House of Commons Hansard Debates for 22 Jun 1992

Column 31

a soul was living in the development. That is a short-term matter and does not have much to do with the registration officer, who cannot do a great deal about it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) said, poll tax comes into the issue. It does so for two reasons. First, as my hon. Friend said, some people deliberately avoided going on the register on becoming 18 so that they would not have to pay the poll tax. Others removed themselves from the electoral register to avoid paying the poll tax. Removal is more difficult to achieve, but it is possible to do so by moving house, especially by moving within certain areas.

Secondly, registration for the poll tax has made registration for electoral purposes much more difficult for those who are involved in the process. In the past, when canvassers employed by the registration officer were sent to check the electoral register and to get names on it, there was no great hassle. People were not worried about giving the necessary information to canvassers. With the introduction and implementation of the poll tax, however, many people linked poll tax registration with electoral registration. Many of those who were employed to keep the electoral register up to date found the job extremely difficult. They encountered a great deal of hostility. They were met with abuse on doorsteps. They were told exactly what to do with the registration process.

It has become more difficult for registration officers to find part-time staff to undertake the job. They may be able to find a sufficient number, but whether those whom they employ now are as good as those who were used in the past is questionable.

Canvassing is a well-paid job--I do not know the going rate exactly, but I understand that it is possible to earn quite a lot of money in an hour. We all know how many houses we can canvass in an hour and I think that a canvasser is paid about £1 for each house on which he or she calls. We know that we can call on 20, 25 or 30 houses an hour. On that basis, it is a reasonably well-paid job. Increasingly, however, dangers are attached to it. Some members of the public are extremely hostile and the work becomes increasingly difficult. I am assured by registration officers in Scotland that their procedure is as foolproof as they can make it. They claim, rightly or wrongly, that they make use of poll tax registers and school leaving information provided by education departments. They also check the housing records of district councils wherever possible. They say that every house receives a visit from a canvasser. I rather doubt that. I am not questioning the quality of the canvassers, but I must question whether every house is visited. If no one is at home on the first call, the canvasser calls a second time. If no one is at home then, a form is put through the door for the person to fill in and send back. That appears to be a good procedure that should work, ensuring that there is a full register in each constituency.

4.15 pm

Canvassers may meet hostility on the first visit. Quite often they are middle-aged, middle-class women. I do not want to be unkind about parts of inner-city areas, but if such a lady went to a close in Glasgow--a block of flats in Glasgow terms--she might find a group of youths with cans of beer in their hands sitting at the bottom of the stairs. Indeed, they might be taking other substances.

Column 32

There might also be a couple of Alsatian dogs that did not appear to be under anybody's control. That lady might be unlikely to do anything more than the most cursory canvass of that block, and we all understand why.

Such difficulties inevitably lead to inaccuracies in the figures for the number of visits made. They also lead to an imbalance between middle-class and working-class areas. I hate to use the term "working-class areas" because that implies that those living there are in employment, whereas in fact very many of them are unemployed--often long-term unemployed--and have many problems. That canvasser's second visit would probably be similar to the first--and even putting a form through the door would not receive much response. In my area of Hamilton, if someone is not on the register he would return his form, but that is not necessarily the case in other areas. That creates the sort of inaccuracies that concern us. Whenever we raised the question of inaccuracies and questioned why people did not register, the Home Secretary said that it was an offence not to register. He is right ; it is certainly an offence not to be on the electoral register if one is eligible to be so. Indeed, as part of the procedures for poll tax registration, the Government raised the fine level for non-registration from the minimum to the maximum. I shall be happy to give way to the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he will tell me how many prosecutions there have been in England and Wales or Scotland for non-registration for electoral purposes. Quite simply, he cannot give me one example because there have not been any. There is no point in saying that it is an offence not to register--and that thereby the register is improved--if registration officers and the Government are not prepared to use their powers to enforce that. Some registration officers in Scotland tried to bring prosecutions, but procurators fiscal declined to pursue them because of insufficient evidence.

