, and that general duty may cover all the issues that I have mentioned. However, this is an opportunity to be explicit before that date and ensure that a sector of the community is not effectively disbarred from taking part in the democratic process. That is the purpose of my amendment. I do not intend to press it to a Division, but I hope that the Minister will respond positively to it.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

I agreed with the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) when he said that this should not be an either/or argument between maintaining the integrity of the electoral register and making it as comprehensive as possible. I also agreed with my Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) when he reminded us of the situation in Australia, where they have compulsory voting. As he told us, 98 per cent. of the population there is on the electoral register, so we should examine the Australian experience carefully. I would not adopt compulsory voting: instead, I would reward people for joining the electoral register. That may sound a little eccentric or zany, but we could tweak income tax codes or enhance benefits and reward people for participating in elections, which is of course a civic duty.

I agree with amendment No. 14 that registration officers should be under a duty to remove names from the electoral register. At the last election, my Liberal Democrat opponent, Shazad Anwar, circulated leaflets saying that he lived at 34 Kibble Grove, Brierfield, with his wife, Raisa. When we looked at the register it showed that he also lived with his brother and two sisters, who also appeared on the electoral register in Burnley. We went back a further year and those same relatives appeared on both the Pendle and the Burnley registers for that year. We took the matter up with the police, who told us that they had been in touch with the town hall in neighbouring Burnley and it was the practice that if electoral registration forms for an address were not returned, the names were rolled forward on the register for 12 months. I have the letter from the police in front of me. That practice is not good enough, because if people think that the integrity of the electoral register is corrupted in some way, they will soon stop accepting the results of elections, especially close ones. These are important issues.

I want more registration. Currently, there is huge under-registration, but we must do everything we can to maintain the integrity of the electoral register. On that I agree with Opposition Front-Bench Members.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

I support my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) in his amendment. I also agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) that we need to increase registration, as there is undoubtedly under-registration. I thoroughly agree with the intention of his amendments even though, as he admitted, they may be not quite technically accurate enough for acceptance.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon is right to try to get the balance right, whether it be at subsection (1) or subsection (5). There should be a balance between an increase in registration and getting the register right. The hon. Member for Southport (Dr. Pugh) and other Members pointed out that there is far more under-registration than wrongful registration. That is a valid point, but our view is that it is also a question of confidence in the security of the electoral system—the point made by the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice)—and individual results may be influenced in local authority elections, for example. In such cases, there would certainly be scandal or invidious press comment and the whole process would become a shambles. I am sure that the Government do not want that any more than Members do. It is not a quantitative question, but one of confidence, and my hon. Friend's amendment addresses that squarely. If we can find that balanced approach, I am sure that the House can reach consensus on the issue.

Secondly, I want to raise a point that was brought to the attention of the House and the Minister by Dame Marion Roe, who was formerly the Member of Parliament for Broxbourne, and who is happily not entirely disengaged from politics as she is one of my constituents. She pointed out that probably many foreign nationals on the register are not Commonwealth, European Union or Irish citizens and are certainly not British citizens. They may be immigrants whose cases are in a pending tray at the Home Office and who are not properly yet entitled to be on the register. Somehow they get on to the register, not necessarily with fraudulent intent—they may simply have filled in a form that was thrust through their letterbox because they thought that they should. They may not have completed the form accurately because they do not understand the language. They may have filled it in because they thought that if they were not on the register they would not be able to claim benefits or have access to a parking scheme. They may be Turkish, Kosovan or some other nationality and they are not allowed to vote.

It is certainly the case, as the Minister may point out, that the recent change in the application form to require that people include their nationality should significantly deal with the issue. I think that requirement is on all the most recent application forms. That is good but it will not satisfactorily deal with the problem.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

May I raise with the hon. Gentleman a concern expressed to me at the general election? I have several Greek constituents who are British citizens. When they filled out the section on nationality, they said, naturally enough, that they were Greek. As a result, they were not allowed to vote at the general election, even though they took their passports to show that they were British citizens. Because they had inadvertently filled out their nationality wrongly they could not vote at the general election.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

Unfortunately, that shows that there is a downside to every improvement we try to make. On the whole, the inclusion of nationality on the form is reckoned to be a good thing and I support it. If there is a downside, it underlines the point I was making: it is not enough simply to register one's nationality; we must give EROs the right, and the duty if possible, to check it out. We need a checking process as well as a registering process. That is the way to deal with what is undoubtedly a problem.

I do not know how big the problem is. Perhaps the Minister knows.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

rose—

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has looked into the problem in detail, so he may know. I invite him to intervene.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

I have not got the exact information, but I will get back to the hon. Gentleman. Is not the greatest injustice that 37 per cent. of the black and ethnic population of this country are not on the register? He makes a point about keeping this or that nationality off the register, but if people must state their nationality, date of birth and national insurance number and if they must sign personally, each of those steps will take the 4 million unregistered people up to 8 million.

John Horam (Conservative, Orpington)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman's point about the mathematical facts. Undoubtedly, under-registration is a bigger issue numerically than wrongful or fraudulent registration—he makes that point very well—but confidence is also an issue. Amendment No. 14 rightly points to the fact that the public's attitude is an issue in how an election may be decided in certain circumstances. The Government should take this issue seriously. They should consider those foreign nationals who may be on the register unwittingly, not intentionally or fraudulently, and therefore give electoral registration officers the right and duty to investigate such matters, and encourage them to do so. That is the way forward.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I rise primarily to endorse the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), but before I do so I shall briefly comment on amendment No. 14 in the context of the way that it was moved: it was suggested that its rationale was that ensuring the register's security and accuracy should be given priority above all other considerations. Other hon. Members have spoken about the need for balance. I want to go further by saying quite clearly that what we have in this country is a crisis of under-registration. Over-registration may or may not exist—there are one or two constituencies where more than 100 per cent. of the estimated local electorate appear on the electoral register—and although I recognise that a balance and proper security measures are needed, we need to address the significant problem of under-registration.

The fact that somewhere between 3.5 million to 4 million people—about 9 to 10 per cent. of the population—are missing nationally from the registers has been mentioned already. In parts of the capital, particularly in inner London, the figure rises to somewhere in the region of 20 per cent. of the population. Although I accept some of the previous suggestions that perhaps we do not need an annual rolling register, there are certain parts of the country where it may well be necessary to keep such a register to achieve accuracy, and London is an example.

Andrew MacKinlay (Labour, Thurrock)

Has my hon. Friend taken cognisance of the fact that, particularly in London, a growing number of people have two homes? We should encourage them to be registered at both homes, especially as they have a legitimate interest in municipal government, but many of them will be exercised by the fact they could be twice required to serve on a jury in two jurisdictions. I wonder whether he and my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister will consider allowing such people to opt for jury service in one of the areas where they have a home, rather than in both. Such a double requirement serves as a disincentive for people to register in London.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I note the point that my hon. Friend makes; the Minister may wish to respond to it later.

I shall take my constituency as an example of the consequences of under-registration. About 10,000 people who live in my constituency are not registered. As a result, we had to go through in a boundary redistribution, as did every constituency in the country. Although my area has the same number of seats—in fact, the changes made locally are relatively minor—a significant number of seats disappeared nationally. That leads to the conclusion that the number of people not registered significantly contributes to the reduction in representation in different parts of the country.

John Pugh (Liberal Democrat, Southport)

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that such things as Government grant are based on the number of people whom the Government believe to be living in a place. The most deprived areas thus suffer from inaccuracies in the electoral register because although many people live there and are in need, there is a shortfall of people on the register.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

Interestingly enough, we have no representative from the London borough of Westminster. Such a point about the borough's estimated population was raised at the time of the census. The situation causes real problems. The under-registration in my constituency means that we often do not get the central support that we would perhaps receive if everyone were on the register.

That situation is the backdrop to any consideration of the amendments. Of course, clause 9 is at the heart of what the Bill is trying to achieve. Everyone would agree with the proposal in amendment No. 14 that electoral registration officers should be aware that people who are ineligible to remain on the register should be removed from it. We should remind electoral officers of that, but it is not the primary focus of what the clause should achieve.

Adam Afriyie (Conservative, Windsor)

We are in a bit of danger of confusing two issues. Registration officers have a duty to facilitate registration, but encouraging registration is a completely separate issue. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that such encouragement is perhaps a political activity, rather than a registration activity?

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

The hon. Gentleman will find that other measures give electoral registration officers the powers and resources with which they can try to ensure that as many people as possible are aware of their right to register for, and participate in, elections. A line must be drawn when an attempt to encourage people to register and participate shaves into political considerations. However, the Bill does a good job by drawing the line in the right place.

I did not want to comment on amendment No. 14 in any great detail. I hope that the Minister will treat it in the way in which the Opposition intended. We should remind electoral registration officers of their duty to ensure that they maintain an accurate register and I hope that that duty will be encapsulated in the final version of clause 9. However, that duty is not the essence of what the clause is about.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe go to the heart of the concerns that many hon. Members have expressed. Clause 9 simply requires registration officers to maintain the register. We must, of course, ensure that the register is accurate and that people who wish to be placed on it may do so, but a greater sense of urgency and priority is needed, so we should encourage officers to maximise the numbers on the register, which would be the effect of amendment No. 30. Although the wording of that amendment might not be acceptable to the Minister, I hope that she will take on board the spirit in which it was tabled and the support that I suspect it would receive among hon. Members.

I am pleased that amendments Nos. 28 and 29 have been tabled because the question of data sharing goes to the heart of what we can do to try to maximise the number of people on the register. I have talked to my electoral registration officer at great length about what can be achieved by knocking on doors and sending letters. It is extremely difficult to boost the number of people on the register by using simply those mechanisms. We need information from data sources so that we can target the people who are not on the register more effectively. I accept that there might be data protection problems with that. Additionally, we should not set up a mechanism that would overload electoral registration officers because they can do only a certain amount of work with the limited resources available to them.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Research from the Electoral Commission shows that many of the 3.5 million to 4 million people who are not on the register are unemployed, so does my hon. Friend think that it would be a good idea to use the central Government's unemployment register? Many such people are poorly paid, so should we use tax credit registers, such as that for child tax credit? Many such people live in social housing, so would it be a good idea to use housing records on public, social and private sector housing, especially those for houses in multiple occupation and caravan parks?

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

I would endorse all those sources, but we could use other data sources, such as the comprehensive records of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Swansea. Indeed, the judicious use of a mix of other local and national sources should make it possible not to overload electoral registration departments with too much work. That would be one of several mechanisms through which we could ensure that we were targeting people who were not on the register.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

Problems would be likely to arise when drawing on data from other sources when individuals wished to protect their anonymity. The Bill makes sensible provision for anonymous registration in certain circumstances. How does the hon. Gentleman suggest that data from the register on child tax credit should be deployed? Should people's names simply go on to the electoral register, or should an approach be made not only to ensure that such people exist, but to determine whether they wish to have their names recorded in public or private?

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

Any information that goes alongside the name and address of a person claiming child tax credit should of course remain confidential and none of it should be shared with anyone. Before any such changes took place, we would need to ensure that people who put themselves on any of the registers about which we are talking were aware that basic information about their names and addresses could well be used for electoral registration purposes. It goes without saying that we would need to consult the data registrar to ensure that we were not falling foul of any of the many provisions that exist to protect an individual's anonymity. I would certainly not want this or any other Bill to tamper with such necessary protections. However, given all the different data sources that we have, surely we can find appropriate sources through which we would not fall foul of such provisions and that would give electoral registration officers the targeted information that they need.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I accept my hon. Friend's point about the need to get the right data sources. He mentioned resources. I am partly arguing that resources could be switched in the longer term from canvassing people whose circumstances have not changed, to getting more useful information from other data sources. In the meantime, does he accept that we might have to spend more money on our electoral registration process and perhaps even think about giving local authorities a specific grant in recognition of the fact that we are creating electoral registers throughout the country that will eventually be used for national purposes?

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

Yes, I accept that point. I am pleased that my hon. Friend raises that matter at such an appropriate time.

The Government have made an announcement on the money that will accompany the implementation of the Bill, which is welcome. I ask for two things regarding the resources that will be made available. First, when the Bill has completed its passage through Parliament there should be a recalculation so that the resources provided are adequate to ensure the implementation of powers to improve registration. Secondly, and perhaps even more importantly, those resources should be ring-fenced. Advertising resources will be ring-fenced to enable electoral registration officers to persuade people to go on to the register. However, all the resources for electoral registration purposes should be ring-fenced because there are great worries among local authorities that additional resources may, as happens on many other occasions, filter out of electoral registration into other local government services. However, we want to ensure that the resources dedicated to the Bill are spent on electoral registration.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Is my hon. Friend aware that the Department does not know how much is spent by each electoral registration office, so if additional money is provided we do not have a baseline for judging how much has been given? We need to collect and collate information on how much each office spends per elector so that we can monitor the situation.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

My hon. Friend is right that there has been a great lack of transparency in this area. I hope that by giving powers to the Electoral Commission the Bill will succeed in providing transparency, so that figures are available both locally and nationally and we can ensure that registration and the provision of resources are satisfactory.

As I said at the beginning of my speech, we commend the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe, which encapsulate the targets and priorities that Government Members and, indeed, many Opposition Members support. I do not have any difficulty with the other two amendments in the group, and I am sure that with some good will we can achieve a balance so that we can protect the register and ensure that it is accurate, while at the same time we can reach the largest possible number of people missing from the register and put them where they deserve to be—on the register and able to vote in local and national elections.

Peter Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

I do not intend to speak at length on this group of amendments. However, clause 70 does not apply to Northern Ireland. The Electoral Commission says that the Government intend to introduce legislation for Northern Ireland to deal with some of the problems that that entails, but it is essential that that legislation reproduce the propositions in clause 9. I wholeheartedly endorse the standards that the Government are attempting to apply to electoral officers in clause 9. If that standard had been included in legislation affecting Northern Ireland in the past few years, when electoral law was tested on us before it was tested on the rest of the nation, the number of people falling off the register would have been very different.

Will the Government confirm that clause 9 will be replicated in the Northern Ireland legislation that is to follow? Can they tell us whether that legislation will be introduced soon, because it would be wrong to head into a general election without all parts of the United Kingdom having the same standards of registration? Hon. Members have referred to the Northern Ireland experience, and the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) is right to say that the issues that impact on GB are not entirely the same as the issues that impact on Northern Ireland. He said that there is a crisis of under-registration in Great Britain, but in Northern Ireland there was a crisis of over-registration.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The hon. Gentleman said that there is not a crisis of under-registration in Northern Ireland. When the changes were implemented there, registration went down to 86 per cent. Some of that reduction was about getting rid of guff on the register, but registration has since climbed to only 91 per cent., so 9 to 10 per cent. of the Northern Irish electorate are disfranchised because they are not on the register. Is that not a crisis?

Peter Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

No. The hon. Gentleman's case rests on an assumption. It was well documented that many people had registered themselves at a number of address throughout Northern Ireland, and there were also people on the electoral register who had died many years before but still managed to come out to vote. There are some dangers in not coming out in person to vote, but the dead could still do so by post. Those issues, however, can be dealt with by other legislative changes. Many of the people who were removed from the register should not have been on it in the first place.

I accept that the greater the number of personal identifiers included on the registration form, the more difficult and off-putting it is to fill in the form. I do not think that anyone can provide any precise statistics about the impact of such a measure, but in Northern Ireland people were not put off registering because they were asked to give their signature and date of birth. They were not even put off by being asked to include their national insurance number. I accept the Conservative argument that the national insurance number offers an advantage in cutting out fraud. There were two linked problems in Northern Ireland. The requirement for individual registration, rather than registration by the head of the household, reduced the numbers on the register considerably. The decision was right, but the requirement to register annually was problematic. If it is difficult to comply with all the additional registration requirements, it becomes increasingly frustrating to do so every year.

