House of Commons Hansard Debates for 12 Feb 1993

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registers that were used in the 1950s and the early 1960s. Financial pressures on local government have become greater and, regrettably, local authorities have sought to save money in undertaking their responsibility to ensure that registers are as full and accurate as possible.

We have all seen changes in the method of registration. When I was a local government candidate in the early 1960s--I was an agent at the time--there could be only one change to the register each year. The Y voters, as they used to be, were able to exercise their vote on a date halfway through the life of the register. Dates of birth are now shown on registers, which means that when a person becomes 18 years of age--it used to be the 21st birthday, of course--he or she immediately becomes qualified to vote. People can claim that their names should be added to a register if there has been an official error or because they fail to register. That facility is not much used and it relates to the place where they would have been qualified to vote in October of the previous year. People are not allowed to put their names on the registers that are being used in the places to which they have moved. They can claim only that their names should be added to the register at the place where they were in residence, in the previous October.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East proposes that we should have a moving and changing register. He has said that the provisions that are set out in the Bill need to be debated fully in Committee, and he is right. Conservative Members have highlighted some flaws. However, the Bill focuses our attention on faults with the present system. If we have a democracy, we have a duty to ensure that the maximum number of people are able to exercise their right to vote at local elections, county council elections, borough elections, regional elections--I hope--in the years to come, parliamentary elections and elections to the European Parliament. The key, of course, to the exercise of that right is registration. If the register is inaccurate, the present system prevents people from expressing their voice in a democracy.

I often criticise the percentage of the poll in local elections. I am sure that we should all like to see much higher percentages. Sadly, there has been a slight downward drift of the percentage poll in general elections over the past 40 years or so. It must be said, however, that the percentage of polls here is higher than that which caused the Americans to express delight after the presidential campaign, which was one of the highest polls that they have seen. We are in an age of computers and we should recognise that it is now more feasible to update registers regularly. I recognise, of course, that there are problems and that there could be abuse. Those are the issues which should be debated in Committee. We have a responsibility, however, to examine the system and ask ourselves whether we should change it and ensure that we have registers that enable the maximum number of people possible living in a constituency to have the opportunity to exercise their right to vote for the party of the candidate of their choice in an election. The Bill gives us the opportunity to discuss some of these opportunities.

My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East has said that there are other issues that he believes should be debated. He rightly said that the arrangements for overseas voters need to be examined.

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There is also the issue of postal votes. He told us that he deliberately excluded such matters from the Bill, although he believes that they should be examined in the long run. He has deliberately confined the Bill to two fairly simple issues--registers and disabled voters--because he wants to see progress made on those fronts.

I hope that the Minister will respond positively and say that the Government, especially the Home Office, are prepared to examine changes that will meet the objectives of my hon. Friend. I believe that the time has come to move in that direction. The present system is wrong. I am sure that during the general election campaign there were people in every constituency who complained to every candidate that they had not received voting papers or that their names had not been included on the register. For whatever reason, they were unable to exercise their vote on 9 April. In a democracy, that must be wrong. The Bill highlights the defects in the system that is now operated. I accept that details need to be considered in Committee, but we must move a long way in the direction that has been signposted by my hon. Friend to ensure that people have a voice in our democracy, which is an essential part of the democratic process.

I have always believed in democracy. At local government level and in Parliament, the role of the opposition--all those who are against the party in power is important. If there is no opposition, we shall move rapidly towards dictatorship. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have a responsibility to ensure that the key to democracy is preserved, and I believe that that is the register.

I think that it is generally accepted that the postal vote system needs to be analysed. Further development of it is needed. I support the idea that more publicity should be given to the availability of postal votes. My hon. Friend was right, however, when he said that there are many disabled people and many elderly people who, by choice, do not have a postal vote. They regard it as important that they are able to get to the polling station to express their voice in a democratic way for the candidate of the party of their choice, and to be seen to be doing that. That is vital. the disabled often find it offensive to have to go to the back doors of buildings to gain access--to use a second-class entrance--and to be considered as not having the same rights as non-disabled voters.

Those of us fortunate enough not to be disabled tend to overlook the stigma and difficulties that often attach to someone who is disabled. My hon. Friend, in a modest way, is trying to make the point that we should look positively at polling stations and question whether they are accessible to the disabled and the elderly and, if not, to consider more suitable premises.

That is not to say that I oppose the extension of the postal vote and encouraging people to make use of that facility, because it offers considerable advantages. However, many elderly and disabled people regard going to vote at a polling station as an important part of their democratic rights.