Mr. Rooker : I used to think that it was an offence not to register, but in the early hours of one July morning a couple of years ago, a Home Office Minister told me, in this Chamber, that was not so. The offence only arises if an individual is asked by a registration officer to register and refuses to do so. If a registration officer does not know of an individual's existence, he or she is not obliged to register. One is not required voluntarily to register and one does not commit an offence by failing to register voluntarily.

Mr. Maxton : My hon. Friend is right. The offence arises only if, having been asked to register, one refuses. If, however, the procedure which I described is followed, in theory at least one has been asked to register. If one fails to return the form, theoretically one could be liable to prosecution. The problem remains that those who want to bring the prosecution must provide proof that the form was delivered. If a form has not been returned, and if the authorities cannot gain access to a house to determine that a form is on the premises and has been torn up and thrown in the bin, it is impossible to obtain such proof.

The Government ought to do more to ensure accurate

registration--particularly at a time when boundaries are being drawn on the basis of an electoral register that many of us believe is not as accurate as it should be.

Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North) : When was the last time that my hon. Friend heard any Minister express

Column 33

concern at the Dispatch Box at the absence from the electoral register of the names of individuals who should be on it?

Mr. Maxton : I cannot recall that ever happening, but perhaps we will hear such an expression of regret from the right hon. and learned Gentleman today.

People have a democratic right to vote, and they ought to be able to do so. Often, inaccuracies arise by accident. An 18-year-old can grow up to be a 22-year-old without his or her name ever appearing on the electoral register never having been asked to register. The accuracy of the register is important when boundary commissioners are taking decisions about the number of seats that should exist in particular areas.

Glasgow may lose more seats than it ought if the register is as inaccurate as I and others believe. The Government should make every effort to ensure that cities such as Glasgow and Birmingham have accurate registers. If there is a genuine fall in population, fair enough ; but seats should not be lost because of inaccurate registers.

Mr. Barnes : According to Glasgow's estimated population for 1990- 91, the average electoral register in that city is 2,500 short. That adds up to a serious overall shortfall.

Mr. Maxton : My hon. Friend is right, and that means that across Glasgow about 30,000 people are not on registers who ought to be on them. That could be the difference between Glasgow having not 11 seats but nine or 10. Those 30,000 people could make all the difference.

Registration officers spend a lot of money on canvassers, but the Government are not prepared to spend money on television advertising in particular--as they have in respect of a range of other issues--to ensure the accuracy of electoral registers.

There is a question mark over one or two other points as well. The electoral register must be drawn up in the latter part of the year before that in which the May local elections take place and published in February. The timing may be fair enough as far as canvassing is concerned, but it is less fair on the elector. The draft registers are published at the end of November, after which the elector has only two weeks of some of the year's worst weather in which to check that his name has been included. After that, the register is finalised. I feel that the time of year is wrong and also that a fortnight is not long enough.

The Government were happy to provide--indeed, they insisted on legislating- -for every poll tax payer to receive in the post, as the poll tax register was drawn up, a notice informing him that he had been included on the register and telling him where he could appeal against or alter the registration if he wished to do so. Why cannot the same procedure apply to electoral registration? Why cannot the registration officer, once the draft register has been prepared, send each household--or each individual within a household--notice that the person or persons concerned will appear on the register? The poll tax register included a form to be filled in if there were any new names to be added. Why should not the same be done in this instance? That might not ensure a universal return, but at least people would know whether they were on the register and what to do if they were not. The Home Secretary may ask, "What about the cost?" The Government were happy to bear the cost in relation to poll tax registration ; in any event, would the cost be so

Column 34

enormous? It would be a matter of sending a single letter. There would, of course, be printing and other costs, but in an area such as Strathclyde region the cost would probably be no more than £500,000 if the letter were sent to each individual, and half that if it were sent to each household. Is £250,000 too high a price to pay for ensuring that democratic rights are protected? That is what we are talking about--people's democratic right to take part in the processes of both local and central government and to have their entitlement sustained by a proper electoral registration system.