All the political parties in Northern Ireland supported the Government's decision to change the requirement for annual registration, as has been said. Annual registration may not be necessary if we tie down the requirements for personal identifiers. We will deal with many of those issues later in Committee, so I simply wish to secure an assurance from the Government that everything in the clause, which I fully support and which they are right to introduce, will be included in the Northern Ireland legislation.

There is no inconsistency between the clause and the Conservative amendment. It is entirely legitimate to attempt to comply with the two main requirements of the legislation. We should attempt both to increase participation in the democratic process by ensuring that as many people as possible are registered and to remove people who are fraudulently registered.

One may quibble about whether or not it is their first duty, but it is the electoral officer's duty to make sure the register is as accurate as possible. If the provisions in clause 9 had applied to Northern Ireland, the fall in registration would not have occurred. Such provisions, combined with an end to annual registration, could lead to a marked change in Northern Ireland.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

I want to make a couple of brief comments on matters to which other hon. Members have not referred.

On over-registration and under-registration, my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) has referred to Westminster city council. I think that connecting the electoral register to other local government functions creates a problem. Westminster city council not only has a problem with people with two homes, but links residents' parking permits with the electoral register. The difficulty is that if someone with a parking permit moves on, it is definitely not in their interests to tell Westminster city council about the change of address, if they want to keep the permit.

Linking other functions to registration also creates under-registration. When electoral registration was connected to the payment of the poll tax, we saw the first catastrophic drop in registration. Those of us who campaign in elections know that it is common to visit a house in which a couple, or perhaps a family, live, but only the woman of the household is registered, which possibly allows people to claim a council tax discount by having only one adult in the household. It is interesting that Electoral Commission research shows that 8 per cent. of men are not registered, compared with 6 per cent. of women. If we want to improve the integrity of registers, which is an objective for all parties, we should make it clear that local government should start to split functions and not link items such as residents' parking permits with the electoral register, which causes problems.

I disagree with the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) that encouraging registration is somehow a political activity. Encouraging participation and registration is a proper function of councils, and we must get over the idea, which some local government officers have, that it is not.

Adam Afriyie (Conservative, Windsor)

If registration officers can pull in other data sources and have a duty to encourage participation, I am concerned that they will choose a data source that matches the profile of a particular political party, because modern campaigning techniques give parties a clear profile of who votes for them.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

I do not believe that that is an issue, because we are not into that territory, yet.

Last week, the Constitutional Affairs Committee held an evidence session with the Electoral Commission. Conservative Members have discussed either creating barriers to registration or encouraging participation, and the Electoral Commission is now inclined to discuss the situation in terms of a spectrum from creating barriers to registration to encouraging participation. It does not see one function as superseding the other; it sees the situation as a spectrum, and we should accept the existence of that spectrum. If we want to encourage participation and to get the maximum number of people registered—people cannot participate if they are not registered—we must focus on the barriers.

Some of the ideas that we have discussed would create barriers to registration. When the Electoral Commission conducted its research, it asked people why they did not register. Those people said that registration is "old-fashioned", "time-consuming" and "a chore". In some parts of the country and among some age groups and ethnic minorities, there are already people who do not register, because they think it "a time-consuming chore". We must be cognisant of that point, because everything that we add to the process makes it more of a chore and more time consuming. I cannot agree to proposals such as adding national insurance numbers to registration.

On electoral registration officers seeing it as their job to encourage registration and participation, it is key that the process is not understood: people assume that the council automatically registers people; they do not understand the process; they think that they are already registered; or they do not see the benefits. Encouraging registration is clearly an educational task and is in no shape or form a political activity.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

We have had a wide discussion on the amendment. I shall begin by discussing the spirit of the Bill and how its objectives will be implemented.

The Government, working with electoral registration officers at a local level, are responsible for achieving three things, in the light of which we have considered all the amendments. Everybody who is entitled to vote should be registered to vote, and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have acknowledged that universal suffrage is the basis of the franchise. We are not discussing numbers or an abstract register—we are discussing an individual's right to vote.

We should be concerned about every individual who does not have the right to vote, because they are not on the electoral register. In discussing his amendment, the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) failed to give that point sufficient importance, because all other hon. Members who have spoken acknowledged it. He argued that the importance of ensuring that there is no fraud must be the priority and that everything else can be overlooked. We must have full registration and high levels of participation, and we must tackle fraud. Those are our three objectives, none of which is optional.

Some hon. Members have mentioned different numbers—my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) is obviously the numbers guru in Committee. Hon. Members who represent constituencies with high registration levels must be baffled to hear us going on about the problems of under-registration. Electoral registration officers sometimes think that Electoral Commission estimates are exaggerated, so I conducted a survey in my constituency surgeries over a number of weeks.

I hold my surgeries in Southwark town hall and limit the number of people who attend to 60. I filled in people's names and addresses on a form and ended consultations by saying, "Sign here to go on the electoral register." Quite a few people said, "I am already on the register", to which I replied, "It doesn't matter. If you are already on the register, they will bin this application form. Sign here, and I will take the form down the corridor to the electoral registration officer." I put a big fluorescent "H" on each form to allow the electoral register officer to see how many people were not registered. Of people attending my surgeries, 30 per cent. were eligible to be on the register, but were not registered. We must always remember that those are real people who have the right to vote.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

I understand the good intent with which the Minister conducted her survey. Does she agree that sometimes the same person is registered twice at an address simply because, for example, they use different forms of their Christian name for formal and informal activities—they might call themselves "John" in one context and "Jack" in another? The Minister's survey may have advanced that process.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

When I took those forms along to the electoral registration officer in Southwark, she did not think that the names were not exactly the same or that the surname and the first name were in a different order. We must recognise the major problem of under-registration. One of this Bill's objectives is to tackle that problem, because we cannot have a situation in which people in our democracy do not have the right to vote.

The question involves not only individuals not having the right to vote, but social cohesion. Under-registration is not evenly spread throughout the community—it is a particularly worrying feature among black and ethnic minority communities, people living on council estates and poorer people. If we want our democracy to include everybody, we must go the extra mile to ensure that everyone is registered and that our democracy does what it says on the tin.

Brian Binley (Conservative, Northampton South)

I take the Minister's point that everybody should have the right to vote, but surprising numbers of people are excluded because of incompetence and inefficiency. Can she assure me that she will review training to ensure that local government is properly equipped and resourced to undertake it?

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

That is certainly the intention.

We want to have full registration, to encourage participation and to be absolutely sure that no one fiddles the vote, which is important for the legitimacy of our democracy and the confidence that people have in it. I appreciate that we cannot play the numbers game on fraud. We cannot say that 3 million people are not registered but 3 million people are not committing fraud. Wherever fraud is identified it causes a real problem with public confidence. We must treat it with the utmost seriousness in every single ward and constituency where it occurs, because people must have confidence that those who are elected are their proper representatives in our democratic system.

David Taylor (Labour, North West Leicestershire)

My right hon. and learned Friend undertook an interesting exercise at her advice sessions. I did something similar by linking those who turned up with those on the marked register who had used their vote in the most recent election. In North-West Leicestershire, 70 per cent. of people vote and 30 per cent. abstain, but of the people who come to advice sessions nearer half do not bother to use their vote. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that there is a lot of work to be done between registration and participation?

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

I do agree. Social inequality is a problem in terms of participation as well as registration. It used to be the case that although people's educational status and health status were very much affected by their socio-economic status, the one thing that remained equal was the likelihood of their participating in an election, which showed no class differentiation. Worryingly, that has changed in the course of the past three elections. The Institute for Public Policy Research has looked at the numbers and identified a growing gap in terms of the likelihood that those in poorer communities will not vote. In a socially cohesive country and an egalitarian democracy, we must pay attention to people being on the register and participating in the electoral system.

Gordon Prentice (Labour, Pendle)

What about people who have pots of money—those who have second homes? Would it not be more equitable to have dual registration so that people vote where they spend most of their time, instead of being able to choose where to vote, perhaps in a marginal where it would count for more?

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

Most of those who are registered in two places are students. Because we do not know when the election will fall, it is not sensible to require people to choose in which of two places they will ultimately vote.

The spirit of the Bill is all about encouraging registration and participation and countering fraud, and we are establishing a framework on which to do that. We will place new duties on electoral registration officers, give them new powers, and have a new performance standards regime backed up by adequate resources. Several of the issues that hon. Members raised focused on the electoral registration officers' duties and powers and, until now, their lack of performance standards and inadequate resources.

Andrew Gwynne (Labour, Denton and Reddish)

The Minister is right to mention resources. During the recent general election, several people came to me having realised that they were not registered to vote and said that they had not registered because they were expecting a knock on the door from the local authority. That knock never came, because for several years the local authority has not been conducting annual censuses on a door-to-door basis. Does the Minister think that that should be addressed?

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

I can assure my hon. Friend that those people will get a knock on the door, not once but twice if they do not fill in the form and get registered the first time. It is right that we have independent electoral registration officers, but the performance standards that are laid down in the Bill will ensure that we have common high standards for electoral registration, as well as transparency and accountability.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd rightly said that we do not know how much each individual registration officer spends in their area or the total amount spent on electoral registration. Under the Bill, electoral registration officers will be required to report to the Electoral Commission on what they are doing, how it is working, and how much they are spending on it. That transparency will enable us to compare neighbouring authorities, to see what is working and what is not. It is a basic building block to ensure that the citizens of this country become enfranchised by being on the register and able to vote.

Data sharing is very important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) said. A basic commonsense issue is involved here. People are exasperated if they turn up to vote and are told, "You can't vote because you're not on the electoral register." They say, "How can the council say that I don't live there—they sent me a council tax bill yesterday?" We must be cognisant of data protection issues but also use common sense. People do not understand why an electoral registration officer in a local authority does not use the information that it holds. That is a question not only of the legal powers to use data but of operational practice. Such practice varies because individual registration officers interpret the rules differently—for example, some might interpret them as permissive but decide that they are not going to use the data. They should have a clear understanding of the data that it is right for them to refer to, because those data will help them to understand where there are gaps on the register.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Will the use of local government databases be monitored on a national scale? Can we be specific about which ones we would like electoral registration officers to see, and can they be specific about which ones they use?

Will the Minister consider—I have pushed her about this in the past—introducing secondary legislation to give EROs access to central Government databases as soon as possible, and not leave it until two or three years down the road, so that we can move forward at the same time at local and central Government level?

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

I can reassure my hon. Friend that we will do that as well as ensuring that electoral registration officers use the information that is already available to them for cross-referencing. They can already examine council tax records, housing benefit registers, council rent records, and the records of the planning, education and social services departments. No primary or secondary legislation is needed for that. They can also examine Royal Mail records, because they are allowed to do that by custom and practice.

We will consider the records that existing powers do not cover but which could be covered by secondary legislation, and whether such legislation is a good idea. That is, therefore, already on our agenda. Such information includes records held by other local authorities, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, TV Licensing, the Inland Revenue, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Land Registry. Indeed, a woman whose daughter had just become 18 but was not on the electoral register asked, "How come my daughter's not on the register? You know she's 18 because you've just written to tell me that her housing benefit's being stopped." People do not understand that.

I believe however that data sharing is important not only to get people on the register and fill the gaps in it but to tackle fraud. Proper data sharing should have solved the problem that my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) identified. The records should have been checked to work out who was there and the appropriate action should then have been taken. Data sharing is for preventing fraud as well as ensuring full registration.

I accept the spirit of the amendment that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) tabled on disability. Electoral registration officers are already covered by the Disability Discrimination Act 2001, which will be fully implemented, as he said, by December next year. The amendment is therefore unnecessary for changing the law, but he was right to table it. We are not simply considering one's right to participate on the day, but electoral registration officers going the extra mile to ensure that people with disabilities that might impede their registration are registered.

Amendment No. 14 would provide:

"Each registration officer must take all necessary steps to remove individuals",

and so on. That already happens. Electoral registration officers' responsibility is not simply to have loads of people on the register but to ensure that it is complete and accurate. That is implicit and explicit in their duties.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe asks us to make it a duty for electoral registration officers to "maximise" the number of people entitled to vote who do so. I believe that our approach of requesting a complete and accurate register and setting out on the face of the Bill the extensive steps that must be taken to achieve that, including sending more than one form, knocking on the door more than once, inspecting the records, and training officials to find hard-to-reach voters, will mean a culture change. That will be effected by the Bill and the performance standards, which will be keenly examined by hon. Members of all parties. For the first time, we shall be able to see what is happening because of the greater transparency. I therefore believe that the spirit of the amendment will be enacted.

The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) asked about extending the provision to Northern Ireland. My colleagues in the Northern Ireland Office are considering the matter, but I shall draw his remarks to their attention.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Will my right hon. and learned Friend consider that including the word "maximise" in the Bill might make it absolutely clear that we are intent on that aim? I acknowledge that all the steps that have been taken lead in that direction, but I believe that there is a general feeling in the Committee that specifying "maximise" might be helpful.

I take it that my right hon. and learned Friend will not accept my specific amendments on data sharing and is considering introducing secondary legislation. Will she give me an assurance that she will examine the range of possibilities that has been mentioned today? I am especially concerned about cases of, for example, one local authority having access to its council housing records when another does not—that means different approaches—and, as happens in Sheffield, of electoral registration officers having access to information from a sixth form in a school but not in a college.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

We shall consider both the information that electoral registration officers use and information that they might not currently have the power to use but which, we believe, they need. Those points are already well understood. We are determined to ensure that everyone who is entitled to vote is on the register. Whether we call it "maximising" the register or having a complete register is simply a matter of words, but I agree with the spirit of my hon. Friend's amendments, which is embodied in the Bill, that no one who is eligible should be denied the right to vote. Everyone who is eligible should be able to vote by being on the electoral register.

Our debate has been useful as well as lengthy and we have considered the matter widely. There is a large measure of agreement, but I ask hon. Members not to press their amendments.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I shall be brief. If there is no integrity in the register, there is little on which to base a democratic system. Hon. Members have agreed with that point today. The Minister implied that our amendment was exclusive from the Government's proposal, but that is not what I said. We believe that the amendment is complementary. We support the Bill but believe that it does not contain the balance, which all hon. Members have discussed. We want that to be addressed. However, given that we will cover the matter again when we consider individual registration, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10 — Anonymous registration

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 7, line 17, at end insert—

'(2A) In determining whether the safety of a person, or of his child (who resides at the same address), is at risk in accordance with subsection (2), the applicant must provide written evidence from a government or local authority body or the police to illustrate that risk. A desire for privacy in itself shall not be grounds for anonymity unless there is evidence of ongoing risk to personal safety.'.

Sylvia Heal (Deputy Speaker, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 2, in page 7, line 29, leave out from 'address' to end of line 30 and insert

'an entry is to be made in accordance with section 9 above.'.

No. 3, in page 8, line 18, leave out from 'registered' to end of line 20 and insert

'in pursuance of a further application.'.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

The clause has wide-ranging support, not only from us, but from bodies such as the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers—SOLACE. We even called for such a provision during the passage of the Representation of the People Act 2000.

Establishing a system of anonymous registration for people whose safety could be compromised if their addresses were known represents a helpful step forward. The amendment would prevent overuse and abuse of the protection of anonymity. It also includes risk to children. There is clearly a need to protect children living in the same household whose safety may be at risk if details of the parent are included on the public register. I should be grateful if the Minister dealt with that.