My hon. Friend admits that his Bill has some defects, but it focuses attention on two issues of great importance in a democracy. We have a duty to ensure that people have the right to use their vote, which means ensuring that the register is correct. We are also obliged to ensure that everyone can use polling stations. If the Bill receives a Second Reading today, I hope that it will be positively improved in Committee. If the Home

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Office accepts the spirit and the concept of my hon. Friend's Bill, and takes a positive attitude to the aspects I mention, it could improve the Bill in a way that is acceptable to my hon. Friend and meets his objectives, and meets the provisions of our democratic society in ensuring that all have the right to vote--whichever way they choose.

11.42 am

Mr. Michael Shersby (Uxbridge) : I congratulate the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) on his good fortune in the ballot and on providing the House with an opportunity to debate a matter of considerable interest to all right hon. and hon. Members and their constituents. I am pleased to participate because, as the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) pointed out, there cannot be any right hon. and hon. Member who, during the last election, was not approached by a constituent asking, "Why am I not on the register? Why didn't you put me on the register?" They all think that Members of Parliament are responsible, when we all know that is the duty of registration officers.

I represent the 61,744 constituents of the Uxbridge parliamentary constituency. That number has been broadly constant since 1979, but it dropped by about 1,400 in the last general election. It is important to consider the reduction in electorates that prompted the hon. Gentleman's Bill.

There are several reasons why electorates throughout the country have fallen by various amounts during the past few years. One is that, because of the current recession and difficulties in the housing market, those who inherit empty property after the death of its previous occupant have encountered considerable difficulty selling it. When I canvassed in the last general election, I frequently came across properties on the register identified as having no elector. I began to investigate and canvassed such houses. In almost every case, the properties were shut up, empty, and gave the appearance that the occupants had left for one reason or another.

Another small but significant factor is that many people in this country have homes elsewhere in Europe. With the tendency to take early retirement, there is an increasing propensity to buy homes abroad and for people to spend part of their retirement living in France, Spain or another country. That means that on 10 October each year, many are not at home to fill up form A, so their names do not appear on the register. Another factor is the deliberate avoidance of registration, to evade liability for the community charge. There may be other reasons, and no doubt other right hon. and hon. Members will refer to them.

Waiting to be called to speak, I took the opportunity to research the constituency of the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), who represents only 30,905 electors, compared with my 61, 000. That hon. Gentleman represents a large and beautiful constituency, which I have had the pleasure of visiting--but even there, 1 per cent. of the electorate was lost between the last two general elections.

We all know that it is never left solely to the individual to register his or her interest in voting--unlike in the United States, where the turnout for presidential elections is substantially lower than for general elections in our country. Our Government and Parliament impose a duty on citizens to provide information requested by electoral

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registration officers. In effect, registration is compulsory. Those who receive a copy of the annual canvassing document that we know as form A have a duty to return it with accurate information, and they can be fined for not complying with that request. When my hon. Friend the Minister replies, I shall be interested to know how many prosecutions there have been in recent years for failing to comply with the form A request.

Mr. Corbyn : I bet that there has been none.

Mr. Shersby : The hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) gives the impression that the number of prosecutions is zero. I am interested to know whether that is the case. If it is, what is Home Office policy in that regard?

There is a statutory duty on electoral registration officers to maximise registration and to publish an annual register of all those who appear to them to be eligible to vote. I shall concentrate for a few moments on that statutory duty. Having exercised that duty, the officer must take account of the facilities available to the general public to check that the register is accurate each year and that their names are included. It is possible, for example, for electors to check that information at their local public library, and many political parties--certainly the Conservative party and the principal Opposition party--have offices in or near constituencies where their supporters can also check that their names are on the register. That has always been a valuable part of the work done by the political parties locally, as it complements the statutory duties of the electoral registration officers.

I have made inquiries about the level of registration, and understand from Government estimates that it is about 95 per cent. of the potential electorate. Every year, about £40 million is spent in England and Wales on the process of electoral registration. As we all know, there is an annual nationwide advertising campaign that encourages people to register, and complete and return their electoral registration forms. In 1992, a total of £617,000 was spent on that advertising campaign.

Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, electoral registration officers are required to

"have a house to house or other sufficient inquiry made as to the persons entitled to be registered"

as electors. The 1983 Act has one deficiency to which the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East may care to turn his attention if his Bill is given a Second Reading.

