Clause 12
Political Parties and Elections Bill
10:30 am
Eleanor Laing (Shadow Minister, Justice; Epping Forest, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 17, in page 10, line 20, leave out from ‘shall’ to end of line 26 and insert
‘amend the electoral register by means only of an additional entry at the end of the appropriate section of the register, until the appropriate publication date of an election.’.
This is a fairly uncontentious part of the Bill. The clause is perfectly reasonable and we do not argue with it but, as I have said several times during our proceedings, the problem is that of clarity. An anomaly in the clause could cause considerable problems and even disfranchise people if an election were held during the latter half of the year during the canvass period. The amendment is therefore intended to clear up the anomaly. It is technical, and I say at the outset that it is of a probing nature and if the Minister can convince the Committee that the anomaly can be dealt with in another way, possibly by a Government amendment, which would deal with matters more efficiently, I would be delighted to withdraw it.
While we welcome the intention to make it easier for people to register to vote, the anomaly arises whereby the voting ability is adversely affected between July and December in respect of people who are new to an area and therefore new to an electoral register because of rolling registration. As I am sure all members of the Committee know, the annual canvass of electors is conducted during the autumn and is compiled on the basis of residents at an address on 15 October in a particular year. The new register must be published by 1 December.
For example, during the autumn of 2007, there was considerable speculation that there might be a general election. It is not for me to commiserate with Ministers that there was no such election. [Interruption.] Some Labour Members seem happy about that, while others seem sad. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Wirral, West says from a sedentary position that I have not seen the polls. I am sure that such matters are outwith the scope of the amendment. However, I have seen the polls and I am quite happy with them.
During the early autumn of last year, when making concrete plans for a possible general election, the electoral administrators were faced with the real possibility of an election taking place during the annual canvass period. There was much concern among them about whether a general election held before 1 December 2007 would use the register drawn up in October 2006 with the rolling register additions made during the year, or whether the 2007 canvass information could be used. I hope that I am being clear, but if I am not, it is because the whole situation is not clear, which is the very point that I am making.
The Electoral Commission subsequently, and quite rightly, issued guidance to electoral administrators, which stated that the 11-day rule for registering to vote before an election did not apply to the annual canvass. In other words, electors may have completed canvass forms, but they would not be added to the register until the new one was published in full by 1 December 2007. This meant that any elector not on the old register would have had to register by rolling registration by 17 October 2007 in order to vote at a general election held on 1 November 2007, or he or she would have been disfranchised. I am not concerned about 2007—that has been and gone, with no election—but this could happen in any future year when there might be a general election during the latter half of the year.
Electoral registration offices were advised by the Electoral Commission last year to use the information about new voters on return canvass forms to contact those new voters and ask them to fill in a rolling registration form. As long as this was done by 17 October 2007, they would appear on the register and would have been able to vote at an election on 1 November 2007. I am sure that the Committee will well understand that this is causing a lot of confusion. An electoral system which is not definite and which has any area of doubt in it is not a fair electoral system. In a close election that could cast doubt upon the very legitimacy of a Government. We do not want that in the United Kingdom; we need a system that is absolutely watertight, so that people know that when they have an entitlement to vote, they know how to vote, when to vote and that if they are on the electoral register then they are on the electoral register.
Under the current system, people may or may not be on the electoral register, which also produces an enormous burden upon the administrators who look after the practical workings of a general election. I say general election, because most other elections are on a specific date, when we all know well in advance that there will be an election on 4 June or 3 May. That is not a problem because the former register would have been in force from the previous 1 December and all electoral registration officers and anyone else concerned with elections would know for months that they were heading towards an election. However, with a general election, we sometimes only know for three weeks. To have this scramble to ensure that the right people are registered in the right place during the three weeks of a general election campaign puts the entire process into doubt. It is that doubt in the process that Opposition Members are constantly trying to avoid.
I am not making any party political points in my remarks about clause 12—this is nothing to do with party politics. When other parties look at the problems that might occur, they will find the same as I have in looking at this. The statistics show that, had there been an election last November, something like 1 million people could have been disfranchised. That is a very worrying situation. Electoral registers are updated by the process of rolling registration, which allows electors to go on or off the register as they actively ask the council to change their details. That is quite right—we have always supported rolling registration because it produces a more up-to-date and, therefore, accurate register. The problem that occurs, specifically for an election in the autumn of any year, is that while residents may be under the impression that their new details are on the register, they will not be if there is an election in November. If they take the additional step of filling out a rolling register update, they will not be able to vote in their previous constituency either, so people will fall between two stools if they try to do the right thing.
The people who will be most adversely affected are those who have recently moved home and students, who frequently move. Almost every year, students move from one address to another. Imagine the upheaval for someone who is in charge of a student house and who therefore has to fill in the details of some 20 or 25 students who move in or out every October. If there was a general election in a November, we might find that the wrong people were registered and that the right people did not get a vote at all. That matters because a few hundred votes here or there in a university town could decide the outcome of an election, and therefore it is a matter of great concern. I can see a particular hon. Gentleman who represents a university town grumbling in the wings, and quite rightly so. If the hon. Member for Cambridge comes up with a better solution than my amendment for getting round the problem, I will gladly support him.