UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 243-iii

House of COMMONS

MINUTES OF EVIDENCE

TAKEN BEFORE

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

and

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER:

HOUSING, PLANNING, LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE REGIONS COMMITTEE

 

 

ELECTORAL REGISTRATION

 

 

Monday 7 February 2005

MR CHRISTOPHER LESLIE MP, MR NICK RAYNSFORD MP,

and MR PAUL ROWSELL

Evidence heard in Public Questions 258 - 366

 

 

USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT

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Oral Evidence

Taken before the Constitutional Affairs Committee

and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister:

Housing, Planning, Local Government and the Regions Committee

on Monday 7 February 2005

Members present

Andrew Bennett, in the Chair

Mr A J Beith

Peter Bottomley

Mr David Clelland

Mrs Ann Cryer

Mr John Cummings

Chris Mole

Mr Richard Page

Mr Adrian Sanders

Dr Alan Whitehead

________________

Memoranda submitted by ODPM and Department for Constitutional Affairs

 

Examination of Witnesses

 

 

Witnesses: Mr Nick Raynsford, a Member of the House, Minister for Local and Regional Government and Fire, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Christopher Leslie, a Member of the House, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs, and Mr Paul Rowsell, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, examined.

Q258 Chairman: Can I welcome you to the third evidence session on electoral registration and ask you to identify yourselves for the record?

Mr Leslie: Chris Leslie, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Constitutional Affairs.

Mr Raynsford: Nick Raynsford, Minister of State at ODPM. I am joined by Paul Rowsell, who is an official within the ODPM.

Q259 Chairman: Do you want to say anything by way of introduction or are you happy for us to go straight to questions?

Mr Leslie: Fire away.

Q260 Mr Sanders: Do you accept the principle of individual voter registration?

Mr Leslie: Perhaps it would be useful to help the Committee so you know the responsibilities between the two Departments.

Q261 Chairman: You have sent us a note but it arrived this morning when it was promised before Christmas.

Mr Leslie: Better late than never.

Q262 Chairman: If you could briefly put it on the record, we would be happy.

Mr Leslie: In essence, we have concurrent responsibility for election legislation and policy, quite naturally on the ODPM side focusing more on local implementation and, on the Department for Constitutional Affairs side, looking at generic policy issues, referendum policy, political parties, legislation and so forth. Of course, we work jointly on most of these issues with a series of programme boards and project boards on which our Departments and other departments are represented.

Q263 Chairman: On the question of the principle, presumably you are agreed?

Mr Leslie: Collective responsibility at all times. On the question of individual registration, we sympathise very much with the principles behind the concept of individual registration because we see that there are potential benefits that it can bring, but we remain concerned that it needs to be a simple, clear process of registration if that is to come forward, not least because there have been a number of lessons learned from other parts of the country where this has been implemented that I think we need to take on board. We are sympathetic towards it but we need to work it up and wait for the Electoral Commission recommendations on their foundation model to come forward in particular to help inform us of the particular concerns they have about individual registration.

Q264 Mr Sanders: What does the government see as the particular benefits of individual voter registration?

Mr Leslie: In particular in a similar way as the Electoral Commission have set out, there is the potential obviously for greater security and accuracy in the register, security in that individual registration process could facilitate the provision of individual identifiers on the register which could in turn help make remote voting and innovative voting methods more feasible. There are benefits in that respect. Also, in general accuracy terms, individual registration is much more likely to better reflect the returns that each individual makes to the register. There are in principle some good benefits there. Those have to be weighed against any potential disadvantages or consequences of a shift from the existing process of household registration. We do not want to see a system that is unduly burdensome for the elector. In relation to the complications of filling in forms and the hurdles, we do not want to place too many of these before people in getting onto the register in the first place. We need to work to find a good balance that can achieve those benefits that I set out whilst simultaneously not deterring people from appearing on that register.

Mr Raynsford: I agree.

Q265 Mr Sanders: Given that the technology is probably there for a large percentage of the population to engage in different methods of voting, how long do you think it would take to introduce individual registration to Great Britain in order to take advantage of that?

Mr Leslie: We need to settle on the principles of individual registration first.

Q266 Chairman: I thought you had settled on the principles.

Mr Leslie: We need to settle on the principles of the mechanism that we use for individual registration before we can predict how long it would take to roll that out. For example, if we have a system of individual registration that requires pin numbers or specific passwords, something like that, that is obviously of a different character to a form of individual registration that perhaps rests on the signature or a date of birth as the individual identifier. There is a whole series of different forms in which individual registration can take place. That is why I simply say, until we settle on the mechanism that we feel is best to form a good, successful process for individual registration, I do not think at this stage we can say how long it will take. That is why we do not say at present that we are intending to roll anything out. We want to settle the principles of those mechanics first.

Mr Raynsford: There are different factors to take into account in terms of security between different types of voting. For postal voting, for example, the signature is likely to be one of the most effective aids to prevent and uncover attempts at fraud.

Q267 Mr Beith: We have just discovered that the electoral registration officer cannot compare the signature on the original postal vote application with the signature on the form which accompanies the ballot paper.

Mr Raynsford: I am not talking about the current arrangements. I am talking about arrangements that could be put into place to guarantee security at a future date. The signature is likely to be probably the most effective for a variety of reasons. In the case of electronic voting, a signature is much less likely to be useful. The benefit of electronic voting is the ability to vote anywhere in the country and for that either a pin number or an individual identifier - whether a national insurance number or other - is likely to be more effective. There are some quite complex issues that need to be thought through about what is the right approach and, against that, the very obvious point that we do not want to create too many requirements for collecting data in order to meet all these possible requirements. There is a balance there and that is why I very much agree with what Chris is saying. We need to think the issues through very carefully indeed before reaching decisions.

Q268 Peter Bottomley: There is always a balance. If the present household registration has, for the sake of discussion, five per cent inaccuracy and if individual registration led to 100 per cent accuracy with only about 80 per cent of people registered, would that be an improvement in accuracy or a decrease?

Mr Leslie: My maths off the top of my head are not quite as good as yours, I suspect. There are differences in how we best achieve accuracy of a register.

Q269 Peter Bottomley: Accuracy is one issue. Completeness is another and usability maybe is a third. Do you have any sense of trade-off or balance between accuracy and completeness?

Mr Leslie: This is part of the worry we have if we were to simply roll out instantly individual registration without taking into account the potential effect on deterring people from signing up because of the extra bureaucracy potentially involved in getting absolutely every single individual to register, rather than having the head of the household do that on their behalf. We have seen in recent years a slight but still significant fall in the numbers of people appearing on the register and the reasons for that are not entirely clear. Some say that it is the process of moving towards more rigorous annual canvass arrangements whereby individuals have fallen off and perhaps it is a reflection of the fact that the register has become more accurate and is not duplicating names across a wider geographical area. Then there is that trade-off. Perhaps it is because people feel it is a more onerous task to complete a form absolutely every single year. We always have that balance to strike. That is where we need to be informed by research into what deters people from signing up to a register and also questions to do with whether people feel less inclined to sign up to a register if there is a series of hurdles before them, forms and so forth.

Mr Raynsford: In my view, obviously we have to take account of both these issues but I think there is a greater risk of reduced numbers of people registering for a variety of reasons than there is of increased inaccuracy in the register. From your previous sessions, I think you have already formed a view that the number of stories of people registered who should not be on the register or animals registered by mistake, while they are often quoted, are probably numerically quite small. In the course of one of your sessions, one of your Members made the point that this is probably the reason why, whenever such incidents occur, they are widely reported because they are exceptional. Against that, we know very clearly that there are real problems in terms of under-representation in certain sections of the population, estimated at very high figures in some groups. We have seen the evidence in Northern Ireland where there does appear to be worrying evidence of a fall-off in registration.

