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Representation of the People (Form of Canvass) (England and Wales) Regulations 2006

We need a wider reform than this document. What we need—and it is at present contained in the Electoral Administration Bill following an amendment that was moved by the noble Baroness—is personal identifiers, which this still does not provide for. It is not a matter that can be taken any further until there is appropriate primary legislation, so I will not attempt to deal with it today. My first point is that I cannot see any differences between the English and Scottish forms, except that in the Scottish form there is no box to be ticked for the over-70s who are exempt from jury service. Why is that? Is it because there is no age limit for jurors in Scotland, or for some other reason? There is a somewhat more significant point here. There is a box on the form in which the occupier has to give details of residents in the building who are not entitled to vote due to their nationality. The first question here is: what details are needed? Is it name and nationality, which would seem the obvious ones? If so, the box seems excessively small, and would probably be insufficient to fill in one name, let alone more. There is a more significant question behind that, however: is this provision, requiring the details of a resident to be given, something that is new? I do not remember having seen it in the past on the forms I have filled in. There may be a box that said ““Tick this box if no residents in this building are eligible to vote””, but it does not ask for their details. If so, what is the purpose of this change? Does it, in fact, have anything to do with elections? Since people who are not entitled to vote do not go on the register, it is somewhat hard to see why details of them are required. To be a little more suspicious, could it be useful as a method of identifying people who might be illegal immigrants, or who have failed to make their addresses known to the taxation authorities? That is an important question. I would like to raise one other very minor point on the format. On page 4, under the heading,"““Who can register to vote””," there is a sub-heading, ““Nationality””. Page 4 continues:"““People who are entitled to register to vote:""British citizens.""Citizens of the Irish Republic.""Citizens of other European Union countries””." Then there is a fairly lengthy paragraph, which is not inset and goes right out to the margin, so it looks as if there is a break. That is followed by the inset phrase, ““Qualifying Commonwealth citizens””. That layout might be confusing. It certainly slightly confused me when I first looked at it. But the main point I would like to raise concerns the nature of the details that have to be filled in for people who are resident but not eligible to vote, and what the purpose behind that requirement is.