Electoral Administration Bill

moved Amendment No. 68A:"After Clause 13, insert the following new clause—" ““PROVISIONAL REGISTRATION (1)   This section applies where personal identifiers are required for inclusion on a register. (2)   If an application is made for a person to appear on a register which would be accepted but for the failure to provide one or more personal identifiers, that person shall be placed on a provisional register. (3)   The ERO shall write to each person on the provisional register and may contact them in any other ways to ask them to provide the personal identifiers that have not been provided. (4)   The provisional registers shall be made available to the persons and bodies that are entitled to receive copies of the full register. (5)   No person may vote in any election by virtue only of inclusion on the provisional register.”” The noble Lord said: This is another important issue of principle, which affects personal identifiers in relation to household registration. It is linked to what we have been talking about, but it is a separate matter. The new clause would introduce provisional registration and probes what would happen under a system of registration which requires personal identifiers. A form could come back from the household canvass with, say, six people on it, but three of those people might not have the full information for personal identifiers. That seems highly likely to happen under the new system, particularly if the form includes electors who are not living at home because they are on holiday, students or whatever. With the best will in the world, people will fill the form in but they will forget that they need to get the extra information and will just send it back. Such a situation is even more likely to arise in the circumstances that we have been talking about in relation to HMOs, where people may well refuse to give that information. Nevertheless, the person sending the form back will feel duty bound to state everyone who lives there, which they have to do by law. There will be a problem. We do not know how many people will be involved—perhaps 1 per cent, 5 per cent or more in different areas—but there will be a lot who, under the terms of electoral law, will apply to be on the electoral register but will not provide one or more personal identifiers that they should provide. That circumstance should be on public record. These people want to be electors. Political parties, which—we noted last week—were originally set up as registration associations, should be able to go to these people to persuade them to provide the extra information. Even if they do not, there should be a formal system in which these people are written to and contacted, and from whom this information is sought. Otherwise, there will be quite a lot of people who ought to be registered under the system but are not. There is a problem here, which, in practice, will happen. This is one way to solve it. I am sure that the Government will tell me that this is not the right way and that they have another way to solve it. But something like this needs to happen. The process needs to be formal, or a lot of people will risk not being registered. It is a very important issue. I beg to move.