I am delighted to support the amendment, and I hope that the Home Secretary will consider my points.

Mr. Robert Maclennan (Caithness and Sutherland) : This debate highlights the narrowness of the issues covered in the Bill. The mischief of an inaccurate and incomplete register does not sit easily with the other mischief that the Bill seeks to address--the distortions that occur when there is too much delay between the boundary commission's reports.

The amendment is valuable, in that it draws attention to what I believe concerns more electors than perhaps any other single matter. What was said during the general election campaign made that very clear to me. Nothing gave rise to greater anger in my constituency than the complete exclusion from the electoral register of a fairly recently constructed housing estate. Strong representations were made about it. I doubt, however, whether such an issue could usefully be taken into consideration by a boundary commission. It is a local administration issue.

4.30 pm

None the less, the Home Secretary has done democracy a great disservice by confining so tightly the long title of the Bill as to make it necessary to link the matter now under consideration with the duties of the boundary commission. It is not appropriate to take such a narrowly partisan view of the reform of our electoral law that it forces the debate into these unnatural channels, which inevitably it has to do if the issue of the inaccuracy of the register is to be raised at all. It would have been more sensible for the Home Secretary to have allowed the debate about the unsatisfactory nature of our electoral law to roam a good deal more freely than appears to be his intention. He may choose to take the opportunity afforded by this debate to answer the questions that have been raised about the unsatisfactory state of the register and not simply to explain to us that it would be inappropriate for the boundary commission to hold up its reports, as proposed in the amendment. He may also choose to explain what he proposes to do to correct the mischief.

It must be said, even if only en passant, that the message from Christopher Chataway's commission for the Hansard Society--that an electoral commission, with more wide-ranging powers than the boundary commission but to include the powers of the boundary commission--would be a better way to deal both with the question of the timeliness of reports and with the question that is linked with this amendment : the inadequacy of the registration process.

If the boundary commission were to enjoy the power proposed by the amendment, it is doubtful whether the mischief that it seeks ostensibly to address would be tackled effectively. The speeches that have already been made clearly suggest, both by their examples and by their

Column 35

general proposition, that those who are not on the register are not, in many cases, on the register because they do not wish to be on it. We could not sustain for very long the proposition that, because of an extraneous law--the poll tax--a substantial number of people do not wish to be on the electoral register, boundary reviews should be held up.

With the flux of time and the change in local government finance arrangements, that may prove to be a transient problem. I certainly hope so. I doubt whether we should embrace the amendment and the purposes towards which it is ostensibly directed, though I am grateful to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) for drawing attention to an area of electoral law and electoral administration where speedy intervention by the Government is needed.

Mr. Winnick : I suggested on Second Reading that it would be preferable to have an overview debate on electoral matters before debating a Bill of this nature. I said, rather briefly, that a number of factors should be debated, especially after a general election, before considering this hastily moved Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) has done valuable work in spotlighting, almost from the beginning of the poll tax controversy, the number of people who were likely to be left off the register, and in fact have been. Tribute should be paid to him, because in doing so he has done a service not only to his party but to democracy.

One of the worrying features is the number of electors who are missing from the register. I do not believe that the Government are genuinely concerned about the problem--I know that this may be dismissed as a cynical view and the Home Secretary is muttering, but I believe that I am accurate--because, in the main, they work on the assumption that if such people were on the register and bothered to vote they would be more likely to vote Labour than Tory. That may be entirely wrong, but that is the assumption in the minds of Ministers.

From the outset, not only my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North- East but other Labour Members pointed out that one of the results of the poll tax, which destroyed Mrs. Thatcher, would be that many people would believe that they could avoid paying a tax that they regarded as unjust, penal and could not afford by staying off the electoral register. No matter how often one emphasised the fact that two registers were kept, the end result was what we feared. If the Government oppose the amendment--there is little doubt that they will--the boundary commissioners will have no authority to take this important point into consideration. My hon. Friends have already spoken of the many people who are not on the register. Therefore, in carrying out their tasks, the boundary commissioners will make a faulty assessment from faulty figures. That is why I, unlike the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), believe that the amendment is important.

