Political Parties and Elections Bill

Of course, I shall write to my noble friend with the answer to the first question, but for an ERO to do the second thing would be in breach of every part of the responsibilities of the job, which is surely to form as accurate a register as he or she possibly can for the area for which they are responsible. I shall write on the first point, but I would have thought that the ERO was paid as a local government officer under normal terms and conditions. I see those who are still very much active in local government nodding. As to the dates and their relationship to elections, let me repeat what I said last week. Should the shift to compulsory provision of identifiers take place in 2015, it would take place after both the 2014 European parliamentary elections and the spring 2015 elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Of course, we do not know the dates of future general elections, but I was very interested in the hypothesis that the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, put forward in the debate. Placing the potential change in that time frame would manage partially the risk of making a shift in the period immediately before a national or sub-national election. We think that this change is so important—and it seems that the Committee does too—that we want as far as possible to investigate all the potential issues fully before the provision of identifiers becoming compulsory. I go back to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. The timetable, which is designed to give certainty to this process, which we believe is an important point, would give sufficient time for the public to acclimatise to the change; time for each and every one of the—I take the word of my noble friend Lady Gould on this—402 electoral registration officers in Great Britain to adapt to the new system and to ensure that all are working at the level of the best; time to investigate and test which public sector databases would be of most assistance to registration officers; and time to design the infrastructure of the validation of national insurance numbers that will underpin the system. It will also allow us to minimise disruption to elections by avoiding, so far as is possible, national and sub-national elections. We must take heed of the Northern Ireland experience. The registration rate fell significantly when individual registration was introduced. We intend to do all that we can to mitigate the risk of that happening in Great Britain—that is at the heart of our phased implementation programme. The points that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours makes indicate precisely why we need to make sure that we get it right in Great Britain. We believe that this objective is most likely to be achieved by building in time to ensure that the factors I just mentioned can be fully taken into account. That is what we are attempting to do. Accepting this amendment would put the successful pursuit of that objective in jeopardy. The purpose of the phased implementation is to ensure that we take the necessary time to bolster, adapt and improve the current system for registration in readiness for this major shift in the process. For that reason, any attempts to introduce individual registration at a faster rate might risk damaging the integrity of the system and, worse still, the public’s confidence in it. If that were to happen in the run-up to a general election, the consequences for democracy and engagement could be quite serious. The second amendment in the noble Lord’s name is Amendment 125CB, which provides that, in making an order commencing the compulsory collection of identifiers, the Secretary of State must have regard to any recommendation by the Electoral Commission of any system changes that are needed ahead of the shift to compulsory individual registration. The amendment proposes that, in that event, the Secretary of State should have the power to make an order to amend the provisions in our Amendment 125D, which provide for the obligatory provision of personal identifiers, in line with those recommendations. There would then need to be an affirmative resolution. In essence, the effect of the amendment would be to allow the commission to recommend changes to the system of full, obligatory individual registration that we are setting in place in the Bill and give the Government of the day the power to change the system by order. These changes could be fundamental and might even include the replacement of the substance of the new clause introduced by our Amendment 125D with something very different. We have reservations about that proposal. First, the discretion that it would confer on the commission and on government would be very wide. Essentially, it would create a power to make changes not envisaged in this legislation and invest that power in the Secretary of State by enabling him to make secondary legislation. The scope of the power would be limited only by the Electoral Commission’s views, and that might hand the initiative to the commission from Parliament in quite a novel way. Secondly, it is not clear how such recommendations by the commission for changes would interact with the recommendation that the commission is required to make in 2014 as to whether the provision of identifying information should be made obligatory. A positive recommendation under that subsection would trigger an affirmative order to commence the provisions, but what would the situation be if the commission should make such a recommendation conditional on other steps that it had recommended under this amendment? What would be the most appropriate course for government and Parliament if it was felt that any such conditions set by the commission, though well intentioned, were not sensible to pursue? A partial or conditional recommendation would introduce an additional and unnecessary layer of complexity to the test process, which as currently drafted is intended to allow for the smooth transition to individual registration. It is not clear what would happen if, for example, the Secretary of State disagreed with the commission’s recommendations for change. The potential for disagreement to stall the process for transition is real. There is also a risk that the conditional nature of the recommendation could undermine its strength. Under our proposals, if a recommendation is made to move to individual registration, the Secretary of State must put it to Parliament for a vote. However, if the recommendation is conditional, it may follow that the nature of the obligation to do something in response to it feels less robust. Thirdly, the amendment would shift the focus of the commission’s role in an important and undesirable way. The commission’s views on what changes to the system might be necessary are helpful—that is why we have asked it to include in its annual reports an assessment of what changes it thinks might be needed. But that is different from a power to make formal recommendations which could be far-reaching in their effect and trigger a wide power for the Secretary of State to act on them. That goes towards handing the initiative in designing the system to the commission, when it is properly for government and Parliament. Nor are we sure that the amendment is necessary. It indicates that the Secretary of State "must have regard to" the recommendations of the Electoral Commission in making an order allowing the shift to the obligatory provision of identifiers. However, the Secretary of State—and, more importantly, Parliament—would at any rate take into account the commission’s assessment of the system’s readiness for change. It is the commission’s assessment that unlocks the process. That is why the tests are in the Bill, placing the Electoral Commission and Parliament at the heart of the change but making a proper distinction between their roles. That is why we are not content with the amendment as it stands and I invite the noble Lord not to press it. I have spoken much longer than I intended. It has been a major debate, and I have no doubt that we shall come back to these matters at a later stage. Amendment 125A agreed.