Q270 Peter Bottomley: As an illustration, the armed services registration has moved from in effect household and continuing to individual registration, admittedly sometimes at a distance. Can one learn from that that special measures would need to be taken to avoid a drop in the completeness of the register by a move to individual registration?

Mr Leslie: That has been the reason why we have expressed sympathy but not yet completely signed up to a firm proposal for individual registration. In principle, we can see the benefits but we do have concerns about the effect on numbers. I know there have been some issues raised about service personnel and so forth and the Ministry of Defence have their own process. They have issued their own statement to the Committee about this.

Q271 Chairman: Not very dynamic.

Mr Leslie: It was a Ministry of Defence statement.

Q272 Chairman: I cannot get your smile on the record.

Mr Leslie: I think they recognise that there is always a need for proactivity, for making sure they advertise not just the process of registration but the fact that elections and bi-elections take place. They need to make sure that they engage service personnel. I think they are trying to do that through the Defence Council bulletin they have been issuing about this to make sure that there is widespread buy in by all posts, wherever they happen to be, into both the registration and the election process. We need to make sure we have as complete a register as possible and as accurate a register as possible. The two, I hope, are not mutually exclusive.

Mr Raynsford: With service personnel, there is a real question which we do not know the answer to at the moment as to how many have chosen to register themselves at their home address or individually and so are on the register but will not appear in the return coming from the services.

Q273 Peter Bottomley: Try a sample survey.

Mr Raynsford: One of the benefits of the move towards greater national integration of registers which we are working on will be to make it possible for cross checks to be carried out so that we are in a better position to identify, not just through sample surveys but through a comprehensive look at that whole issue.

Q274 Mr Cummings: The government does not believe it would be appropriate to introduce the system in place in Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom. Did you learn any lessons at all from the Northern Ireland experience which perhaps could be applied elsewhere?

Mr Leslie: One of the reasons we want to take steps towards individual registration very carefully has been because of the experience in Northern Ireland where, quite naturally, in order to help combat worries about fraud and improve accuracy, they have moved towards a system of individual registration but they also, because of the particular nature of that system, saw the register going from 1.17 million people to about 1.09 million people, which is obviously a drop. It is a moot point whether that is rooting out fraudulent or inaccurate entries but there is a sense that probably that also perhaps went to the extent that some people found it too bothersome to go on the register because of that form of individual registration. The Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office instituted a couple of changes. One was to have an additional year carry forward so that if you did not fill in a form on an annual basis you did not automatically come off the register. There was a one year carry-over put in so that people could stay on it a bit longer. I think that was a good move on their part. They have also used the resources freed up from the move away from that annual canvass to target efforts intensively on under-registered parts of the community, people who did not normally perhaps actively register.

Q275 Mr Cummings: Are you using the Northern Ireland experiment to perfect the electoral registration system in the rest of the United Kingdom?

Mr Leslie: I would not call the Northern Ireland experience necessarily an experiment. I think it was their own system of registration with their own rules and conducted in their own way, perfectly legitimately. It is reasonable for us to learn lessons from their experience, since they were ahead of us on individual registration in that respect. I think it was the Northern Ireland select committee who made recommendations to ministers that we should be conscious of the experience that they have gone through in Northern Ireland and be cognisant of that in the way we develop policy for the rest of the country.

Q276 Chairman: If we were looking at an emerging democracy, would we be happy with the idea that in one part of that emerging democracy they had one form of electoral registration and in another part of it a different form?

Mr Leslie: We have a Constitution in this country where we have a devolved settlement between the different jurisdictions and nations that we have. That means that, from time to time, we have a different approach in different areas. It is the nature of our Constitution. We have a very good, robust system of registration in each of these jurisdictions, each of which manages to ensure that we have the best registration levels of anywhere in the world. We have a lot to be proud of in the work that the electoral registration officers do to keep up those registers.

Mr Raynsford: It would be perverse, would it not, to ignore the evidence that has come from Northern Ireland which moved towards a system of individual registration first, and where there have been clear benefits on the one side but also disadvantages which are now being highlighted? It is quite right that those should be expressed but we should learn from them and in due course I have no doubt that in Northern Ireland too they will learn from the experience, both in Northern Ireland and here in the rest of the United Kingdom.

Q277 Peter Bottomley: What do you think the Organisation for the Creation of Security in Europe would think of a governing party that was about keeping one part of that country to be members of its own party?

Mr Leslie: That was a question for you, Chairman.

Q278 Mr Cummings: Would you tell the Committee when you intend to publish your electoral modernisation strategy and will this include the consultation on the Electoral Commission's proposals, including those for individual registration?

Mr Leslie: We are working on a number of different pieces of reform that will mean that in time we intend to publish an electoral modernisation strategy. I do not have a date to give to the Committee on that at present.

Q279 Chairman: A year?

Mr Leslie: In due course we will publish. In many ways, our responses in recent months to the voting for change recommendations from the Electoral Commission and their more recent report, Delivering Democracy, set out broadly the government's approach on electoral modernisation. It is widely known that we care very much to increase participation both in and between elections.

Q280 Mr Cummings: Will you be including the consultation on the Electoral Commission's proposals?

Mr Leslie: We intend to wait to see what the foundation model recommendations are from the Electoral Commission. Once they recommend their approach on that, we can respond to it.

Q281 Mr Cummings: When do you expect to receive those?

Mr Leslie: Whenever the Electoral Commission publish them. I think they said some time in the spring.

Q282 Mr Cummings: The ball is firmly in the Electoral Commission's court?

Mr Leslie: In terms of their policy intention, which was to publish their own recommendations on the foundation model, we wait to see what that is. Only then can we respond to it. It would be a little perverse if we were to respond to the general idea of the foundation model until we saw the details of that. I think that is a perfectly reasonable approach.

Q283 Mr Cummings: Do you accept the Electoral Commission's view that individual registration is a prerequisite for any future roll-out of remote voting methods?

Mr Leslie: We had this debate in response to the Electoral Commission's report, Delivering Democracy, where we agreed that we needed to work on improved security for remote voting but we did not agree with the Commission's view that there should be no more all postal voting. We do not have any plans in the immediate future, certainly for the coming general election, for all personal voting, but we do not rule it out in other future local elections. In that respect, no, we do not agree entirely with the Electoral Commission. There are other avenues for local applications to come forward.

Mr Raynsford: In his evidence to you I think Sam Younger did make it quite clear that since they have made their initial recommendation they have become increasingly conscious of the practical difficulties and they have looked at the experience in Northern Ireland. My understanding is that the Electoral Commission, while rightly focusing on the benefits of individual registration, now recognise that an approach towards it has to be handled in a way that avoids the kind of downsides that we were talking about earlier.

Q284 Mr Cummings: What other changes to the registration system to ensure the security of remote voting are you prepared to consider?

Mr Leslie: Any recommendations that the Electoral Commission come forward with of course we are prepared to consider. That is why we want to find a pathway through, for instance, on individual registration but we cannot just look at those aspects in isolation from other questions about the comprehensive nature of the register and so forth. It is a balance to be struck. We look at the powers, for instance, that the electoral registration officers have. There will be Commission-made recommendations on that. We know that the electoral registration officers, for instance, have powers to ensure that the proper information is given by individuals, to ensure that there is an offence for giving false information. Those sorts of things help support the validity and veracity of the register. We are happy to look at any further recommendations on that.