How can accurate decisions be made about boundary changes if data are far from accurate? As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) said, in a number of constituencies, certainly in inner-city areas, not a few but many people are missing from the register. Inevitably, there have always been some people who should have been on the register but were not, but the situation today is significantly different and far more

Column 36

alarming, unless one takes the view that it does not matter--that if people do not want to be on, so be it. That is not my view or that of Labour Members.

Press reports two or three days after polling day--I know that the Home Secretary will consider this to be another cynical view, but I believe it is accurate--showed that the Government are concerned about getting as much advantage out of boundary changes as possible. Why do we constantly read in the press that the Government are working on the basis that by the time of the next election there will be 10 or 20 seats to their advantage? On Second Reading, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said that the Government's optimism may be misplaced. I hope that it is, but that is not their thinking and we would not be debating the Bill now if they were not of that view.

I emphasise, as I did on Second Reading, that I do not believe that boundary changes should not be made. That would be a nonsensical point of view. I am not of course suggesting that once boundaries have come into being, they should never be reviewed. Of course they should be reviewed on a regular basis ; that is right and proper. However, the haste of the Bill and the trailing of it just two or three days after the election on 9 April makes one suspicious about the Government's aims.

I believe that one of the Government's objectives is the reduction of inner -city constituencies and the creation of newer constituencies elsewhere, which would be to their advantage. One of the most important points in all this is the need for impartiality. In the existing system or in any other electoral system, such as the one favoured by the Liberal Democrats and by some others, there must be a review of boundaries. However, impartiality is also required. If that impartiality is broken down, mainly by the way in which the Government act, there will inevitably be much concern and suspicion, and a rather cynical view of what the Government are concerned about. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook said last week, the Government did not consult the Opposition on the Bill, which was previously normal practice.

My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) spoke about the difficulties of getting people on to the register. Why could the Government spend so much money on trying to ensure that people overseas who, in many cases, left the country many years ago and who had no remaining links with Britain were on the electoral register?

Mr. Maxton : I wonder how much it cost.

Mr. Winnick : My hon. Friend asks how much it cost. One should compare that effort with the lack of concern, attention, advertising and expenditure directed to getting people who actually live in Britain on to the electoral register. People may say that I am being cynical, that I am wrong to accuse the Government of ulterior motives because they are wholly innocent and that this is, yet again, just a cynical Labour view. Inevitably, the question arises why the Government have been so concerned about overseas voters. Is it because they have said to themselves, "How terrible it is that these people who, in many cases, have broken all links with this country, have been away a long time and have no intention of returning are not on the register. It is vital for British democracy that they record their votes in a United Kingdom election"? That could be the Government's view.

Column 37

Alternatively, the Government may have worked on the assumption in the previous Parliament that the majority of such people, if they bothered to vote--I do not know how successful the Government were--would vote Tory rather than Labour. If one adopts a more impartial view, the Government should try their utmost to ensure that people living in Britain who are not on the register are brought on to the register.

I hope that the Home Secretary will refrain for a moment from talking to his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education. I am sure that he is interested in what his colleague is saying and that it is of the greatest national importance.

The Secretary of State for Education (Mr. John Patten) : We are discussing the hon. Gentleman's speech.

Mr. Winnick : I am glad that the Secretary of State for Education, who has just walked in, is showing such interest in these matters. It is always interesting to see. Perhaps other members of the Cabinet will soon walk in and instead of gossiping-- [Interruption.] I am willing to give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he wishes. He continues to make his remarks from a sedentary position. I hope that the Home Secretary can advise me. If the amendment is opposed-- [Interruption.] The mutterings of the Secretary of State for Education may be heard by his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, but I cannot hear them. If he speaks a little louder, I might.

The Chairman : Order. Hon. Members speaking in Committee should address their remarks to me.

4.45 pm

Mr. Winnick : The Secretary of State for Education may wish to address his remarks to you, Mr. Morris. I am sure that that would be of some interest. I am not sure how we shall be able to continue the debate without the presence of the Secretary of State for Education, but we will try our utmost.

