HC Deb 05 February 1991 vol 185 cc115-6W
Mr. Cohen

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) whether he has advised electoral registration officers on the practice of inspecting the community charge register and making copies of information contained in a community charge register; and if he will make a statement;

(2) whether he has advised electoral registration officers as to whether (a) they can carry out independent processing of community charge data held by a community charge registration officer or (b) they can request community charge registration officers to carry out such processing; and if he will make a statement.

Mrs. Rumbold

Guidance to electoral registration officers on the effective use of their statutory right of access to the community charges register was included in a Home Office circular issued on 10 August 1990 (RPA 347), a copy of which is in the Library. The guidance included advice on the processing of data and the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1984. Electoral registration officers have no power to request a copy of the community charges register, or to ask community charge registration officers to process data on their behalf.

Mr. Cohen

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department what considerations underlay the setting of penalties for non-completion of(a) electoral registration forms and (b) community charge registration forms; and if he will make a statement.

Mrs. Rumbold

The penalty for failing to comply with a request from an electoral registration officer for information required in connection with his duties was first established under the Representation of the People Act 1918. Parliament considered that the information was of such importance to the electoral process that refusal to provide it should be treated as a criminal offence. Community charge legislation is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, but I understand that the purpose of empowering community charge registration officers to impose penalties is to give them a sanction with which to enforce the legal requirement on individuals to support information for registration purposes.