Mrs.
Laing: New clause 1 was originally in my name, but I then
detected that I had made a drafting error, so I tabled amendments (a),
(b) and (c) to the new clause. As a procedural matter, therefore, my
name no longer appears at the top of new clause 1 and it is
in the name of my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for
Huntingdon, who has asked me, on his behalf, to continue to speak to
it. For the sake of getting the amendments to the new clause out of the
way, I shall begin with amendments (a), (b) and (c) in my
name.
Mr.
Tyrie: This is about the most important clause that we
will consider in the whole of the Bill. It goes to the heart of it. I
have seen many of these clauses in past Committees, but we have not yet
developed the last word on this. The Government say that they are keen,
in principle, on this type of improvement. I take it that we would be
amenable to constructive suggestions from the Government to improve the
new clause. Is that correct? If they come forward with suggestions,
rather than just knocking it out, the Opposition will be
constructive.
Mrs.
Laing: My hon. Friend asks me a leading question, and of
course I agree with
him.
Mr.
Tyrie: I am not a lawyer, so I am just asking a
question.
Mrs.
Laing: I, clearly, and not for the first time, have been
proved not to be a brilliant parliamentary draftsman, but I did not set
out to be. My hon. Friend is right. This is an extremely important
group of new clauses on a vital issue. If the Government produce a
constructive way forward, we would be happy to
co-operate. I
will deal first with the amendments, so that the Committee does not
have to puzzle over their meaning. New clause 1, as drafted, is taken
from the Northern Ireland legislation, so I made the mistake of leaving
in proposed new subsection (4A)(c) (ii), which
states: a
statement of whether or not he has been resident in the United Kingdom
for the whole of the three-month period ending on 15th October
in the year in question,
and. That
should not be there, because it is a specific requirement relating to
Northern Ireland and it is not necessary in the rest of the United
Kingdom. I did not intend to introduce the three-month residency
restriction across the rest of the United Kingdomthat would be
wrong. Amendment (a) removes that
sub-paragraph.
It has not
been our intention at any point in the Bill to make it more difficult
for people to register, or for people who legitimately ought to be
voting to vote. We want to ensure that the franchise is extended to
everyone to whom it ought to be extended, with no unnecessary
restrictions. The areas to which amendments (a), (b) and (c) refer
would have introduced a residency restriction, so I have amended my own
new clause. Or, in technical terms, to ensure that the procedure is
correct, I have amended the new clause standing in the name of my hon.
Friend the Member for Huntingdon. I hope that the Committee will accept
that explanation so that we do not have to waste time debating
amendments (a), (b) and
(c). Mr.
David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): As one who tried to
persuade my noble Friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton to include a scheme
for individual registration in the 2006 Act, I certainly will not argue
against the principle of the amendments, but when the hon. Lady refers
to the Northern Ireland model, does she accept that there was a big
drop in the number of people registered to vote when the single
registration scheme came into effect there? Does she think that, when
we design a scheme for the rest of the United Kingdom, we ought to do
something in the law to protect against that happening
again?
Mrs.
Laing: The hon. Gentleman makes at the outset the very
point that we have to discuss. That is why the new clause is such an
important omission from the Bill. I cannot say that it is an important
part of the Bill because it is not in the Bill, but it should
be.
I will deal
with the hon. Gentlemans point later, but discuss it briefly
now. One reason why the legislation was introduced in Northern Ireland
while it was still in the early stages of being considered for the
remainder of the UK was because it was seen as a necessary way to solve
a specific problem in Northern Ireland. It was recognised by the
Government and, I believe, all political parties, that the Northern
Ireland register was not accurate. It was not intact. It had on it the
names of many people who should not have been on it. Indeed, it had on
it many names that were not the names of people. It was very much in
need of being cleaned up, to put it
simply. Inevitably,
if one of the reasons for introducing legislation is to remove names
that are not names of people but the names of people long deceased or
not yet born or of people who left the country long ago and have no
right to vote or that are merely anagrams of other
namessomething that was discovered when the matter was
examinedgiven that the intent of the legislation as it applied
initially in Northern Ireland was to remove superfluous names from the
register, by the very nature of the legislation, the outcome was that
the number of names on the register was significantly
reduced.