Q285 Mr Cummings: When do you think you will be ready to act on the result of your consideration of these issues?

Mr Leslie: A lot of these matters require legislative change. As we set out in our response to Voting for Change, we intend to legislate when parliamentary time allows. That is not entirely in my gift but I intend to keep pressing and working on the shape of future legislation.

Q286 Mr Cummings: Do you agree that one possibility, short of wholesale change, is the retention of a single household form but with the additional requirement that all of those eligible in the household should sign it?

Mr Leslie: It would be one form of individual registration.

Q287 Mr Cummings: Would you be sympathetic to that?

Mr Leslie: We would be sympathetic to looking at that. On the other hand, there are potential criticisms over that. For instance, if everybody were required to sign a form, how big would that form physically have to be? What would happen if the individual were not at home during the period in which the form had to be returned? Would that mean that that individual was somehow then not able to go on the register? There are questions that need to be overcome. In principle, I can see the simplicity of a signature basis on the household form. It may well be one of the easier forms of individual registration but there are disadvantages that have to be overcome in that.

Mr Raynsford: There are wider issues as well as to whether one really does wish to continue with a system based on annual registration or whether there might be merit - I think in his evidence to you Sam Younger did hint about this - in moving towards a framework where there would be more focus on targeting those who are thought to be less likely to register.

Q288 Chris Mole: We are just coming to that.

Mr Raynsford: I will not anticipate your discussion. All these considerations do have to be taken into account when you are thinking about what is the most appropriate way forward.

Q289 Chris Mole: Assume we do go towards individual registration. Do you think we should move away from the annual canvass and have a registration that can be amended when people's circumstances change? What do you think the impact on the accuracy of the register might be if we were to do that?

Mr Leslie: We have had a change in recent years, certainly in England and Wales, where we have moved to a system of a one year carry-over so that, if somebody fills in the form one October, they can stay on that register not just until the following year but for a further year at the discretion of the electoral registration officer, on the basis that it would be perhaps too onerous and too stringent to take persons off straight away, after one year. As I said earlier, that was the experience in Northern Ireland. They moved towards a system like that in order to facility a little more flexibility in their own process of individual registration. We need to consider all these things. Again, it comes down to that balance. How much of an obstacle is it for the wider general public to be required to fill in a form on an annual basis but, on the other hand, are we going to lose accuracy if we do not require at least one form to be filled in over a particularly short interval like that. I hope some of the research we are doing both via the Electoral Commission conducting their own and the voting insight study we are doing in my Department will help inform the sort of factors that cause people to avoid going on the electoral register.

Q290 Chris Mole: Good, modern, e-government orientated services should make life easier for the citizen. What scope do you think there is for data sharing with those responsible for compiling the electoral register and other central databases, maybe the driving licence, income tax, post office redirections etc? Are there any changes in law that you think are required to allow this to happen? I think the Committee was quite impressed with what happens in Australia. It seems to be fairly automatic and people seem to understand what is going on.

Mr Leslie: We know there are a lot of requirements on the general public to give information to different government departments for different purposes. There is, I think, scope to make things simpler for the public at large, whilst respecting the basics of data protection principles and so forth. The chief secretary to the Treasury is leading a project called the Citizen Information Project under the aegis of the registrar general and the Office of National Statistics. Their implementation programme is due to be published some time later on in the spring. They were looking in particular at whether there is better scope for data sharing across all government departments, to look at economies of scale, efficiency issues, to look at making it better for the public to access public services in general. We need to make sure we keep an eye on that project and plug into it.

Q291 Chris Mole: Are there any changes required to the law or would an ID Bill being passed on Thursday make life a whole lot easier for you?

Mr Leslie: I know that part of the Citizen Information Project has looked at that particular Bill's requirement to establish a national identity register which would be one of the fundamental components of ID cards, and whether that can be a basis for that Citizen Information Project. That is slightly separate from electoral law. Whilst the original proposal is not for a compulsory ID card, that national identity register might be a useful tool for electoral registration officers to access, to check and verify information. That is something that we would certainly consider looking at but, not least because the legislation does not propose compulsory ID cards, I do not think we could tie somebody's entitlement to vote to that national identity register because not everybody who is entitled to vote will be required or even asked to carry an ID card. For instance, British citizens resident abroad. I can think of other groups as well. I do not think there is instant overlap there.

Q292 Chris Mole: You have estimated that the cost will be 23 million to introduce individual registration with a further six million every year thereafter. Can you tell us what the main components of those costs would be and what sort of assumptions you have made about what the individual registration process would look like in reaching those figures?

Mr Leslie: I cannot go into massive detail off the top of my head but my understanding is that the existing cost of the household registration process is around 51 million. I am presuming that the calculation therefore looks at the extra administration costs of moving from one form per household to one form per individual, the extra data entry requirements that would come from logging the returns to that process and the extra IT infrastructure as well. I can send the Committee a more detailed note if I have more information about how we reached those figures.

Mr Raynsford: Consultants have been employed to look at this particular issue and it is very much the basis of their evidence that suggests there will be this additional cost of 23 million, taking the current figure of around 51 million up to 74 million, and annual costs would be 57 million which would be some six million higher than the current levels. Obviously, as part of the later consultation which we will be undertaking, we will want to test further the validity of those figures and see whether there is scope for economy in some areas.

Chairman: On data sharing, is it not logical for the registrar of births, marriages and deaths to notify the returning officer of deaths? As I understand it certainly in Greater Manchester they do as far as their own local authorities are concerned but they do not if people die somewhere else. Would it not be pretty simple to pass on that information? It does cause considerable upset when you get a letter through the door suggesting that you might want to vote for a particular political party if that individual has died some months earlier.

Q293 Peter Bottomley: It is even worse if they do vote.

Mr Leslie: Hopefully they are not doing that, but the changes that were made in regulations in the last few years did allow electoral registration officers to get information more readily from local registrars of births and deaths and also from other local authority sources just to verify and cross check the register. I understand the point that you make and I think it does require a certain level of proactivity from both the registration officer and the registrar general at that local level to make sure that they are passing information on a routine and regular basis between them. Perhaps this is something that eventually the on-line registration issue might well be able to pick up on as part of the development of that programme, because we want to make sure that if there is local data available it can feed into an accurate register.

Q294 Peter Bottomley: Is it lawful for an electoral registration officer to meet a voter when they are advised by a responsible authority that they are dead?

Mr Leslie: I think so, yes.

Q295 Mr Clelland: You have already indicated that your Departments are looking at the various forms of individual identifier that might be used. Could you perhaps say something about the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of identifier that you have looked at? Are you coming to a short list?

Mr Leslie: They could be quite numerous. It could be a random, key password, a pin number, something that people are more likely to recall, date of birth or a signature. A lot of the considerations about which would be best need to go in part about how the individual could easily recall that. As Members of the Committee will know, if you have to remember your pin number for your Visa or credit card, they can be varied and changing and not always easily recalled, but most people tend to remember their date of birth, for instance. On the other hand, there are considerations about how easily these extra individual identifiers could be stored in the database held by the registration officers, what level of information would be on the register and so forth and how they would keep that separate.

Q296 Mr Clelland: Do all these ifs and buts mean it is still very much all under examination?

Mr Leslie: Very much so.

Q297 Mr Clelland: The Electoral Commission have suggested that a unique registration number for each elector might be one way forward.

Mr Leslie: We already have a sort of unique reference number in terms of the polling district number and the electoral roll number, which is not something that most electors would know off the top of their head. That would probably be for the purpose of ease of administration. For instance, if there was electronic voting, the verification process between the receipt of e-mail traffic and confirmation and the individual sending that information. You might require some sort of match up of individual identification numbers and that sort of thing.