Unfortunately, the 1983 Act does not define "sufficient inquiry". Therefore, electoral registration officers are free to the method of conducting the canvass return according to local circumstances and the finances available to them. That is different from what used to happen in the 1950s and 1960s when, to my certain knowledge, electoral registration officers--certainly in London--made sure that households were canvassed by local government staff if an individual or household failed to return form A. I understand that that does not always happen today. If a return has not been made to the electoral registration officer, the most likely step is to send the household more forms. I believe that it is not uncommon for some electoral registration officers to make two or three attempts to attain the names of people living in a household by sending more forms. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East made an important point when he said that the forms were in addition to the already large amounts of mail that come

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through our letter boxes every week, and that people probably do not pay sufficient regard to them and throw them away with much of the other unsolicited mail. The definition of "sufficient inquiry" is loose and should be tightened up. We should return to the former position, whereby the electoral registration officers made sure that households were called on and did not simply rely on written methods of canvassing and sending other forms.

We have talked today about the way in which the rolling register would work. The present registration procedure relies on the system whereby, in August or September each year, the electoral registration officers send or deliver an electoral registration form to each household in the district. We know that it is an offence not to complete the form or to give false information. I think that most of us would agree that people who commit an offence by not sending in the form are unlikely to be penalised. However, people who submit false information should perhaps be chased up more vigorously than they have been.

Under the present procedure, a draft register is compiled from the electoral forms returned by householders and is published on 28 November each year. It contains the names of all those resident in the district on the qualifying date of 10 October who appear to the electoral registration officer to be eligible for inclusion. What sort of inquiry is made by electoral registration officers when the draft register is published about the absence of people who have previously been on the register for a considerable period? During last year's general election, I was approached by people who said, "Mr. Shersby, I have lived here for about 20 years and have always been on the electoral register. Why has my name disappeared?" The probably explanation is that the individual did not fill the form A and was away when the subsequent forms arrived. Should not electoral registration officers make inquiries when they find that an established name has disappeared from the register for no good reason? I think that they should, and I hope that we shall act to deal with that problem.

There is a claims procedure--both the draft register and the final register, published on 15 February, are open to inspection by the public. The claims procedure enables people who are eligible, but not included on the register, to apply to have their names added. However, there is no procedure for adding to the register the names of people who move into the district after the qualifying date. The Bill gives careful consideration to that matter.

I think that the claims procedure is lengthy. For example, it includes a procedure for objecting to proposed entries in the register. Should that facility to object be removed? I do not think so. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) said, there are occasionally circumstances in which people should not be registered--for example, when a deliberate attempt has been made to move people into a specific district to register them for a forthcoming election. Therefore, it is important for the objection procedure to remain, so that political parties, which make a point of studying such matters, can object if they believe that registrations are false. However, there may be other ways in which the claims procedure can be speeded up. The Bill contains one such method.

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One of the problems to which the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention is that it is impossible for names to be added to the register after nominations have closed. He suggested a sensible arrangement whereby people can register up to a date shortly before an election. It would be unwise for the date to be too close to the election, for the obvious reason that electoral registration officers would be busy at that time and would find it difficult to handle that extra responsibility.

Some people only become aware for the first time during an election that their names are missing from the register. They usually become aware of that because they have not received any election material from the candidates ; all of a sudden, it dawns on them that something is wrong and that they are likely to lose their right to vote.

What are the reasons for the loss of electors? If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, study "The Times Guide to the House of Commons"--as I am sure you do in your leisure hours, so that you know the faces of all hon. Members, whom you call with tremendous accuracy--you will be aware of the changing levels of electoral registration between the past two general elections.

I believe that the reasons for those changing levels--in addition to those that I have already given--are as follows. The first involves the change in the administrative practice of electoral registration officers over the past decade and the lack of canvassing. Secondly, there tends to be a blip in the electoral registration figures when a general election is known to be on the horizon ; people have a greater incentive to register at that time. Thirdly, there are changes in people's propensity to register when they move to another district.

Some people say that the introduction of the community charge had an effect on electoral registration, but that is difficult to prove or quantify. All that Members of Parliament can do is to go by their gut feelings. They use their judgment when dealing with constituency cases and may arrive at the conclusion that some people have failed to register because they wish to avoid the charge.

One of the points that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-West made which particularly interests me concerns the sale of registers. There is evidence, I believe, that the sale of registers is objectionable to many people. Some people have asked me why they cannot be registered anonymously, as they can be for community charge purposes, if there is good reason.