Mr.
Wills: May I clarify this point? Is the hon. Lady
asserting that the entire fall in the numbers registered was due to the
phenomenon that she
described?
Mrs.
Laing: No, not the entire fall. I could not possibly
assert that, and I certainly could not prove it. It was not entirely
for that reason, but we have evidence to show that it was largely for
that reason. The Minister
cannot argue that, three years ago, his colleagues
did not introduce legislation to clean up the Northern Ireland
register. I hope that the Government would have been extremely
disappointed if there had been no difference in the number of names on
it. However, there are significant differences between the way that the
register is made and kept in Northern Ireland and in the rest of the
UK. I am not asserting that the fall was entirely due to that, and I am
happy to address that point
later. 12.45
pm Martin
Linton (Battersea) (Lab): While the main purpose of the
legislation was to remove people from the register who should not have
been on it, does the hon. Lady accept that there already was a serious
problem of under-registration in Northern Ireland, with 29 per cent. of
18 to 24-year-olds and 17 per cent. of people in socio-economic
categories D and E not on the register, and that the legislation
probably made the problem worse by increasing under-registration among
those
groups?
Mrs.
Laing: I accept the hon. Gentlemans statistics,
but he must not forget that there is a statutory duty to register. I am
sure that the Minster will correct me if I am wrong, but the present
legal framework provides that electoral registration officers in
Northern Ireland can impose a fine of up to £1,000 on someone
for not registering. Of course, that is not enforced. I am not
suggesting that it should be enforced, but the framework is in place to
allow that and perhaps it would be a good idea for the Government,
through their officials in the electoral registration offices, through
the Electoral Commission, or through whichever way they choose, to
remind people that they have a duty to register to vote. There is an
idea that, Oh dear, a significant part of the population aged
between 18 and 25 dont bother to register to vote.
Surprise, surprise. A significant part of the population aged 18 to 25
do not bother about very much, because they are at that stage in life
where they do not have to, and this is just one of those things.
However, it should be remembered that the framework is there to impose
the law if the Government choose to do
so.
Mr.
Djanogly: My hon. Friend, with the help of the hon. Member
for Battersea, has uncovered one of the most disgraceful aspects of our
electoral registration system and democracy in this country: hundreds
of thousands of people fail to register, thereby breaking the existing
law. We are looking to move the law on, but it is important to make the
point that the existing law is being
broken.
Mrs.
Laing: My hon. Friend is correct. I do not think that I
have ever seen a Government information programmeleaflets or
postersabout this. We see so much Government information: there
are glossy brochures on just about everything, coming from every
Department. One can hardly turn round without seeing some kind of
Government information about something, whether it is teaching our
children to read, how to cross the road, or not having water that is
too hot running into our bathsthat is done particularly in
Scotland, but it is still Government money that pays for it. All that
is
done, and yet I do not think I have seen any promotion by the Government
saying that it is an offence not to register to
vote.
Mr.
Wills: I am sorry to stray, but I hope that the hon. Lady
is not suggesting that the literature on babies being scalded is not
worth spending money
on.
Mrs.
Laing: No, of course I am not. It is right to educate
people about such important matters, and so it is right to teach people
that they have a duty to register to vote. We all often go out on the
campaign trail and I assume that every member of the Committee
sometimes knocks on peoples doors and asks, Will you
vote?. Usually we ask Will you vote for me?,
rather than Will you vote? generally, but often the
conversation comes round to whether a person votes generally. We find
people who say I dont vote, like I
dont smoke or I dont eat pasta
or I dont ride a bicycle, as if there is no
duty to register to vote. It is as if they are asserting that they are
in some way morally superior because they do not get involved in the
political process, but they will be the first to complain if something
goes wrong and their representative has not done anything about it.
That is a massive generalisation that I do not propose to back up, but
we all meet people who say that they do not vote. It should be up to
the Government to tell them that they have a duty to register to vote.
If they then choose not to vote, of course every individual has the
freedom to choose whether to exercise their
vote. Dr.
Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab): I have listened
carefully to the hon. Ladys argument about what happened in
Northern Ireland and the what purpose of individual registration was.
