Persons Subject to Collective Community Charge

Part of Orders of the Day — Local Government Finance Bill – in the House of Commons at 4:45 pm on 19 April 1988.

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Photo of Mr Bruce Grocott Mr Bruce Grocott , The Wrekin 4:45, 19 April 1988

I strongly support amendment No. 153, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham).

The House should be concernd, as it has been on occasions, about the relationship between any information collected for poll tax purposes and information that is already available on the electoral register—hence the name "poll tax", which will be attached to the tax for as long as it is in existence. I am concerned about the security of the information that may be collected for the poll tax register because at present the security for information on electoral registers is inadequate. Electoral registers are available to any type of organisation that wants to buy and use them for any purpose.

The House may be interested to know that last year I took part in a survey that was directed at about one fifth of local authorities—84 in total, including London boroughs, metropolitan, Welsh and English districts. The survey tried to discover what use people made of the electoral registers, other than for the agreed purpose of establishing people's entitlement to vote. It will not come as a surprise to any hon. Member who has ever taken an interest in these matters that no fewer than 93 per cent. of the local authorities that we surveyed sold their electoral registers indiscriminately.

We all know what electoral registers can be used for. They are used for junk mail or by debt collection agencies. We know well enough some of the methods used by those agencies. The registers are used by private detective agencies and by a whole range of other groups and people who find it convenient to get hold of electoral registers as a cheap means of establishing the people who live in certain areas.

I raised that matter because the present law is uncertain. Regulation 54 of the Representation of the People Regulations 1986 states: So long as there are sufficient copies available after allowing for the number which may be required for his registration duties … the registration officer shall supply to any person copies of any part or parts of the electors lists on payment—". If that happens with electoral registers, we need to ensure that it does not happen with the poll tax registers. Until we have proper safeguards for the use of electoral registers, to protect the privacy of those who fill in their forms in good faith, we should be keen to support amendments such as the one tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland to protect people's privacy when the poll tax registers are compiled.

The simple principle is that, when people fill in their electoral registration forms, they do so with one purpose in mind—to establish their entitlement to vote. If the local authority uses the register for any other purpose whatever, that is a gross infringement of the privacy that people assume they have when they fill in their forms. It is clear that that information should not in any circumstances be sold commercially or used by private commercial companies for matters that are totally unrelated to the democratic process, which is what the electoral register is for.

We know about the flaws in the electoral register system and we know about the ambiguity of the law. So far, the Home Secretary has taken no action in that respect. It is unacceptable for the House to propose further uncontrolled registers—in this case the poll tax register—before we have dealt with the more immediate problem of the electoral register. At the very least, we would support the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland.