Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 57:"Before Clause 13, insert the following new clause—" ““REGISTRATION: POSTAL VOTING (1)   The provisions in section 13 shall apply in the first instance to those registering for either a postal or proxy vote subject to subsection (2). (2)   Until and unless the electoral registration officer is satisfied that the provisions of section 13 can be met by the electorate, those provisions shall not extend to persons voting in person at the polling station. (3)   An elector may only be added to the register as a postal or proxy voter if he has met the provisions of section 13.”” The noble Baroness said: I apologise in advance that there are a large number of amendments in the group. Given that the Minister smiles, I could have separated them all out and we could have discussed them one after the other. I thought that the Committee might be more grateful if we had an inspired debate on the whole subject. I fear that as a result I will be rather longer than I am normally wont to be. However, this is an important area of the Bill. I am speaking to Amendments Nos. 57, 59 and 60, 62 and 63 to 68, 81 and 82, and others too. Amendment No. 59 introduces a requirement for three sets of personal identifiers to be on the registration form, including the national insurance number. This is the bit that we are interposing into the provision, and we would require three identifiers, where the Bill requires just one. A provision in subsection (2), rather confusing called (4B) for the purposes of cross-referencing, ensures that the signature will not be compulsory for those who are incapable of providing a signature due to disability or not being able to read. Amendment No. 57 would ensure that the provisions of Amendment No. 59 would be introduced as compulsory for postal voters at commencement of the Bill. Amendment No. 62 follows on from Amendment No. 57 as a point of consistency, ensuring that elsewhere in the legislation the requirement for national insurance numbers remains. Amendment No. 81 applies the same rules for registering as an absent voter as for postal voting with regard to personal identifiers. Amendment No. 127 would ensure that personal identifier provisions are subject to the proper amount of public scrutiny. Amendments Nos. 64 to 68 have been tabled to ensure consistency elsewhere in the legislation. Their main thrust comes from the amendments that I have already tabled. Amendments Nos. 60 and 63 are simple probing amendments. Amendment No. 60 is designed to ensure that the Secretary of State does not have the power to abolish provisions for personal identifiers and individual registration without recourse to proper parliamentary scrutiny. Amendment No. 63 ensures that the proper safeguards are intact to prevent fraud on the register. The Bill seems to suggest that even if a prospective elector fails to answer a security question, he will still have the vote. Perhaps the Minister will be able to give some reassurance on that front. I rather think that she has done so already, actually. Having described that great cluster of amendments, I hope that I have not lost the Committee’s interest in the complicated grouping. This issue has been raised in another place and also at Second Reading in this House. The main issue that these amendments cover is one of the main sticking points for us with this Bill: personal identifiers and individual registration. Postal votes are touched on in Amendment No. 57, and absentee votes in Amendment No. 81, but the debate on those will come later. For now, the focus is on individual registration and the use of national insurance numbers as part of that process. As I mentioned at Second Reading, we support the tried and tested system of individual registration with national insurance numbers, as implemented successfully in Northern Ireland. In spite of recommendations from across the board of NGOs, Her Majesty’s Government have decided to resist individual voter registration. The Electoral Commission says:"““Individual voter registration is both desirable in principle and vital as a means of underpinning the security of postal voting . . . it would allow voters to participate with confidence in the electoral process””." Rather than taking the opportunity in the other place to implement consistent and effective reform, the Government are merely promising a series of pilots and short-term solutions. That does not go far enough. The Electoral Commission’s key recommendation in its paper, The electoral registration process, published as far back as 2003, was that the basis of registration should move from the current system of a combination of annual household registration and rolling registration to a system based entirely on individual registration. The commission went on to say in a press statement:"““Registering yourself to vote is a democratic right, and the current system of household registration is outdated and open to abuse and error. Without individual registration it is not possible to carry out reliable checks to prevent postal voting fraud, or to introduce new methods of voting which will promote participation””." There is no need to waste time on pilots. Individual registration using national insurance numbers has been a success in Northern Ireland. The Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has concluded that individual registration in Northern Ireland,"““has been successful in reducing both the perception among the electorate of the prevalence of fraud and the actual level of fraud””." The committee went on to say that the measures introduced in the 2002 Act,"““have served to increase the level of public confidence in the integrity of the electoral process””." The Electoral Commission has expressed serious dissatisfaction with the piloting scheme. Piloting will not cover the whole country; outside the piloting areas, postal voting will still be available without an adequate system of security checks. There is a risk that postal voting at the next election could take place under a system which lacks the security that individual registration provides if full individual registration is not introduced across the country following the pilots. Piloting would be taken up only by various local authorities that volunteer, risking a scattered approach. Finally, pilots would be assigned arbitrarily, and the Electoral Commission doubts the potential value of the pilots in providing evidence of the impact of individual registration on registration rates. The Electoral Reform Society also supports the view that pilots are unnecessary. It argues:"““The route to greater participation through a change in the voting system—making more votes count and introducing a more appealing voting culture””," and any further postponement of the introduction of personal identifiers administered by individual registration,"““may lead to more fraud tainted elections””." There is a lot to take in here. Basically, we face two main challenges with this Bill—the need to encourage voter participation and the urgent need to combat fraud. Postal votes are the most vulnerable part of our voting system. The provisions set out in our amendments would ensure that all those wishing to vote by post would need to provide personal identifiers as an extra safeguard. We are supporting the stance that the Electoral Commission has been asking for all along. Introducing a transitional provision in Amendment No. 57 would ensure that individual registration could be introduced in one part of the voting system in a consistent way, rather than in various scattered parts of the country by way of arbitrary selection and allocation. The electorate would have time to get used to the idea of individual registration, as it would be filtered in, rather than forced wholesale on one group of electors, whereas voters across the constituency boundary would be voting on the old system. That seems to be a confusing state of affairs, and not conducive to the clarity and ease that we are all trying to associate with voting. I have not put together an amendment that would enable a comprehensive transitional provision, as I am awaiting the Minister’s reponse to the ideas put forward today to give me a better idea of how such an amendment might be composed—but I am not ruling that out for the future. The idea, as outlined to the DCA Select Committee on 2 November 2005, would be to give people the option to provide their signature, date of birth and, we would add, national insurance number on a voluntary basis when responding to the annual canvass. However, it would be mandatory for postal voters to provide those details. The Electoral Commission supports the motion, in spite of what the Minister may have suggested at Second Reading. It states clearly in its brief that this approach would,"““address the issue of postal voting security while not erecting unnecessary barriers in terms of people getting and staying on the electoral register””." Why not make use of national insurance numbers, as successfully tried and tested in Northern Ireland? Why not make use of the opportunity to crack down once and for all on postal voting fraud? At a time when we are all recognising the vulnerability of our signatures with the introduction of chip and pin, it seems fitting that individual registration should be tested with more rigorous criteria and by a more rigorous implementation, with national insurance numbers and compulsory individual registration for postal voting. I beg to move.