Non-registration prevents an individual not only from voting, but, under the provisions of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, from donating to a political party or referendum campaign. Given that parties must check that a donor is on the register, clear processes need to be in place so that they can verify and accept donations from electors who are "anonymous". Will the Minister confirm that parties can verify and accept donations from "anonymous" electors?

There is a need for clear criteria for anonymity, rather than leaving it up to the personal opinion of the electoral registration officers, which could change from place to place and lead to inconsistency of application. The amendment would require written evidence from a Government or local authority body or the police to show that a risk exists. The bodies would confirm the existence of the risk. That would prevent anonymity being granted to people whose safety is not genuinely at risk.

An interesting comparison is with the confidentiality orders in relation to company directors pursuant to section 723B(1) of the Companies Act 1985. An individual who is or proposes to become a director or secretary of a company and who considers that the availability for inspection by members of the public of particulars of his usual residential address creates, or is likely to create, a serious risk that he or a person who lives with him will be subjected to violence or intimidation, may make an application to the Secretary of State for a confidentiality order. Is it envisaged that the granting of anonymity under this clause will operate in a similar way, but with applications being made to the relevant registration officer rather than to the Secretary of State? Is the Minister not concerned about the inconsistency of application that might arise from this differing application? What exactly will be the threshold for the granting of anonymity?

It seems an unfair expectation to place on registration officers that they should be able, alone, to determine safety risks associated with public registration. Perhaps giving electors the right to appeal the local registration officer's decision to the Secretary of State would be a way forward. This, along with wider powers of consultation, would allow for consistency of application, while at the same time allowing appropriate determination on a case-by-case basis. Will the Minister look into this and provide reassurances that the clause will be tightened to ensure that it is not open to abuse, that registration officers will have sufficient support in making a decision on anonymity, and that application of this clause will be consistent between electoral registration officers?

I understand that, once the electoral canvass has been received, the Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2001 place a duty on the head of a household to return the form with the names of those in the household, whether or not they are eligible to vote. Perhaps the Minister will clarify this point. In other words, there is a duty to register, albeit a duty involving the out-of-date notion of a head of household. However, this seems to be contradicted by proposed new section 9B(6) to the Representation of the People Act 1983, which is dealt with in clause 10, and which seems to contain a loophole whereby the duty to register could be avoided in the event of an unsuccessful application for anonymity. Might that not encourage spurious applications to be made in order to avoid being placed on the electoral roll? That is a loophole that our amendment would close, although subject, I would hope, to an appeal to the Secretary of State.

Celia Barlow (Labour, Hove)

I applaud the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) over consistency, as well as his support for registration officers, and the inclusion of children in his amendment, but I am worried that victims of domestic violence who are moving to a new place, and a new life, might be concerned as to whether their anonymity was adequately safeguarded. Madam Speaker, the police and local authorities at their new location should not be privy to their distressing past. The involvement of the police at their original home, for example, might have involved litigation that the person had fled that home to avoid. I am also worried, Madam Speaker, that, despite the location of such vulnerable people being kept strictly anonymous by the registration officer, if they should lose their right to appear on the register, that location could be revealed in a way that does not happen at the moment.

There are many reasons why a person would want to stay on the electoral register. In my constituency of Hove and Portslade, for example, it is impossible to get a parking permit without being on the register. I am also worried about some of the wider issues involved. Article 8 of the European convention on human rights states that a person's right to privacy should not be interfered with unless it

"is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

I cannot see how that relates to placing a vulnerable person's name on a register that can be publicly viewed.

Also, if I understand the proposal correctly, if a person failed to provide evidence involving the local authority or the police, their name could be revealed on the register that can be purchased. In other words, such people's protection would be reduced rather than increased. Some of my hon. Friends might disagree with the present situation in which we do not have compulsory voting, but article 8 of the ECHR allows for that privacy to be maintained, and takes precedence over a rule that does not insist that a person should vote. I also fail to understand how it would be in the interest of these vulnerable people to force them to give written evidence in support of their claim for privacy. I hope that the hon. Member for Huntingdon will withdraw his amendment.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am grateful for that advice, Mrs. Heal.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

A timely prompt.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I do not think that I needed one, actually.

I commend the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) for tabling the amendment, because it probes the intentions of the Government, and it is of value to understand them. I was slightly worried that, at one point, the hon. Member for Hove (Ms Barlow) was going to demolish the whole principle of the electoral register on human rights grounds. I hope that that is not a path that we shall go down, although I know that she was doing it for the best of purposes.

We have compulsory registration in this country, so the proposal is welcome in providing for the safety of individuals. The Minister might like to consider whether it would be appropriate for a court to make an order under domestic violence legislation that a person not be added to the electoral register, or that they be allowed to make an anonymous registration. I also agree that this matter should not be trivialised, and that we should not allow considerations of celebrity to be equated with risk. That could be an all too likely consequence of the Bill unless its intentions are made very clear.

Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 deal with a slightly different matter. I am genuinely confused, because proposed new section 9B(6) seems to say that, if someone applies for an anonymous registration and fails, they should be removed from the register altogether. That does not seem consistent with the general terms of registration or with the expectation in the Bill that we should maximise voter registration. It would seem appropriate that, if someone were not entitled to anonymous registration, their application should be put into the register in the normal way. Of course, it might be expedient to put it into the part of the register that is not distributed; as we know, the register is now produced in two versions. It seems very odd that someone who has applied for anonymous registration, and who presumably does live at the stated address and has been checked out and found to be someone who should be properly registered, should, by statute, not be registered because they have failed to convince a registration officer that they were entitled to anonymous registration.

Similarly, proposed new section 9C(3) states that, when someone ceases to be registered anonymously, they are required to be removed from the register unless they make a further application, rather than simply being added to the register as an ordinary registration, which logic would suggest is what ought to happen. Perhaps there is some cunning intent on the part of the Government here, or perhaps the drafting of the Bill leaves something to be desired. I would be grateful to find out from the Minister which it is.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

I do not think that there is any cunning intent. We are just trying to be sensible here, and to ensure that everyone gets registered to vote, and that those who have fled domestic violence are not deterred from registering to vote because they fear that they will appear on an electoral register. However, we do not want to introduce a blanket provision under which everyone could sign themselves off the register. We have therefore sought to introduce a special provision that allows for an application for an anonymous registration.

However, if the default position, after an application for an anonymous registration runs out or fails ab initio, is that the person goes straight on to the register, our concern is that they will never apply in the first place because they will not have control of the situation. So, this is not perfect; one just has to round the edges one way or another. However, having consulted with organisations such as Refuge and those involved in the field, we think that this is the most sensible way to proceed.

The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) asked what will happen if the electoral registration officer refuses to accept an application for anonymous registration. It is possible to appeal to the county court. I hope that that will bear down on electoral registration officers and make them feel accountable, but we all know that the reality is that the last thing someone fleeing domestic violence and building themselves a new life wants to do is take their electoral registration officer to court to secure their place on the register, but anonymously. It is right, obviously, that there should be an appeal system.

The hon. Gentleman made a good point about the safety of children. My hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Ms Barlow) also talked about the effect of violence on children. The Bill talks about the electoral registration officer determining the question of "the person's safety". The hon. Member for Huntingdon said, "What about the children's safety?" This is a good and sensible suggestion, and we will look at it. It might be that we need to add something there. It looks like he has a point.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I think that the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) has made a sensible point, but it occurs to me that there is an ancillary point involving those who are given anonymous protection under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, where that protection extends to other persons who are not the individual in question. The Minister might like to cross-reference that enactment to see whether another amendment needs to be made.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

As we are going to look at the question of children, I shall take up the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that we look at that as well.

If I may, I shall deal quickly and in detail with the question of the effect of the amendments and why we suggest that they should not be pressed. Amendments Nos. 15, 2 and 3 would vary the provisions of anonymous registration. As I have said, those provisions will set up a scheme through which a person may register to vote without their name and address appearing on the electoral register. Anonymous registration is designed to protect vulnerable people in society, whose safety might be at risk if their address were made public. It is also designed to be limited to those who genuinely need it; there will be no question of simply opting out. In Australia and New Zealand, where such systems operate, about 0.15 per cent. of the electorate avail themselves of such provisions.

Amendment No. 15 would set out in the Bill the evidence required from a person wishing to register anonymously. While we agree that evidence must be required, and that a simple desire for privacy must not be grounds for anonymity, we cannot accept the amendment because, in our view, the appropriate place for a list of evidence is in regulations made by affirmative order. That allows for parliamentary scrutiny and a degree of flexibility. Setting out a definitive list of evidence in the Bill would risk excluding groups of people that perhaps ought properly to be covered.

We have consulted and gained the support of groups, including Victim Support, and the Network for Surviving Stalking and Refuge. We will continue to consult them as we implement these measures, and indeed on the question of children, on which we will also consult the hon. Member for Huntingdon.

From consultation so far, we envisage that the evidence needed to show a threat to safety will include injunctions and court orders, which the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has already mentioned, as well as restraining orders, participation in a witness protection scheme or a letter from a police officer confirming a specific threat.

Amendment No. 2 would require a registration officer to register a person in the usual way if their anonymous registration application failed. For the reasons I gave to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, that would reverse our policy on failed applications for anonymous registration. That is why we do not want to accept that amendment. It would, in effect, work against the purpose of anonymous registration.

Another reason for rejecting the amendment is that applying for anonymous registration will be voluntary. It will not be part of the annual canvass; instead, it will be more akin to rolling registration. As with rolling registration, therefore, a person should not be entered on the electoral register unless they have expressly applied to be so.

There is already a process for ensuring that people register to vote—the annual canvass. If a person's application for anonymous registration fails, they will be sent an annual canvass form in the normal way in due course. Through that existing process—not through a change of policy that could discourage vulnerable people from applying to be franchised safely—we should seek to ensure that all eligible people are registered.

Amendment No. 3 would mean that when a person's anonymous registration was terminated, that person would have an ordinary entry on the register if they were to make a rolling registration application. We believe that it is unnecessary. Although it is not explicitly stated, a person retains the ability to register through rolling registration when their anonymous entry expires. Specific provision as it would be inserted by the amendment is therefore not required.

For those reasons, I ask hon. Members not to press their amendments. We will return to these issues in due course.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

I thank the Minister for her clarifications and her offer to consider the clause further. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 10 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11 — Alterations of registers: pending elections

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

I beg to move amendment No. 27, in page 8, line 26, leave out subsection (2).

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

I shall be as brief as I can. I propose the removal of subsection (2). I have three objections to it. First, I have a fundamental objection to changing the list of electors in the middle of an election. Secondly, I believe that people should take responsibility for their own registration. We should not over-complicate the system for returning officers, and indeed those engaged in elections, to accommodate those who have failed so to do. Thirdly, the system should balance the opportunity to do what is lawful against the temptation to do what is unlawful.

For many months at the beginning of this year, the Government denied that the postal vote system is open to abuse, but that blew up in their face in the Birmingham city council 2004 elections case, and indeed in the Blackburn case of 2002. I do not want us to get into a position whereby vote stealing is replaced by wrongful registration as a means of fiddling election results. Those are my philosophical reasons for objecting to the measure. In a moment, I shall move on to my practical reasons.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Can the hon. Gentleman cite any research on the level of vote fiddling?

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

Of course I cannot cite any research evidence as to what vote fiddling there would be in relation to the clause, because the clause is not yet law. It is my hope that it will not become law, but we know that there was vote fiddling and widespread fraud in the 2004 Birmingham city council elections, and more than 200 votes were abused in Blackburn in 2002.

My practical reasons for objecting to the clause, and indeed to the Liberal Democrat amendment, involve, first, postal votes and, secondly, the capacity of candidates to communicate with their electors. I intend to rely on the D-minus system to enumerate the days leading up to elections, whereby D minus one is the day before the poll and D minus 17 is the date of proclamation or issue of writ in a general election.

Under the Government's proposals, people would have to apply by D minus 11 to be on the register by D minus five. Under the Liberal Democrat proposals, people would have to apply by D minus 13 to be on the register by D minus seven. Under the proposals tabled by my hon. Friends on the Conservative Front Bench, people would have to apply by D minus 20 to be on the register by D minus 15. If people want a postal vote, they have to apply by D minus 11. They will be eligible to apply for a postal vote only if my amendment, or the proposal tabled by my Front-Bench colleagues, is agreed to.

The second problem involves candidates communicating with their electors. The Royal Mail indicative timetable for the freepost, which I have in front of me, shows that the latest acceptable day for unaddressed items in the highlands, islands and rural areas is D minus 10. For addressed items, it is D minus seven. The latest day for addressed mail in any other part of the country is D minus three.

That makes it practically impossible to get literature into the freepost, addressed from the printers to the addressing company, from the addressing company to the Royal Mail, and from the Royal Mail into the post, in time to communicate with electors. It is fundamental that candidates can communicate with electors. The clause, which is not, as far as I can see, recommended directly either by the Electoral Commission or the OPDM Committee, makes it too easy to do something, and thereby makes it too difficult for candidates and others to communicate with electors.

There are 1,200 days in the average four-year parliamentary term during which someone can apply to be registered. It is a great pity if they can only apply in the three or four days after a general election is called.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I can also be brief. I support the Government's view that the maximum amount of time should be allowed for late registrations. We have all had the experience of knocking on doors during a general election campaign and speaking to people who are distraught because they are not on the register when they thought that they were, and who find that they cannot vote as they want to do. It seems appropriate that we give them the maximum time to register. Either they are entitled to vote or not. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) says that, if they are tardy or feckless, they should not be allowed to vote. I am sorry, but I do not agree. If they are entitled to vote, they should be able to do so, within the constraints and practicalities of the registration process.

My amendment moves the relevant date from the fifth to the seventh day before the poll. That is partly a probing amendment, because I want to clarify that we are referring to working days. If that is not the case, the deadline on the fifth day before the poll will be on Saturday evening, and that is not in practical terms the most sensible deadline to give registration officers for the registration of new electors. I would have thought that Thursday evening would be a more sensible deadline.

I also want to deal with the problem mentioned by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight: once someone has gone on to the register at that late stage, it is appropriate that they receive something from the candidates to inform their vote if the parties are capable of doing that. The amendment provides a little extra scope to do that without defeating the objective of the Government. I would be interested to hear the Minister's response.

Brian Binley (Conservative, Northampton South)

I am an old campaigner and, in the old days, as the Minister will know, we used to publish B and C lists. The whole concept of the register was open to scrutiny by everybody. That was one of the ways in which we maintained a fairness and credibility in the register of electors, which I was sorry to see go.

As I understand it—there might be a built-in opportunity to do this—most electoral registration officers are willing to take comment if people feel that a mistake has been made. In that respect, my concern is that five days is just not enough time to go through that process. We have already argued that it is right and proper that everybody should have the right to vote, but it is equally right and proper that the register, which is a public document, should be seen to be fair and open to scrutiny. Enough time should be allowed for that scrutiny to take place, and some mechanism should be available to amend the register if mistakes are made. I therefore appeal for a longer period than that suggested in the Bill.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

The amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) would maintain the status quo. We believe that moving the last day for registration closer to polling day could benefit registration, so we shall not support his amendment. Although moving the last day for registration to 11 days before polling day is in alignment with the close of nominations, we are concerned that that is too close to polling day. To that extent, we believe that my hon. Friend points in the right direction. The Liberal Democrats propose a change of only two days, and we struggle to see what difference that would make, although I would be interested to hear the Minister's views.

There is no doubt that a change in the deadline is welcome. The current rolling registration law means that the register is updated every month, but, to vote, a person must be on the register for the month in which an election begins. The closing date is usually midway through the previous month, which means that the deadline for the 2005 general election was fully six weeks before polling day. Moving the last registration day closer to polling day will allow people to register when they hear that the general election is called and is a valid way of encouraging greater registration, as interest and awareness among the electorate tends to peak closer to polling day.

