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Adjournment (Whitsun)

I entirely agree. To conclude the point that I was making, the number of doors knocked on rose as the area became more affluent; indeed, in the most affluent part of my constituency the number reached 95 per cent. The net effect is that there is an inverse relationship between the numbers missing from the register and the number of doors that are knocked on. To return to the point made by my hon. Friend, the opposite should be the case. It is critical that we knock on doors in disadvantaged areas for the reasons that she gave. I am not drawing conclusions solely about my local authority because I think these things happen across the board, but when I asked my local authority why that situation had come about I was told that it had difficulty in getting people to canvass and often canvassers receive abuse on the doorstep. When we look more closely, however, we find that canvassers are paid less than the minimum wage for the hours they work—significantly less in the case of my local authority. Furthermore, the payments that they receive are based on the number of people that they put on the register. Therefore, there is an in-built incentive to canvas in affluent areas where registration is high. There is an absolute disincentive to go into the areas where the canvassers are needed most. If that is taken together with poverty pay and the perverse incentives of the system, one can understand why it is difficult to get canvassers. That brings me to the issue at the core of the debate. The Electoral Commission and the Opposition parties tell us that we need to move to individual registration. I asked the Electoral Commission and my local registration officer what would happen to the register under current circumstances if we moved to individual registration, and I was told that it would decimate the register. I appeal to the Minister to take back to the Department for Constitutional Affairs the view that we need to stand firm against individual registration. We need the maximum number of electors on our electoral registers. I would also like to make a number of practical suggestions that are important to the discussion on how we overcome the democratic deficit. I know that a Bill will be heading to the House in the near future, so I would like to make some suggestions as to what should be included in it. First, we must be much more transparent. It is a devil of a job to find out how much money a local authority spends on electoral registration and, of course, they are always stuck for money. We must ring-fence the money. If the money is ring-fenced and endorsed by the Electoral Commission, that will ensure that any political interference with the registration process is minimised. Secondly, we must ensure that we have best practice. Electoral registration offices and officers are often parked at the back of a building or in an outhouse. The officers are left entirely to their own devices and they communicate with no one. They need to communicate with each to ensure that we have best practice. Copies of the best practice must be made available so that we ensure that everyone follows it. It is also necessary to ensure that the implementation of best practice is taking place, and one of the ways to do that is through performance review. Carrying out such a review would be an ideal role for the Electoral Commission, which would be able to ensure that things are done properly. An issue that has caused contention in the past is the advertising of elections and encouraging the idea that it is important for the public to vote. I suspect that all of us would say that we should do that, but electoral registration officers and departments often feel that such activity falls into the grey area between what is political and non-political in the election process. Any Bill that comes forward should make it clear that urging people to vote is not a political act, and the sponsoring of higher turnouts should be a permanent feature of electoral registration departments. A slightly more controversial issue is that of tapping into the information that undoubtedly exists at a local level about who lives where. A number of databases are held at local authority and other local levels that would assist in ensuring that all the people qualified to vote are on the electoral register. I understand that data protection safeguards are necessary, but we should make better use of local information, It is, and has been for a long time, an offence not to return an electoral registration form. However, how many prosecutions take place as a result of that? A report from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister says that there have been one or two—that is the extent to which that happens. I understand why local authorities might think that it would not be terribly good publicity to prosecute people for not returning electoral registration forms, but it is important for someone to take responsibility. If we do not think that returning the electoral registration forms is a good idea, we should do away with them, but if we think that that is sensible, we must make arrangements to ensure that a prosecution will proceed if the requirement is flagrantly breached. Elections in the UK are safe and secure, despite the recent publicity, and they are certainly fair. I hope that they are accurate, although I have cited problems today. The challenge from the last two elections is not about postal voting or other worries that have been raised, but to address the fact that only 59 per cent. of the electorate turned out in 2001. Although we edged that figure up to 61 per cent. in 2005, none of us can be proud of the fact that we are still at the lowest level for the past 100 years. Of course there is an even greater challenge. We often talk about the Americans getting a turnout of less than a 50 per cent. in their elections, but that figure takes account of not only those who did not turn out, but those who were not registered. If we included the people who were not registered in this country when calculating the turnout, we would get a much greater surprise, and the shock would lead us to take action. That is where the real democratic deficit arises. When the electoral administration Bill comes forward, I hope that the Government will accept that we require action to start to deal with such problems.