Service Voters’ Registration Period Order 2010

I thank noble Lords who have joined in the debate on this order. We are grateful to them all and I thank them for their support for it, even if they do not think that it takes matters as far forward as they would like. I start by reminding noble Lords how personnel can register to vote. They can do so in three different ways. First, service personnel and their spouses or civil partners may choose, as many do, to register as ordinary electors via the household canvass, which has to be renewed annually. Secondly, they can choose to register as an overseas elector, giving an address in the UK. That also has to be renewed annually. The third way, and the one that we are attempting to boost via this order, is to register by way of a service declaration. That has to be renewed every three years and this order would extend that to five years. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Henley: we, too, would like the figures to be pushed up. He is right to say that the declaration of some people who register by way of service declaration lasts for 12 months and for others it lasts longer. For those in the Armed Forces, it lasts for three years and for others it lasts for 12 months. Here, we are increasing the service declaration of those in the Armed Forces to five years. The noble Lord mentioned a period of stability. That is often a good idea but, if stability is to be achieved, one sometimes has to pay the price of not increasing the number of people who register. I think we all agree that we want to see a higher percentage of those serving in our Armed Forces registering than is the case at present. I am very grateful for some of the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Tyler. I know that he is modest about himself but he is a great expert in this field, as is the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, who sits beside him. So far as concerns individual registration, we will carry out registration campaigns, as we do currently. We have not yet worked out what the detailed processes and procedures will be with respect to service voters when we move to individual registration, but of course we will consider very carefully what should be done. The noble Lord talked about the 60,000 unregistered Armed Forces personnel. I can only say that the Ministry of Defence carries out an annual survey, to which I referred earlier, of more than 2,000 personnel to investigate voting attitudes. The most recent survey found that 65 per cent of respondents were registered to vote. We cannot give precise annual figures because personnel may register as ordinary electors, service voters or overseas electors, and registration officers do not record the profession of ordinary or overseas electors. On Afghanistan and information about the elections, I do not think the Daily Telegraph article relates to information going to service personnel. I think that the point it is trying to make, but does not do terribly well, is about information about what is happening in Afghanistan coming back to the electors of the United Kingdom.