It has also been proposed that registering to vote and submission of postal votes will have the same 11-day deadline. We are concerned that that will put enormous pressure on electoral registration officers. Does the Minister agree that there simply will not be enough time for the appropriate checks to be carried out on each application? Will EROs really be able to manage such a large number of last-minute applications at one of the most hectic times of the year? Will the objection process for questioning dubious registrations work effectively? That could be an issue of concern, particularly in marginal seats and as we attempt to combat fraud in the electoral system. What provisions will be in place for the Royal Mail to deliver election literature via the freepost to late applicants? Will there be an opportunity for last-minute mailing to them?

The questions go on, and time does not allow me to ask all of them, but I think that the Minister sees where I am coming from on this issue.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

The last general election took place on 5 May, but the closing date for registration was 11 March, almost two months prior to polling day and before the election had even been called. For the reasons given by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), that is a problem. The momentum to register often comes when parties are out and about on the doorstep. That is an important opportunity to get unregistered people on the register and it is frustrating if the deadline has already passed.

The clause to which the amendments relate seeks to correct the situation by moving the closing date for registration to 11 days prior to the day of the poll. The amendments would put the deadline further back, either by retaining the status quo under amendment No. 27, or by moving it to 13 days prior to polling day under amendments Nos. 10 and 11 or to more than 20 days before the day of the poll under amendments Nos. 16 and 17. Amendment No. 27 would also affect the correction of clerical errors, which I will mention later.

Setting the closing date for registration to vote involves finding the correct balance between making the system accessible to electors while not putting undue burdens on those administering the system. The proposal to move the deadline for registration to 11 days before polling day came initially from the Electoral Commission's report, "The Electoral Registration Process". The commission held a full consultation and concluded that the correct deadline for registration was the day on which nominations close. In parliamentary elections, that is 11 days prior to polling day.

Electoral registration officers will add names to the register only when they have made a determination that it is correct to do so. If they cannot make that determination—perhaps because of public objections—they will not add a person's name to the register. The clause therefore does nothing to weaken the protections in place to prevent fraud.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

Is not the critical factor that a general election, with all the general publicity and with field workers knocking on doors daily, presents an opportunity to put people on the register? If we close that opportunity too soon, we simply do not allow people to vote in that election.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

My hon. Friend is exactly right and that is exactly why we have included this clause in the Bill.

Separately from the Bill, through secondary legislation in due course, we propose to move the closing date for applying for a postal vote back from six days prior to an election, which is the current provision, to 11 days prior. The change is intended to give administrators more time to perform checks on the veracity of applications and relieve the administrative burden on them in the period before polling day.

It has been argued that moving to an 11-day deadline for both registration and postal vote applications might create an unmanageable spike in administrators' work loads. I believe that that view is incorrect. The proposed change to the deadline for postal vote applications will give administrators significantly more time to consider and process applications. It will not be the case that they must all be processed en masse on the day of the deadline. After all, until nominations have closed, it will not be possible to print ballot papers and begin to post them out. The combination of deadlines should therefore pose no significant administrative problems.

Synchronisation will make the system clearer for electors. I fear that it will never be very clear, but at least it will be a bit clearer. Local authorities and the Electoral Commission will be able to publicise a single deadline for people to meet to secure their vote by registering and applying for a postal vote. That should make the process easier to understand and reduce the likelihood of a person being disfranchised due to either not registering or not applying for a postal vote.

I am happy to be able to reassure those Members who have expressed concern that the requirement to alter registers five days before the day of poll might create a burden on administrators over the weekend, as polling day is traditionally a Thursday. Sections 13B and 119 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 provide that, when we refer to a period of days of less than seven in this part of the Bill, we refer to working days. There is no possibility, therefore, of anything happening on a Saturday night.

As I mentioned earlier, amendment No. 27 also affects clerical errors. Clause 11 gives effect to an Electoral Commission recommendation to move the final date for correcting errors such as a misspelled entry on the register or an accidental omission to the day of poll. The amendment would have the effect of retaining the status quo of only allowing corrections up to five days prior to polling day. That is a considerable problem. Clerical errors can mean that quite large numbers of people cannot vote and that does not make sense. Given that clerical errors are most likely to come to light on polling day, when a person attempts to vote, the Government believe that it is right to allow registration officers to correct errors and allow a person to cast a ballot.

As with moving the registration deadline, there can be no question of this change opening the door to fraud. Firstly, it is not possible for a person purposefully to have their entry created incorrectly. Secondly, if the registration officer cannot determine that an error has been made—for example, by checking the information held on file—he is under no obligation to make the amendment. Freepost will not be affected.

I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.

Andrew Turner (Conservative, Isle of Wight)

I will certainly think about what the Minister said and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clauses 11 and 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

New Clause 1 — Registration of service personnel

Andrew Tyrie (Conservative, Chichester)

I beg to move that the clause be read a Second time. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] It is gratifying to hear such noises in the Committee; I have the sense that they may have come from more than one part of it.

The purpose of the clause is simple to explain. It is to restore the armed services personnel scheme that used to exist and to take the armed services back to the position they enjoyed prior to the 2000 Act. It will mean that at the next election all service personnel will be registered to vote.

The fact that we need a clause such as this tells its own story. It is a story of a Government who took us to war in Iraq having just disfranchised a large proportion of the servicemen who were fighting in it. But it is worse than that. It is a story of a Government who were warned repeatedly that this would be the consequence of what they put on the statute book in 2000. I warned the Government repeatedly in the nine months prior to the election that as many as half of all service voters would be disenfranchised unless they took urgent action. I have discovered that a number of senior officers also warned the Government that their men did not have the vote, but no action was taken.

I fear that we may get some promises and assurances but nothing more concrete from the Minister and I really do not think that is going to be enough this time. We must not be put off with a few more assurances. It is all too reminiscent of what I heard from the then Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the then hon. Member for Hove, in a debate in Westminster Hall. He committed himself to discussions with the Electoral Commission and said he would come back to me. The fact is that he did virtually nothing more than sit on his hands. The Government and the Electoral Commission could, and should, have done much, much more.

To her credit, the Minister has admitted that a serious mistake has been made by the Government and, again to her credit, is now committed to trying to do something about it. Whether she can carry her Cabinet colleagues—I am told that there is not uniformity of view on the issue—is another matter.

Nobody who knows anything about the scheme that I am proposing that we put back on to the statute book is suggesting that it is perfect. It carries the problem that the register can be out of date and that service personnel can lose any connection with the area in which they vote. It means that a higher proportion is likely to be voting by proxy. But at least they will be registered. It will force the MOD to track each serviceman and process their application. Of course, the MOD might prefer not to have that chore and I have no doubt that it will be briefing behind the scenes about polishing up the new arrangements, rather than going back to the old scheme.

I recognise the problems with the old scheme, but at least it worked. I do not think that we can take any more risks with service personnel registration. We cannot afford to go into another election, as we did the last, with so many off the register. I am worried that some clever scheme is in the process of being cooked up in an interdepartmental committee as an alternative to getting back to the old scheme. I put it to the Committee that the only sensible way forward is to put the clause into the Bill. At least we would then know that, at the next election, servicemen will get the vote.

The statute book is littered with faulty clauses, and the unintended consequences that flow from them, that were drafted on the hoof while legislation was passing through this House. On this issue, we cannot afford another such mistake and we cannot rely on a Government assurance about coming back to us and possibly drafting another clause in another place. That is why I hope the Committee will be able to support my new clause tonight.

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

I said at the outset that our motivation was to ensure that everybody entitled to vote was on the register. We talked about socially excluded groups—poor people, people living on council estates and new Commonwealth citizens—but there is a great deal of concern on both sides of the Committee in relation to service personnel. I recognise that, on Second Reading, there was what I would describe as zero tolerance for any service personnel not being on the register. I sense that hon. Members feel not only that it is important that those who serve our country in the armed forces should be on the register, but are slightly baffled as to how it is that people can be recruited, employed and engaged in the armed forces but somehow we cannot get the rocket science working to register them.

This problem requires us to deal with the electoral system, but also with how the armed forces are organised, on which many hon. Members will be more expert than me. My ministerial colleagues in the MOD are more expert than me and this important issue is of concern to them. We have met the Electoral Commission with MOD colleagues and are considering actively how we make absolutely sure that we do not have another attempt to improve the situation that does not work. We do not want to move from one problem to another and I do not think that returning to the status quo ante of 2000 is a good idea.

We accept many of the hon. Gentleman's criticisms of the current scheme. It was changed because it was characterised both by low registration rates—albeit probably not as low as the present rates—and by inaccurate registers that were wrongly inflated in certain areas. There was a problem that we needed to address. We might have made it worse; we are trying to make it better.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

Has the Minister considered returning to the old system, but ensuring that the military have an obligation to tell registration officers when people leave?

Harriet Harman (Labour, Camberwell and Peckham)

That is a good point, but it is for the MOD to consult the armed services.

The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) does not want to receive assurances and then wonder where the beef is when nothing transpires. I accept the arguments of Members who have made their case and proved their point. As far as I can see, we have yet to find the right formula to solve the problem. We need a fail-safe system to back up the efforts already being made by the MOD, the armed forces and the Electoral Commission, but I do not think that returning to the status quo ante is good enough. We are trying to find solutions and we will consider, in consultation with the MOD and the armed services, whether we need to include powers in the Bill that we could use if what is being done by the Electoral Commission and the MOD does not work.

I entirely accept the spirit of the new clause and the criticisms that have been made. I remind Members that efforts are being made to sort the matter out and that we intend to consider whether we need primary legislation in the form of a new clause to sort it out once and for all.

I do not want it to be possible for people to be out in the armed services in different parts of the world without its being possible to enfranchise them in our democracy. I accept that that is not satisfactory and I am determined that we shall do something about it.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The present situation is entirely unacceptable. The hon. Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie) has done the Committee a service by proposing a measure that would at least return us to a more acceptable position. I heard what the Minister said and do not doubt her good intentions, but this is not a matter for the Secretary of State for Defence to discuss with the military; it is for the Minister to discuss with the Secretary of State for Defence why he is not performing his duties to the people in his care by giving them the franchise. Until there are concrete proposals, the Committee should support the new clause.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Let me say briefly that I had a meeting with—

It being two and a half hours after commencement of proceedings on the Bill, The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [25 October].

Clause 13 — Registration: personal identifiers

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 18, in page 11, line 11, leave out subsections (2) to (4) and insert—

'(2) In section 10 (maintenance of registers: annual canvass), after subsection (4) there is inserted—

"(4A) Subject to subsection (4B) below, the information to be obtained by the use of such a form for the purpose of a canvass shall include—

(a) the signature of each of the persons in relation to whom the form is completed;

(b) the date of birth of each such person; and

(c) in relation to each such person—

(i) his national insurance number or a statement that he does not have one,

(ii) a statement of whether or not he has been resident in the United Kingdom for the whole of the three-month period ending on 15th October in the year in question, and

(iii) any address in the United Kingdom in respect of which he is or has applied to be registered (other than the address in respect of which the form is completed), and the power in subsection (4) above to prescribe a form includes power to give effect to the requirements of the subsection.

(4B) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapacity of his or because he is unable to read.".

(3) In section 10A (maintenance of registers: registration of electors)—

(a) after subsection (1) there is inserted—

"(1A) Subject to subsection (1B) below, an application for registration in respect of an address in the United Kingdom shall include—

(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates;

(b) the date of birth of each such person; and

(c) in relation to each such person—

(i) his national insurance number or a statement that he does not have one,

(ii) a statement of whether or not he has been resident in the United Kingdom for the whole of the three-month period ending on the date of the application, and

(iii) any other address in the United Kingdom in respect of which he is or has applied to be registered, and the power in subsection (1) above to prescribe requirements includes power to give effect to the requirements of this subsection.

(1B) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (1A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapacity of his or because he is unable to read.",

(b) in subsection (5), at the beginning there is inserted "Subject to subsection (5A) below,",

(c) after subsection (5) there is inserted—

"(5A) A person's name is to be removed from the register in respect of any address if—

(a) the form mentioned in section 10(4) above in respect of that address does not include all the information relating to him required by virtue of section 10(4A) above; or

(b) the registration officer determines that he is not satisfied with the information relating to that person which was included in that form pursuant to that requirement.".

(d) in subsection (6), after "above", there is inserted "or his name is to be removed from it by virtue of subsection (5A) above,", and

(e) in subsection (8), after "5", there is inserted ", (5A)".

(4) In section 13A (alteration of registers), after subsection (2) there is inserted—

"(2A) Subject to subsection (2B) below, an application for registration under subsection (1)(a) above in respect of an address in the United Kingdom shall include—

(a) the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates;

(b) the date of birth of each such person; and

(c) in relation to each such person—

(i) his national insurance number or a statement that he does not have one,

(ii) a statement of whether or not he has been resident in the United Kingdom for the whole of the three-month period ending on the date of the application, and

(iii) any other address in the United Kingdom in respect of which he is or has applied to be registered, and the power in subsection (1)(a) above to prescribe requirements includes power to give effect to the requirements of this subsection.

(2B) The Chief Electoral Officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (2A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapacity of his or because he is unable to read.".'.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The purpose of the amendment, which follows the wording of the Northern Ireland legislation, is to include national insurance numbers in the personal identifiers listed in the clause. It is also designed to make it not just a pilot, but a permanent scheme, with national insurance numbers included.

Why? We know that postal voting on demand has led to an upsurge in postal voting, which is welcome, but there is a need for proper anti-fraud measures. We have already discussed this evening strengthening the accuracy of the register, but most of those who have looked into the problem believe that individual voter registration, coupled with proper personal identifiers, is the answer. Ensuring proper verification is important.

The hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) spoke earlier about the Australian system. In Australia, it is an offence not to vote, so if someone on the register is to be prosecuted for not voting, the register has to be an accurate. That has been the spur in Australia. Personally, I am not in favour of compulsory voting, but I believe that we should have an accurate register, and the amendments provide an opportunity to bring that about.

The amendments follow the wording and pattern of what was successfully introduced in Northern Ireland. The Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 introduced individual voter registration, coupled with personal identifiers—and it worked. The numbers registered have fallen, but the levels are still high—92 per cent. of census—and the accuracy is excellent. The Northern Ireland Office and the Select Committee praised the new system, saying that it had been successful in reducing the perception among the electorate of the prevalence of fraud and the actual level of fraud.

Some suggest that some of those who are entitled to vote have missed out and that 120,000 have been disenfranchised, but that is simply untrue. The Electoral Commission said clearly:

"We do not agree with the assertion that 120,000 . . . were disenfranchised".

Anyone who has spoken to Denis Stanley, the electoral registration officer in Northern Ireland, will know that that argument is simply unsustainable.

I am the first to agree with Government Members who say that we need not only accuracy, but a really good campaign to increase registration.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

rose—

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

It looks as though the hon. Gentleman, who wants to intervene, has been pressing that case strongly. I agree with him about that. I am not saying that we need only measures to make the register more accurate; I am saying that we should do both. It was said of the late, great Spiro Agnew—perhaps not so great—that he was a man who found it difficult both to walk down the sidewalk and chew gum. I think that we can do better.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The hon. Gentleman referred to Northern Ireland statistics. Let me repeat that when the changes were introduced there, the electoral register went down to either 84 or 86 per cent., even after the advertising and the political campaign. According to Sam Younger in a letter of last week, it is still only at 91 per cent. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that 91 per cent.—effectively 10 per cent. of people disenfranchised—is good enough?

