Electoral Administration Bill

Electoral law does not specify that the canvass form is addressed or sent to a particular person, and in terms of the annual canvass—I would like to separate that from rolling registration if I might—the advantage of addressing ““to the occupier of the property”” is that you are trying to get the register to be as up to date as possible. The noble Lord will know that, if you receive something that is not addressed to you, there are all sorts of reasons why you would not want to open it or should not open it. The purpose of taking that approach for the annual canvass is well established; it is a mechanism by which you establish who is living there and enable them to open the envelope and fill in the form, as opposed to ignoring it because it is addressed to someone else. I would be worried if we moved away from that; even if electoral registration officers, with the best will in the world, were certain about where people were, there is always a danger that they have moved. It is one form per household, as the noble Lord knows. In terms of the rolling registration, we could look at the pre-printing of names on the forms, which could be amended if there were new people living at the property. I take the point that it is more relevant when people receive information that is addressed to them—which is the other side of the same coin of people not opening post addressed to someone else. With rolling registration, one can look at putting the names on the form and think about people making changes when they receive it. As for the annual canvass, the point about sending it to the household is that it enables people to put information in and not be deterred from opening the envelope, which would defeat the object of the exercise. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.