Political Parties and Elections Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord is being fair; I hope he thinks that I have been fair in response. This amendment introduces a new clause, whereby after December 2011, Section 9 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 in relation to the edited register will no longer have effect, thus preventing any use after that date of the provisions that allow for the compilation and publication of the edited version of the electoral register. EROs would no longer compile an edited version of the register for sale to anyone for any purpose. Historical versions of the edited register, including the final version published on 1 December each year, would still be available. We have been reminded that in July 2008, Dr Mark Walport and Mr Richard Thomas published their report, the Data Sharing Review, which made a number of recommendations to the Government. In particular, recommendation 19 called for the edited version of the register to be abolished. We indicated that we would consult on this proposal and that remains our intention. The Government clearly understand the concerns around the sale of personal details through the supply of the edited register. As my noble friend Lord Tunnicliffe stated in Grand Committee, before we can consider taking forward recommendation 19 there is a need to establish how removing the provisions would impact on the UK economy, businesses, charities and the general public. Indeed, noble Lords may be interested to hear that evidence to date indicates that a wide variety of organisations use the edited register and there could be an economic impact—even a significant economic impact—if it were no longer available for sale. For example, the direct-marketing industry has indicated that it would be hard hit if the edited register were abolished. It is worth pointing out that direct mail is worth £8.6 billion to the UK economy and accounts for 182,000 jobs. We must not neglect the very real potential impact on charities. They are of course suffering, as are businesses, in the current economic climate. Direct mail remains a significant form of direct marketing for charities. The Institute of Fundraising has told us that it relies on the edited register for this purpose. A piece of research was carried out by nfpSynergy in 2008. Based on the responses from more than 100 charities, the level of income generated from existing donors—those acquired through direct mail—sits at around an average of 27 per cent of the charities’ total income. Charities would face poorer quality direct marketing lists and lower response rates if the edited electoral register was no longer available for sale. If charities are unable to verify addresses accurately, there is more chance of mail being addressed wrongly, which could lead to a reduction in the inclination of potential donors to donate. We think other impacts need to be taken into account. In the absence of the edited register, direct mailing organisations may rely on out-of-date information, thus increasing the risk of wrongly addressed correspondence. Direct marketing companies may start to rely on more intrusive methods of marketing, such as cold calling. The Royal Mail benefits substantially from income from advertising mail. Out of a £7 billion a year turnover, £1.7 billion represents delivering and advertising mail to the Royal Mail. This might be impacted. Those are powerful arguments, particularly in the economic times we are living in. Having said all that, we accept that there are strong principled arguments in favour of abolishing the edited register. We are sympathetic to those who argue on principle, as does the noble Lord who moved the amendment, that data collected for electoral purposes should not be sold on for commercial purposes. We are also concerned that the existence of the edited register may put some people off registering to vote. That runs contrary to our programme of work to bolster registration ahead of the introduction of individual registration. It is something we wish to consider carefully. While we have collected some evidence to date, a full consultation would allow us to go out to a wider audience, including businesses, charities and the public. We feel that this would enable us to build up a firmer evidence base and better understand the nature of the impact of abolishing the edited register. It is our intention to conduct a consultation before the Summer Recess in order to build a firmer evidence base about the advantages and disadvantages of the edited register and to consider the way forward on the basis of the responses received. I should like to emphasise that an amendment to this Bill is not the only legislative mechanism, in our view, by which the provisions for the edited register may be removed. The edited register exists because of provision in secondary legislation, made under paragraph 10(1) of Schedule 2 to the Representation of the People Act 1983. There is no requirement that secondary legislation should include provision about an edited register. Accordingly, our argument is that it would be possible to remove the provision for the edited register by using existing powers to amend secondary legislation, if that was deemed appropriate. Therefore, it would be open to the Government to use this mechanism to remove the edited register if, following consultation, it became evident that that was the best way forward. That would still leave the power to create the edited register again on the statute book. Nevertheless, it might achieve the benefits that noble Lords describe and would be a more flexible approach. This would allow us to have the benefit of fully considering the outcome of the consultation before taking further steps. Notwithstanding our sympathy for the arguments against the edited register, this should be the preferred approach and proper process for making this informed policy decision about changes to our system of electoral administration. I am not making any commitments on behalf of the Government, as I would not wish to pre-empt the outcome of any consultation. I mention this solely to emphasise that this Bill may not be the only mechanism by which the provisions relating to the edited register may be amended. I hope that those who support the amendment might give careful consideration to the impact of accepting it. I repeat that, in principle, we understand the motivation behind the amendment, but we argue that it would not be appropriate to abolish the edited register via an amendment to this Bill before we had conducted a public consultation in full. The noble Lord will take whatever course he thinks best. However, I hope that some of the arguments that I have tried to employ might gave him some food for thought.