Q298 Mr Clelland: Nick Raynsford mentioned the signature being used and I think he said that would be the most effective.

Mr Raynsford: In respect of postal voting. If we think back, when the Electoral Commission first started making their recommendations, it was also at a time when they were recommending a roll out of all posting voting as the norm in local government elections. Things have changed. There have been concerns expressed about the safety of all postal voting. They are now working on a different model. They are also giving greater attention to the use of electronic voting opportunities where the signature will not in general be a helpful check because one of the benefits of electronic voting is people being able to vote remotely, where there would be no necessary means of using the signature as a check.

Q299 Mr Clelland: The question is whether that would be of use across the board, depending on what kind of voting system we have.

Mr Raynsford: The point I was trying to make is that there are particular types of security system that will be easier to use in respect of certain types of voting. One of the tasks we have is to find the best way forward without producing an unnecessary proliferation of different secure forms of security.

Q300 Mr Clelland: The question of pin numbers and electoral voting cards could place additional burdens on the elector in terms of having to remember the numbers and find the cards and all that sort of stuff?

Mr Raynsford: Absolutely.

Q301 Mr Clelland: Have you considered all of these issues?

Mr Leslie: We are considering them. You are talking to us in the middle of a policy formulation process and of course we wait with interest to see the Committee's recommendations on your own preferences on these things. We want to keep an open mind on those questions.

Q302 Dr Whitehead: You have mentioned that the register is slowly subsiding and is harder to collect. On the other hand, we have had the rolling registration and the declaration of local connection. Do you have an estimate of the extent to which that has reversed the trend? Do we have a steep drop in registration with a fillip produced by rolling registration and local connection?

Mr Leslie: I do not have the precise figures. I imagine it would be interesting to see whether it has had a significant upward effect on rolling registration. It has probably helped but it is really difficult to know without a major piece of in-depth research, talking to individuals about why they did not register or perhaps why they did, what was the motivating factor behind that. Was it that they could add their name at a mid-point in the year and so forth? If I do have any figures on the numbers of persons adding their names through rolling registration, perhaps I can send those to the Committee.

Mr Raynsford: The Electoral Commission are quite mindful of the Northern Ireland experience in this area where, after the original register based on single registration was established, the register augmented during the subsequent year as a result of rolling registration, but at the next annual canvass held back significantly to a level below that which applied the previous year. The implication of that is that if we do not get the system for capturing those people who are disappearing from the register right the rolling register benefits, which clearly are significant, will not compensate for the effect that you have identified.

Q303 Dr Whitehead: Do you have any evidence or information on the extent to which the declaration of connection has facilitated registration at the expense of the accuracy of the register?

Mr Leslie: My anecdotal experience is that there has not been a massive uplift in the numbers on the register as a result of the local connection, the ability for an individual perhaps who is homeless or not rooted to a particular community to identify that local connection. We needed to make that change in order to allow people who were perhaps excluded because they did not have a fixed abode from getting on the register and that was an important change to make. I do not think it has been a massive volume of people added on to the register from that.

Q304 Dr Whitehead: You also mentioned that it would be a good idea to get the result of research, for example, on why people do not vote or people are hard to place on the register. Your Department is conducting research on this and the Electoral Commission is also doing so but with a slightly different angle, I believe. Do you have any indication of the early results of that research? What do they show?

Mr Leslie: There are two different strands. There is a qualitative piece of research trying to get into the minds of individuals who perhaps do not register actively. What puts them off from registering? That is due to be completed some time around April. Also, there is a more quantitative piece of research to look at numbers and shifts in terms of volumes of persons who have registered historically and who do not register now. That is still in progress. It is good that we are doing that as a Department because we really need to be informed in policy making terms about how we can make a difference to encourage and enthuse people to get on the register if at all possible and the extent to which apathy comes into play, the extent to which the hurdles and barriers put people off entirely. Which factor is biggest and which is smallest?

Q305 Chairman: Do you have any idea what proportion of the people who are not registered know they are not registered?

Mr Leslie: No. We tend to find these things out when we come round to election periods, when we hear stories of people going to polling stations thinking that they have a voting opportunity and finding that they are not on the register. We have a good coverage of the register. Most people are registered. I cannot remember the precise percentage but we have a robust register. It is fairly rare that people find themselves turning up to vote and cannot but it does happen from time to time because, for whatever reason, they did not become registered.

Mr Raynsford: My understanding is that some 30 per cent of the population are quite clear that they rarely, if ever, turn out to vote. Nine per cent were found not to be registered. The most serious finding from the study that I have had reported to me is that there is evidence of a lack of interest and understanding among particularly young people of the need to register and the very clear inference that large numbers of them are registered because they are registered as part of a household registration. If that ceased, they would almost certainly disappear off the register.

Q306 Dr Whitehead: Are you looking in this research at the relationship between registration on a year by year trajectory or are you looking, for example, at the relationship of registration against census? If you were to look at registration against census, if you have not done that, you might find in a number of places that the registration against census appears to be very lacking indeed.

Mr Leslie: We have had a number of adjournment debates in Westminster Hall and elsewhere about this very problem, particularly in certain constituencies where Members of Parliament have pointed out the comparator between the numbers reported on the census versus the number on the register. Certainly it is something that I want the research we are doing to consider. There are different sections about the requirement to fill in a census form versus the requirement to fill in an electoral registration form. To what extent do we need to change those in order to encourage persons to go on that register more actively? Those are the sorts of questions we need to address in the research.

Q307 Mr Sanders: I thought Nick Raynsford had perhaps put the strongest case against individual voter registration in that, under the existing system, people get registered by the householder. Under the individual system, the onus is on them. We know from benefit take-up, where people have to fill in a form and make the approach to take up the benefit, that there is a high percentage of people who do not do that. What is the aim here? Is it to increase the number of people who are entitled to vote or is it to increase the accuracy of the register? By what criteria do you determine where the balance is?

Mr Raynsford: Numerically, it would seem to me that there is a greater risk of non-registration than of error. Nevertheless, our aim must be to ensure that we do both to the best possible effect. While I certainly see the risk of moving towards individual registration and express the concern particularly in terms of young voters not being registered, I am equally very conscious of the importance of safeguards. That is particularly important when you talk of young people who are probably more likely to use electronic means of voting as and when those become more available. It is in their interests to do so. The one piece of good news is that a growing awareness that presence on the electoral register is likely to be important to secure your mobile phone is likely to be a factor that may motivate more young people to ensure that they are on the register.

Q308 Peter Bottomley: If we take two of the four groups least likely to be on a complete register - I do not want to concentrate for the moment on service personnel or their families and I do not want to concentrate on those who are overseas - young people and people who have a black or minority ethnic background, what other departments have your Departments talked to about trying to have effective initiatives that can lead to a more complete register in the first place and then to a more complete turn-out after that?

Mr Leslie: We have a number of programme boards and project boards that involve other government departments. For example, the individual registration project board involves not just DCA and ODPM but also the Northern Ireland Office on the working group, the Scotland office and others, who are looking at different experiences in different areas of the country but also that links into the wider question about the information data sharing issue that we talked about earlier on, the Citizen Information Project, work that the Treasury have oversight of. All those things feed into the extent to which we can capture and hopefully enthuse those groups less inclined to normally engage with the political process, younger people and minority ethnic people, into that registration process. We want to talk to other government departments about that.

Q309 Peter Bottomley: Unless a young person, whether or not black or minority ethnic, has a household of their own, is the problem when they leave home or lose contact with home in terms of registration or do you think registration for those in multi-person households is pretty good and then it comes to a question of turn out rather than ability to vote because you are registered?