The problem is that copies of the electoral register are provided free of charge not only to Members of Parliament, local councillors, election candidates and local political parties, all of whom have an absolute right to that information, but to others who wish to have access to a comprehensive list of local residents. Among those who make use of electoral registers are mail order companies, credit reference agencies, market research organisations and charities. The electoral register can be purchased on a computer tape or disc from electoral registration officers who are data users. The current fee for non-electoral users is £2.50 per 1,000 names on the register for printed copies and £18 per 1,000 names on the register in data form. Since the sale of electoral registers is unpopular with the public, that matter should be looked into again.

Mr. Barnes : The sale of electoral registers is also very unpopular with electoral registration officers. I had a meeting with the London electoral registration officers, at

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which I outlined my ideas for the Bill. They wanted the Bill to include a provision regarding the non-commercial sale of registers, for the reasons that have just been outlined by the hon. Gentleman. I did not include such a provision in the Bill, because there is considerable support on the Conservative Benches for the sale of registers. That would more readily and easily have led to the defeat of the Bill. The measure would, however, make more sense if it included a provision regarding the sale of electoral registers. The powers that electoral registration officers have to collect information would then be less of a blight on civil liberties. I hope that the Minister is listening carefully to the points that are being made by the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby).

Mr. Shersby : I am glad to be in agreement with the hon. Gentleman on those points. It is valuable for the House to know that he has taken the trouble, as is so evident from everything else that he has said about the Bill, to consult electoral registration officers. If it is Government policy to encourage the sale of electoral registers to mail order companies and market research organisations, I have to tell the Minister that I disagree with the Government. All hon. Members receive many complaints from constituents about junk mail and about canvassing. There is a general worry about security.

Mr. Peter Lloyd : It is important to point out that the electoral register is a public document. It would be difficult to conduct elections if political parties and various other organisations did not have access to it. It is impossible, therefore, to keep it out of the hands of anybody who wants to see it. It would be wrong to try to do so. Therefore, it makes very much more sense for electoral registration officers to charge for the document, except political parties and one or two other organisations that have a particular need for it, as that helps to defray some of the cost. It is not just commercial firms that find electoral registers useful. Charities do as well.

Mr. Shersby : Friday is a marvellous day in the House of Commons for Back Benchers. They have the great pleasure and privilege of being able to disagree with the Treasury Bench on matters such as this without there being undue recrimination afterwards. This is a somewhat questionable matter. The principal purpose of the electoral register is to register people's entitlement to vote at elections. As far as I am aware, it was never introduced to enable mail order companies, credit reference agencies and market research organisations to pester people with their attentions. There may be a case for making electoral registers available to charities. They are in a different category.

I agree with my hon. Friend that if electoral registers are to be made available, there should be a charge for that service and that that charge should be realistic, for it would help to defray the cost of compiling and publishing the registers. However, it is rather like the curate's egg--good in parts.

The electoral register can also be used either to trace or identify elderly people, particularly women living alone. Among those who consider themselves to be at risk are elderly people. There are others at risk, including some Members of Parliament in a sensitive situation ; members of the judiciary ; police officers ; prison officers ; scientists engaged in research using animals ; even battered wives. I mention those categories of people because they are

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sensitive to the fact that the name that they have registered on the electoral register for the purpose of exercising their democratic rights is being sold to people who want to use it for quite different purposes.

Mr. Corbyn : The hon. Gentleman has made a fair point about the harassment of individuals by the use of the electoral register. He must surely accept that it is not possible and proper for the register to be kept private, but he might care to consider the point that local authorities are being increasingly encouraged by the Department of the Environment and others to maximise their income and to sell electoral registers to all sorts of companies. Although they are quite expensive to buy, their value to mail order companies is very considerable.

Does the hon. Gentleman not think there is a case for making electoral registers freely available to be checked in libraries, post offices and so on and also for making them freely available to political parties, councillors, Members of Parliament and so on, but not selling them to mail order companies?

Mr. Shersby : The hon. Gentleman has made a valuable suggestion which ought to be considered. I am grateful to him for making it. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East proposes that Parliament should approve a code of practice for electoral registration officers to follow when compiling their registers. I do not believe that that code should be unduly rigid. Some discretion should be given to electoral registration officers so to arrange matters as to be able to deliver the best possible service to the people of this country in a way that fits local circumstances.