Does she accept that, after 2005, when a provision was introduced to
enable a person to have one years grace on the carry-forward
mechanism if they had not re-registered the previous year, virtually
the whole reduction in the register that had been experienced
previously was reinstated by the increase in votes that took place as a
result of that carry-over mechanism? These were real voters, not fake
voters, who had been removed from the register. By and large, they were
members of the settled population in Northern Ireland, not the younger
people whom she referred to, who perhaps had not fulfilled their
responsibility to register to vote. Is she saying that all portions of
the population should register annually in order to undertake the duty
to register, or is she saying that, as is the case throughout the rest
of the United Kingdom, there may be some leeway for ensuring that
settled communities that do not necessarily have to re-register every
year continue to be placed on the electoral
register?
Mrs.
Laing: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman is
suggesting that we should have different rules in different parts of
the country. I accept what he says. It is essential, and it is the
purpose of the Bill, to try to make it easier for people to register to
vote. He will have heard what I said about service voters earlier this
morning. It is essential that everybody who has the right to vote can
fulfil the duty to register to vote, and then to vote if they choose to
do so.
What I would
say about the Northern Ireland situation is that one of the reasons the
Government have given over the last several years for not introducing
individual
voter registration in the rest of the United Kingdom is that they wish
to carry out pilots. My argument is that there is no need to carry out
pilot schemes, because we have a pilot scheme in a whole country,
Northern Ireland, and we can learn from what has happened there. The
hon. Gentleman put the point very well.
Other Labour
Members have also made good points about the lessons to be learned from
Northern Ireland. I am not suggesting for a moment that everything that
happened in Northern Ireland is perfect, but I am suggesting that the
individual voter registration scheme has been successful there, and
that in learning the lessons of what could be improved, the Government
should be able to bring all those lessons together and in a short space
of time introduce a similar scheme in the rest of the United
Kingdom.
Nick
Ainger (Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire) (Lab):
The hon. Lady has just told the Committee that the Northern Ireland
scheme is successful. It depends what criteria one uses to describe
successful. Nearly 120,000 people were removed from the electoral roll
as a result of the changes, and it was only when the rollover system
was introduced that a further 70,000 came back on. That means that
there are still at least 40,000 to 50,000 people who are not registered
in Northern Ireland. I do not think that that is a success. While
individual registration is important, we need a range of other packages
to ensure that we encourage people, as she rightly says, to register to
vote, so that they can vote.
Mrs.
Laing: The hon. Gentlemans comments are amazing.
The point of introducing the legislation in Northern Ireland was to
take out of the register the names of people who were not people and of
people who did not have the right to vote. That system was not
democracy, the Government rightly took steps to put it right and we
supported them. UK citizens who are responsible enough to exercise
their right to vote and make a decisive contribution to deciding who
shall govern our country ought to have responsibility for registering
themselves to vote. We ought not to make that difficult but, my
goodness, it is not very difficult to fill in a
form.
Mr.
Wills: I invite the hon. Lady to respond to the point that
my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire
actually
made.
Mrs.
Laing: I beg your pardon, Sir Nicholas. If I have missed
the point, I should be happy for the hon. Gentleman to make it
again.
Nick
Ainger: I shall do an encore, Sir Nicholas. My point was
about unintended consequences. The individual identifier removed the
names that should never have
been on the register, as the hon. Lady rightly says, but the unintended
consequence was that 120,000 people who should have been on the
register no longer were. It was only when further legislation
introduced the rollover system, and 70,000 names were added, that we
started to return to the previous level of registration. Even now, an
awful lot of people in Northern Irelandtens of
thousandswho should be on the register are
not.
Mrs.
Laing: I did not miss the hon. Gentlemans point; I
fully understood it. I accept that the drop of 120,000 went too far,
and that it was right to introduce further legislation on the rolling
register. That brought the number back up by 50,000, meaning that
70,000 had been taken off the
register.
Nick
Ainger: It is the other way
around70,000 went
on.
Mrs.
Laing: Yes, so the number that came off the register was
not 120,000, but 70,000, because 50,000 went back on. This is exactly
my point about pilots and about learning from Northern Ireland. There
were unintended consequences, as there often are with this type of
legislation, but the Government then put the situation right. That is
what is important. Can the hon. Gentleman explain where those 70,000
people are and why they do not register?
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