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

My figures relate to September, when I spoke to the electoral registration officer, and it was 92 per cent. I believe that that is an accurate and up-to-date figure. The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have talked about circumstances in which far fewer percentages than that were registered on the mainland. It is all very well saying that 3 million or so are not registered: I agree, but let us remember that it has been like that for 10 years and there has been no improvement. It has to be said that the worst areas are often controlled by Labour councils.

Jim Devine (Labour, Livingston)

The hon. Gentleman is correct that voter registration has fallen over the last 10 or 15 years—coincidental with the introduction of the poll tax. People were concerned that the information that they provided would be used by other bodies. Is the hon. Gentleman not concerned that his proposals might put off even more people from registering? If national insurance numbers were to be used, for example, people might be concerned about identity theft.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I would credit the hon. Gentleman for just one point there. He may not remember, but the poll tax or community charge was longer ago than 10 years. It may be fresh in his memory because it is mentioned so often in his leaflets. It is often argued that nobody knows their national insurance number, but I am glad that the hon. Gentleman did not make that point, because it is a terribly middle-class point to make. The fact is that the deprived people in our society—people claiming benefits, those in receipt of weekly pay packets and so forth—know their national insurance numbers, because they see them more often than others. I know my national insurance number and I suspect that the hon. Gentleman knows his. I want to continue with my argument because I am making a serious point about individual registration and do not want to talk just about national insurance numbers.

If we believe in one person, one vote, then individual voter registration is the right way forward. Why should someone else register for us? The concept of a head of household is an old-fashioned and, I believe, inappropriate way of dealing with the problem. Many homes in multiple occupation simply do not have a head of household to whom one could point. It also reinforces a stereotype, saying to young people that this is someone else's business, not theirs. If the form is completed and personal identifiers are adduced for a whole household in multiple occupation, there is a risk of electoral fraud.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The hon. Gentleman mentions houses in multiple occupation. The west ward of Rhyl, in which my office is based, is the poorest ward in the whole of Wales—the poorest out of 865 wards. There are 900 HMOs there and since 1997, voter registration in that area has gone down by 30 per cent. under the current system, which allows the head of household to register in that way. Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the number of people registering to vote in that ward of Rhyl will go up or down as a result of single signatures?

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point: people in HMOs are poor at registering to vote. Why is that? It may be because one person is being sent the form for the whole household—the reality being that a group of people share the flat—and that that person simply cannot be bothered to fill the form in for the others. I believe that a more individual approach, targeting each person in turn, is more likely to succeed than the current failed approach, which the hon. Gentleman seems to want to continue with. He admits that registration has gone down in that ward by 30 per cent. in recent years and he invites us to build on that success. Surely we should look at why the system has failed so badly.

I am all in favour of data matching, and think that it is a good idea. I want us to be proactive in this matter, because a register must be accurate in two ways: it should not contain names that should not appear; and it should contain names that should.

We need to get beyond the use of names such as Hootie McBoob and Gus Troobev—the latter is an anagram of "bogus voter"—on voter registration forms. That still happens, but the Electoral Commission has taken a constructive approach. Instead of insisting on full individual voter registration now, it proposes that we try to tackle the problem of postal voting fraud. In its evidence to the Select Committee, it suggested a very modest approach. It said:

"The transitional arrangement we discussed with the Select Committee would give people the option to provide their signature and date of birth on a voluntary basis when responding to the annual canvass. But it would be mandatory for those wishing to vote by post or proxy".

That transitional approach is a very modest proposal, compared with what the Electoral Commission asked for originally, but it is not the potty piloting proposed in the Bill. Piloting individual voter registration or personal identifiers in one district council will tell us nothing. After all, it could be said that a successful pilot scheme has taken place already in Northern Ireland, which is a whole country.

Regardless of party allegiance, many hon. Members will not be satisfied unless action is taken on individual voter registration and personal identifiers. Therefore, I hope that the Minister agrees that the time has come for some movement on this important issue.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

I want to speak about some concerns that the organisation Scope has brought to my attention, and I look forward to the response from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who will answer the debate.

Scope supports the idea of personal identifiers very strongly, but considers that the registration process, if carried out appropriately and correctly, could help disabled people exercise their right to vote. I shall come back to what Scope would like to happen with the piloting, but it recommends that registration forms should have enough space so that people can make clear their preferred format for any communication that they receive. In addition, the form should allow disabled people to set out their access needs if they are required to attend a polling station. Scope says that that would help registration officers in their forward planning for elections, as they would have a rough idea of how many people with disabilities any given polling station would have to cater for.

However, Scope is worried that the registration forms could become too crowded and busy if all that information were to be included. It reports seeing some mock-ups of forms that might be used, but says that there is a concern that there may be insufficient space for identifiers. Moreover, the organisation says that the forms should use a reasonable print size—at least 12 point—so that people with a visual impairment can read them.

Scope thinks that piloting is a good idea, but is keen that consideration be given to piloting both household and individual registration at the same time, to ascertain which option is more effective. That approach may deal with some of the problems raised on Second Reading and in today's debate, and settle the argument about which method would ensure that the largest number of people were registered.

The Bill does not specify that the pilot schemes must be conducted in respect of household registration only, so I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State can assure me that there is a possibility that individual registration could be piloted as well.

Scope is also keen to ensure that personal identifiers are easily understood. The Opposition propose that national insurance numbers be used for that purpose, but Scope does not agree with that, as not everyone has a national insurance number, and the number itself is not the easiest thing to remember. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said that he knew his number, but I am afraid that I do not know mine. I think that a lot of people would struggle as well. Even so, most disabled organisations welcome the use of personal identifiers. Part of the reason is that the only identifier presently in use is a person's signature, and many disabled people find it very difficult or impossible to sign their names.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will assure the House that pilot schemes will be held for collecting individual identifiers using both the household registration form and the individual registration form. In that way, we will be able to see which approach is correct.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

This clause and these amendments are important because there is real concern about the potential for fraud in our electoral system.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

rose—

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Before the hon. Gentleman starts giving us statistics, I hasten to say that I am talking about the potential for fraud in the system, and not the reality. The problem is especially severe in the context of postal voting, and there is an urgent need to address it.

That urgency is not lost on Ministers, who understand that something must be done. It is a great shame, therefore, that they have rejected the Electoral Commission's clear proposals in respect of individual registration and personal identifiers. We have gone down this road before: the Government have previously rejected the Electoral Commission's views, and rued it later when their alternatives have been shown to be unworkable. That is why I believe that we need to take the commission's opinions in this matter seriously.

I detect some confusion between individual registration and personal identifiers. The two are not identical, nor necessarily linked: we can have personal identifiers without individual registration, and individual registration without personal identifiers. I believe that both are constituent parts of an appropriate system for preventing false registration and voting, but it is still possible to separate one from the other. For the moment, I shall set aside the question of individual registration and deal with personal identifiers, which are central to amendment No. 18.

It has been accepted in the debate that we want to extend the franchise as far as possible. That means that we must get as many people to register as we can manage, but at the same time we have to prevent fraud. A spectrum of barriers and encouragements to registration has been considered, as has the Bill's place in that spectrum of potential solutions. Any personal identifier could be construed as a barrier of one sort or another. We have to determine whether a barrier could be surmounted easily and so would not reduce the registration level, or whether it would cause a significant reduction in the number of people wanting to register. I contend that a signature is not a difficult barrier to overcome. Most people, if asked, can contrive to provide a signature or identifying mark. If they cannot, it is unlikely that they will be able to complete a ballot paper successfully. So the requirement to provide a signature is not a barrier to registration, but it is a personal identifier that allows the registration officer or presiding officer to do his job.

Other personal details that are not difficult to provide could be used as identifiers—for example, date of birth. Some people may pretend not to know their date of birth, but I suspect that most people, if pushed, could come up with a consistent date of birth to use as a personal identifier.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

The Queen has two.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Yes, but she does not participate in the electoral system, so that is not a significant objection.

Other possibilities for personal identifiers include the sort of thing that the average bank, building society or other financial institution ask people to provide before giving or receiving information over the telephone. Again, such information would not be difficult for most people to provide, but it would be a slightly higher barrier and might prove difficult for some individuals in some circumstances.

Andrew Love (Labour, Edmonton)

Amendment No. 18 mentions the need to supply a national insurance number, but it would also require from an applicant

"a statement of whether or not he has been resident in the United Kingdom for . . . the three-month period . . . and . . . any other address in the United Kingdom in respect of which he is . . . registered".

The rationale for that appears to be that it reflects the provision in Northern Ireland. Is that a reasonable rationale or would it erect additional barriers to registration?

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I think that the hon. Gentleman heard what I said on Second Reading and knows that I think that it is too high a barrier. I am concerned about the amendment not because I do not share the view that we need a process of individual registration and personal identifiers, but because the personal identifiers that may have been appropriate for Northern Ireland are not necessarily those that we need in this country.

The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) suggested that it is a middle-class affectation not to know one's national insurance number. As an aspiring jobbing lawyer, he is of course not part of the middle classes and therefore does not have that problem. He knows his national insurance number because he sees it on his pay packet every week—

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

And I know my place.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Gentleman may well know his place, but many people cannot readily bring to mind their national insurance number. For example, many women in the ethnic minority community will never have used their national insurance number, are not familiar with it and would not be able to produce it. Given that they are a key part of the community that we seek to reach to increase registration, it would be perverse to put a barrier that they would find almost insurmountable in their way.

There are other problems with using national insurance numbers. For a start, they are not unique. They are supposed to be unique, but the same number is sometimes unfortunately issued to more than one person. They also persist after death. That may be a macabre way to put it, but national insurance numbers still exist for people who are sadly no longer with us. Therefore, they might provide an opportunity for electoral fraud that did not previously exist.

Nor are national insurance numbers entirely personal, because they are held in personnel departments or in employers' records. It would not be difficult for someone who wished to perpetrate a widespread fraud to collect a significant number of national insurance numbers by looking at employment records. For all those reasons, I do not think that national insurance numbers are the right personal identifiers to use, but we need to use something.

In a few moments, we shall debate pilot schemes. I am not convinced by them, but I do not want to pre-empt that debate. We need something to use now that goes a little further than the Government are presently prepared to accept, and we may wish to look closely at the transitional arrangements that the Electoral Commission put before the Committee so ably chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) as proposals around which we can coalesce. It is better to arrive at a consensus than to proceed on a partisan basis. That solution may commend itself to the Government in due course. I would prefer us to reach that consensus in this elected Chamber, especially on a matter that relates to the conduct of elections, than for it to be reached in the non-elected House with only limited opportunity for us to discuss it. I ask the Minister to consider seriously and give us at least a glimmer of an indication whether the proposal from the Electoral Commission—the so-called transitional process, which was mentioned earlier—might be acceptable. If so, by far the best solution would be for the Government to put it into their own words and bring it forward as an amendment on Report. I have no doubt that it would receive support from both sides of the House. Otherwise, we would have to keep on arguing the toss about something on which we should be able to reach a consensus, and that would be unfortunate.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

As well as the merits of the case put forward by the Electoral Commission for the proposal it has made in the past few days, there is a further reason for accepting it. The authority of the Electoral Commission is not well served if the Government repeatedly reject its recommendations, especially as in this case they follow reconsideration of objections to its first proposals. Given that we press on other countries the need for an authoritative electoral commission, it is incumbent on the Government to attach some authority to the one that we have.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I could not agree more with my right hon. Friend. The Electoral Commission does not arrive at its conclusions in a capricious way. It thinks carefully about these matters, as it was set up to do. It is not just another group lobbying us for a particular cause; it is the body that the Government set up to consider electoral arrangements and advise them and this House. We should take what the Electoral Commission says seriously and if the Government are minded not to agree with its proposals, they should have to provide extremely sound grounds for doing so. Nor should those grounds be partisan between the sides of the House.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) made several points that relate to the points that I made earlier about amendment No. 1. It is essential that we have proper arrangements for registering people with disabilities, in the same way as it is essential that we find ways for people to vote on the day or by post. Individual registration would assist that process. The Minister also needs to consider other issues, such as registration in nursing homes, which has not always been entirely appropriate. Those who run nursing homes have not always received the necessary encouragement to ensure that the people in their care are given the opportunity to register and vote. We need firmer guidelines on that aspect.

There are issues about capacity, and although they are probably outwith the amendment, they need to be dealt with at some stage during the passage of the Bill. The hon. Lady's basic contention is absolutely right: we must provide all sections of our community with opportunities to be registered properly, while maintaining the integrity of the electoral system. I think that is what the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire is trying to achieve through his amendment, although I disagree with him about the precise details, as he knows. Nevertheless, I applaud his intention and I hope that the Minister will respond appropriately.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

I want to talk about registration and personal identifiers. On Second Reading, I said that I wholeheartedly agreed with the Minister's caution in not making a change to individual registration. That caution is the key thing. Today, as we did on Second Reading, we have debated the crisis in registration—that about 3 million to 4 million citizens are not included on our electoral registers. That is a serious matter.

The Electoral Commission has pointed out that under-registration is high among certain groups. The figures from the commission's research are borne out when we check out such groups. One of the groups most under-represented on the register were people who had moved during the past two to three months. When I checked with the Salford ERO, I was told that the areas with the most problems were those where there are six-month tenancies. The problem is serious. A large number of people—between 30 and 35 per cent.—in inner-city wards and polling districts are not registered.

As I said earlier, we should not be raising additional barriers to electoral registration when a third of people in a polling district or an area may not be registered. We should be doing the opposite. As Members have already said, we should be encouraging people to register and targeting the groups most subject to under-registration. When prompted, people who had not registered said that it was a chore or time-consuming, or that they did not understand the process. Another important point, which relates to the amendments, is that people said that they were nervous of bureaucracy. All the proposals in the amendments would make that situation worse.

We know that the change to personal identifiers in Northern Ireland, including national insurance numbers, caused a 10 per cent. drop in registration, so it is astonishing that the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) talked about success and said that registration was high in Northern Ireland. I do not regard 91 or even 92 per cent. as high. When 89 per cent. of people in a community are disfranchised after an exercise to develop a better register, that is not acceptable.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The hon. Lady is continuing with a statement that the Electoral Commission has said is untrue. Sam Younger told the Committee that

"there was a drop but not as big a . . . drop as . . . 10 per cent . . . While one cannot put an absolute figure on it, a goodly part of that was actually names that should not have been on the register anyway".

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

We debated under and over-registration earlier; it changes from place to place. I was citing examples, borne out by the Electoral Commission research, which show that in some inner-city areas as many as 35, 37 or 38 per cent. of people are not registered. When, as the commission agrees, a total of 3 million to 4 million people are not registered, that is a crisis. The hon. Gentleman has just quoted evidence from the Select Committee session with the Electoral Commission last week and I shall quote from that, too. Sam Younger referred to the tension between participation and security, which is what we are debating, and said:

"We do not feel national insurance numbers are something we should be asking people to provide at registration."

The commission does not agree with a chunk of the amendment, and Sam Younger made that clear under our questioning. He sees the tension and the difficulty.