Mr. Barnes : The hon. Gentleman referred earlier to the fact that canvassing does not always take place and that something less than that is accepted as a sufficient search. A minimum level of search could be provided by the code.

Mr. Shersby : I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I accept that that is a valid point.

As for the post-electoral review on electoral law and procedure that was established after the last election, I have looked into the matter and I understand that that review is under way and that it is considering various questions, including the availability of absent votes for those who cannot go to the polling station, methods of counting, including automated counting, and the design of the electoral forms. On that question, I hope that the commission will get it right this time. All of us have had reason to complain about the electoral forms and certainly about other matters-- for example, the complicated nature of the forms used to apply for an absent vote, which many people find difficult to understand.

One working group--which should report, I understand, in the summer--is examining electoral registration and, in particular, the question of a rolling register. It seems, therefore, that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East has considerable support for his proposals not only on both sides of the House but from the commission.

I have no doubt that the commission will attend to other matters, such as the resource implications of rolling registration, the frequency with which alterations should be made, the criteria for registration and sources of information from which to make amendments. It would be

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unwise to pre-empt the commission's work, but I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East for raising the matter today. I completely support the provisions in part II of the Bill. Disabled people should be able to go to polling stations and should not be confined to voting by post from their homes. They should be able to exercise their democratic voting rights in the same way as able-bodied people.

I cannot help wondering whether, if the House is debating how we vote in one hundred years' time, Members of Parliament will worry about electoral registers, canvassing and all the other aspects of compiling the list that is so familiar to us today. Perhaps we shall then vote by pressing a button. With interactive television, I imagine that one will give a pin number which will enable one to vote in an election and the results could be determined in about an hour. None of us will be here to see that.

Reform and improvement continue from year to year and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East for stimulating this discussion, which I hope will result in further improvements to our system.

12.11 pm

Mr. David Trimble (Upper Bann) : I shall try to make my comments brief because I wish the Bill well and I want it to receive a Second Reading today and not to be talked out. Some Conservative Members seem intent on talking it out and the measure is too serious and sensible to receive that fate.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) commented on the sale of registers and objected to the publicity given to them. I disagree with his approach, as there is a too great a passion for secrecy in some matters. Next week a Bill on the right to know will be introduced. I believe that that right extends to registers. There can be no serious objections to the publication of electoral registers. If one does not like junk mail, one can use a bin. All hon. Members are familiar with tremendous volumes of junk mail and use our bins regularly, so I do not understand why anyone else should have valid grounds for complaint on the subject.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge also referred to the post-electoral review that is under way. I hope that the review and the study groups to which he referred will be completed quickly and that we shall get the results. I know that the register and the forms are being considered--expecially the multiplicity of forms for absent voting, which is one area where reform is very necessary.

I support the general principle of the Bill because registration is important and it is desirable that everyone who is entitled to vote is given the opportunity to cast their vote. That principle is important and the Bill should be welcomed for that reason, even if it contains some flaws.

Hon. Members have drawn attention to the fact that, for some years, the percentage of persons included on the register has steadily declined and is now down to between 95 and 97 per cent. in Great Britain. Until the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) receives his written answer, we shall not have equivalent figures for Northern Ireland.

A post-election review regularly takes place in Great Britain, to which representatives of political parties are

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invited. That is a sensible procedure, but it has not hitherto been followed in Northern Ireland, although this year the Minister, who is apparently responsible for elections there, decided to invite political parties to give him their views for the first time. During that meeting, which took place a few months ago, the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland claimed that the equivalent registration figure for Northern Ireland was 98 per cent. He was not in a position to give the basis for that figure and although he promised to communicate with us in writing he has regrettably failed to do so.

Mr. Barnes : I received the following answer on 5 February, which compares the figure for the percentage of population eligible to vote on 30 June 1991 with the figure on the subsequent register, which shows that 99.6 per cent. of those eligible to vote in Upper Bann are registered. Nearly all the figures for Northern Ireland are in the 98 to 100 per cent. range, which emphasises my argument that Northern Ireland does not have the same problem because it did not have the poll tax, although it still has the problem of people who are on the register, but should not be, masking others who are not on the register.

Mr. Trimble : I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am not entirely satisfied that the registers are as accurate as they could be. Until that written answer, there were no published studies for Northern Ireland. Consequently I must express some concern about the accuracy of the register because we do not know the basis of any claims made for its accuracy.