I want to ask the Home Secretary an important question. If constituencies are considered to be too few in number, if the boundary commissioners come to the view that certain constituencies, because of numbers, are to be abolished and if the figures on which the boundary commissioners have worked have not been accurate, especially in inner-city areas where significant numbers of people have been missing, what purpose will be served by making recommendations that are based on faulty data? If the amendment does not meet the Home Secretary's approval, I hope that he will table a Government amendment before the Bill makes further progress to meet the point that I and my hon. Friends are trying to make.

It was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East on Second Reading--he will correct me if I am wrong--that one way to overcome some of the difficulties of getting people on to the electoral register would be to have an electoral number.

Mr. Barnes : It was not me.

Mr. Winnick : I stand corrected. The idea was suggested by one of my hon. Friends. I should have thought that, just as one has a national health service number and other numbers, one could have a permanent number once one was eligible to vote. As long as it was clearly understood that people vote once, it would be a possibility. There would not then be the problems, which my hon. Friend the

Column 38

Member for Cathcart mentioned, of people being afraid of intimidation or of people staying off the register because of the poll tax. I may be putting forward a suggestion that is not of my making, but I am willing to pick up suggestions of value. The suggestion of an electoral number should not be dismissed out of hand.

If we are really concerned about the democratic and electoral process and if we want to encourage people to vote, we should be worried by the fact that at least 25 per cent. of the electorate never vote in general elections. I am sure that the Home Secretary agrees that, in local elections, it is sometimes difficult to persuade to vote more than one third of those eligible to vote. That is alarming.

It is sometimes said that whatever happens in the United States is repeated in this country in due course. I hope that that does not always happen in view of the crime figures. In the 1988 presidential election there fewer than 50 per cent. of the people voted. We do not know what will happen in November this year. It would be alarming if that figure or any figure near it were repeated in the United Kingdom.

Obviously we want people to vote for our own party, but above all we want people to vote and we want people to engage in the electoral process. In some constituencies and, unfortunately, in some inner-city areas, the number who vote in a general election is less than 60 per cent. or 62 per cent. That too is alarming. There is an under-class who take the least interest in public affairs and who feel very alienated from the electoral process. I cannot go into all the reasons for that because you would soon call me to order if I did, Mr. Morris. The step of being on the register in the first place would be a start in encouraging such people to vote.

I urgently suggest that the Home Secretary should accept the amendment or that he should table a Government amendment so that when the boundary commissioners decide on their recommendations the House will at least have confidence that those recommendations are based on accurate figures.

Mr. Barnes : I welcome the fact that the amendment distinguishes between those people qualified to register and vote and those people on the electoral register. There is considerable disparity between the number of people on the register and the number entitled to be there, as many hon. Members have argued.

I hope that the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley) will accept that, in supporting the amendment, I am not supporting a device to delay implementation of the legislation. I have argued for four years in the House that the poll tax would cause serious problems for electoral registration, and the evidence has proved that to be the case.

I was not the first Member of Parliament to raise the problem of the poll tax. As far as I can judge from reading Hansard, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) mentioned it in the Committee that dealt with the poll tax legislation.

Mr. Maxton : I do not wish to question my hon. Friend's historical accuracy, but the Scottish poll tax Bill was pre-1987 and I can assure him that I and the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) mentioned the problem, as did other members of that Committee.

Column 39

Mr. Barnes : I am sure that that is the case. I am referring only to legislation affecting England and Wales which was passed during my time in the House.

I am not even asking for an accurate register ; I am asking that the register of people entitled to vote within each area should be as accurate as possible. It would be difficult to get accurate registers before redistribution as so much needs to be done to correct them : we must ensure that people who are on the register but are no longer entitled to be are removed and that other people who are entitled to vote are added. There is no reason why we should not be able to work out as accurately as possible how many people should be on the register.