I have two quotes from electoral officers in the north-west. I have used them before, but they are still appropriate. In evidence to the Joint Select Committee in 2004–05, the ERO for Trafford—now, sadly, a Conservative-run authority—said that whole areas of the electorate would not respond to requests for individual registration, particularly the under-registered groups. I know and have respect for that officer. He told me that, in his view, individual registration would be like a

"throwback to the poll tax",

as it would make registration numbers drop like a stone and not recover for many years.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

The hon. Lady and several of her colleagues referred to the crisis of under-registration. That may indeed be the case, but as I said on Second Reading, we are talking about extremely mechanical methods of fixing the problem. We may think that it is a crisis, but the millions of people Members say are not registered do not appear to agree. It is easy for them to solve by filling in a straightforward form. We are talking about barriers. If such a relatively simple thing as filling in a simple form and signing their name is such a problem for our fellow citizens that they are willing to give up voting, that is the problem we need to solve rather than tinkering around with mechanical details.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

People in some of the under-registered groups probably do not see registration as a priority. Research showed that some people admitted to being politically disengaged and some might be politically hostile. That is sad, but we all accept it. However, the MORI research identified groups of people who do not understand the process, who do not see the benefit of being registered or who are nervous of bureaucracy.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Does my hon. Friend think that the official Opposition might show greater concern about under-registration if the under-registered groups lived in Acacia gardens instead of Corporation street?

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

I am sure that the Opposition would. I do not speak as someone who has a problem in her constituency. Worsley has between 92 and 94 per cent. registration, but my colleagues in neighbouring constituencies with more inner-city wards find after the annual canvass that the ERO is fighting to pull up registration from 64 per cent.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The hon. Lady will be aware that there has been much criticism of the Labour party over election fraud. In the areas that she is talking about where there is substantial under-registration, which councils have been indifferent over the years? Not Conservative councils, but Labour councils.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

I do not want to talk about postal voting pilots, but when I was in local government I worked on several highly successful pilots—two in Trafford, which is now a Tory authority. We worked as an all-party group; there was all-party consensus and we held successful postal voting pilots—[Interruption.]

Derek Conway (Conservative, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

Order. The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) must let the hon. Lady speak.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

I said on Second Reading that part of the difficulty with postal voting ballots is that many authorities did not want them and dragged their feet. That is part of the difficulty, but in both Trafford and Salford I worked on incredibly successful postal voting pilots where there was no suggestion or suspicion of fraud. The question is really whether you want to do it, whether all parties want to do it and whether you work at it.

Sam Younger does not believe in including national insurance numbers, so that is a dead duck. If the Electoral Commission does not support you, you should not be making that proposal—[Interruption.] Well, you cannot have it both ways.

Barbara Keeley (Labour, Worsley)

I am sorry, Mr. Conway.

I cited two EROs who say that in their experience the proposals would make the whole situation worse. It is right that we proceed with caution and pilots are the way forward. From what has been said today, I am sure that there would be many volunteer local authorities and many Opposition Members would be desperate to hold pilots in their constituencies. Let them do so. I hope that their local authorities will work hard on that. By enabling the setting of performance standards for local authorities, so that they can work more effectively at building the register, we shall deal with the issues.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I shall deal with the two key issues in the debate: first, the personal identifiers and the possible use of national insurance numbers; and secondly, whether people should fill in a household form or an individual form. It is important to try to work towards some sort of general agreement across the Chamber on those matters. On electoral law and the conduct of elections, if we could reach a consensus that would endure for a number of years, it would help the electorate to have stability.

On national insurance numbers, I hope that the Conservative party might reflect again, for two reasons. First, national insurance numbers are not necessarily secure. That point has been well made. The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that people could use duplicate numbers fraudulently. Indeed, I accept that such numbers are used in Northern Ireland, but people can sign a statement to say that they do not have one. If people can do that, what is the point of requiring them to give their number in the first place? That is a hole in the system. A few years ago, a Select Committee report identified how many extra national insurance numbers existed than people entitled to have them, so there are problems with that proposal. It will not greatly add to the security of the system.

Secondly, the use of such numbers might be worth considering if it were not for the fact that that would be a disincentive to people registering. Some people will be able to lay their hands very easily on their last salary or wage slip and read their national insurance number, but the point has been well made that some people cannot do so—for example, those who have been out of work for a period. Women will be particularly discriminated against because many of them will have taken time off to have a family, which is a fairly normal course of events. People who are unemployed probably cannot remember where they put their last pay slip. In the circumstances, if they must go and hunt for it the likelihood is that they will just say, "Oh, I'll get round to that in due course", and they will end up not filling in the registration form. I hope that hon. Members will accept that those difficulties can be a barrier to people who are unemployed, to women and, probably, to people in the ethnic minority communities. Some of the very people who we want to encourage to register will be discriminated against. So I hope that that proposal will be reconsidered.

If Opposition Members are really keen on people having a discrete, unique number to use on the forms and a secure form of electoral registration that is more efficient than anything else, they should opt for the national identity system with ID cards. People would then have a number to put on the form. Moreover, there would be a straight read across to give us a register that would be about 99.9 per cent. accurate. That shows another benefit of ID cards, but national insurance numbers would not eventually provide that security.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Does the hon. Gentleman realise that Irish citizens, for example, are entitled to vote in this country and would not be obliged to carry identity cards?

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I accept that there is no absolute read across, but the basics of a pretty accurate register would be provided. Certain things would have to be done to add people and perhaps to exclude others as well, but a firm base would be created on which to proceed.

I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) said about whether there should be a household form or an individual form. We need not necessarily have one sort of form or the other. Indeed, we do not have one or the other now, do we? The canvass goes out using a household form, but if people apply to register during the year, they apply on an individual form. Both systems operate. I accept that that can get a bit confusing, but I am with the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) in spirit about individual registration. Ultimately, I think that we may get that system, but it would be very difficult to move the whole step at this stage.

I do not know whether the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire has tried to address some of those practical problems. However, given the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Djanogly) that we discussed in the first group, the Opposition accept that there are people on the register who should not be there, that some people registered at certain households may not live there, and that there are houses where no one is registered. So how do we decide how many individual forms to send to those houses?

If no one is registered at a house, do we send one, two or three forms? What happens with a house in multiple occupation? It is all right to say that forms will be sent to the people whom we think live in a certain place, but if those people are not there because they are last year's students, rather than this year's students, how do we know the number? Does the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire favour sending individual registration forms around the system like confetti, when he is arguing that we should have a more secure system that stops people registering if they are not entitled to register?

Those practical problems need to be thought through, but we might get such a system in the end. When we develop a much more accurate registration base and when we start to use data from different sources, we can then write to people, as is done in Australia, on the basis of the information held by the Post Office, the utilities, the college or the driving licence people to say that there has been a change in circumstances at an address and that we understand that so-and-so is living there now. We could send the registration form to the individual whom the registration officer—or the Electoral Commission in Australia—is told now lives at that address. That is how individual registration could build a completely new system, but that would be difficult under the current arrangements when we have an inaccurate register and do not know to whom we are sending the forms.

Again, I return to the fact that there may be a case for both systems. I want to address a practical problem. I listened to what my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister said about registration officers being encouraged to go out into the community and knock on doors as part of the existing arrangements. If that sort of canvassing is done, I hope that the officers go with both forms. If they find the head of household in, I hope that they get that person to register everyone at the address while they are there. If they knock on the door and the head of household is not there, I hope that they have taken some individual registration forms so that they can at least register those people who are present and get them signed up on the spot.

Jonathan Djanogly (Conservative, Huntingdon)

In some ways, the hon. Gentleman has answered his own question—ultimately, the canvassing needs to go ahead—but what about a university hall of residence, for instance, where foreign students have been registered and students are moving in and out without being taken off the register? What would he do in that situation? How could that be dealt with other than by canvassing?

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

Clearly, the university must provide information about who is resident in those halls. That is simple to do—some universities do it and some do not. That is why I am in favour of having a legislative requirement for certain bodies to provide the electoral registration officer with information or for the officer to be able to gain access to that information. We would then have national standards—we will come to them later—that require registration officers to behave in a certain way when they receive information that people's circumstances have changed or so that they know what do to if a form is not sent back.

Different registration officers deal with those situations differently. Some officers keep people on the register and some do not. Some officers take them off after one year, and others after two years if they do not have corresponding evidence from council tax documents that those people still live at the address. We must deal with those approaches by laying down national standards. However, we are talking about the forms and whether we need one form for the whole house or a form for each individual. The reality is that we have a mix at present. We will eventually move to individual registration as we put in place all the other arrangements, but in the meantime, while we are conducting the canvass, I hope that we use both sets of forms to try to ensure that when we knock on the door and find someone in, we get the maximum amount of information for registration purposes that we can.

David Cairns (Labour, Inverclyde)

We have had an extremely useful and enlightening debate. It has been our first canter around issues regarding individual registration, the forms for such registration and the nature of piloting, with which I will deal in a moment. First, however, I want to respond to several specific points made during the debate.

I entirely agree with the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) that we need a campaign to increase the numbers on the register. The entire purpose of the two-and-a-half-hour debate that we had earlier was to set out the basic parameters of that campaign. At a later stage, we will talk about the performance standards to which we will expect electoral registration officers to perform. We are thus in agreement about the need for such a campaign, and I welcomed the commitment that he gave.

The hon. Gentleman said that everyone who has studied the matter has concluded that individual registration will improve security without having an impact on numbers on the register. However, not everyone agrees with that. Several hon. Members who spoke, the EROs who contacted my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley), and my electoral registration officer, Mr. Edward Duffy from Renfrewshire valuation joint board, certainly do not agree. Mr. Duffy wrote me a letter last week that said:

"Of course having identified residents, there still remains the problem of trying to persuade them to complete and return the canvass form. This is likely to become more of a problem with the requirement to collect signatures and dates of birth."

That view of an experienced registration officer is echoed by registration officers throughout the country. It is not just Labour Members who are saying that collecting information from people on individual or household forms might impact negatively on the register. That is why we propose to follow the route of piloting, which we will discuss in more detail during our consideration of the next set of amendments.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) raised the legitimate concerns that have been expressed by Scope, Sense, the Royal National Institute of the Blind and other bodies about the design of any such form. The Department has not produced any mock-up forms, so I am not sure of the provenance of the forms to which she refers. We will not create any such mock-up forms or proceed on the matter without consulting the organisations to which she rightly drew attention. We give a firm commitment that if the process moves forward—the Bill allows for individual identifiers—we will consult those organisations and others with a vested interest in ensuring that we get the design of the forms right. My hon. Friend also said that several of those organisations have reservations about the requirement on national insurance numbers that is proposed in amendment No. 18, for reasons of complexity.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) rightly said that there was a need to take action on fraud. He also acknowledged, graciously, that we are taking such action. The new fraud offences regarding both registration and applications for a postal vote have tough sanctions. We are not sanguine about fraud—there will be zero tolerance of it, as it has been said—and we are proceeding with tough new measures.

The hon. Gentleman said that the requirement to give a signature and date of birth was not a difficult barrier, but that is a point of contention. My electoral registration officer thinks that it could well be a barrier, as do the registration officers of the Minister of State, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), and my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley. There is no consensus that the measure would not have the undesired consequence of increasing what have been described as the catastrophic drops on the register.

The hon. Members for Somerton and Frome and for North-East Hertfordshire talked about the so-called transitional arrangement proposals put forward by Sam Younger. We must remember that Mr. Younger was setting out a fallback position, in a sense, because he does not want the pilots. We are thus effectively having this discussion the wrong way round because we should talk about the pilots first.

I have read the letter that Mr. Younger sent to my right hon., learned and noble Friend the Secretary of State, which I noticed was faxed to him at 6 pm on Friday evening. The letter makes serious suggestions, so the proposal clearly must be studied with a view to its possible ramifications. A prima facie reading of the letter leads me to ask two questions about the proposal. If it will be voluntary to provide such information on the form, will that provide the increased security that people want? Secondly, would it not add to the confusion surrounding the forms if there was a space for people to provide their dates of birth and signatures, but they did not have to fill them in if they did not want to? People would say, "If I don't fill this in, will I be somehow worse off than if I do?" We could explain to them that they would not be worse off because it would be voluntary to provide the information, but that would add to the confusion about which my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley spoke when she cited the MORI polls. People find such forms confusing enough as it is, without adding another layer of possible confusion. However, I have made only a prima facie reading of the proposal. We will give it greater study, but I am not immediately attracted to it.

Alan Beith (Liberal Democrat, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

An answer to the Minister's first question is that if people do not provide a signature, they will not get a postal vote. As the greatest concern about fraud relates to postal voting, the proposal would address that specific problem, although it would not deal with wider security problems that must be addressed in other ways.

David Cairns (Labour, Inverclyde)

We are examining fraud in postal vote applications. I accept that one has to sign for a postal vote application. However, at the time at which people filled in the form to go on to the electoral register, they might not want a postal vote. They might decide later that they want such a vote. We would be introducing a further hurdle at a late stage if we said to people, "Sorry, you can't get a postal vote because you didn't sign the form when you filled it in because that was optional." I understand the logic behind the suggestion as a default position in opposition to pilots, but it would send a slightly mixed message. I have already mentioned the excellent contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley, who said that we were right to be cautious. She used the experience of her own electoral registration officer, just as I used the experience of my ERO, to demonstrate that there is no consensus. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) spoke about the problem of using national insurance numbers as well as serious practical issues. If individual forms are sent to houses in multiple occupation on the basis of how many people lived at the address in previous years, the number of forms delivered could far exceed the number of residents, which opens the door to more fraud.

As our debate has demonstrated, there is no consensus about the way in which we should proceed. Some people are highly sceptical about individual registration, predicting catastrophic drops, but others are in favour of it. However, there are differences among its supporters. The Liberal Democrats want individual registration to be rolled out across the country in one go, but they do not want national insurance numbers to be used. The Conservatives want individual registration, but they insist on the use of national insurance numbers. In the absence of consensus, the Government's approach is pragmatic and practical. On Second Reading, I said that the measure includes

"three interlocking principles: access to voting for all who are entitled, participation by all who wish to participate and fairness for all through zero tolerance of fraud and intimidation. None of those principles is optional.—[Official Report, 25 October 2005; Vol. 438, c. 268.]

My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State referred to those principles as the three legs of a stool. Our concerns about individual registration and national insurance numbers stem from the negative impact that could have on the first of those three legs.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I fear that the Minister may inadvertently have misrepresented our position. We have not said that we want individual registration to be rolled out across the country in one go. We want the Government's own personal identifier scheme to be rolled out across the country in one go, because that is a sine qua non for ensuring that postal voting at the next election is fraud-free.

David Cairns (Labour, Inverclyde)

I apologise if I inadvertently mischaracterised the hon. Gentleman's argument. If anything, however, his intervention adds to the lack of consensus rather than clarifies the position.

As has been said, the Electoral Commission found that up to 3.5 million people in England and Wales and an unknown number in Scotland cannot vote in elections because they are not registered. Individual registration and the use of national insurance numbers could make that situation worse. There has been disagreement about the position in Northern Ireland, but when individual registration was introduced there, registration levels dropped. In one Belfast ward, registration dropped from an already low 41 per cent. to just 23 per cent. Some hon. Members argued that registration levels were 150 per cent. across the Province and dropped to 90 per cent., but that Belfast ward, albeit an extreme example, shows that there was a catastrophic drop from an already low starting base. However, individual registration has benefits for the security of postal voting, particularly through the collection of personal identifiers such as a signature and date of birth. We have therefore provided in the Bill for the collection of personal identifiers, but to test and evaluate their impact on registration levels we intend to proceed through a programme of pilots that we shall discuss in relation to a later group of amendments. Proceeding in that way will ensure that our approach is evidence-based and will prevent us from introducing policies that serve one leg of the stool to the detriment of another.

Amendments Nos. 18 and 20 seek to extend the full Northern Ireland individual registration system to Great Britain, including inter alia the use of national insurance numbers. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love) drew the attention of the Committee to the Northern Ireland provision for three-month residency. That provision was introduced because it was feared that once an election was announced, residents of the Republic of Ireland might cross the border and register in constituencies in the north. Because Northern Ireland citizens can vote in UK elections they could then take part in such elections. There is probably consensus that that is unlikely to happen.—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire is shrugging his shoulders, but it would be far-fetched to believe that there were hordes of people in the Republic of Ireland waiting to come over here so that they can take part in our elections. That scenario, however, is dealt with in the amendment.