The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) said that the new register, which will be published during the next few days, will be four months out of date as soon as it is published. The Northern Ireland register will be five months out of date because the relevant date is 15 September. The hon. Member for Uxbridge commented on people having second homes on the continent who might well be out of the country on 10 October. I think that it is more likely that they will be out of the country on 15 September, and I wonder why there is such a variation.

Clause 2 of the Bill states :

"The rolling registers of parliamentary and local government electors or, in Northern Ireland, of parliamentary electors, shall be published".

That reflects the confusion which exists in the legislation, as European and local government elections are handled differently in Northern Ireland and are subject to different legislation. I have a general observation which I hope that the Minister will consider. Legislation on elections and the right to vote is complex and spread over many Acts of Parliament, but in Northern Ireland the confusion is even greater and the legislation is spread over even more Acts. Consolidation of the legislation is necessary, especially in Northern Ireland. That would greatly assist anyone working in the area. We need an enormous bundle of legislation to find out about electoral law. Some time ago the general secretary of our party decided to get up to date on the subject and asked the Government bookshop in Belfast for all the legislation on elections. The person on the other side of the counter said, "You're mad." There are scores of Acts that deal with elections in Northern Ireland and we need consolidation. Then people might read the legislation.

An election petition is under way and it has been made clear that one of the election agents did not even bother to

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read the legislation. I have some sympathy for him in view of the state of the statute book, but that matter gives rise to genuine concern although it is slightly off the subject of the Bill. As I have said, I welcome the principle behind the Bill, but there are several problems. One problem that several hon. Members have mentioned is the cut-off date and how close it should be to the election. I believe that the Bill brings the cut-off date too close to the election. We should perhaps have a procedure under which the register is frozen on the announcement of an election so that there would be no change from then until polling day.

It is important for political parties to know exactly who is on the register. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East might say that only a handful of people will be added in the last few days up to the seven days before the election, but I believe that the register should be frozen.

In addition to the general arguments for freezing the register on the announcement of an election, I draw attention to the problem of personation, which was mentioned by one Conservative Member. To have a register and to know that it is accurate is very important from the point of view of checking personation. I do not want to discuss the issue at length, but there are some general observations to be made. Many people assume that personation is a problem only in Northern Ireland, but that is not true. There is probably a greater problem with personation on this side of the Irish sea than people generally recognise. Tammany hall type politics exist in parts of Great Britain, and personation is very much a feature of such politics. Many people assume--the telling of funny stories perpetuates the belief--that personation is widespread in Northern Ireland and that everyone is at it. That is not so. Whatever may have happened before my time, during 20 years of electioneering in Northern Ireland I can say with my hand on my heart that I have not been aware of any significant level of personation being committed by any of the Unionist parties or by the major nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour party. However, I am aware of extensive personation committed by some of the smaller parties. There was a time when the Workers party was very much into personation, but that party has changed its shape and is a new party, although I am not sure that I can accurately give the name that it is using now. The main problem with personation in Northern Ireland comes from Sinn Fein, which organises personation on a substantial scale. Special measures have been adopted to try to restrain personation with the use of identity requirements, but it does not work because there are half a dozen different identity documents that might be used, one of which is a medical card which is extremely easy to forge.

Electoral officers know that during a recent election in West Belfast--the main scene of personation by Sinn Fein because it is a seat which it has won in the past--Sinn Fein forged medical cards. The officers discovered a fault in the forgeries and were able to check the personation. Sinn Fein realised the mistake and printed a new set of forged cards during the election itself. Therefore, Sinn Fein printed two sets of forged medical cards--it changed its print run twice. We do not know how many votes were stolen in that way, whether it was hundreds or thousands, but it seems that it was in the thousands.

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After the recent general election, the defeated Sinn Fein candidate, Mr. Adams, accused the SDLP of stealing the seat from him. In fact, Mr. Adams had stolen the seat every time he had been elected with personated votes. To enable people to combat the serious problem of personation we must freeze the register earlier.

Personation is not only a matter of masquerading as a real person on the register. It also takes the form of putting persons on the register who do not exist--in other words, persuading registration officers to include persons who do not live in a specific place. There have been stories in Northern Ireland of little country lanes where there are many people on the register although in fact no one lives there. I do not know how widespread the problem is, but it needs to be checked. However, I do not think that the Bill offers an effective measure to do so.