Many hon. Members have quoted the latest 1991 statistics. The results are divided into constituencies in Scotland and into district areas in England and Wales. The Minister must tell us why we cannot act on those figures, rather than figures for electoral registration, given the serious problems affecting them.

I would welcome some statement on Home Office moves to ensure that electoral registration is improved, so that when this legislation affects future boundary reviews an accurate register will be used. My hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) said that Ministers had never mentioned the problems affecting electoral registration, but there have been several limited comments on the subject. I shall quote the Minister of State, Home Office--the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd)--when he summed up the debate on Second Reading, saying :

"Rather more insistently, many Labour Members complained that the 1991 register, which is the reference point for the English, Scottish and Welsh boundary commissions, is insufficiently accurate to form an acceptable base for redistribution. I have some sympathy with that view. Just as I believe that constituency boundaries should not be allowed to become too out of date, so I believe that registers should be as up to date and as complete as possible."--[ Official Report 15 June 1992 ; Vol. 209, c. 742.]

Mr. Winnick : I heard the Minister say that, but it is the least that he could have said. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important that the Minister acknowledges the problem, and we shall hear what the Home Secretary has to say about it later, but I am not aware that Ministers ever drew attention to it on their own initiative. The Minister was merely saying the least that could be said in the circumstances, in reply to Opposition Members.

Mr. Barnes : Even the expression of sympathy with "that view" is important. The logic of having sympathy with it should be that we shall receive some sign of what will be done to correct the manifest abuses in electoral registration. The Minister's statement was welcome, but we must prod the Secretary of State to tell us what the Home Office will do to put registers right.

Reference has been made to parliamentary answers given by the Scottish Office and the Department of Health to a question about the state of the electoral register. In a sense, every hon. Member represents a sort of rotten borough, because hosts of electors are missing from the register. In areas where Members have healthy majorities, which are far larger than the number of electors missing, it is not a serious matter. However, other Members have narrow majorities--especially Conservatives. The Government hold 22 seats with a majority of 1,000 or less, and in each of those seats well over 1,000 people are missing from the electoral register. If they are missing

Column 40

because of the poll tax and are an anti-Tory cohort, those hon. Members might depend on the poll tax to win their seats.

The written answer providing information on registration in Scotland was given on 6 February 1992 in columns 293 to 296 of Hansard. It shows that there are 140,000 fewer people on the electoral registers than the estimated population taken at mid-1990 figures. The electoral registration figures are for 1991 and voters had to register by October 1990. Those June and October 1990 figures are the latest available. Neither the Scottish Office nor the Home Office will produce later figures because they are waiting to process the census figures and to relate them to electoral figures. Unfortunately, everyone is aware that there were problems with the census, which was also affected by the poll tax. Legislation was used to try to inform people that there was no means by which census information could be used for poll tax purposes--whether that was generally believed is another matter.

The figures for Scotland, produced in the parliamentary answer, are for district council areas and for the 72 parliamentary seats there. In each constituency there is a shortfall in the number of electors compared with the estimated population able to vote. In 14 seats, the discrepancy is more than 2,700 and it rises to almost 5,000 in Strathkelvin and Bearsden. The discrepancies are maldistributed and 76,000--more than half--of the missing electors are in the Strathclyde region, although it does not contain half the electors in Scotland. As I said in an earlier intervention, the position in Glasgow is worrying. In each of the 11 seats, between 2,300 and 2,700 people are missing.

Unfortunately, the details are not so complete for England and Wales. The figures given on 11 February 1992 in Hansard are for only metropolitan districts and district council areas and are bundled together in shire counties. However, they show that in England 1,750,000 people were missing overall. Within each metropolitan district and shire county there is a shortfall, but it is a maldistributed shortfall.

5 pm

In London there are 10 boroughs in which more than 20,000 people were missing off the registers at the time for which the figures were given, even though efforts were made in certain parts of London to improve registration for the general election. However, we do not have comparative population figures for the time of the general election which we can use. The figures for 1991 will be used for the purposes of the Bill. The quota will be worked out on the basis of figures for 21 February 1991.

