§ Mr. EvansI beg to move amendment No. 33, in page 19, leave out lines 45 to 50 and insert—
(7) Each registration officer may, as he thinks fit, conduct an enquiry or canvass in relation to part or all of an electoral register at any time, notwithstanding sub-section (1) of this section.".
Mr. Deputy SpeakerWith this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 32, in page 19, line 50, at end insert—
(8) Each registration officer shall each month, or seven days before any poll, contact all registrars of births, deaths and marriages covering the area for which he is responsible, in order to ascertain the names and addresses of those persons deceased within the previous month, and shall remove such deceased persons from the register within three working days of ascertaining this information.".
§ Mr. EvansI shall be brief, as the amendments are self-explanatory and I want the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), who attended every day of our deliberations in Committee, to be able to move his amendments. Time will also be needed for Third Reading.
The amendments would ensure that the electoral registration officer is encouraged to keep the rolling register as up to date as possible. It would empower him to make regular canvasses of inquiries for all or part of the register, as he saw fit. It would also encourage him to collaborate with all registrars of births, marriages and deaths in the area to ensure that the register is kept up to date.
Some hon. Members will know of a film called "Dead Man Walking", but the amendment is designed to avoid a sequel that might be called "Dead Man Voting". That happens at general and local elections, but the amendment 1046 would mean that the names of people who die are taken off the register, so that other people cannot use those names to vote.
§ Mr. BarnesI do not want to filibuster my own time, but I shall speak very briefly to these amendments.
Canvassing activity is very important. In Northern Ireland, complete canvasses are conducted when electoral registers are compiled. That does not happen elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and the Northern Ireland lesson is one from which we could all learn.
Amendment No. 32 proposes collaborating with the registrars of births, deaths and marriages to remove the names of dead people from electoral registers. That is an important matter. Widows and widowers should not be bothered by polling cards and election addresses for their dead spouses, or by people knocking on their doors to find out why those dead people have not voted.
Many returning officers may already have access to such information, but they cannot use it to delete names from the register. That is what Mr. Bradley, the returning officer for Northern Ireland, told the Select Committee on Northern Ireland Affairs. The anomaly causes great difficulty when it comes to handling personation.
Personation is less likely to be of dead people than of people who do not normally vote, but I feel remiss that I did not table an amendment along the same lines. My previous proposals for rolling registers are based on the principle that accurate registers of local voters depend on the ability of the registration officer to remove the names of those who have left an area, or died. This is an important amendment.
§ Mr. HancockI support the amendment, as I am sure do my Liberal Democrat colleagues. To implement it, electoral registration officers must have the necessary resources. At present, the resources are devoted to the accurate maintenance of electoral registration are inadequate.
What is proposed is only common sense. The Home Office and Ministers with responsibility for local government must give real credibility to statements about the need for accuracy, maintenance and regular updating of electoral registration facilities. At present, those facilities are pitiful and are a real deterrent to voting. People are often offended at receiving poll cards for relatives who have died, and I have known them turn up at the polling station and refuse to vote as a protest against such inefficiency. I am aware of instances in which polling cards have been sent to people who have been dead for many years.
The amendment is long overdue.
4.45 pm
§ Mr. William RossWould it not be possible for registrars of births, deaths and marriages to send a list of the names of those who have died to the people responsible for electoral registration? That could be done once a week, or once a month, as required.
§ Mr. HancockThat is an excellent suggestion, but the question is one of resources. The funding for the registrars of births, deaths and marriages is inadequate and needs to be revised.
1047 I want the amendment to be adopted, and the suggestion from the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) is worth pursuing. However, extra resources must be devoted to the task.
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienAmendment No. 33 is a deceptive little amendment, since the words that it seeks to delete from the Bill are more important than the words that it seeks to add.