We need a requirement for registration officers to serve notice or publish their intention to include persons on the register some weeks before the person is actually included on it. That would enable interested parties to have a look. When draft registers are published, political parties in Northern Ireland are fairly active in checking to ensure that no phantom voters have been included, as well as ensuring that people have not been left off. We need an equivalent procedure under rolling registration when the registration officer is putting someone on the register. If the Bill goes into Committee, that idea could be considered there.

Another aspect of the Bill with which I am not very happy is clause 13, which proposes to amend section 7 of the principal Act. It affects voluntary mental patients. Voluntary mental patients are required to make a declaration so that their capacity to vote can be checked. As I understand the proposed amendments, the requirement to make a declaration will be operative only if a patient has been a voluntary mental patient

"for two years or less".

Is two years the right length of time? Is it not too long? I can understand the thinking behind the provision, but a shorter period of months rather than years might be appropriate.

Another problem with which the Bill does not deal is the analogous situation of nursing and residential homes. There may be problems involving the capacity of persons in them to vote, and the Minister may be familiar with them. Before the previous general election in Northern Ireland, the chief electoral officer took it on himself to exclude from the register persons in nursing and residential homes who did not have some requisite mental capacity. There is no legislative basis for doing that. Even if a person is senile, he or she is entitled to be on the register. Such a person may or may not be entitled to vote, but as the law stands that is a decision to be taken by the presiding officer at the polling station.

Not only was the chief electoral officer of Northern Ireland operating without a legislative basis, but the form that he sent out asked persons in residential nursing homes--including, possibly, secretaries and other people without medical knowledge--to state whether someone in the home had the requisite mental capacity. That was an improper practice. We had the difficulty that before the election the chief electoral officer decided to introduce a practice which excluded a substantial number of persons from the register. We complained, of course, both at the time and subsequently. During the post-electoral review we were

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told that the Home Office, in association with the Northern Ireland Office, was drawing up guidelines and would issue a circular or some other form of guidance. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge that guidance has not yet been issued. Apparently it is still in preparation. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us an idea of when it will be published, because it needs to be hurried on. I see that the Bill provides for a code of practice to be drawn up. That is good. To a certain extent the Home Office does that at the moment, in that it has issued circulars, guidance practice notes or whatever they are called. Those are useful and I wish that there was an equivalent in Northern Ireland, but there is none. The chief electoral officer does not publish material. Technically, under the legislation, he is the only registration officer. He issues letters to his deputies in the constituencies, as he did with regard to nursing and residential homes. Some of the deputies observed his instructions and others, because they were aware that the instructions were unlawful, did not. I should like to see that matter settled as soon as possible.

I have been critical of the chief electoral officer, but I admit that he had a reason for adopting that practice. He was concerned about the potential for abuse involving absent voting, in which the votes of infirm elderly people in nursing and residential homes could have been stolen through postal voting. Such potential for abuse is a problem. I believe that the chief electoral officer adopted the wrong means of dealing with the problem, but the problem exists and it needs to be checked by the introduction of some safeguard covering absent voting.

Because of our experience of the behaviour of the chief electoral officer in Northern Ireland in that respect, I am glad that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East has not adopted the Hansard Society report's recommendation that an electoral commission independent of local or central government should be created. That is the curse of the chief electoral officer's post in Northern Ireland : it was established as independent of government, so there is no accountability and no way of getting the chief electoral officer to change when he has adopted the wrong approach.

My hon. Friends and I have often said that in Northern Ireland we have electoral law and Bradley law--that is, the practice of the chief electoral officer, which sometimes varies from electoral law. People are not always willing or able to go to court to deal with the examples of what we call Bradley law.

I welcome clause 11, which deals with the notification of boundary changes. I mention that because, purely by coincidence, I received a telephone call this morning from one of our councillors who was involved in a nice situation over boundary change. He has found that a small rural estate of 11 houses which he believes should be in his area has suddenly appeared in somebody else's area--although the roads that serve the estate are still in his area. There appears to have been confusion between two Tullymurrays, one of which is a townland and the other of which is the postal address of the estate. As a result, the 11 houses have gone into the wrong area. Such things happen as a result of the registration process being overcentralised. The persons who recently carried out the

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boundary revision did not have the requisite local knowledge. We shall pursue that matter in a different context.

I welcome the principle behind the Bill, subject to the reservations that I have mentioned. A number of its provisions simply legislate for existing best practice. I am thinking especially of the provision for registrars of births, marriages and deaths to inform registration officers about persons who have died. Several other provisions also put the present practice of the better registration officers on a statutory basis. That is good.