We have a problem in working out the quota of seats on the basis of which the various county areas will be divided. In later investigations it might be possible to talk about more recent electoral figures and make improvements so that the details can be adjusted. But the overall quota will be determined on the basis of the 1991 figures.

The problem is of some importance in Derbyshire where the quota that has been worked out is 10.49 seats. So only a slight adjustment, depending on what happens in the rest of the country, could bring the quota up to 11. However, once the review process has started, it will be too late because the quota will already have been determined, whatever people may argue about the shortfall in their area. The shortfall will help only to determine some detail

Column 41

about where the boundaries should be, rather than determining the number of seats that Derbyshire should have.

In Greater London, 482,000 people are missing from the electoral register. Areas such as Barnet, Camden, Ealing and Westminster all have more than 30,000 people missing. There is a serious maldistribution of the shortfall in England and Wales. In some areas of Wales such as Gwent, there seems to be no serious problem ; only about 21,000 people are missing overall. But other areas, such as Greater Manchester, have 104,000 people missing and there is a serious problem.

We need to ensure that we act on the most accurate figures possible, both to determine the quota and to decide how areas should be divided. That problem must be handled with some urgency because there is some urgency about redistributing the seats. We cannot continue to have unequal electoral districts. Indeed, the Labour movement is greatly attached to equal electoral districts. Equal electoral districts were one of the six points of the charter which our forebears in the Chartist movement proposed --often with much opposition from Tory Members of Parliament.

Mr. Peter Bottomley : I understand what the hon. Gentleman says. Will he put his comments in the context of paragraph 4(1)(ii) of the schedule to the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986, which deals with the London boundaries? I believe that I am right in saying that a borough with only one Member of Parliament could have an electorate of between 36,000 and 104,000, a borough with two Members of Parliament could have an electorate of between 53,000 and 87,000 and a borough with three Members of Parliament could have an electorate of between 59,000 and 81,000. That elasticity seems rather greater than the discrepancies to which the hon. Gentleman properly refers.

Mr. Barnes : Of course, there are other issues to be raised than the one which I am addressing. The notion that in some cases it should be possible to cut across London borough boundaries to achieve equal electoral districts is important. Undoubtedly, other hon. Members will make that case. But I am dealing with an overall problem in England, Scotland and Wales. I have not raised the different quota sizes for Scotland, Wales and England. Arguments could be made about that. It could be argued that smaller nations should have extra consideration. But even the quota sizes for Scotland and Wales under the current rules are affected by the general difficulty with electoral registration.

Mr. Maclennan : Would it be practical and possible to tackle the problems, to which the hon. Gentleman properly draws attention, within a time scale that allows a new electoral register to be drawn up before the anticipated date of the next general election, even if the Government's objections to the manner that the amendment proposes are too strong to allow the Committee to accept the amendment?

Mr. Barnes : It is possible to move ahead quickly on electoral registration reform. Indeed, I have a private Member's Bill which will come before the House on 12 February to tackle the matter. I have had consulations with the Home Office about it. Even if the Home Office wanted to change some of the details, if it agreed with

Column 42

some of the principles behind the Bill, the Bill could be a convenient vehicle for reform. But 12 February is still a long way away.

Discussions are being held between the political parties, other organisations and the Home Office about what happened at the last general election, including what happened with electoral registration. Investigations have been undertaken by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys which may allow more modern comparisons to be made. There is no reason why the Government could not take that information into account quickly and introduce the appropriate legislation instead of the measure before us now. The Bill could also be placed on hold until the electoral registration provisions have been corrected.

If the Government do not offer appropriate legislation and I have to go ahead with my private Member's Bill on 12 February to press the matter, it may still be possible to make adjustments to the Bill which we are considering which would improve the position. One possible adjustment is amendment No. 1. Alternatively, the Home Office could state that it would take into account the estimated population figures or that it would examine the figures closely to discover how accurate they are. It could make use of those more accurate figures and provide estimated population figures for not only Scottish but English and Welsh constituencies so that we could act on them.

