Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill - Political and Constitutional Reform Committee Contents


Written evidence submitted by Chris Ruane MP, Clive Betts MP, Andy Love MP and Russell Brown MP (PVSCB 18)

  Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to the pre legislative scrutiny on Government proposals for constitutional change. As you know I have had a passionate interest in this issue for the past nine years, having put down hundreds of PQs, spoken many times in Parliament and had dozens of meetings with ministers and the Electoral Commission.

The following are a few suggestions that we think could improve the registration rates across the UK:

FUNDING

  There is a huge disparity in the amount local authorities spend from £4 per person in Orkney to nothing in some local authorities. This should not be tolerated.

The resources to ensure the basic building block of democracy—a full and accurate register—should not be left to the whim of local authorities. When central government has given additional resources for additional responsibilities in the past there has been no way to find out if this money has been spent correctly or just creamed off for another purpose.

  There should be a central government funding formula to recognise the difficulties of registering the under-registered groups:

    — black and ethnic groups (31% unregistered);

    — young people (56% unregistered); and

    — those in council and private rented accommodation (56% unregistered).

  This funding should be monitored to ensure that it is spent on that purpose. The mechanisms are finally in place to monitor this.

REGISTRATION FORMS

  Standardise the registration form working with the Plain English Society and those authorities that have the best practice. There is no reason to have four hundred different types of forms.

The whole thrust from ministers and the Electoral Commission to date has been on inputs—is the ERO doing this or that? There should, however, be greater focus on outcomes. EROs may be using all the tools at their disposal and still not achieving adequate registration rates. The bottom line is, are registration rates improving within a local authority area or nationally? There has been some success, especially over the election period but it is not enough.

  There are still over 3 million unregistered. Where under registration remains there should be additional local and national help, monitoring and focus until registrations rise.

  There needs to be an ultimate sanction for those who consistently fail. This may be the transfer of electoral registration to a neighbouring authority who successfully carries out this function. Should the Electoral Commission or the Department send in a team of inspectors to put things right?

GREATER ACCESS TO DATABASES

  Currently EROs have access to databases within their own local authority such as council tax and housing benefit. These are valuable tools for cross referencing. EROs do not have automatic access to university halls of residence, sixth form and FE colleges or social landlords and housing associations databases. Co-operation does exist between certain authorities and these agencies but it is hit and miss. Stricter guidelines should be put in place. Section 9A (3) allows the Secretary of State to amend the list of the steps that must be taken by EROs to identify people for registration.

Many of the unregistered are on benefits. Currently central government databases are not allowed to be used for registration purposes. I understand the sensitivity around access to databases, especially after recent incidents such as the government data discs found on roundabouts, but I think protocols should be developed that would allow the use of these databases for the purpose of registration.

THE PRIVATE SECTOR

  Can credit rating firms, like Experian, help EROs identify the unregistered and encouraging them to register. The biggest motivator for registration may not be the high minded ideals of a participatory democracy but the need to be on the electoral register to gain credit worthiness. The credit reference companies are already being engaged by the current government to help improve the national census. Experian and other such companies have access to huge amounts of information that could help improve registration.

ENFORCEMENT

  It is an offence not to comply with a request from an ERO for the information he requires in order to compile the register- the penalty for not providing is a fine, currently £1,000. However, there are very few prosecutions for not completing the canvass form although EROs have a duty to ensure that the register is as complete as possible (House of Commons Research Paper Ref 2010/7/50PCC ).

Last year only two authorities (out of 404) prosecuted non responders. EROs may feel it is not worth their time or effort but some sanction is needed. A suggestion from a Welsh ERO is that there should be a fixed penalty notice for not responding. This would dispense with administrative cost. Repeat offending could possibly be dealt with through the courts. Publicity about non responders would help to reinforce the message that it is illegal not to respond.

  Section 9A (1.6) of the Electoral Admin Act 2006 states: "If the ERO fails to take steps where necessary, they will be in breach of their official duty, which on summary conviction can result in a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale". If an ERO fails to take the necessary steps to improve registration then this sanction should be fully implemented.

REPORTING BACK TO ELECTED MEMBERS

  The issue of political interference in electoral registration has never been addressed. There are no mechanisms in place to deal with an authority that deliberately under funds registration for political purposes.

When the Electoral Commission first published the results of their survey of EROs performance (this was a self assessment), they refused my request to circulate this information about the performance of an individual MP's constituency/local authority area saying: "the information was available on the web". I had to cross reference information on council/constituency borders to relay this information to MPs. This is not good enough. Each MP and other elected representatives should have the information concerning registration presented in a readable format on a yearly basis.

  The information on registration levels should be accessible at ward level and members of devolved institutions and local councillors should also have access to this information. There is currently a democratic deficit with elected representatives kept in the dark about registration.

IMPACT OF INDIVIDUAL REGISTRATION ON REGISTRATION RATES

  Many MPs were opposed to individual registration because it would lead to even lower registration. This happened in Northern Ireland with a 10% drop in registration when changes were introduced. Northern Ireland continues to have the lowest registration rates in the country.

Other MPs and I, who had reservations on this issue, were persuaded by the previous Secretary of State, Jack Straw, to drop our opposition to individual registration if there was a twin track approach to improving registration before individual registration was introduced. The time scale for this gave sufficient time for this to be achieved.

  It is my fear that this timescale will be considerably shortened and registration will not be prioritised. There are currently 3.5 million people missing off the electoral register. If individual registration occurs without getting these missing millions on the register then a further 10% drop would add another 4.5 million to those unregistered making a total of 8m missing voters. These will be some of the most vulnerable people in society. Can a modern democracy work with such huge numbers missing from the democratic process

ANNUAL CANVAS REPLACEMENT

  Currently a substantial amount of the resources available to electoral registration officers is spent on the annual canvass. In reality what this means is that this resource is devoted to identifying the fact that the vast majority of people who are registered at an address in one year are still living, and want to be registered, at the same address in the following year. However, because of the fact that people do move between canvasses we effectively have a system of overlapping methods of registration where the annual canvass and returns are then complemented by a rolling register which people can add their names to when they move.

In many other countries, and I use Australia as a model, they spend all their resources dealing with people who move, become 18, or die. Indeed when the ODPM select committee visited Australia in 2004 to look at registration, their officials were rather incredulous that, as they saw it, we should spend most of our money dealing with households where nothing had changed.

  If we abandoned the annual canvass we could release all the resources for identifying those houses where no-one was registered and tracking people who move or become eligible to register through a whole variety of data. Sources such as council tax, housing benefit, council and housing associations, tenancy lists, schools, colleges and universities could be shared, as well as those which we have not really looked closely at in this country such as DWP, DVLA, Post Office and private utility companies. From these sources we ought to be able to build a comprehensive information base from which to identify anyone who moves property, and these are the people we should than pursue to get them on the register, or take them off the register, rather than the majority of households who send back their canvass sheet each year filling in the same information as last year.

22 July 2010





 
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