Mr Leslie: It comes back to the question Nick was answering earlier on about whether a head of household responsible for returning a form is likely to add the names of teenage children. We need young people to go on the register even before they are entitled to vote in order to make sure that they can vote from their age of majority onwards. Typically, that is done by the head of the householder, I imagine, rather than the young person themselves. We need to capture that good part of the existing household registration and try and find a way of retaining that propensity to get those young people on the register if we were to move towards some other form of individual registration.

Q310 Peter Bottomley: If we are talking about people aged 171/2 to 21 who may be away from home and may or may not maintain a home link, which department would help most? Would it be the Department for Education and Skills? What?

Mr Leslie: It depends on how we can contact young people. Universities, for instance, have their own process for making available registration information to students. The declaration of local connection was put in the rules in order to make it clear that people could add their names to the register even if they were away for long periods studying. We have tried to accommodate that in the rules as they have evolved.

Q311 Peter Bottomley: If we take people who are least likely to be in college or full time education and who are away from their household of origin, there are informal and formal local groups who may be able to encourage them to register. Should they be funded by national or local government, through the Electoral Commission or in some independent way? For example, would your Departments fund Operation Black Vote or the British Youth Council directly for this sort of work?

Mr Leslie: I think a lot of that work has been done via the Electoral Commission who tend to have had the lead on innovative registration policy development. We obviously have to be conscious that there is a finite pot of money for these activities though of course we will look with an open mind at any applications or proposals that the Electoral Commission come forward with. I think the Commission intended to have the resource for engaging that sort of organisation in registration.

Mr Raynsford: There is quite a good reason why the Electoral Commission should be in the lead on this because I think the evidence was put to you by the political party representatives that there can always be a suspicion, if you have targeted campaigns focusing on one particular section of the community, that this may be motivated by a perception, whether right or wrong, that that particular group may be more likely to vote for one party or another. If it is promoted by a local authority or government, there is always that suspicion.

Q312 Chairman: I do not think it was the political parties who put that forward. I think it was one of the electoral returning officers who was giving us the evidence who had that fear. Would it not be logical to make it quite clear to local authorities in terms of the grants that you give them so generously that the number of people on the electoral register was one of the key components in getting the money?

Mr Raynsford: This is a very interesting idea. It goes right to the heart of issues that we have debated frequently in front of your half of this Committee, if I may say so, in previous discussions about the balance between ring fenced as against general grant to local government. I know there are many electoral administrators who would love the funding that is included within the EPCS block notion to support electoral registration to be ring fenced, to enable them to insist on having their share of the budget. However, that runs very strongly counter to the principle of a degree of financial freedom for local government which I know the ODPM Committee has strongly supported in the past and we have been seeking to follow as a policy objective.

Q313 Peter Bottomley: For clarity, neither Minister knows of a line in their own budgets that would allow funding other than through the Electoral Commission. Is that correct?

Mr Raynsford: Correct.

Mr Leslie: I will have to check. I think our preference is for the Electoral Commission ----

Q314 Peter Bottomley: I asked whether you knew of a budget line within your own Department for the promotion of registration, other than through the Electoral Commission.

Mr Leslie: I think it is through the Electoral Commission.

Q315 Peter Bottomley: Can I clear up one detail which comes in the Electoral Commission's evidence to us, paragraph 5.20? There is at least a doubt as to whether electoral registration officers can spend money to promote registration in terms of campaigning, not just going out and saying, "Here are the forms. Please can we canvass for you?" If there is any doubt, do you think it is your responsibility to promote legislation to make sure that there is no doubt?

Mr Leslie: Yes. We want electoral registration officers to be proactive, to gather information, to encourage people to participate and go on the register. I certainly do not know of any electoral registration officers who have reported to me in my Department that they feel there is a legislative obstacle preventing them doing that. I would be interested to know if the Committee has had that so far. Obviously, electoral registration officers are limited in terms of the budgets they have at their disposal. Notwithstanding that, most EROs do a pretty good job in promoting the availability of registration within the constraints that are upon them.

Q316 Peter Bottomley: It may be that on reading the answer the Minister will see he has answered a question that was not put and has not answered the question which was put. If the Electoral Commission has put to a government that they would like to see the law clarified and if the government has not yet responded in a positive way, could they reflect on it and possibly let both committees know what their possibly revised answer might be, please?

Mr Leslie: Yes.

Q317 Mr Clelland: The purpose of such promotional work is for the sake of the accuracy and completeness of the register. At the moment, there is an obligation on the household to return the forms, although we have heard it is on very rare occasions that anyone is prosecuted for not returning the forms. Therefore, we have a less than accurate and complete register. If we move to a situation where we have individual registration, should that be compulsory? If so, what would be the appropriate penalties for failure to register?

Mr Leslie: We have a system at present where electoral registration officers have the power to prosecute for failing to comply with a request for information from that electoral registration officer, with a fine of up to £1,000 if found guilty of that. Prosecutions are relatively rare but nevertheless there is that requirement to comply with the request. Therefore, in some ways, you could almost describe this as a compulsory system as it is, but there is not a compulsory requirement if one moves house, for example, to instantly use a rolling register capability to update one's entry on the new register about where you are moving house to. There is a balance to be struck in terms of how strict the enforcement of that desire to comply with the request from the registration officer is. The balance is that, if an electoral registration officer spent all his or her time prosecuting individuals for non-registration, very soon that resources of that registration officer would be used up so there would not be much left available to promote proactive registration amongst the wider population. Quite naturally, they take a balanced approach.

Q318 Mr Clelland: I am not quite sure whether you are saying that it should be compulsory in a situation where we have individual registration, as it is now, or would the same penalties apply?

Mr Leslie: The balance that is struck at present is a good one in that there is an onus on an individual to cooperate with the electoral registration officer when that request comes to that individual for information, that individual being told that there is a penalty of up to £1,000 for failure to comply with that request reasonably. In effect, we have a fairly compulsory system as it is.

Q319 Mr Clelland: That is the stick. What about the carrots? Should there be incentives for people to register? We have heard about the mobile phone one. Apparently some local authorities will issue parking permits and link that with automatic registering.

Mr Leslie: I have not heard of the last one but I know that the use of the register by credit reference agencies in order to verify addresses, names of applicants for mortgages, loans, mobile telephone applications and so forth is probably one of the bigger incentives for people to go on the register. I had a constituent last week who had a new job, a teenager, who was not on the register but wanted to receive the pay cheque through the bank account process and could not open a bank account unless they were on the register. They were keen to find out as soon as possible how to get on the electoral register. It was not necessarily because of any forthcoming general election. It was more a financial imperative, but nevertheless it was an imperative that motivates people to go on the register.

Q320 Mr Clelland: Do you think it would be a good idea, rather than relying on the casual incentives that might be there, to introduce some sort of incentive?

Mr Leslie: Incentives tend to cost sums of money. I have heard people reporting their preference: should we have a voucher system to reward people for going on the register? We do not have limitless resources to go in that direction necessarily. What we could do though is explain more and advertise more the fact that there are benefits to being on the register, not least through the credit reference aspects.

Q321 Mr Clelland: People are allowed to abstain from voting. Should they be allowed to abstain from registering?

Mr Leslie: Abstention from voting is a choice that people have for whatever reason, sometimes religious and sometimes they just do not like the choice before them. I feel that the requirement for all individuals to cooperate with an electoral registration officer is universal and applies to everyone. Therefore, there should be a requirement to go on the register. Whether everybody complies with that - sadly, they do not - that is the requirement in law and that is the one that needs to be upheld.