There is no problem with electoral registration figures in Northern Ireland, where the estimated population figures are adhered to. One reason why there is not a problem in Northern Ireland is that the poll tax was never introduced there and did not mess up the register. Northern Ireland still has the problem of countervailing sets of errors in the register which exaggerate the numbers in some places and exclude people elsewhere. That problem has existed for a considerable time. It was referred to in an OPCS report in 1981. Let us point out the problem created by the poll tax on the basis of the empirical evidence. On page 2 of Population Trends of summer 1991, the OPCS published a table showing that in 1987 the number of people on the electoral register was 99.2 per cent. of the estimated population. The figures for the years until 1981, plus 1976, were about the same. They sometimes slipped to as low as 98.4 or rose as high as 99.3 per cent., but were usually about 99 per cent. After 1987, the percentage began to drop year by year and, by 1991, it was 96.5--a fall of 2.7 per cent. since 1987.

Furthermore, the "attainers" group--those registering for the first time-- cannot be found on previous registers. Those wishing to duck electoral registration to avoid payment of the poll tax were likely to be younger people. The figure for that category shows a fall of 4.7 per cent. The same does not apply to Northern Ireland, where the figure for that category has been increasing. In England and Scotland, the number registering was never so high compared with the estimated population. The explanation may be that there were more overseas visitors, a factor that must be taken into acount.

In 1987, the figure was 97.4 per cent., which is similar to the figure for previous years. After 1987, the figure starts to fall until it reaches 95.5 per cent.--the figure mentioned by the Home Secretary on Second Reading. That is a fall of 1.9 per cent. The figure for attainers shows a fall of more than 6 per cent., which shows that a serious problem must be tackled. It is not simply a slight statistical aberration

Column 43

but fits in with a host of information from electoral returning officers on how figures should be collected and how those should relate to poll tax registration in different areas. It also relates to the fact that Bills under discussion in the House had begun to interlink the poll tax and the electoral register. For example, a small Bill on Caldy island had only two clauses : one about poll tax registration and the other about electoral registration. That interconnection has always existed.

The electoral register's problems are not caused entirely by the poll tax. The poll tax has revealed serious difficulties and is itself a problem that needs to be tackled. But other problems are caused by growing numbers of homeless people, who feel that they do not belong to the system, and people who move around in search of employment. The latter are encouraged to get on their bikes to look for employment and, when they do so, they frequently change accommodation and are never firmly placed on a register. All those factors have added to the long backlog of what was already wrong with electoral registration. Those problems have often been hidden from view by other countervailing problems.

Let us show that we are trying to get the register right and, in the process, press forward to achieve equal electoral districts. Ideally, the right order would be to get the registers right first and then deal with the areas. However, if the Government are not willing to move in that way, they must say what they will do to overcome the current serious problem. They must obtain a decent set of rough and ready figures to show what electoral registration should be, so that the boundaries can fit in with those.

I hope that, even if we push the matter to a vote and the Government pull out their forces and make us lose, the Minister will promise to act on electoral registration and rectify the mess that existed at the last general election. There was little wonder that the pollsters got it wrong, because pollsters never take account of whether they are investigating the right people. Before the general election, pollsters were investigating those who could be on the electoral register rather than those who were actually on it, which is what gave the different result revealed in the ballot box. 5.15 pm

Mr. Rooker : The House of Commons does not deal with this important subject often enough. From my experience of the past two or three years, I believe that Home Office Ministers do not take electoral registration or administration matters anywhere near seriously enough to be proactive about them.

Evidence shows that, by and large, the British do not like registering. It is probably anathema to them in the same way as are identity cards. Press reports in the past couple of weeks show that people in Cornwall do not even like registering the dead, as a result of which Tory Members have been hiring taxis and scurrying around delivering proxy votes for the dead for Tory candidates. That is another twist to the problem of lack of registration. Similar problems occurred at the Plymouth by-election earlier this year. It seems that problems relating to registration in the west country need to be solved.

Next Section

Home Page