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1159 Political Parties and Elections Bill [LORDS] Political Parties and Elections Bill 1160 by each individual ERO. Accordingly, this amendment takes a power to amend Section 3 of the Juries Act to provide for this, but it would not allow anyone who is not already entitled to access the register from EROs to do so from the CORE keeper. Finally, Amendment 88 extends the Secretary of State’s existing powers in relation to the CORE scheme order so that the order can authorise information sharing between the CORE keeper and the Electoral Commission. As I have already detailed, the original intention was for the Electoral Commission to be the CORE keeper. However, now that this is not to be the case, it is important that the CORE keeper is able to furnish the commission with information that is relevant to its functions. It is envisaged that the power may be exercised to enable the CORE keeper to provide the Electoral Commission with statistical reports, for example, regarding registration patterns or the number of notifications made by the CORE keeper to EROs about circumstances that may be indicative of absent voter fraud or other improprieties. The power may also be used to enable the CORE keeper to inform the commission where an ERO has failed to report back to the CORE keeper on steps taken to investigate potential instances of fraud or other improprieties, as may be required in the CORE scheme order. I beg to move. Amendment 85 agreed. Clause 25 : CORE information and action to be taken by electoral registration officers Amendments 86 to 88 Moved by Lord Bach 86: Clause 25, page 26, line 6, at end insert— “( ) At the end of subsection (3) there is inserted— “Modifications under this subsection may, in particular, provide for the supply of material by a CORE keeper to be subject to conditions or restrictions which do not apply in the case of an ERO (or which differ from those that apply in the case of an ERO).”” 87: Clause 25, page 26, line 6, at end insert— “( ) After subsection (4) there is inserted— “(4A) A CORE scheme may amend section 3 of the Juries Act 1974 (electoral register as basis of jury selection)— (a) so as to require a CORE keeper to supply a designated officer with any documents or information referred to in that section (as it had effect immediately before the establishment of the scheme), and to make provision as to when the CORE keeper is to do so; (b) so as to require an ERO to supply a designated officer with any such documents or information, but only when requested to do so by the officer. In this subsection “designated officer” means an officer designated by the Lord Chancellor.”” 88: Clause 25, page 26, line 30, at end insert— “( ) After that subsection there is inserted— “(11A) A CORE scheme may authorise the CORE keeper to supply information to the Electoral Commission.”” Amendments 86 to 88 agreed. Clause 26 : Voluntary provision of identifying information Amendment 89 Moved by Lord Bach 89: Clause 26, page 27, line 20, leave out subsection (7) Lord Bach: My Lords, the Government have tabled a number of amendments to the individual registration clauses. Many of these, with the exception of Amendments 90, 91, 92, 99, 100, 101, 114 and 117, are minor technical changes that tidy up the way that these clauses are intended to work and I do not propose to say anything about them. There are also a small number of more significant changes that I will describe shortly. I do not think that I need to go into detail at this hour about the importance of the shift to individual registration, which as a principle I know has the support of all the main parties in the House. It marks a significant point in the evolution of our electoral registration processes in Great Britain. I wish to mention briefly five changes. The first concerns Amendment 90, which amends Clause 27(2)(d) to broaden the purposes for which EROs can check information provided from the national insurance number (NINO) database during the voluntary phase of individual registration. The purpose of this amendment is to give EROs more flexibility in using data from the NINO database, while also ensuring that data are used only for appropriate purposes relating to checking a person’s entitlement to vote. Amendment 91 provides for the disclosure of information by the CORE keeper to a registration officer for the purposes of registration. Amendment 101 introduces a requirement for registration officers to provide assistance to the Electoral Commission for the purpose of compiling their reports, and thus is very close to what the Official Opposition are looking for in their Amendment 96. In practice this is likely to cover the provision of information that the commission is likely to require. The Electoral Commission specifically asked if we might include this requirement in our legislation. Amendments 99 and 100 make a number of amendments to the steps the Secretary of State needs to take in the event that there is not a positive endorsement of the shift to individual registration in 2014 by either the Electoral Commission or Parliament. If noble Lords require more detail on those amendments, I shall be happy to give them that information. Those are the government amendments in short. I shall now sit down as I know that there are opposition amendments in this group. I beg to move. Lord Henley: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for explaining the government amendments. I wish to comment briefly on the two amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Bates, and on Amendment 98, to which I imagine the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, will want to speak, and which my noble friend and I also support. As regards Amendments 96 and 97, in light of what the noble Lord said about achieving most of what we were trying to do in those amendments, and in view of
