Electoral Administration Bill

I set myself the challenge this afternoon, that, when we reached this stage in the Bill, I should see it as my opportunity to listen to all the issues as people unpacked all their questions—as has happened, although I know that there are more to come. I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, for bundling everything together because it has enabled us to have a much broader conversation then we might otherwise have had. I hope that she will understand that I shall not address each amendment in turn because there are some broad themes that we need to set out at this stage. I hope that that will be helpful. As I said, my ambition was to listen, to take away and to begin to reflect on all the questions that have been of concern. On individual registration and personal identifiers, the Government, the political parties and the Electoral Commission all agree on two key points. Moving to individual registration or collecting personal identifiers has the potential to improve security and integrity in the electoral process. We agree too that the change would risk impacting on the completeness of the register. So what we have been seeking to do, and noble Lords have referred to the balance in their comments, is to look at how best to address the two issues. We need to reflect on the challenges that both present. I want to begin with this because it is important, particularly in this Chamber, to recognise that our objectives are the same and that our positions are closer than perhaps it might otherwise appear. That is also important when I reflect on the questions raised earlier today and during our Second Reading debate. I am keen to ensure that throughout our discussions, our objectives are the same: we want the electorate to be confident that the political parties and the Government are striving for the same ambition and that no one’s position is compromised in so doing. The bulk of the amendments in this group concern the introduction of the Electoral Commission’s proposed transitional scheme and variations on our approach. I shall tackle a few of the key points while recognising that I shall not be able to address them all because, if possible, I hope to consider the next group of amendments before we finish our proceedings today. Personal identifiers form a key part of the proposals. I was interested in the comments of noble Lords on signatures and I had an opportunity to look at the signatures of my noble friends the other day. They were an interesting variation on a theme. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, spoke of doctors’ signatures. My own can be quite interesting from time to time. We are looking for easy solutions to the problems of identification. While chip-and-pin may be changing it a little, people are very familiar with signatures and use them frequently. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, through the story of his late wife gave us an insight into the issues surrounding how the date of birth can be used. More generally, people use their date of birth and recognise it as an important form of identification. I am certainly interested in looking at it. However, I have some difficulty with the use of the national insurance number. I know that the noble Baroness has challenged whether the Electoral Commission supports it or not. In his evidence to the DCA Select Committee last November, the commission chairman Sam Younger said that,"““we do not feel national insurance numbers are something we should be asking people to provide at registration””." I make no more of it than that. The difficulty is that in Northern Ireland we saw a 10 per cent drop in the number of people on the register, which is very large. As I recall, were the circumstances in Northern Ireland to be translated to Great Britain, we would see the number of people not voting increase to around 8 million. That would be an undesirable outcome. A further difficulty is that many people do not know their national insurance number. It may be their fault, but they do not know it. One must also be conscious that if a new piece of information is required, a lot of work must be done to convince people that it is safe to give out such information. The national insurance number provides entitlement to various benefits and perhaps many would be reluctant to give it out. So I am nervous about suggesting that we should use it. It is probably a step too far, although I understand what lies behind the aim of the noble Baroness. However, the Northern Ireland experience does not make me confident that this is the way to go. There is also a debate on the merits of transitional arrangements and pilot schemes. I may be in danger of repeating my Second Reading speech—I say this to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, although he may have done that himself. Actually, it was the noble Lord, Lord Garden, who said that I had made a Second Reading speech, but I was looking at the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, because he and I have fallen into the same trap this afternoon of making several such speeches. While this is a personal view, noble Lords know that I feel strongly that if something is going to be tested, it must be tested under the circumstances in which it will be used. The difficulty with transitional schemes is that people are then allowed to do things voluntarily. It is more difficult to anticipate the consequences of what is being tested against. The purpose of considering pilot schemes was to enable us to test what would come into force. Even in pilot schemes one may be setting up a slightly false situation, but nonetheless one is testing the reality, which is a compulsory scheme as opposed to a voluntary one. Noble Lords know I have strong views about making sure that forms requesting information from people should be as simple and straightforward as possible. Difficulties are created when people are given options such as whether or not to sign something. We need to be aware of those. So my personal preference, along with that of the Government, is that in any pilot test the conditions that would apply nationally should be applied to the area in question. We have had 10 applications from local authorities seeking to participate in the pilots. I cannot give the Committee the details today, partly because I do not have them. We are also still in conversation with the local authorities that wish to participate. When I have the information to hand, I shall of course share it with noble Lords so that they can see the breadth of the local authorities which have come forward.