A controversial provision in amendment No. 18 deals with national insurance numbers. In Northern Ireland, national insurance numbers are used to share data with the Department for Work and Pensions. That process allows external confirmation of a person's identity and is useful in relation to security. It is possible, however, because Northern Ireland is relatively small—1.1 million electors—and has a centrally held register.

By contrast, Great Britain has around 43 million electors and more than 400 locally held registers. The infrastructure is therefore simply not in place for the Northern Ireland-style use of national insurance numbers to be extended to Great Britain at this time. In that context, we believe that the collection of national insurance numbers would add nothing to security and simply deter people from registering to vote. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome has pointed out, many people do not know their national insurance number, and we believe that they would not take the extra step of discovering it in order to register.

When we have the co-ordinated online record of electors, which we will discuss later in Committee, we could use a national insurance system in Great Britain as in Northern Ireland. The Bill allows for such a system to be added both in pilots and at roll-out at a later date via an affirmative order, and the provision is included in clause 14.

In short, amendments Nos. 18 and 20 would introduce a policy which, although it is not currently appropriate, could be of use in the future. However, since the Bill already provides for that possibility, and since the time is not right for its implementation, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I congratulate the Minister's civil servants on the lines of argument that they have managed to construct for him, because the case is shilly-shallying and pathetic, so constructing any argument at all was a major achievement. I shall give Ministers longer to consider the matter, because the issue is important. It is urgent that we tackle postal-voting fraud, and what has been suggested so far is not adequate. The pilots are completely unacceptable, and it is time Ministers came up with something better—the Electoral Commission has come up with some ideas.

It is all well and good for the Minister to say, "Give way on important points", but what movement have we seen so far? The problem is urgent, and all Ministers have come up with are pathetic, potty, little pilots, which have already been tried out in a country—Northern Ireland. It will not do, and we need something better from Ministers. We shall return to the subject, when we hope that Ministers will do better. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15 — Personal identifiers: piloting

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in clause 15, page 14, line 17, leave out subsection (1).

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

We move on to the vexed question of pilots, which the Government have given rather a bad name. Pilots are the Government-speak equivalent of mañana: if one does not want to do something quickly, one runs pilots, pilots and more pilots, after which one can assess the pilots for a while, review the assessment and then run more pilots. However, the alternative is to roll out the whole scheme within a few weeks of installing the pilot scheme without any assessment of the evidence. Those are not appropriate ways of dealing with what many commentators have described as a matter of some urgency, particularly in the case of postal votes.

I have already conceded the point that individual registration raises some issues, and we must examine the matter carefully. My preference is for an individual voter registration scheme, which is a view echoed by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts), who sees that as the direction in which we should be going, but also recognises the practical difficulties along the way.

I have given the Government credit for introducing new offences in the Bill in order to tighten up on fraud. If we are to make those offences bite, however, other than making threats that are never brought to court, we must provide the means by which returning officers and registration officers can detect fraud, otherwise we are simply rattling sabres without any expectation of success. That is particularly the case in terms of postal voting fraud, which we know has occurred because there have been successful court cases. We heard quoted on Second Reading what the learned judge in one such case said about the inadequacy of the current systems. If we accept the Government's proposed pilot scheme, we will not have these precautions in place by the time of the next general election. If that happens, we should hang our heads in shame, because this House will have failed in its primary duty of ensuring the integrity of our electoral system. We need an alternative to the Government's proposals.

When he was responding to the previous group of amendments, the Minister suggested—although he recanted when I intervened on him—that I had said that a full system of individual registration and personal identifiers should be rolled out across the country at a single stroke. I have not said that. I have said that the Government's scheme, which they have identified as being appropriate in the pilot areas, is appropriate across the country because it is a minimal scheme with very little likelihood of having a significant effect. If it were to have a significant effect, we have a fall-back position, which has already been described by the Electoral Commission.

The Government were wrong to suggest pilots in the first instance. People in the Whitehall Departments should be taken away and given some elementary scientific training as to how to conduct a controlled experiment. Too often, we have pilots that tell us practically nothing, and this is a case in point. The Government propose that local authorities opt in by offering the opportunity to run pilots in their local authority area. That gives us a self-selecting group of local authorities, no control over the kinds of authorities that are being used because they are self-selecting, and, with no control authority, no ability to make proper comparisons of what is happening. What is observed in the experimental conditions might be entirely random instead of helpful in ascertaining any sort of trend.

If the Government are insistent about going ahead with pilots, the very least that we can expect is that they identify a region and run the registration experiment across it. That would mean, first, that they have a suitable size of response in order to get meaningful results; secondly, that they can compare one region with a similar region, thereby providing the control that I suggest; and thirdly, that they have sufficient data to recommend changes in the future. None of that is accomplished by the Government's proposed pilot scheme.

There is a better solution. The Government do not propose to go as far as the Northern Ireland experiment because—I agree with them on this—they want not to use the Northern Ireland system of personal identifiers, which includes the national insurance number, but a basic version based on a signature and date of birth. That is not such a drastic step as suggesting a catastrophic reduction in registration but it is the minimum required to maintain the integrity of the voting system, especially for postal votes. Amendment No. 4 would set aside the concept of the pilot and go for a change in the law to provide basic protection.

Later amendments propose an alternative sort of pilot, which would be based on a larger area—an electoral region. Of course, we held such a pilot for the European parliamentary elections because that was believed to be appropriate. It was not based on one region—we had to go much further and half of England was used for the experiment because the Department took a completely different view of what was appropriate then. We had the Dane law, which covered an experimental area rather than a few local authorities dotted around the country.

Let me consider the so-called transitional arrangement that the Electoral Commission proposed. It is a pity that the hon. Member for Worsley (Barbara Keeley) is not in her place, because she so strongly advocated never disagreeing with the Electoral Commission's proposals. She suggested that it would be outrageous to disagree with them and I should therefore have liked her to be here to endorse my comments. The Electoral Commission has made it clear that it does not agree with the Government about the piloting approach. I have a letter from Sam Younger that outlines the Electoral Commission's reasons for that. I received the letter at 6.15—the Minister obviously received it first, which is right and proper.

The Electoral Commission has proposed a transitional approach. It does not give me everything that I want—it is a compromise—but its great merit is that it does two things. It enables the Government to behave cautiously, as they say they want to do on the introduction of the overall arrangements and towards the normal voting procedure, but it ensures that minimum standards for postal votes are in place long before the next general election. That meets the Government's objection to my position and my objection to theirs. That is a strong place to start. The Under-Secretary shakes his head. He obviously has a preconceived view that he will not find the approach acceptable. That is a shame because, on Report, it might form the basis on which we wish to proceed. If we cannot do that, the measure will, unfortunately, go to a non-elected House for arbitration.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I am struggling a little with the hon. Gentleman's fall-back position. It appears that he does not object to the principle of pilots but simply to the areas in which they will take place. He argues that such an area should be a Government region, for example, the constituencies for European parliamentary elections. That would preclude the method that we use for conducting pilots on other matters such as electronic voting, whereby some wards in a local authority area are designated for the pilot and others are not. One can then compare what happened in the same local authority area. The hon. Gentleman would prevent such pilots from being conducted for those purposes, yet they might lead to some interesting results.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

All sorts of things might lead to interesting results. However, I see no inconsistency between saying that I do not agree with a piloting approach but also that, if there is to be one, it needs to be on a quantum of local authorities that is sufficiently large to produce results, instead of the hotch-potch approach that has been used previously. Although we had some "interesting"—to use the hon. Gentleman's word—experiments on novel voting methods, what have we learned from them? We learned precious little because we had insufficient material to make a conclusive determination about the way in which we would like to progress. The end result was an election that inspired the least confidence of any in living memory. That is the environment in which we are addressing the issues in the Bill.

Clive Betts (Labour, Sheffield, Attercliffe)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way again. We had some interesting pilots in Sheffield on electronic voting, in which some wards had electronic voting and others did not. We learned that having electronic voting made virtually no difference to voter turnout, so the idea that it was going to provide some kind of panacea to get thousands more people to vote proved not to be the case. So pilots can prove that things will not work, as well as proving that they will. That is the idea of a pilot, and we should set out with an open mind as to what the result will be.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. We should set out with an open mind. We had a similar situation with electronic voting in south Somerset. It was not the preferred voting method of the people there; more were interested in personal voting. However, that is an aside, because we are not talking about a revolutionary change to what the Government are proposing. We are simply talking about providing a signature and a date of birth. I really cannot get my head around the idea that that is such a difficult thing for people to provide in order to ascertain that they are who they say they are for the purpose of electoral registration. People sign on the dotted line every day for things that they wish to receive. They might be asked to sign when the postman comes. They do not say, "Oh, no, Mr. Postman, I cannot sign to receive this package. It is too difficult." They say, "Of course I will." They sign, and they receive their package, or whatever.

This proposal involves a basic, elementary approach, and we are making far too much of an issue of it. We are making it an obstacle to registration, which it simply is not. It involves a basic precaution to ensure that, the next time we have an election, we do not have the sort of headlines that we had after the last one, with electoral courts in session and people being accused and convicted of electoral fraud, simply because our returning officers and registration officers do not have the mechanisms to prevent that fraud from happening. That is the responsibility of the House and of the Government, and that is why I have tabled these amendments today.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I should like to start by agreeing with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). Not to tackle the public perception of postal voting fraud and the inaccuracy of the registers would be a recipe for disaster. We talk a good deal in the House about trying to connect with the public, and about public confidence in the voting system. We are right to do so, because there is a disconnection there, and to fail to tackle a problem of such importance to this place would be wrong. The serial piloting approach is a hopeless and pathetic response to it. This is an urgent problem and it needs urgent action.

Everyone will know by now that I support the tried and tested system in Northern Ireland. It has created security and there are still high levels of registration there. However, I am prepared to consider measures such as those proposed by the Electoral Commission for a transitional approach. The proposal that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome has come up with in amendment No. 4 is worthy of support because it does not involve a potty pilot. It involves rolling out personal identifiers, which will provide real protection, and it involves doing so now.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

If the hon. Gentleman is saying that he wants to reach out and involve as many people as possible in voting, why on earth has he tabled amendment No. 23, which rules out all modern types of voting such as electronic voting, telephone voting and text message voting? Surely that amendment contradicts what he has just said.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am sure you would be very tough on me, Mr. Conway, if I strayed too far down that road, because it relates to the next group of amendments, although I will refer to the point made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts): when pilots involving electronic voting and the like were tried, they had no discernible effect on turnout. That has influenced me, as have my concerns about fraud, which I will refer to later, if I may.

The point I want to make is that it is right to be constructive when the problem is so important. I am prepared to be constructive, as is my party, so we will support amendment No. 4. I do not agree with the regional approach, because piloting is not the answer. A national approach is needed, and it is needed now.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

I sat through all the debate on Second Reading, and I have sat through a large chunk of the debate today. If any evidence were needed as to why we have to have a pilot, it has been provided by those debates. There has been a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing among Members on both sides of the Committee over whether one system will work and another will not; whether there should be household or individual registration; what the identifiers should be—for example, national insurance numbers; and whether those identifiers will act as barriers.

That is exactly why we need a pilot. We need to find out what does and does not work, and whether it is possible—particularly in terms of the personal identifiers—to give a choice. Despite what the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) says, some people find signing their name difficult, particularly in a consistent way. I give the example of my father, who has recently lost his eyesight. He is finding it extremely difficult to continue to sign his name in the way that he previously did with ease.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

Provision for setting aside the personal identifier in such circumstances has already been made by the Government, who foresaw the problem. My amendment would not change that; it would simply introduce the provision across the country rather than in some parts of it.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

But earlier the hon. Gentleman described exactly what the barriers are. Which personal identifiers will be easiest? That is probably where we are looking to pilot. Should we use date of birth? I would go along with that; it is probably an easy identifier. Should we use a signature? Most certainly it would be easy for most people, but we might use the mother's maiden name or a range of other things that will be easier for an individual to remember than things that we might think are easy to remember. That is why I said in a previous intervention that using the national insurance number might be difficult. Remember, the purpose of this measure is to encourage more and more people to register. For people with a learning disability, for instance, something we have not thought of might be an easier personal identifier than the ones we have come up with.

I also referred earlier to the point made by Scope, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and the Royal National Institute of the Blind, as well as other disabled organisations: whether it would be more successful to have individual registration with identifiers or household registration, also with identifiers; whether distributing the forms by household would make them too complex, too difficult to read and too difficult to access; and whether using an individual form would lead to a huge drop in the number of people who register. Nothing I have heard during our debates makes me think that we have the answers to those questions, which is why we need a pilot.

On Second Reading, I also made a plea for consistency across the different electoral regions. I might seem to be contradicting myself, but I think that we need pilots to find out what is easy and what is accessible. Having been registered in more than one electoral district—indeed, for a short time I was registered in three—I know that the variety of information and the differences between information that one receives in different areas can make it either easier or more difficult to work out how to register and what the form says.

I have puzzled over the exact meaning of a number of forms, especially in relation to declaration of citizenship, as it is not always clear whether that is mandatory. In one electoral register, one must declare one's nationality, while in my home register in Aberdeen, one does not have to do so. There is still confusion about exactly what is needed, and that is why the Government are right to pursue pilots. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that the pilots must ultimately come up with a final solution. I hope that, as a result of the pilots, we will find out what works, what does not work, what is easy, what is accessible, and above all, what leads to security of poll and cuts out fraud to make sure that everyone has confidence in the electoral system.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

To pick up the point about pilots, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) that we seem already to have had a pilot of sorts in Northern Ireland, from which we learnt some things. We should pay attention to the Electoral Commission, which recognised that there were some negative effects on registration, and advised that to tackle that we should couple a move to individual registration with other measures such as campaigning and publicity work.

I am not sure how far forward the running of pilots will take us. One of two things will happen. The use of basic identifiers such as a signature and date of birth will not show a significant drop, which I am not convinced will satisfy some Labour Members—who have already seen examples of a drop in Northern Ireland—that there will not be a problem in rolling that out across the country. Alternatively, it will show a significant drop, but the reasons for that, and the reasons why there are such barriers, will not necessarily be clear.

In relation to the reasons why people do not register, the Committee chaired by the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) stated in its report on page 26:

"Most of the figures quoted are from data collected in 1991."

It mentioned that the Government were conducting

."

Will the Minister tell the Committee what progress has been made on that, and whether that information will be available? Clearly, if some of what seem to be relatively straightforward identifiers act as significant barriers, we need to know why they are acting as barriers. I do not see how we can get much more straightforward identifiers than signature and date of birth for most people. If the introduction of such identifiers causes a massive drop in registration, I am not sure what other sorts of identifiers would not have a similar effect. We therefore need to be clear about why a drop in registration has been caused.

If a signature and date of birth is that off-putting, that either reflects levels of education among some of the groups who are not registering to vote, or, as I have said previously, the extent to which they could care less about voting. I accept the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) that for some individuals a signature might be a problem, and the Bill provides for that, but if most people are so disinterested in voting that asking them to sign a piece of paper and give their date of birth will cause a catastrophic drop in registration—as some Labour Members were saying—it strikes me that we have a more serious problem with voting and democracy in this country than is recognised.

If the Minister could answer my key question about some of the research on barriers to voting, that would be helpful.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Before I move on to new clause 5, I want to pick up a few points mentioned by other hon. Members.