I also welcome the provisions for access to polling stations for physically disabled persons. Those are very desirable. I may add that we should like there to be easy access to polling stations for all persons. In Northern Ireland, we suffer from not having enough polling stations. The excuse given is security considerations. I was rather amused when listening to discussions at the Home Office post-electoral review to hear someone suggest having guidelines, such as not having to walk more than 10 minutes to get to a polling station--would that we had such a situation in Northern Ireland. The villagers of one small village in my constituency have to go two miles to another village to vote, and no bus runs between them. That is ridiculous. The ward is too large and has only one polling station. The authorities will not locate a second polling station in the village in question, allegedly for security reasons, although there is no serious security problem in that village. By all means, let us have easy access to polling stations for the disabled, but let us also have easy access for everyone else.

Some provisions in the Bill involve expenditure. I very much hope that the Minister will not use money as an argument for sidelining the Bill. I am sure that other hon. Members will comment on the noticeable difference between the level of expenditure involved in maintaining the poll tax registers and the level of expenditure involved in maintaining the electoral registers. If the amount that the Government laid out for the poll tax generally--and for the poll tax registers in particular, were made available for electoral registration, we could carry out all the provisions in the Bill and still have a lot of money to spare, so I hope that we shall not hear that money is the problem. Money should be made available, because voting is a basic right. Everyone who is entitled to vote should be enabled to do so by being placed on the register. A system that will improve the register is welcome in principle, whatever minor criticisms one may have.

12.36 pm

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Peter Lloyd) : I congratulate the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) on winning a high place in the ballot and on using it to further his long- standing interest in electoral registration. The hon. Gentleman has tabled many parliamentary questions on the matter, many of which have been for me. He has tabled early-day motions on the subject and has raised it in other ways as well. I understand that the question for oral answer that he tabled yesterday was his 25th in recent times. It is an issue which he and the Government take equally seriously.

The Bill in its final form was published only yesterday and I have not had the opportunity to study every detail in it. However, I had an informative meeting with the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East when he visited me at

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the Home Office recently. I say again to him here what I said to him then. The Government do not disagree with his basic objectives, although I am afraid that I cannot give Government support to the Bill at this time. My position is not a result of the passionate oratory of my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Evans) who has, no doubt, gone to recover in the Tea Room with a cup of tea. I shall explain again to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East some of the reasons for my position.

In case I forget later, it is sensible to answer now a specific question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby). He made some good points and one point with which I disagreed. He asked how many prosecutions there had been for not returning form A. No figures are available generally. However, I agree with the tenor of the intervention by the hon. Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn) who said that there were very few or none. I think that the answer is none or very few. The working group on electoral registration is trying to obtain figures that will show the position more clearly.

I intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and misled him, the House and myself on one point. I said that political parties were entitled to free registers. They are not ; it is their candidates. That makes a difference, because it means that independent candidates with no party are entitled to free registers. That opens the loophole--and could give rise to the problems--referred to by my hon. Friend, who expressed concern that a lot of independent candidates employed by various organisations would stand in order to get the register. That is why I explained that, whatever the merits or otherwise of the case, the proposals for keeping this public document in limited circulation are quite impracticable.

I understand my hon. Friend's worry--and I note from the sympathetic response that his remarks received that it is shared by other hon. Members- -about the amount of unwanted mail that people receive through their doors. I suspect, however, that even if no electoral register ever fell into the hands of any mail order company, such companies would find a way to get mail through people's front doors. There is no doubt about that.

I should add, however, that reputable mailing services will refrain from sending mail to people who specifically ask not to receive it. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge said that his constituents complain to him. I hope that he will mention to them the Mailing Preference Service, which can be written to at Freepost 22, London W1. Because I have said that clearly, I have no doubt that the address will appear in Hansard. A letter to the mailing preference service from an individual asking not to receive through the post circulars addressed to him will have a beneficial effect-- although my own experience is that most of what comes through my door is not specifically addressed to me but is clearly put round on spec by the Post Office or other companies.

The Bill falls into two parts. The first deals with electoral registration and the second with improving access to polling stations for voters suffering from a physical disability. Those are worthy and meritorious aims, and they are aims which the Government share. The overall objectives of our electoral registration procedures are to have as accurate a list of electors as possible ; to ensure that those who wish to vote can do so with minimum inconvenience ; and to ensure that the votes cast are accurately counted as quickly as possible. It has,

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