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Electoral Register

I congratulate the hon. Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) on securing this debate. That is the usual courtesy, but I mean it because the subject is enormously important, and it is to his credit that he has gone into it in such detail and so thoroughly. I hope that I can provide some reassurance. The hon. Gentleman and I agree, as does every sensible person in this country, that the integrity of the electoral register is fundamental to our democracy. Everyone in this country must have faith in the processes, so the register must be comprehensive and accurate; otherwise its integrity is flawed. The Government have made huge efforts to ensure both. We have introduced measures for individual registration, which place those two requirements—comprehensiveness and accuracy—at the forefront of the electoral registration system. It is worth noting in passing that the Electoral Commission estimates that 3 million to 3.5 million people who are eligible to vote cannot do so because they are not on the register. That is a huge problem, and a flaw in our democracy. We must do more to tackle it. We have taken measures, and we intend to ramp them up in the months and years ahead. I hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that that is fundamentally important. With every measure involving the register it is important to ensure that everyone who is properly eligible to vote should be able to do so. Equally, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the register is flawed if people on it are not entitled to be on it. He raised a number of issues that I want to address. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the matter is extremely serious. We have introduced a range of measures to protect the integrity of the postal vote, and the introduction of a system of individual registration will make fraud more difficult. It is also worth pointing out that recent studies by the Electoral Commission and the Association of Chief Police Officers suggest that the incidence of fraud is declining. It is mutating, but it is declining. I do not want to sound complacent for one moment. Even a single incidence of fraud is one too many, and even being on the register inadvertently, without out-and-out fraud, but perhaps because of a mistake in the process, is unacceptable for all the reasons that the hon. Gentleman gave. We accept that. Therefore we are never complacent and are always looking for new ways in which to improve the system. That is why I am so grateful to the hon. Gentleman for initiating the debate: we will be able to make some progress. Before dealing with specific points, I shall make some general observations about the process. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that under the Representation of the People Act 1983, there is a duty on electoral registration officers to maintain the register. That means that they must be responsible for its integrity. They must ensure that everyone who should be on it is on it, but also that people who are not entitled to be on it are not on it. The vast majority of electoral registration officers are extremely diligent in discharging that duty. We have given electoral registration officers increasing powers to ensure that they can do the job properly. It is not just a question of the will; it is also the means to discharge it. In 2006 we placed a statutory duty on electoral registration officers to take all necessary steps, which include sending the annual canvass form more than once, making house-to-house visits and inspecting records. The hon. Gentleman is particularly concerned with a specific area, and I will come to that. He has raised the question of illegal immigrants—people who are here illegally—people who are facing deportation and people whose cases may not have been decided yet. None of them is entitled to be on the register. There is no doubt about that. If they are on the register, that is wrong. It may be a case of fraud or inadvertent error, but they are not entitled to be on the register and there should be no doubt whatever about that. If such people are on the register, they are committing an offence, almost certainly. We have given electoral registration officers guidance—they are regularly issued with guidance—on how to identify fraud. They have the power to investigate any registration at any time, and they have the power to remove individuals from the register and report them to the police if they suspect them of supplying false information, which, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is an offence. As we move over the next four or five years to a system of full compulsory individual voter registration, that existing programme of work will be further enhanced and electoral registration officers will have a further range of mechanisms at their disposal.