1161 Political Parties and Elections Bill [17 JUNE 2009] Political Parties and Elections Bill 1162 the lateness of the hour I assure noble Lords that I shall not move those amendments when we come to them. As regards Amendment 98, I make it clear again, as we did in Committee, that we still find it odd that the Government are trying to insist that nothing can go ahead before 2014, whatever happens. That is why we strongly support the amendment in the name of the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, myself and my noble friend Lord Bates. That amendment makes it clear that if the commission believes that an appropriate assessment has been made, as provided by subsection (4)(a), a recommendation can then be made that the process should go ahead. Most of us, being rather cynical, suspect that there are political motives behind this and that we are not allowed, if things are ready, to move ahead of the date 2014, if that is possible. It might be that the Government have been conservative, and it might not be possible to get things moving by 2014, but it might be that we are easily ready for that date. When the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, comes to move his Amendment 98, which we are supporting, we will certainly give it our backing. I do not know what the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, intends to do with it at this late hour on a Wednesday evening. If he feels it is inappropriate to divide what I imagine is a fairly empty House at this hour, he might consider coming back to it at Report stage. Certainly, as this is happening at a late hour, we would reserve the right to consider that if it was necessary. Lord Tyler: My noble Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Henley, means the Third Reading for a further look at this. We are getting to the stage now when we are all a bit punch-drunk. The integrity of the register is incredibly important and we welcome the moves that the Government are making towards personal identifiers. I think I am right in saying that the Electoral Commission made its recommendations as long ago as 2003. It is a very long time ago; we ought to have made more progress by now. As the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said, the purpose of Amendment 98, standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Rennard and supported by the noble Lords, Lord Henley and Lord Bates, is to try to build back into the Bill a little more flexibility. If we can make some progress, it surely would be right to do so. In Grand Committee, the argument that the Minister gave was that if we were to move more quickly it might conflict with the run-up to the general election. He is obviously greatly better informed that I am, because who knows when the election after next is likely to be? We might indeed find ourselves with a very short Parliament. I was the victim of the very short Parliament in 1974—in and out within eight months. Who knows? I therefore do not regard that argument as being conclusive, unless of course the Government are going to move towards fixed-term Parliaments as part of their package of reform proposals that are due any moment now. We simply thought that it was sensible to ask the Electoral Commission not to be boxed into a corner of automatically doing nothing until 2014 and that if there was a possibility of moving further and faster, we should do so. But we recognise also that there are important reasons why that may not be possible. We are not precluding the possibility of waiting until 2014; we are simply saying that if we can move further, faster and earlier we should so. I shall listen with interest to what the Minister says on this subject in a moment. I assume that he is going to address that particular point, and then we will have to think very carefully whether it is appropriate to pursue this any further at this late hour, or whether it is more sensible to look at it again, in the light of the Minister’s response, in time for Third Reading. Lord Bach: My Lords, I am grateful to noble Lords. Amendment 98 is an important amendment. It provides the Electoral Commission with a discretion to make an assessment before 2014 of whether the registration objectives would be helped or hindered by a move towards the compulsory collection of personal identifiers. In tandem, it also provides the commission with the ability to make a recommendation before that date on whether the provision of identifiers should be made compulsory. Our proposal is well known. Of course, I am aware that some noble Lords believe that we should be moving more quickly towards a system of individual registration. As I argued in Grand Committee, a phased approach is the only way to ensure that this very radical change is made effectively. We should not rush it. The specific timetable we have set out delivers on this phased approach. It has been developed with great care, with due regard to the magnitude of the change and the risks involved. What this timetable allows is, first, sufficient time for the public to acclimatise itself to the change; secondly, time for each and every one of the 400-plus electoral registration officers to adapt to the new system and to ensure that all are working to the level of the best; thirdly, time to investigate and test which public sector databases will be of most assistance to registration officers in targeting people not included on the register; and, finally, time to design the infrastructure for the validation of national insurance numbers, which will underpin the new system. Importantly, the proposed timetable will also allow us to minimise disruption to elections by avoiding, so far as is possible, national and sub-national elections, such as the 2014 elections to the European Parliament. In developing that timetable, we have paid careful attention to the Northern Ireland experience when implementing individual registration. That is an important point in my argument. The registration rate fell significantly in Northern Ireland when individual registration was introduced. There is an ongoing debate about why that happened, and at least some of the decrease in the numbers registered in Northern Ireland in 2002 was due to the removal of the carry-forward, but the Electoral Commission’s analysis tells us that the impact of that change was keenly felt among particular groups. It states that individual registration, “tended to have an adverse impact on disadvantaged, marginalised and hard-to-reach groups. Young people and students, people with learning disabilities and other forms of disability, and those living in areas of high social deprivation were less likely to be registered and encountered specific problems with the new registration process”.
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Page 5 and 6: 1061 Sri Lanka [17 JUNE 2009] Banks
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