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Lembit Öpik: The hon. Gentleman will be interested to see that new clause 1 attempts to extend the deadline in a similar way to the one that he suggests.
Mr. Dodds: I welcome what the hon. Gentleman says. We will debate the new clause in due course. I would welcome and support anything that gives people a greater opportunity to register.
On the longer-term arrangements, we are dealing with a one-off, as the Minister said, although there could be another one-off next year. The Bill allows for another one-off extension allowing people who will be on this year's register to be carried forward to the 2006 register. It is to be hoped that, by that stage, longer-term arrangements will be in place. Clearly, it is important at this stage to say that there needs to be carry-over of electors from one year to the next. It simply makes no sense for everybody to have to start completely afresh every single year. That is bound to cause problems. Some people have suggested that the carry-over period should be one year, while others say it should be three years. I think that there should be some discussion and debate, but provided that the safeguards are in place in terms of national insurance identifiers, the signature requirements, photographic identity and so on, the problems that could previously have arisen in a long carry-over will not have the same weight. I urge the Minister to consider seriously, as part of the long-term
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arrangements that must be put in place, a longer carry-over period so that people will not be disfranchised unnecessarily as a result of carelessness or because they have not got round to registering at a time at which they might not be concentrating on elections. We should offer every opportunity to maximise the vote provided that safeguards are in place, as I believe that they are, thanks to the anti-fraud measures in the 2002 Act.
3.10 pm
Mr. Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): I join other hon. Members in thanking the Minister for the consultation in which he and his colleagues engaged in the lead-up to the Bill.
The Minister said at the outset that more than 80,000 voters who had been removed from the register because of their failure to return a registration form would be restored to it as a result of the Bill. We will have a new register on 1 April. The political parties receive electoral registers from the electoral officers through the normal process of events, so they are in receipt of the present register. They will receive a new register on 1 April, which will include the 80,000-plus additional names. Will the Minister indicate whether the political parties will get the additional names in a separate document in addition to the new register? I fully understand that we will receive the new register, but many political parties are building up towards the local government elections and want to know whether there will be a separate entity to detail the additional entries as well as the new register.
I asked the Minister about the research that is required on those who do not return the forms. It is not in anyone's interests for the register to decline year on year, but that has been the case for the past three years. I and many others believe that a significant number of the 80,000 people whom we are discussing today are younger people, and several hon. Members have made that point. Research is critical to establish whether that is a fact. Many of us suggest that there is a small proportion of elderly and middle-aged people among the 80,000, but a significant number of people in the 18 to 25 age group. We need to establish whether that is true and then, if necessary, establish why it is the case.
Setting aside the one-off basis of the Bill, the Minister must find better ongoing ways of getting young people to fill in electoral forms. We must collectively remove our heads from the sand. Younger people by and large do not rush home on a Thursday night to watch the politics show with Andrew Neil and two of our fellow hon. Members. They are just not interested—[Interruption.] Some people might find that difficult to believe, but it is the case. Many things might be on young people's minds, but that politics show is not one of them. How do we encourage young people to get involved in politics and on to the electoral register?
Mr. Campbell: I shall come to that later.
We could achieve such progress if the Minister was prepared to examine the wider distribution of electoral registration forms on an ongoing basis. For example, the only time that many young people find out that they are not on the electoral register—apart from at the time
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of an election, obviously—is when they go to apply for credit in retail outlets for the purchase of a vehicle or other goods. Retail outlets, by and large, use the electoral register to establish the identity and address of a person seeking credit. If electoral registration forms were available at car showrooms and other retail outlets and people applying for credit were told that filling in the forms and subsequently being approved would allow them to get the credit that they wanted, it could be another way to motivate young people to register. Young people would not necessarily be registering for altruistic reasons, but they would get on to the electoral register. I hope that the Minister will consider ways in which we can get young people to fill in electoral registration forms.