Mr Raynsford: Can I strongly support that and say it is important that that is accompanied by safeguards for those people who believe their personal security may be put at risk, which is why the whole issue of anonymous registration is important. Also, that there should be very careful consideration as we move through with the Citizen Information Project that Chris was talking about earlier about the whole data protection implications but, subject to those issues, it seems to me absolutely right that there should be a comprehensive register.

Q322 Mr Clelland: They should be obliged to register but they could ask to be left off the published register?

Mr Leslie: We have had a process since 2002 where we have got two registers in parallel, an edited register and a full register. I think that has helped calm some people's minds as to whether that is in the public domain, but you might come on to that later.

Q323 Peter Bottomley: Potential jury service is linked to the Electoral Register as well, I think. With some exceptions, everyone up to the age of 16 and beyond to 18 is known to Government through Child Benefit. There is then a potential gap if they leave education at 16 up to the age of 17-plus when they are eligible for registration as a provisional voter. Is there some argument for saying let us try to get people who are both on Child Benefit up to 16 and those who are dropping off at 16 to transfer one way or another to a provisional registration so that it becomes seamless, so instead of potentially dropping people you keep going with them?

Mr Leslie: There is an argument for it. I think that the Citizen Information Project, looking at this data sharing issue, in other words between the Department for Work and Pensions, who hold that sort of information, and other departments - our department - and the local authorities as well, maybe could use that information, but ultimately I think it will be for the electoral registration officers to look at a range of sources of data available to them and determine whether that can help them form an accurate register. Those EROs have to be in the lead on how they use data. I think we are still investigating the potential for that and we await that report later on in the spring.

Q324 Mr Sanders: There are very few prosecutions by returning officers taking people to court for non-compliance with the existing rule. What if the onus was actually on the person who loses their right to vote to have some form of sanction against the person who did not fill in the form? I do not believe there is anything in law at the moment that says the student who is kept off the register by the landlord who then is unable to vote, there is no comeback on the landlord from the person who is actually directly affected. Has that been investigated?

Mr Leslie: Not in a formal sense. I can see the point you make about the power for the individual perhaps who feels thwarted when they thought they had been registered and it turned out that they had not been. I think that might be a little bit convoluted. I suspect it is probably better to encourage all individuals to check for themselves whether they are on the register and to be aware that the rolling registration process allows them to go to an Electoral Registration Office, get the form, and apply, and we should make it easier to apply. I think that is the preferable policy development route rather than necessarily getting into litigation territory between individuals and other individuals.

Q325 Mr Sanders: In your memorandum you indicate that you have been involved in groups representing people with disabilities and others unable to complete forms in considering changes to the registration system. What changes to the registration form have you considered as a result of those discussions? Who should be eligible to assist disabled people and those unable to complete forms with the registration process?

Mr Leslie: I think this is a very important area of policy development and, again, I would welcome the Committee's views if there are any particular ideas that come forward from the evidence you hear. Certainly as we review the annual canvass form, which is a Statutory Instrument that we go through whenever there has to be changes, we look at questions about the font size on the form for persons with visual impairment and we look at the complexity of the form and whether there are ways in which we can pare down over-burdensome information requirements on that. We should look at ways of encouraging electoral registration officers to go out on request, perhaps in response to a telephone call, to help an individual in their home complete the registration form, as in a similar way as during the all-postal voting process we had returning officers go out to people's homes, helping them fill in those ballot papers with that secure assistance from the returning officer. Those are all steps that we need to develop further.

Q326 Mr Sanders: What about electronic and telephone registration? When can we expect to see the results of your discussions on that?

Mr Leslie: I think a lot of those more mechanical improvements depend on the IT available, depend on whether we have a single telephone line for the whole country or one for each local authority area, much of that leads into the online registration project experience. There is no desire to see that not happen but it has got to work. We have got to make sure if it is happening it has got to function properly.

Mr Raynsford: Can I just add that a significant number of local authorities are already providing the facility and, indeed, encouraging people to confirm no change in the previous registration either by telephone or online. Obviously, that is going to save costs and ----

Q327 Mr Sanders: Offering free draws on the Pools.

Mr Raynsford: ---- does provide a facility which is particularly useful for some disabled people.

Q328 Mr Sanders: The Government's report on Voting for Change accepted in principle that the last date for registration should be moved. When will you act to implement the change in the last date for registration before an election?

Mr Leslie: I think much of that depends on statutory change. I am not sure whether ----

Q329 Mr Sanders: Surely that only requires a Statutory Instrument?

Mr Leslie: I am not sure whether it does require a Statutory Instrument.

Q330 Chairman: Would it not be a good idea to find out? It is one of the fairly crucial questions.

Mr Leslie: We have looked at these questions before when, for instance, ----

Q331 Chairman: It looks as thought there might be some help coming from the other end of the table.

Mr Leslie: Maybe there is but let me finish my point first. We looked at this when we combined the local and European election dates last June and this was a question that we investigated then. Right now I cannot recall whether it is secondary or primary legislation that requires a change. If there is any inspiration I am happy for it to strike at any moment.

Mr Rowsell: I fear the inspiration at this end of the table is the same on this topic. This is something we will do a note for the Committee on.

Q332 Chairman: Thank you very much. Is it not a bit illogical if you go to the local council offices and tell them that you have just moved in, that you are happy to pay your council tax, the council tax department can tell the electoral registration officer that you have moved in but then the electoral registration officer has to send you a form? Would it not be logical simply for people to be able to go to the council and say, "We have moved into this address, please sign us up for all the appropriate things"?

Mr Raynsford: This is precisely one of the issues that needs to be looked at in this wider context of how we do use data sharing in a way that helps to reduce the bureaucracy involved and facilitate registration while at the same time respecting the data protection issues that need to be taken account of.

Q333 Chairman: Any idea when that might happen?

Mr Raynsford: This is very much a part of the ongoing discussion.

Q334 Chairman: This is just commonsense.

Mr Raynsford: It is but there are very important data protection issues involved in this that cannot be ignored. I know that the Deputy Information Commissioner expressed some criticism in the course of appearing before you about not having been consulted at the early stage of the CORE programme, which I will be very happy to explain in due course if we get to that. Can I say that it is absolutely our intention to consult with the Information Commissioner as we develop the second stage of CORE which is very much to do with access to information at a national level and a number of those issues will come up again in relation to the Citizen Information Project that Chris and I have already referred to.

Q335 Chairman: Does it need legislation?

Mr Raynsford: I think it almost certainly will need legislation, yes.

Q336 Chairman: Just to pass on the piece of information?

Mr Raynsford: To clarify that there is a right and an entitlement, if not an obligation, to do so without the risk of possibly infringing data protection.

Q337 Mr Beith: What surely is not is automatically handing out an electoral registration form whenever somebody notifies the council they have moved in for whatever purpose?

Mr Raynsford: There are issues where good administration undoubtedly could assist and good practice, such as the one you have suggested, would undoubtedly make things easier and quicker, but there is a different matter to do with the sharing of information between bodies where that information has been obtained for a reason other than the one that it is being used for, and that is where data protection comes in.

Q338 Peter Bottomley: Data protection does not come into a council official saying "Would you like to have one of these because you are probably entitled to register to vote."

Mr Raynsford: I think data protection could come in where a council official in one department was passing information on a systematic basis to a council official in another department for reasons other than those related to the purpose for which the information was obtained.

Chairman: As I understand it, it is even more bureaucratic because they pass the information but as a result of receiving the information they have to send out a separate form rather than being able to simply put the person on the register.