It is an unfortunate fact that, every year, a large number of households fail to return their electoral registration form. Electoral registration officers are assiduous in chasing missing forms, often paying several visits to the properties concerned. Even then, there are some properties from which no information is forthcoming. In such circumstances, a practice has evolved of keeping names on the register for a year in the absence of any evidence that the person concerned has moved out. We believe that this is right. In cases of uncertainty, the decision should always be to keep people on the register rather than disfranchising them.
New section 10(7) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which schedule 1 to the Bill inserts, will simply put the existing practice on a statutory footing. I am sorry that the Opposition seek to remove the provision, since to do so would ultimately deny people the right to vote. I am sure that the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) was not aware of the result of such a deletion. Although I have some sympathy with the point that he made, the Conservative attempt to slip this through is far more worrying.
The Conservative Opposition want to insert a provision allowing registration officers to carry out an inquiry or canvass at any time of the year. In principle, that is entirely unobjectionable. But I wonder, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth, South suggested, how realistic it would be in practice. Registration officers find it difficult, costly and labour-intensive carrying out one canvass each year. I doubt whether they have the resources or the inclination to carry out a second. Do the Opposition want the Government to increase the grants to local authorities to pay for their amendment? If so, we will note such an expenditure commitment. Or do they merely want to impose the burden but not will the means?
§ Mr. RossIf the hon. Gentleman checks Hansard, he will see that I recently tabled a number of questions inquiring about the cost of registering an elector in the various sub-divisions of the United Kingdom. He will find it of interest.
§ Mr. O'BrienI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I shall certainly look with interest at the answers, which I presume came from me.
The key to the amendment is canvassing all the areas, which is what the Conservative Opposition appear to want. Amendment No. 32 would require electoral registration officers to consult the local registrars of births, marriages and deaths with a view to removing the names of the deceased from the register. Apart from the fact that people do not always conveniently die in the area where they are registered, the amendment is unnecessary.
1048 In line 22 of page 26 of the Bill, paragraph 23(3) of schedule 1 provides that registration officers will be able to inspect records kept by
any local or public authority".That encompasses not just records that are publicly available, such as the local register of births, deaths and marriages, but those to which he would not otherwise have access.Perhaps I should say in passing, with regret, that, in this group of amendments and in others that we have discussed today, the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe), in whose name the amendment appears, seems much keener on keeping people off the electoral register than in ensuring that as many people as possible are on it. I hope that, in the light of my comments, the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) will decide to withdraw the amendment.
§ Mr. EvansNothing malicious was intended by the amendments. Indeed, I am wounded by the allegation that that was our intent. It certainly was not. We want to ensure that the rolling register is kept as up to date as possible and that we empower the electoral registration officer—no, there is no spending commitment here—to ensure that the register is up to date.
The Minister says that he regrets that people do not conveniently die. I do not think that anybody conveniently dies—I suspect that in most cases they do not have a say in the matter. However, I understand that, after the 1997 election, the registration officers in one London borough that covered two constituencies did a trawl of their registers and removed more than 11,000 names because so many had been left on for so long. That can be a problem.
§ Mr. Simon HughesOne merit of such a system is that it avoids any political controversy resulting from politicians trying to sort out the register themselves. I once submitted a list and made a mistake about a couple of names; people were clearly alive and well when I had passed them off as having disappeared, on the basis of good advice. I paid about a year's political price for having been so bold as to suggest that they would not be voting, given that they were very much alive and wanted to do so. So I would far rather someone else did the job.
§ Mr. EvansI am sure that a number of electors disappear when they see the hon. Gentleman coming towards their door.