By and large, we are in favour of the Bill making progress, although we obviously wish to raise several issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Donaldson) raised the question of security forces personnel earlier. I hope that the Minister will address that point because I know that the matter affects a small number of people in my constituency and the same situation might well exist in others. I understand that members of the security forces who had previously been registered but last year decided not to re-register because of security fears due to their location, will automatically be restored to the register under the Bill, despite the fact that they took a conscious decision not to register last year. What will happen to such people? Will they have to apply consciously to have their names removed from the register because they will otherwise be restored to it under the Bill?
Lady Hermon: The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. As a matter of interest, is he aware of whether any representations on that have been made to the chief electoral officer by the Police Federation for Northern Ireland?
Mr. Campbell: I am not aware of representations made by the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, but I know that the situation applies to a small number of people. It might well be the case that the situation is more widespread than that throughout Northern Ireland, so I hope that the Minister will respond to the point.
Let us consider the wider issue. First, we should try to ensure that we have a more representative and comprehensive electoral register, which is a laudable objective that we should support, and, as a consequence of that, we should ensure that we have higher turnouts in elections. My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Dodds) alluded to the fact that there is low turnout, especially, but not exclusively, in Protestant working-class areas. In my constituency, as in others, there might well be a 60 per cent. turnout at an election, but the turnout in places in which there is a high proportion of younger people can be 25 to 30 per cent. In effect, there is a double whammy in that younger people do not register and those who do register do not come out to vote on the day of an election. I accept that that is a separate issue from the Bill, but I have no doubt that we will return to it.
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The Bill appears to have achieved a broad consensus among hon. Members who have spoken, although some have had reservations. That is welcome. That is the view of my party and all hon. Members who have spoken. It was thus strange that, when the Bill was considered in the other place earlier this week, Lord Maginnis of the Ulster Unionist party was scathing about the Bill and appeared to be utterly opposed to it. Perhaps other hon. Members will wish to qualify or expand on his comments.
3.19 pm
Mr. Spellar: With the permission of the House, I shall reply to the debate. In response to the last contribution, I would fear for the future of the country if young people were rushing home to watch the politics show rather than pursuing the normal healthy activities that they should be undertaking.
I shall respond to some of the points that were made in the debate, although some will be taken up in Committee. If I do not touch on others, they will probably be covered in discussions with the political parties as we look to the future of registration. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit Öpik) and I stress that the Bill is not a precedent for further action. I think I made it quite clear that we see it as an interim operation to deal with a particular problem at a particular time. We fully accept that we have to address the underlying problems. By the way, on a slightly different point, the Department for Constitutional Affairs is looking at registration in the broader context across Great Britain.
We need to look at the broader issues, such as many of the social changes that we have discussed today, which have led to lower levels of registration and participation, and we shall explore ways to improve that. In general, colleagues will have to take on board the need for greater data sharing between public and some private bodies, such as utility companies, and electoral registration officers, to provide a much wider range of information streams that will enable registration officers to produce a full and comprehensive register. I make that point merely as a preliminary remark, because I accept that there will need to be much wider discussions, but colleagues should be aware of the consequences of redressing the pattern, on which I think we are all agreed.
That ties in with the question of education, which was mentioned by the hon. Members for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) and for North Down (Lady Hermon). I am increasingly convinced that many young people who have not voted at several elections fear that they will be embarrassed if they turn up at a polling station and ask what the procedure is, so yet again they do not vote. Such behaviour then becomes self-reinforcing. We need to look at that.
Some hon. Members dealt with various issues, but did not necessarily address the way in which they interlock. We talked, for example, about the substantial number of young people who are not registered. Although they will not be affected by the Bill, they will be affected by the subsequent arrangements. The Bill is about re-registration; it is by no means a universal panacea. It is a remedy, not a solution. It will improve the register and
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make it more comprehensive, probably taking registration towards 90 per cent., but it will not take it to 100 per cent.
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