Representation of the People (Amendment) (Hansard, 1 November 1995)

§ Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to extend and improve methods of electoral registration. It is timely to be promoting a Bill which seeks to extend and improve the methods of electoral registration, because we are likely to have a general election using registers which will operate from February 1996 to 1997. If the election is not held with those registers, it certainly will be held with the registers for the year after that.

There is still time to register on the current electoral register, as the qualifying date for registration is 10 October in Britain and 15 September in Northern Ireland. People can still register even if they fail to do so before those dates, as long as they have qualified for the registers to be published on 16 February. Supplementary lists can be produced afterwards, so everyone who is not registered should make an effort to ensure that they are placed on a register.

They should ensure that they are on a register, not just because there is a legal requirement to do so, but because the franchise arrangements of this House have been based upon the struggles of the chartists in the 19th century and the suffragettes in the 20th for one person, one vote. One would have to look in a broom cupboard to see how the chartists and the suffragettes have been remembered, despite what they did to extend the electoral arrangements in this country.

Everyone should register, but help is needed to ensure that that is done. Money should be spent on advertising that goes beyond the recent advertising campaign on the subject, and a amount of money should be spent at least comparable to the amount spent on advertising the electricity and gas privatisations, to ensure that people are encouraged to take advantage of this fundamental right.

The best practices of electoral registration officers should be spread throughout the country, but the resources they require to do that are often far greater than are available to local authorities. An examination must take place of standard spending assessments and other provisions, to ensure that those funds are made available.

Political parties can also play a role in canvassing to ensure that people are registered. Keir Hardie said that, if Labour looked to the electoral register, it would surely achieve victory. Political parties must be aware of the importance of getting people on to electoral registers. Probably the best thing that could be done to encourage people to register would be for Parliament to make politics seem relevant to people. If people felt that Parliament expressed their views or that the Government were concerned with and linked to the people of this country, they would rush to the polling stations to ensure that they were on a register to exercise their franchise.

Even if we all do our best under the current arrangements to get people on registers, there are serious defects in how the system operates. If someone moves home today—or has done since 10 October—they cannot appear on the relevant electoral register in their area until 16 February 1997. They might not appear on that register even then, because they may have moved again to some 310 other area. We are supposed to have an increasingly mobile society, but we do not have the electoral arrangements to deal with it.

In 1991, the Hansard Society reported that, by the time a typical constituency register was finished, 16 per cent. of the names on it were redundant, and were no longer eligible to vote in the area. The Office of Population Censuses and Surveys study in 1991 on electoral registration by Stephen Smith showed that non-registration in England and Wales amounted to between 7. 4 per cent. and 9 per cent. of those eligible to vote. The figure was especially high in inner London. Other OPCS publications on electoral registration show that similar problems exist within other cities.

The figure is high among the young—particularly among people coming up to vote for first time, known as "attainers"—among the black population, and among people who live in private rented accommodation.

The rate of non-registration is astronomically high among those living in furnished private rented accommodation—exactly the sort of people who move around. It is also higher among men than women. It is my modest claim that between 3 million and 4 million people are missing from electoral registers.

Following a dispute I had with certain people at the OPCS about that claim, Dennis Roberts, director of statistics at the OPCS, wrote an internal memo stating: Surely the estimate produced by Mr. Barnes MP is broadly correct. If I had time, I could easily prove how at least between 3 million and 4 million people are missing from electoral registers.

My Bill would tackle the serious problem of under-registration by introducing a rolling register, so that people could be added to their local register when they moved into a new area, and deleted from it when they moved away. People who died would also be deleted front the register, to avoid electoral communications being sent by political parties.

The duty of the electoral returning officer would be to contact people as they moved into the area. They would do so by means of the information supplied to them from statutory undertakings, educational institutions, local authorities, Government Departments, and other electoral returning officers. They would also receive information from the registrar of births, marriages and deaths, so that the necessary deletions could be made as a result of death.

The EROs would then give people who had moved into their area the opportunity to comply with the registration requirements before adding those people's names to the register. The EROs could therefore check whether those people should be added to that register. The registers would cease to roll when an election was called, but it would still be possible for a person's name to be added, because the new qualifying date would then be the date of the announcement of the election. After the election, the registers would roll again. That requirement is included to ensure that no particular area is packed with people during a by-election.

A key element within the proposed system would be the early issue of polling cards, accompanied by the most extensive publicity possible. People who did not receive one would realise that they were probably not on the 311 register. They would still have time to register as long as they qualified to do so on the date when the election was announced.

There is little time for my Bill to become law, but I offer it to the Government for inclusion in the forthcoming Queen's Speech. No doubt Ministers will tell me to get lost—much to their shame. I must stress that my Bill has all-party support—in fact, the list of supporters sounds like a coalition Government.

Apart from my Bill, the Government should also consider the work done by a non-party organisation, Full Franchise, which has argued in favour of my Bill. It has also argued for access to polling stations for disabled people. That proposal was included in the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill which I introduced this year, and which is still before the House.

Legislation should also be introduced to establish a register of homeless people to ensure that those people are given their full registration rights.