The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that he would like to see a pilot in one region. We have already had that—that region was Northern Ireland—and we have seen the results. He said that he could not get his head round the idea that people are not prepared just to sign their name and give their date of birth. The hon. Gentleman cannot get his head around that notion. He is a well-balanced Liberal Democrat, a professional politician. Obviously, he sees no problem. If he lived in a house of multiple occupation, if he were unemployed or on the minimum wage or if he were part of an ethnic minority—obviously he is not—perhaps he would see that there are problems. There are problems for those people who are not registering under the current system. Any other measure that is put in their way will act as a disincentive to register.

We have learned the lessons from Northern Ireland, where the figure went down to 84 per cent. The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) said that we needed a registration campaign in conjunction with advertising, but that was undertaken in Northern Ireland. The figure went from 86 per cent. up to—according to the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald)—92 per cent, a figure with which he said he was satisfied. I certainly am not. I do not represent Northern Ireland, but I am a democrat and I do not believe that democracy should be functioning on the basis of 92 per cent. of the population being registered. If we want an efficient and effective democracy with all sectors of society catered for, we need 100 per cent. registration.

I also wanted to speak about the timing of any pilots, which is key. I would urge the Minister not to start any pilot in any area of the UK until we have the 3.5 million to 4 million missing people on the register. If pilots go ahead, we should have it at that point. The people missing from the register are the most sensitive to any change. If we introduce pilots before they are on the register, we will not get a true reflection of the impact.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the level of registration in Northern Ireland at great length and a number of times. What is the level in his own constituency?

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

In 1997, there 55,000 voters, which went down to 48,000. I raised the issue in the House two or three years ago and, lo and behold, an extra 2,000 to 3,000 voters were put on the register. Currently the figure stands at about 52,000 electors, 3,000 down on 1997. In the last 10 years, the population of my county—my constituency makes up 65 per cent. of my county—has gone up by 4 per cent., while registration has gone down by about 10 per cent.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

The hon. Gentleman is very generous in giving way. What I was looking for was the percentage of those eligible to vote in his constituency who are on the electoral register.

Chris Ruane (Labour, Vale of Clwyd)

Whatever the percentage is, it will be a lot worse—[Interruption.] I think that I have given enough statistics about my constituency and I hope that hon. Members have statistics of their own. I have also supplied every Labour MP with their percentage fall since 1997 for 2001 and 2004. I have also cross-referenced that with the census database and supplied that information. I have given enough information about voting populations in my constituency and, indeed, 300 or 400 other constituencies.

New clause 5 would ensure that this House was properly consulted, through primary legislation, before any national scheme for national identifiers was rolled out as a result of the pilots. The very fact that we are debating these matters on the Floor of the House gives an indication of how important we feel this Bill is. Important changes that could result from a pilot scheme should not go through on the nod but should be properly and fully debated in this House. I oppose any measures that would further reduce the size of the electorate in my constituency and those of other Members. We must be very careful about the way in which we implement pilot schemes involving personal identifiers and signatures, and even more careful when deciding what will happen when the schemes have run their course.

The Bill had its genesis in the furore and fallout from a number of high-profile postal-ballot fraud cases during the 2004 local elections. There was wall-to-wall coverage of those cases on television and radio, and in the press. The Government, being a listening Government, decided to act on the concern. The initial thrust of that action was to secure the votes. When the Government listened further, especially to representations from Labour Members on the other issue, widening participation, they realised that it was a question not just of security but of ensuring that people were on the register.

I believe that, since the Bill's inception, its balance has been evened out. I believe that there has been a trade-off between securing the vote and widening participation. Pilots will show us what impact additional security initiatives will have on voter registration and participation. As I have said, my main concern is the widening of participation. I would oppose an automatic roll-out as a result of any pilot studies that might be undertaken.

Members may be tired of hearing a statistic that I have already mentioned, but I think it essential to repeat it until people know the true figures. According to the Electoral Commission, between 3.5 million and 4 million people are missing from the electoral register under the current rules. Had the Government listened to the press, had they listened to the Opposition and, dare I say, had they listened initially to the Electoral Commission, we would be implementing a system that could lead to a drop of a further 10 per cent. in the number of electoral registrations if the Northern Ireland pattern were repeated. Given an electorate of 44 million, that could constitute 4.5 million missing voters. There could have been a total of 8.5 million missing voters had Labour Members not intervened.

Some people are concerned about security. Let me put the matter into perspective. Replies to a parliamentary question that I tabled about postal-ballot fraud suggested that there were no prosecutions in the case of general elections, and only one or two per year in the case of local elections. That is one or two too many, but I feel that the greater evil is represented by a potential 8.5 million voters missing from the register. I realise that pilot schemes were introduced in an attempt to compromise, but I think that the results should be carefully monitored. Each and every one of us should have an opportunity to comment. If there is cause for concern, primary legislation should be initiated, and should be fully debated in the Chamber before any permanent national changes are made. I do not want such legislation to go through on the nod.

Nothing is so precious to a Member of Parliament as his boundaries and the size of his electorate. To me, as a Labour Member, size does matter: the bigger the better. If any changes made in my constituency or others would have a negative impact on an already diminished electorate, I want a say in them. As a democrat, I believe that if changes that might affect 8.5 million of the most disadvantaged people in society are to be pursued, they are worthy of a debate, a vote and primary legislation.

David Cairns (Labour, Inverclyde)

The debate is yet further evidence of the lack of consensus on individual registration and personal identifiers. Amendments Nos. 4 to 9 would put pilots of personal identifiers on a compulsory and regional basis. New clause 5, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) said, would prevent the rolling out of personal identifiers on a permanent and nationwide basis without further primary legislation.

Let me deal first with amendments Nos. 4 to 9. The Government believe that, when a new system is tested, there is a balance to be struck between ensuring that it is tested on a large enough scale for the results to be meaningful and not taking unnecessary risks. Members will be aware that, for previous electoral pilots, we initially conducted tests at voluntary and local level. When we were confident that the system was ready to be used more widely, we scaled it up. What we have not done is to move to a regional scale without being clear that the benefits outweigh the risks.

The potential benefit of personal identifiers is an increase in the security of the electoral process. We are doing much to address this issue and personal identifiers may help us to do more. There is a risk of a significant drop in the number of people registered to vote. As we have heard repeatedly, in excess of 3.5 million people already cannot vote because they are not registered and we do not intend to exacerbate the problem.

Through pilots, we hope to measure the impact of identifiers in terms of both benefits and risks. We believe that a voluntary and local scheme will allow us to do that effectively. In our view, a compulsory regional scheme would attract an unacceptable level of risk, while not providing significantly more information about how the new system would operate.

Mark Harper (Conservative, Forest of Dean)

If voluntary pilot schemes are to rely on local authorities coming forward, how can we ensure that such schemes are piloted in regions where there are significant numbers of people who are not registered? In order to tackle some of the issues that we have discussed today, we need to pilot areas where significant numbers are not registered. Moreover, if we discover that there are barriers and a drop in registration occurs, what are we going to do to find out why?

David Cairns (Labour, Inverclyde)

Those are two perfectly valid questions and I am literally just about to address them in turn.

I was about to say that it might be useful at this stage if I gave more detail on how we intend to take the pilots forward. We believe that they should last for at least two years, and that shorter tests would not be sufficient to provide the evidence that we need to make a decision on rolling out. We intend to create one generic scheme—in consultation with the Electoral Commission and volunteer local authorities—and to pilot this same scheme across a variety of areas. In this way, we will be able to test the impact of personal identifiers simply, without the confusion that would be caused if we tested a variety of slightly different schemes.

In selecting local authorities, we will ensure that local elected representatives are consulted. My briefing note says that there will be no question of a Member of Parliament being taken by surprise by a pilot in their area. That rather brings to mind the image of a British Airways captain leaping out on us from a darkened doorway, but the point is made.

In response to the argument that regional pilots would be preferable because they encompass areas with different social and demographic profiles—the point alluded to by the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper)—we will seek to hold our local pilots in a wide variety of areas with different make-ups. The Office for National Statistics has grouped local authorities into seven classifications, some geographical and others more widespread. They are London centre, London suburbs, prospering UK, coastal and countryside, cities and services, and mining and manufacturing. There are also a number of sub-groups. We will seek to pilot in areas in each of these classifications in order to learn lessons from different areas with differing circumstances.

We have not yet issued a prospectus seeking volunteers, but we intend to do so shortly. Even in the absence of such a prospectus, a number of local authorities have already informally expressed an interest in piloting. I therefore foresee no problem in gaining enough varied volunteer local authorities to carry out a full and thorough test of the new system.

I mentioned earlier that I felt that the risks of regional registration pilots were too high. Let me explain why. The smallest UK electoral region is the north-east, which has some 2 million electors; the largest is the south-east, which has approximately 6 million. At the top end, a pilot covering two or three regions could cover a population of as many as 10 million to 15 million electors. A 10 per cent. drop in registration in such areas, as seen in Northern Ireland, would equate to the disfranchisement of between 1 million and 1.5 million people. Some Members may be sanguine about the prospect of disfranchising 1 million people, but we are not. If a local pilot had such a negative impact, the Government and the local authority in question could work together to rebuild registration rates. With a regional pilot, however, the catastrophic scale of the drop in registration would make such rebuilding far more difficult to achieve.

The purpose of holding pilots is to test a system that we feel is not yet ready to be rolled out. Here, there is a clear dividing line. We are testing the system because we are uncertain whether the benefits will be delivered without a catastrophic drop in the register; indeed, that is the whole principle behind piloting it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd spoke to new clause 5, which would prevent the rolling out of the use of personal identifiers on a permanent and nationwide basis without further primary legislation. As I said, there is no consensus on that issue. The Electoral Commission tells us to roll out personal identifiers now. My hon. Friend, who has tabled more parliamentary questions on the matter than anyone else—more perhaps than is altogether healthy—believes that, following pilots, a new Bill should be required to provide for national implementation.

Our position, as I have explained, is an attempt to respond practically to both sides of the argument. We will hold pilots that will be thoroughly evaluated—and they will be evaluated, to answer the second point of the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper), by the Electoral Commission. The Secretary of State will then take a decision as to whether he believes that the system is ready to be rolled out nationally.

My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd made a strong and powerful case, asserting the key role that the House must play if we are to institute such a far-reaching new scheme throughout the entirety of the UK. He clearly believes that it would be more appropriate for such a fundamental shift to be occasioned by primary, not secondary, legislation. The interest shown in the debate so far suggests that he advanced a powerful argument. However, my right hon. and learned Friend and I would like to reflect further on the implications of such a move. Given my assurances on how we are going to conduct the pilots, I hope that my hon. Friend is not minded to press the new clause.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I am grateful to all those who participated in this brief debate, but hearing the Minister say that it was outrageous to suggest that an electoral experiment—a pilot—should be extended to anything as large as a region when the Government had no compunction about forcing four regions through an electoral experiment only a little while ago against the express views of the Electoral Commission and every single party represented in the House other than the Government takes the biscuit.

David Cairns (Labour, Inverclyde)

We did not move immediately to all-postal regional pilots. They were piloted at a local and voluntary level and lessons were learned before the regional voting pilots that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. It would help if he were to clarify that that was the point that I was making.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Gentleman again attempts to clarify what he said, but the fact remains that, following that election, we had the biggest crisis of confidence in the electoral system of this country that we have ever seen. For the first time, we had people genuinely doubting whether the election in which they had just taken part was conducted freely and fairly. We should not tolerate that. What is the Government's response? Are they prepared to go into the next general election with the same postal voting precautions in place? Yes, they are. Their answer is, "We'll do something, but mañana—tomorrow, whatever." That is not a satisfactory position. We need to do something urgently. The Electoral Commission has given us a clear steer about how we should go forward and I wish to test the opinion of the Committee.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I beg to move amendment No. 21, in page 15, line 24, at end insert—

'(16) In section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2000 (Pilot schemes for local elections in England and Wales), after subsection (1), insert—

"(1A) No pilot scheme shall take place by all-postal voting or involve sending ballot papers to electors who have not expressly and explicitly requested to vote by post.".'.

Alan Haselhurst (Deputy Speaker, Saffron Walden)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:

No. 23, in page 15, line 24, at end insert—

'(16) In section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2000 (Pilot schemes for local elections in England and Wales), after subsection (1), insert—

"(1A) No pilot scheme shall include provision for remote electronic voting, telephone voting, text message voting, internet voting or voting by analogous electronic means.".'.

No. 24, in clause 16, page 16, line 9, at end insert—

'(9) In section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2000 (Pilot schemes for local elections in England and Wales), after subsection (1), insert—

"(1A) No order is to be made containing provisions authorised by any section of this clause unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.".

(10) In section 11 of the Representation of the People Act 2000 (Revision of procedures in the light of pilot schemes), after subsection (1), insert—

"(1A) No order is to be made containing provisions authorised by any section of this clause unless a draft of the order has been laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House.".'.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

Amendment No. 21 provides for no pilot schemes by all-postal voting. As Members on both sides of the Committee will be aware, the Electoral Commission has twice said that there should be an end to all-postal voting. It is clear—[Interruption.]

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

It is clear that the public value the tried and tested ballot-box polling station—the traditional British way of voting. They should not be forced to vote by other means such as postal voting if they do not want to do so. That is the recommendation of the Electoral Commission; it has been restated twice and it is time that the Government agreed to it.

Amendment No. 23 deals with pilot schemes for local elections and states that they should not include

"electronic voting, telephone voting, text message voting, internet voting or voting by analogous electronic means".

The point was made by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Betts) that such pilot schemes have shown no sign of increasing turnout in the past. The concern with electronic voting is that there is no proper way to establish an audit trail, so we propose in amendment No. 23 that we should not introduce such measures when there is no justification for them.

As for the experts, the Foundation for Information Policy Research has warned that

"the only safe way to allow electronic voting is through machines controlled by election officials that produce an auditable paper trail. Anything else is an invitation for fraud".

Let us not have that invitation. Mr. Ben Fairweather—a research fellow at De Montford university—has said:

"I have seen most if not all of the pilot schemes demonstrated, and have spotted substantial flaws . . . How do you know who's in the room with someone when they vote and how can you be sure they are not trying to influence someone's vote? . . . There are serious worries about SMS voting."

He goes on to describe all the difficulties with that. Let us take the same cautious approach to those issues as the Government claim they want to take.

We are concerned that piloting is becoming a serial occupation of the Government. They pilot and pilot and pilot, and then they pilot and pilot and pilot. That has been said before in the debate, but it is getting to the point where some controls should be put in place, so we suggest that Parliament should approve the pilot schemes.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

The hon. Gentleman describes the current position with electronic voting or text messaging, but five years ago, I could not even text: the technology is moving at an incredibly rapid pace. Those types of voting could be secure in five years' time, but they would be ruled out if we were to agree to the amendment. It is very narrow minded and backward looking to rule out those innovative ways of voting.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

The hon. Lady cannot have it both ways. We have tried an accurate system of voter registration in Northern Ireland. The Government have lauded it to the skies, but they will not introduce it in England. She is now saying, "We've tried electronic voting. It's failed. Let's introduce it." She cannot have it both ways.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

The hon. Gentleman is accurate in saying that the Government's intention is to pilot and pilot and pilot, given that the Minister seemed to postulate a three-stage pilot process, with a local, then a regional and then a supra-regional pilot scheme. So none of these things will ever be put in place.

Oliver Heald (Conservative, North East Hertfordshire)

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman is right. I think that we both heard the rustle of the long grass, as the Minister kicked these proposals well into that territory. He then thought that that was perhaps not far enough, so he kicked them a bit further. In fact, piloting is a method of delay: the Government will not grasp the nettle.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.