Political Parties and Elections Bill

I am very grateful to the hon. Lady, and I look forward to her support for the amendments as a result. It is important that we take a phased approach, alongside extensive work to increase registration rates. That will enable us to uphold the integrity of our electoral registration processes as we prepare both the public and the system for this fundamental and historic change. It is vital that we put integrity at the heart of everything we do. Electoral registration is the gateway to democratic participation and without effective registration processes, individuals are denied the right to participate and democracy is undermined. We all know that the system is not perfect in that respect. On the best estimates, about 3 million or 3.5 million people are eligible to vote but are not on the register, and are therefore denied the right to exercise their vote. That damages our democracy, and we can be satisfied only when every eligible person is on the register. We need to do more to ensure that that is the case and that the historic shift to individual registration does not further damage the integrity of the register in that respect. I will say a little more about how we intend to do that. Before I discuss in more detail the amendments that were tabled in another place, I would like briefly to talk about the benefits that individual registration will offer. The first is enhanced integrity. All the evidence shows that electoral fraud is not considered a major problem in this country, but there is never room for complacency about fraud. We have taken steps to reduce the risk of fraud under the Electoral Administration Act 2006—for example, by introducing a new offence of providing false information to an electoral registration officer when registering to vote. However, any amount of fraud is unacceptable, and the perception of fraud is equally dangerous. It undermines confidence in our democracy and the perceived legitimacy of our democratic processes. We must take steps to ensure that the registration system is as robust as possible in enabling us to detect and prevent electoral fraud. For that reason, a system of individual registration offers adds security because it requires electors to provide identifying information to register to vote. It enables the system to verify entries against a third party database and makes it more difficult to fabricate registration. Individual registration is an important step towards strengthening the integrity—and the perception of the integrity—of the electoral process. Furthermore, individual registration has the potential to strengthen all citizens' engagement in the democratic process by giving them responsibility for their registration. It replaces an outdated household registration system, whereby one member of the household takes responsibility for registering all the others. That is antiquated and belongs to a different system of suffrage. We need a system that better reflects people's circumstances today. Introducing individual registration is the most significant change in electoral administration for many years. It is the right thing to do, and it will bolster the security and accuracy of our registration. However, it will make registering to vote more complex for individuals, who will be required to provide additional identifying information to register to vote. We must recognise that some people will experience considerable difficulty in doing that. For example, we know that one in five adults are functionally illiterate. The Government are addressing that vigorously, but it is none the less a fact of which we must take account when we consider how to move to the new system of electoral registration. We have given careful consideration to the potential impact of the new requirement on the comprehensiveness of the register. The phased approach that we propose is designed to enable us to secure the benefits of enhanced accuracy and security, without damaging the comprehensiveness of the register. What will the amendments do? Our approach to individual registration is to move in two phases: a voluntary phase and a compulsory phase. During the voluntary phase, it will be compulsory for electoral registration officers to ask individuals to provide the relevant identifying information—national insurance number, date of birth and signature—but individuals will not be required to do that to be on the register. The voluntary phase will prepare the public for the changes ahead, in particular, the new requirement to provide identifying information for the purposes of registration. It will allow electoral administrators to develop the processes and systems for collecting and storing the identifying information. During the voluntary phase, the Electoral Commission will be asked to draft annual progress reports on how the voluntary system is working; the overall health of the registration system, and whether any changes would be needed were the collection of identifying information to be taken forward on a compulsory basis. That will provide us with invaluable information for our understanding of the effectiveness of the registration system and its readiness for the shift to individual registration. The voluntary phase will not commence before July 2010—in other words, it will not become entangled with the next general election, whenever that may be—and will not finish before 2014. That period will enable us to be fully confident that the system is ready before we move to the compulsory phase, when it will be obligatory for individuals to provide identifying information to electoral registration officers to be included on the register. It will enable us to prepare the public for the change, and to take steps to bolster registration rates in the meantime. That will be fundamental to protecting the system against the risk of a drop in the numbers registered.