We are simply keen to ensure that the register is kept up to date. In addition, if the register is inaccurate and, as happened in one case, it includes thousands of names of people who are not there to vote, the percentage of the turnout at elections will be that much lower. The more accurate the register, the higher the turnout will be. Having said that, I am sure that the other place will consider carefully what has been said today, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Mr. BarnesI beg to move amendment No. 39, in page 22, line 22, at end insert
', unless it is made as a result of a notice issued pursuant to subsection (1)(e) above'.Schedule 1 deals with registration and amends the 1983 Act. Paragraph 6 relates to the publication of registers, and provides for the alteration of registers and the 1049 circumstances in which that may occur. It allows for alterations when electoral returning officers have made clerical errors. That will not be allowed after the issuing of nominations.In the winter edition of its publication Arena, the Association of Electoral Administrators supported the Bill but pointed out a problem:
Whilst most of the proposals contained in the Bill will meet with the approval of the Association members, to many it will be felt that new Section 13A(4) does not go far enough. It does not enable the Electoral Registration Officer to correct his/her own clerical error brought to their attention in the period between the last day for submissions for nominations for an election and polling day. It is during this period that most of the omissions and clerical errors are detected.That happens because that is the period in which most people pay attention to the electoral register. That is when the political parties canvass the electorate. When details are brought to the attention of the public, they may find that the details that they have submitted are not on the register, or not on it correctly. People should have some opportunity to correct errors made by electoral returning officers. I appreciate that that may require some facility for double checking before an election so that everyone is happy with the published details.My amendment is intended to probe the Minister's thinking on this matter. Electoral returning officers themselves have identified a serious problem in the article to which I have referred.
§ Mr. Mike O'BrienI always pay close attention to amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) because I regard him as the father of the rolling register. His persistence has ensured that the Bill will introduce a system of rolling electoral registration.
I appreciate that that system does not go as far as my hon. Friend would wish. However, I hope that he will regard it as a first step on which we can build in due course. His amendment would mean that changes to the register which would be used at an election could be made after the closing date for nominations for that election where the alteration would merely correct a clerical error. I have considerable sympathy with the purpose behind the amendment, but there are problems with the way in which it would achieve that purpose.
In addition, there is a problem of principle. Changes should not be made to the register once the period of an election has begun. That is the current position as regards additions to the register, and the Bill replicates it under the system of rolling registration. Political parties and candidates need certainty about which, and how many, electors they will deal with at any election. The number of electors determines how much can be spent, and canvassing and leafleting will be targeted at known electors. We are reluctant to start to make exceptions to that basic principle.
However, my hon. Friend points out that his concern, and that of those to whom he has referred, is to correct a clerical error. It is difficult to object to allowing the correction of something that has been agreed to be a clerical error. However, it is possible to imagine some difference of view between individuals as to whether an error was merely clerical, or whether it had been made by 1050 the person who was registering or by the officer, and would thus have an effect to which one of the parties in the election would not be able to subscribe.
There is potential for some conflict. However, my hon. Friend suggests that the measure would apply to only a relatively small number of cases and that it would be unlikely to affect the outcome of the vast majority of election campaigns. I shall look at the issue. I am reluctant to move along the lines that he suggests, for the reasons that I have outlined—candidates need certainty. I am, however, prepared to consider whether there might be some way of considering the matter; we might talk to electoral registration officers to find out whether they have concerns as to their inability to deal with a merely clerical error. In the light of those remarks, I invite my hon. Friend to withdraw the amendment.
§ Mr. Simon HughesWe support the proposition and, as the Minister appears to have given a reasonable reply, I hope that, before the Bill finishes its passage through Parliament, there will be a chance to accommodate the concerns that have been expressed. I understand the reservations, but the proposition is a good one if it can be correctly drafted.
§ Mr. BarnesI am pleased that the Minister has offered to examine the matter, especially by discussing it with electoral returning officers. I understand the concerns as to the technical difficulties that may arise in getting the measure right. However, the matter of principle—that the register cannot be altered after nomination day—is not one to which I would generally adhere. Previously, I have tabled amendments to provide for altering the register after that period. The principle should be that the names of those entitled to be on the register at nomination day are the only ones that should be included. I hope that some thought will be given to the principle as well as to the practicalities and technicalities.
However, given the Minister's comments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.