Q339 Chris Mole: You seem to be very good this afternoon at anticipating my questions, Minister. I was going to ask you what progress you are making with the CORE project and when do you expect the database to be up and running?

Mr Raynsford: Contrary to the views expressed to you by some previous witnesses, we are making reasonably good progress. Can I preface that by saying that initially there was a real difficulty because the precursor of CORE, the Laser project, fell foul of the litigation, the Robertson judgment, which completely undercut all the assumptions about how that project was going to be financed through some benefit from the sale of data on the registers. Subsequently, the project had to be reconstituted as CORE. We launched CORE a year ago and subsequently we have carried out a fairly detailed consultation on the arrangements necessary to put in place the systems to ensure consistent gathering of information by local authority registration officers. We are now moving towards the second phase of the project which will be concerned with data standards. It is our intention that there should be completion of that phase in time for the canvass which will be conducted this year, as any year, in the late summer and early autumn, so that we will have a basis for a single national compatible register drawn from all the individual local registers by early in 2006. That is the earliest feasible timescale for achieving this. When we launched CORE we did consult on the possibility of trying to meet the 2005 register and the overwhelming advice we got back from the electoral registration officers was that was simply not feasible within the time available. This is not us dragging our feet, as some people have implied, it is the result of trying to do this in a proper and systematic way.

Q340 Chris Mole: Does the specification for that data gathering and data standards include the provision for the introduction of individual registration and other modernisation projects, such as e-registration and e-voting?

Mr Raynsford: These could all flow from and, indeed, would benefit considerably from the availability of a single national online register but, as I have said, where we have got to so far is establishing a common language. There is now the election mark-up language which is used by the project. We are discussing with the Electoral Commission the process by which we will move towards a definition of the standards that will apply, that is the second stage. They have a statutory role in relation to standards. We cannot act without a recommendation from them on that, so their involvement is absolutely critical. They do have other pressures on their time at the moment which have perhaps acted as a slight inhibitor. Once those two phases are complete then we will have a system in place that will allow a lot of the benefits we were talking about earlier in this evidence session, about remote voting, to be conducted with a far greater degree of security and confidence than otherwise would be possible.

Q341 Mr Page: I am very pleased to hear that the CORE project is going to schedule. Is it over budget in its costings?

Mr Raynsford: No. My understanding is that the budget is exactly the same as was envisaged for the Laser project, which was some £12 million in total, and certainly we have not exceeded that as yet.

Mr Rowsell: We are well within budget. So far we have paid about £400,000 for the suppliers to update their software systems to the standard language, EML.

Q342 Mr Page: The milestones are being reached in the scheduled time?

Mr Raynsford: We have already completed the first consultation and have reached the agreement across local government and with the suppliers of software for putting in place a system which will allow consistency in all authorities. The next stage, which is the definition of the standards, involves consultation which must be conducted in time to enable those standards to apply for this year's canvass if we are to meet that timetable. That does require the Electoral Commission to make a recommendation by no later than July, which was why I referred to their particular role in this.

Q343 Mr Page: This was launched in January of last year?

Mr Raynsford: Yes.

Q344 Mr Page: And you are saying that CORE is so far up to speed and up to time?

Mr Raynsford: I am saying it was understood as far as the first consultation as a result of the response from consultees that we could not meet the timetable for the 2004 canvass which would have allowed introduction in 2005, that simply was not feasible. We did consult as to whether it would be feasible or not, the reply of the consultees was that it was not possible. As it has to be done at the time of the compilation of the register each year that meant inevitably that the earliest possible subsequent date would be for the 2006 register based on the 2005 canvass, which is now our objective.

Q345 Mr Page: I asked my question because I come from the Public Accounts Committee where we see Government projects on IT littered with failures, successes are rare, so it is nice to see a project that appears to be in budget and on time.

Mr Raynsford: It is early days yet. I do not want to whet your appetite.

Mr Page: My last point, and I may be pinching your question here, is I read that the Information Commissioner was not consulted on the CORE project. Did he offer his services and were they rebuffed or was he just not brought in?

Q346 Chairman: He did not know about it.

Mr Raynsford: The first stage of the consultation was entirely about the technical issues to do with the software systems and the language. We have every intention of consulting the Information Commission on the second stage, which is about access to information, where the issues to do with data protection arise. I can only apologise if the Information Commissioner felt that he should have been consulted about the issues to do with the technical introduction of a system to allow consistency between authorities but I do not see any particular data protection issues involved in that. It is the second stage where those apply and we will certainly consult the Information Commissioner.

Q347 Chris Mole: Can I go back to the issue of costs. It has been put to us by one of the large credit checking companies that you can almost buy this database off the shelf essentially from some of the existing reference agencies' databases. Would you have any objection to doing something like that rather than building your own with all of the risks associated with it?

Mr Raynsford: Yes, we would. We do not believe it is right that something as fundamental to our democracy as a national register of electors should be privately owned.

Q348 Chris Mole: You might own it yourself but you acquire it from somebody else.

Mr Raynsford: The present system involves the compilation of a register which is a publicly prepared register which is then made available for certain defined purposes to other potential users. Some have access to the full register, and that is restricted to a limited number of potential recipients, the wider public has access to the whole register but that is an edited version.

Q349 Chris Mole: So basically it is to maintain public confidence?

Mr Raynsford: To maintain the integrity of the system and to ensure that it is, and will always be, publicly available in the service of democracy.

Q350 Mr Beith: The OSCE guidelines actually state that "the examiner should carefully review the legal framework and be satisfied that it does not allow for collection, use or dissemination of personal data or information in any manner for any purpose other than the exercise of suffrage rights", but we have sold a pass on that one, have we not?

Mr Raynsford: This was an issue that we addressed four years ago when there were very serious issues raised by the Robertson case. The conclusion that we reached, and I think it was the right one, certainly it has survived a couple of subsequent challenges in the courts, was that there should be access for matters of national security, for matters of action to prevent money laundering and criminal activity and for credit reference purposes, which have an obvious association with that previous issue. Otherwise the register is not available more widely. That posed a very interesting dilemma for us, as we have discovered. You are probably not aware of this, but I have just recently become aware of it, that local authorities do not have access to it in order to run their own referendums; an issue which we have identified as a problem so we will be taking action to rectify it. That is a measure of just how carefully the completed register is protected at the moment.

Q351 Mr Beith: Anyone who is a candidate has access to it if he is to have a right to communicate with every elector.

Mr Raynsford: For obvious reasons.

Q352 Mr Beith: Have you got any evidence of whether potential electors are deterred from registering because of data protection concerns, particularly the concern that some people write to us about, that they are unhappy that their name has fallen into the hands of some commercial organisation because they are on the register, either on the public register or on the restricted register?

Mr Raynsford: There is absolutely no doubt there are worries of that nature and it is important that the restrictions that do apply currently are publicised as well as can be done, but inevitably there will be a suspicion when people receive junk mail that that junk mail has arrived because the sender of the mail has bought a copy of the electoral register.

Q353 Mr Beith: What are you including in your consultation package about changes in access to the register? You are supposed to be producing a limited package of proposed changes on particular issues, is that something you are still working on?

Mr Leslie: One of the issues Nick raised earlier was this question about the scope for anonymous registration or for limited data to be divulged through the edited register. The fact that there are undoubtedly some people who feel that they are more vulnerable by virtue of the fact that their name appears on a public register, albeit recently in a supervised form, inspected in person, rather than on the edited register now, there is a principle at stake of having a full register that can be inspected by political parties, for instance, to ensure that it is accurate, to ensure that it does not miss people off by mistake, for instance, and that has been a principle since electoral registration began in the 19^th Century. Also, we have to recognise that it is possible to have a form of anonymous registration, although very tightly controlled because we do not want it to become like an ex-directory system where you get literally half the population going ex-directory, we want it still to be a full and comprehensive register for those authorised agencies to verify that it is a full and comprehensive register.

