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Seventh Standing Committee
on Delegated Legislation
Tuesday 13 July 2004
[Mr. John Cummings in the Chair]
Draft Representation of the People
(Form of Canvass) (England and Wales)
Regulations 2004
2.30 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Representation of the People (Form of Canvass) (England and Wales) Regulations 2004.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Representation of the People (Form of Canvass) (Scotland) Regulations 2004.
Mr. Leslie: The two sets of regulations are similar and their effect is the same. The small differences between them arise because of the slight variation in Scottish and English law.
The purpose of the regulations is to prescribe the form that electoral registration officers should use for the annual canvass of electors that takes place each autumn. The form will be sent to all householders for completion by them in respect of the people living in their properties on 15 October 2004. It is designed to record the name and address of the persons who are eligible to register to vote. The regulations do not deal with the way in which the canvass is conducted. They deal only with the contents of the form sent out by the electoral registration officers.
The regulations are necessary because the existing form, which was used for the 2003 canvass of electors, contained special provisions concerning the registration of citizens of the 10 accession states that were expected to join the European Union on 1 May 2004. Those lucky hon. Members who discussed it in Standing Committee at the time will recall it vividly. As the Committee knows, as a result of the provisions under the Maastricht treaty, nationals of European Union countries living in the United Kingdom can register to vote in local government and European parliamentary elections in the UK. The 2003 form allowed citizens of accession countries to register prior to 1 May, in advance of the June European elections.
The accession states became full members of the European Union on 1 May and a new canvass form was required to reflect that. The new form makes no distinction between citizens of what were then accession states and citizens of any other member state of the European Union. In the notes accompanying the new form, the 10 new states have been added to the list of existing European Union countries. Furthermore, to update the form, all references to the 2004 European parliamentary elections have been removed.
Since a new canvass form was necessary, we have taken the opportunity to review its contents and
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structure. We consulted the Electoral Commission and it made several helpful comments. While developing the form, we also consulted the Association of Electoral Administrators and have taken account of its views. Moreover, we consider the regulations fully compatible with the European convention on human rights.
Regulation 4 is substantive. Two versions of the electoral register are prescribed for use in applications for registration other than in the annual canvass. There is a full version of the electoral register and an edited version. The full version has three main purposes: for elections and referendums, for the prevention and detention of crime and for checking people's identities when they are applying for credit. The edited register omits the particulars of electors who have requested that their details be removed. It is available for sale to anyone for any purpose. The notes accompanying the canvass form now clarify that all electors must choose each year whether they want their details to be excluded from the edited register. We hope that that will be helpful to persons completing the form.
Part I of the schedule sets out the new canvass form. Part II prescribes the form of words of the two versions of the electoral register. I have already explained that we took the opportunity to review the content and structure of the form. We tried to make it a little more user friendly and to ensure that it dealt with certain issues. To eliminate some of the clutter from the form, we have removed the column that was for the title of electors—Mr., Mrs., Ms and so on—as we understand that such details are not necessary for the electoral registration officers.
The current form for England and Wales is used to identify those over 70 who are no longer eligible for jury service. By statute, that information must be passed to the Court Service and will be used for jury-summoning purposes. However, we have removed from the new canvass form the column seeking information about electors not aged 70 at the time of the canvass but who would have reached 70 during the year. We have done that because the Court Service no longer requires that information—it says that it is not necessary—and because there is no statutory requirement for electoral registration officers to supply it. We hope that that helps to simplify the form.
We have considered ways in which the form can achieve a more accurate electoral register. The column asking citizens of EU states to state their nationality has been altered, so that all persons are asked to state their nationality. That will help registration officers to identify any persons who inadvertently apply to register when they are not eligible to do so on nationality grounds. The information will not be made available on any publicly accessible register.
We have added a column to allow persons to state whether they would like to be sent an application form for a postal vote. We believe that postal voting offers greater flexibility and convenience, and we are keen to extend the choice of postal voting to as many electors as possible. That change to the form helps to do that. It enables electors to decide whether they want to apply for a postal vote. However, I should clarify that
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each elector will still need to complete and to sign a postal voting application form before they can be added to the list of postal voters.
I hope that these changes will simplify the form and make for a more accurate electoral register.
2.37 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold) (Con): I apologise for the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan). I am standing in on his behalf.
The Minister has adequately explained what these two similar regulations do for England and Wales and for Scotland. They concern the electoral registration of the citizens of other EU countries who are resident in the United Kingdom; they amend legislation to take into account the 10 new accession countries. They make provision for citizens of those countries residing in a registration area to be included in the list of local government electors for that area. The concept is almost totally uncontroversial. However, there are some practical questions that need to be asked, and it is possible that the debate will be extended to other areas.
It is already against the law to enter people fraudulently on to the electoral register, but there is little co-ordination between local authorities to prevent multiple voting in the same elections. Nor is there sufficient checking and verification of those who apply to be on the register. The Minister made it clear that the regulations form a new set of registers and that the content and structure of the new canvass forms will be altered, so my points are relevant.
The Conservatives support the introduction of individual electoral registration with tougher checks on those registering. That information can be used to verify the identity of the people making postal-vote-on-demand applications and the signatures can be randomly checked when postal votes are returned.
The current system of household registration allows one individual to register all those living at the same address. Individual registration is endorsed by the Select Committee on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and by the Electoral Commission, but that would require primary legislation. Are the Government considering that matter?
What happens in Northern Ireland shows how individual registration will help to reduce the possibility of postal vote fraud. It switched to individual household registration following the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, which requires electors to provide their date of birth, signature and national insurance number in order to register, and to provide details of any other address at which they have registered. The national insurance number is verified with the Northern Ireland Social Security Agency. When applying for a postal vote, electors must provide their date of birth, signature and national insurance number. That information is then checked with the records provided at registration.
In the first year of operation, there was a reduction of 120,000 in the number of people on the register. In its assessment of the 2002 Act's first year of operation,
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published in December 2003, the Electoral Commission argued that that reduction was not necessarily a retrograde step. It said that there had been a
''reduction of some 120,000 names on the first register compiled under the new system of individual registration and its predecessor compiled under the household registration system. We concluded that the reduction could be explained by a number of factors, of which the removal of the practice of carrying names forward from the previous register for a period of one year is likely to have been the most significant. The new system of electoral registration introduced a 'clean slate' in that everyone had to register afresh and individually for inclusion on the register.''
Under the new regulations, we have an opportunity to start afresh. When they introduced the regulations, why did the Government not consider starting a ''clean slate'', so that we started with a robust register? I shall give an example of what can happen. On 6 June, The Sunday Telegraph reported that one of its journalists was able to apply for the ballot papers of 36 voters to be sent to a single address for postal voting, without discovery or investigation by the police or local council.
I have some simple questions for the Minister. Did he think about introducing some form of individual voter registration before introducing the regulations? In recent years, how many EU citizens who live in the UK at present have registered to vote? Has he any estimate of how many new voters are likely to be brought forward under the regulations? How much has been spent on promoting the right of citizens of other EU countries to vote, and do the Government have a budget for that?
Notwithstanding those few questions, the Opposition do not regard this as a controversial matter. We will not be seeking to vote against the regulations.
2.42 pm
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