My Lords, I start by paying tribute to my noble friend’s very energetic campaign on this issue, which has certainly helped to raise awareness of the problem. Knowing about the problem is part of the way to solving it. This is a complex issue so, while I know that it is late in the day, I hope the House will forgive me if I take some time to explain why these amendments would not in themselves solve the problem. That is not the Government being complacent—far from it. We all agree that there is a problem that has to be solved but registration alone will not solve it. An answer has to lie in civic engagement and education as well as in a vigorous programme to increase voter registration. I want to explain the programme that the Government are undertaking.
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Amendments 13 and 14 are complex, detailed amendments but Amendment 15 provides that registration officers in Wales must arrange a voter registration session in each school and FE college in each academic year. It is similar to Amendment 14 but is very much simpler. I welcome the fact that my noble friend put down that amendment in the interest of simplifying this debate down to the core issues.
The problem of under-registration did not happen overnight and it will not be solved overnight. Its causes are varied and complex and it is linked both to increased population mobility and disengagement from traditional party politics. The most recent research by the Electoral Commission shows that levels of electoral registration have stabilised since 2011 following a decade of decline, but while the decline in the completeness of the register has been arrested, I want to make it clear today that the Government accept that this is not enough. That is why we have taken a number of vital
and novel steps to transform electoral registration in this country. I set these out in great detail in Committee and I do not wish to take up the House’s time by repeating myself today but there are some additional things that I need to say.
In Committee I also committed to raising the concerns of noble Lords with colleagues in Government and more widely. Since then I have discussed them with the Minister for the Constitution, the Minister for Public Services in the Welsh Government and the Electoral Commission. In my meeting with the Electoral Commission it confirmed that the amendments tabled by noble Lords would be unhelpful in the case of data sharing, which I will explain in due course, and unnecessary in the case of registering young people. Indeed, it has provided additional briefing from which my noble friend Lord Tyler quoted.
In short, Amendment 13 could see EROs inundated by duplicate data from a range of sources held in different formats which crucially do not differentiate between those who are already on the register and those who are not. Dealing with the fallout from this would distract EROs from the important work they are already undertaking. They would simply be besieged by massive amounts of data. Those of us who have looked at electoral registers and delivered leaflets to houses—I suspect there are quite a few of us in the House today—will know that a slight variation in an address can occur. As an individual you know very well that the house is there and it is just a slight mistake but every mistake will be magnified within that data-matching process.
Amendments 14 and 15 were said in a recent Bite The Ballot briefing to empower EROs into going to schools. I want to clarify that EROs already have the power to go into schools. Indeed, as required by the Electoral Commission as part of the transition to IER registration, all 22 EROs in Wales have specific plans in place for working with schools. They all have engagement plans and they all include schools and the further education sector. EROs also now have access to ward-level data which are provided by local authorities to their EROs as part of local-level data matching. All EROs use the most appropriate data for their area. For example, in Cardiff, they might use parking permits. They would not be appropriate to use in Powys, where you would chose different data. Among the data that they use are education data. They are already looking at those issues. That allows them to focus their efforts on problem areas rather than using a blanket approach, as envisaged in the amendment. They also have access to demographic data which they can cross-reference with the ward-level data further to pinpoint those areas which require additional work.
Several noble Lords referred to the excellent progress made in Northern Ireland. I remind the House that there is no legal duty on EROs in Northern Ireland to go into schools, but they do it. The scheme was developed in Northern Ireland to tackle a specific issue, as the registration rate for that age group had plummeted to 8% in the middle of the last decade. This was in large part because the annual canvass was stopped in Northern Ireland. We have learnt from that mistake and we are not repeating it in Wales. The registration figure in Wales is more than 50%. This
amendment would impose a specific statutory duty on the 22 EROs in Wales that they would have to fulfil, even if there was not a low registration rate in their area among this group. The EROs might have a different priority or a different group where registration rates were particularly low.
Electoral registration activities in Wales, as elsewhere, are funded by local authorities. Local authorities in Wales are part of the Welsh Assembly’s devolved responsibilities. As has been said, the leaders of the four main parties in the Assembly have indicated that they support this amendment, but I am not aware that they have committed the additional funding that it would require to make it workable. Without additional funding, this amendment would simply divert EROs from something else, as they have finite resources. This point was made strongly by the Electoral Commission in its briefing.
The noble Lord said that engaging young people early means that they are more likely to be engaged for life. I agree, but just registering does not provide that engagement. I am afraid that despite the success that is quoted in Northern Ireland, the figures do not bear out that story of ongoing engagement. In Northern Ireland, registration rates dropped dramatically by 15 percentage points to just 51% among 18 and 19 year-olds. That is sharply lower than in Wales and the rest of Great Britain, where 76% of 18 to 19 year-olds are registered. The schools initiative also appears to have had no discernable impact on turnout rates among young people in elections in Northern Ireland, an issue to which the noble Lord, Lord Bew, referred. Although the Northern Ireland situation has been successful in one aspect of this hugely complex problem, it has not followed through. Older young people, if I can put it that way—people in the next age group up—are not continuing to register and at the earliest age they are registered but they are not voting.
The Government have also provided additional funding to maximise registration in this financial year. Each of the 22 EROs in Wales received a share of this funding. Not all of them will have spent it on young people, but they are not the only group that the EROs need to target. Ministers are currently considering a further package of measures to maximise completeness among underregistered groups in the coming months. I hope that my colleagues will be in a position to make an announcement on this in the near future, which I hope will please my noble friend and provide confidence that the Government are determined to do even more.
While it is certainly for Parliament to legislate on issues surrounding electoral registration, education and schools are a devolved matter, as I have said. I urge the Assembly to consider what more can be done to use the school and college environment to educate, enthuse and engage young people in registering and voting. Citizenship education, which is on the curriculum in England but not currently in Wales, can play a vital role in preparing young people for the exercise of their democratic rights. In my discussions with the Welsh Minister for Public Services, I made it clear that I would be happy to ensure that we work closely together to facilitate this approach, but we do not feel that it is right to impose this on the Welsh Government—as this amendment would do—as this issue is devolved.
However, I can undertake to discuss the issue again with the Minister when I meet him, which will be in the very near future.
I conclude by saying that I cannot imagine an electoral returning officer who, on being approached by a school or college, or a student council, to assist with this important task, would decline to do so. But that is only part of solving the problem and the Government are determined to look at the big picture. I hope that I have been able to explain satisfactorily to my noble friend why the Government resist his amendments and I hope that he is sufficiently reassured by what I have said about the positive steps that the Government are taking. We are continuing to tackle low registration rates among young people and other groups and I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.