Q354 Dr Whitehead: We have heard mention of the security of the full register and the need to ensure that the edited register and the full register are differentiated, but is it not really the case that the full register is not really very confidential? For example, you could stand as the You have Won a Cruise, Claim by Tomorrow Party and you would then have access to the full register. You can go in to see the returning officer the day after the election and get a copy of the full marked register. That seems to rather drive a coach and horses through the alleged confidentiality of the full register.

Mr Leslie: There are two distinct points there. Obviously the Electoral Commission control who can be registered as a legitimate political party, although I accept there are circumstances where individuals could become a political party if they really wanted to go through that process for their own commercial motivation, in theory that is a possibility, but there is a form of control on that by the Electoral Commission.

Q355 Mr Beith: Can you just clarify that. As far as I know the Electoral Commission have no control over who can register a party so long as they comply with the financial and other legal obligations placed on political parties. They cannot decide that something does not look like a suitable political party to them.

Mr Leslie: Except that those are still controls and they are part of the legislation.

Q356 Mr Beith: You can fill in the proper returns and do all the things you are supposed to.

Mr Leslie: There are people, indeed, who form all sorts of bizarre and weird political parties, as we know.

Mr Raynsford: Here is the tension between, in a democratic society, allowing anyone who wants to stand as a candidate and to have an ability to communicate with anyone who is in a position to elect them. If you are guaranteeing that right, which seems to me fairly fundamental in a democracy, then the safeguards against access to information inevitably are compromised to that extent.

Q357 Dr Whitehead: Are there safeguards that one could put in perhaps in terms of the uses to which political parties and/or credit reference agencies might actually legally and reasonably put the information to which they are party?

Mr Leslie: You would have to be careful not to jeopardise the right of persons to stand as candidates. In doing so, those sorts of controls may deter persons and parties coming forward being informed and standing for election, so we have got to strike that balance. There was a second point that you raised.

Q358 Dr Whitehead: The marked register.

Mr Leslie: The marked register availability, and I am conscious that that has been raised before, there is a lacuna in the arrangements here which I think we do need to look at in a legislative context.

Q359 Chairman: You need to look at, but do you not need to do something about it? It is crazy, is it not, to have the provision that you can be left off the original register for various reasons, your name does not appear on it, and yet when it comes to the register of who has been to vote your name appears on it?

Mr Leslie: So far the marked register has only been made available to authorised persons by my Department. We have not had that release of those marked registers to persons who would not be listed in those criteria where they could get the full register anyway. If we have a legislative opportunity that arises, certainly we would want to look at whether we could take the opportunity to address that particular lacuna.

Q360 Dr Whitehead: You appear to be saying that you are fairly confident, in fact, that in reality the potential issue of the marked register has not been taken up. Presumably as a result of the wide publicity that this Committee will receive that may now change.

Mr Leslie: I hope it does not. Our policy so far has been to give it to those persons authorised to see the full register.

Mr Raynsford: It is not the case that people who are authorised to see it have then got complete freedom to use that information for any purpose that they want, there are tight restrictions on the use of that data too. It is a lacuna, unquestionably, but less of one than is perhaps implied sometimes.

Q361 Chris Mole: Those of us on the Select Committee who went to talk to the Electoral Commission in Australia were impressed with its robustness and independence and everything. Do you think our Electoral Commission is fulfilling its function of keeping everything under review that it is charged to do?

Mr Leslie: Yes. The Electoral Commission does its job well. It does not always agree with Government and Government does not always agree with the Electoral Commission, but they make their recommendations independent of the Executive, they account to Parliament directly, and certainly I feel as though we get a good service from the Electoral Commission. Certainly Nick has a different experience of some of the local government aspects.

Mr Raynsford: Could I just add that, along with Alan Beith, I am a member of the Speaker's Committee which does oversee the Electoral Commission and I think one would inevitably say that as an organisation that has been in existence for a relatively short period of time it has been on a steep learning curve and has made very considerable progress in many areas. There are other areas where we probably see scope for continued and further improvements.

Q362 Chairman: It has not passed all its exams?

Mr Raynsford: I do not think I should say anything more than that at this stage.

Q363 Chris Mole: Just now you said that Government is not always going to agree with everything the Commission says. Do you see their recommendations more as academic studies rather than practical blueprints?

Mr Leslie: Sometimes they are very detailed blueprints and policy suggestions but, ultimately, because of the nature of our constitution, Government makes decisions and is held to account in Parliament for those decisions. That is the nature of our democracy. If we were to abrogate our responsibility to make decisions then you could potentially argue that it was reducing democratic accountability for those decisions and that is why I think it is right that the Electoral Commission advises and Government decides and is accountable in Parliament for those decisions.

Q364 Chris Mole: So you are not looking to change the composition, perhaps put more practitioners on there or shift its focus slightly?

Mr Leslie: Certainly I think that the Speaker's Commission will look at a number of different issues and they have got their own investigation into some of these questions. I think we should keep flexible the evolution of the Electoral Commission. It does very good work at present and we want to make sure that it remains a relevant, modern organisation able to give the best advice and to get the best information from those it works with in partnership.

Mr Raynsford: Let me just add one point here. There is an obvious tension between a desire to ensure that the body can act in a robust and independent way as against a position where there is no political input from people who are practitioners with an understanding of the political process into the work of the organisation. It may well be that in wishing to ensure the principle of independence is upheld, and therefore there was no possibility of anyone with a practical involvement in politics over the previous ten years serving as a Commissioner, that the balance may be drawn a little too tightly against an understanding of day-to-day practical issues. Certainly from my discussions with Sam Younger, I think the Commission itself would welcome possible changes, not necessarily to the composition of the Commission itself but to the working arrangements to ensure that there can be a more practical engagement with those people who are experienced in the political operation.

Q365 Chairman: Does that need legislation?

Mr Raynsford: If it was a change to the actual composition of the Commission it would. If it was an administrative arrangement whereby the Commission had contact with a body of senior practitioners from all parties who could advise it then that can be done without the need for legislation.

Q366 Chris Mole: They seem to be calling for more powers in Voting for Change, their report on the electoral modernisation programme, things like setting data standards for electronic databases, managing individual registration. Do you think a centralised electoral body in the UK is the right way to go in due course?

Mr Leslie: Our response to Voting for Change is on the record and is in detail and I would not propose to run through our response to each of their recommendations. There may well be circumstances where simply by virtue that they are an organisation capable of undertaking certain functions, for instance the administration of referendums we know passed to their responsibility in that administrative sense, and there might be tasks they can take on in a more hands-on way. It would be imprudent of us not to recognise that as an organisation they may be capable of doing that but I think the balance of responsibilities is pretty fair as a split between the Electoral Commission and Government at present.

Mr Raynsford: Let me add one specific illustration. We were talking earlier about the CORE project and the second phase of that project which will be looking at the framework for national access to the register. That could be achieved by one of a number of options, of which the two most likely appear to be either a search engine operated from one central location or the register itself being held by one particular body. It seems difficult to imagine a body other than the Electoral Commission which will be correctly in place to fulfil either of those functions. Yes, there is an obvious logic to the Electoral Commission playing a central role as we develop a number of these projects, that would not necessarily be at all out of keeping with the current definition of its responsibilities.

Chairman: On that note, can I thank you very much for your evidence. Thank you.