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Electoral Register

I was coming to that. I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that these are categorically different issues. Both relate to fraud and are extremely serious, and of course, there could be malign intent and vexatious issues in relation to social security as well. However, I hope he will accept that there is something else at play regarding the electoral register, which is politics. This is a difficult issue and we must be careful that we do not open up our electoral system to being the plaything of party politics. That is all I shall say to him on the matter. This is not an open-and-shut case. As I said at the beginning, we must be vigilant all the time. We must never be complacent, and I give the hon. Gentleman my assurance that we will consider the matter that he has raised. I will come back to him on that and some of the other issues that he raised. I still have a few more minutes to address them, but just in case I run out of time, let me say straight away that we will take up all those issues with his local electoral registration officer. We want to get to their experience of what has been going on in Chelmsford. As a result of that, we shall come to a view about what needs to change, if anything. If he would like me to do so, I will then meet him to go through what we have found and the reasons why we have come to the decisions. That will be the start of a dialogue if he so wishes. It will not be just me telling him what we think. I will still be open to further representations from him privately. Perhaps it will not be in Westminster Hall, but I am very anxious to pursue that issue and every other concern. I suspect that other MPs have similar concerns, and I hope that they will all come to me as well. The hon. Gentleman referred to a local authority—he did not name it—not getting a response from a Government Department. That is unacceptable in all circumstances; there is no defence for it whatever. It sounds as though it is a historical case and it may not be worth pursuing. If the authority wants to come to me, I will take the matter up. Generally, it is worth sending a message to all local authorities that they should expect to get replies from Departments, as every citizen should, but if they do not get them—sometimes Departments are not as deft at dealing with their correspondence as they should be—they do have local Members of Parliament, who should be able to get such responses and whom they can approach, so I would urge all of them to do just that. The situation is unacceptable and should not have arisen. It is worth saying a little more about the powers that electoral registration officers have, because they are considerable and the hon. Gentleman, in his understandable concern about the issue, may have not quite registered just what powers are available to them. It is an offence to give false information to an electoral registration officer, and the penalty is six months in prison. It is not a slap on the wrist; it is a serious punishment for something the Government take very seriously. Officers can investigate any registration at any time. The Electoral Commission's guidance to electoral registration officers makes it clear that if they have any doubts about the eligibility of any applicant, they have the power to require any person to provide information relating to the eligibility of that applicant: age, nationality, residence and whether or not they are disqualified in any way. If the officer has any doubts about that, they can also require the person to provide evidence demonstrating that they meet the requirements. Regulation 24 of the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 provides that if the electoral registration officer is not satisfied about an applicant's nationality, they have the power to require the applicant or the elector to provide specified documentary evidence confirming it. As we move to a system of individual registration, clearly much of that information will have to be provided anyway, which is why it is such an important guarantor against fraud. I shall touch briefly on the question of the Swedish citizen who could not vote. I know that the hon. Gentleman was not raising that particularly, but it is worth saying that we keep these things under constant review. Parliament has regularly expressed views on which foreign nationals should be eligible to vote. It is always worth reminding constituents—we all have constituents in the situation of that Swedish citizen—that in the circumstances described, they would almost certainly be eligible for dual nationality, depending on the regulations in their country of origin. That would enable them to vote in this country. I would have thought that if they wish to take a stake in this country by voting in it, the acquisition of nationality would be appropriate in those circumstances. It is always worth responding to people such as that, because it is a frequent cause of complaint that I have; I see frequently as a Minister that people who have contributed a lot and pay taxes in this country wonder why they cannot vote in general elections. There are avenues open to them to vote, should they choose to do so. I hope I have given the hon. Gentleman enough comfort so far. This is not the end of the story. He has raised serious concerns and we will pursue them with the electoral registration officer in Chelmsford. I will come back to the hon. Gentleman on this issue as soon as possible—I am talking about weeks, not months—so he will get a reply from me and then, if he so wishes, I will be happy to meet him and discuss any remaining concerns that he has.