Automatic Electoral Registration

We cannot know what the crises of the future will be, but we can prepare by building a robust registration system that is fit for the 21st century. Individual electoral registration is failing and it is time to seriously consider the alternatives. I believe my Bill improves the resilience and reliability of the electoral system, as well as making it fairer and ensuring that every single person eligible to vote is able to do so. Automatic electoral registration is common sense and current circumstances have shown that it is long overdue. Its fundamental principle is that the state should do all it can to ensure the electoral roll is as comprehensive and accurate as possible.

My Bill would place a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that all electoral registers in the UK are accurate and complete. It requires public bodies, including Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the NHS, the Passport Office and local authorities to work together and share information for the purposes of registering voters. It proposes taking data sets from across government and public services, and using them to collect information for the electoral register. For example, someone could be automatically added to the electoral register when they are issued with a national insurance number or when they update their passport, pay tax or claim benefits. A new integrated digital system would ensure that the register is continually updated to be as accurate and as up to date as possible. I believe that this is one of the great strengths of the system and one the Government surely welcome given their consistent focus on ensuring accuracy and reducing fraud. Finally, the Bill would require institutions such as universities to collect the relevant information and register students living in halls of residence.

Taken together, I believe these measures represent a straightforward and cost-effective way to modernise our electoral registration system. We would, of course, need safeguards to protect privacy and to ensure the security of the data collected. No one should be added to the open register without their explicit consent, for example.

Automatic registration has received support from a wide range of relevant organisations. The former Political and Constitutional Reform Committee backed automatic voter registration in a 2014 report on voter engagement, while the Electoral Reform Society suggests allowing citizens to register to vote whenever they come into contact with the Government. A report by the Democracy Forum found that implementing a form of automatic registration would lead to considerable improvements in the completeness and accuracy of the register. It outlined various options for exactly how that could be done. The Electoral Commission has carried out extensive feasibility work on automatic electoral registration. It found that digital data sharing, including more automated forms of registration, could be implemented by building on the existing IER—individual electoral registration—infrastructure, and that the reforms were feasible from a technical and operational perspective.

If we look around the world, we find that Britain is actually something of an exception; almost all democratic systems use some form of automatic or automated registration processes. Australia and Canada have both recently implemented schemes of this nature.

A few months ago, none of us here could have imagined the situation that we are now facing. The coronavirus pandemic is making us look again at many aspects of our society and our politics. I firmly believe that the current crisis shows the importance of reforming and modernising our electoral registration system to make it resilient for the challenges of the future that we cannot imagine now, and to guarantee everyone the right to vote and be counted. I commend the Bill to the House.

That Judith Cummins, Siobhain McDonagh, Jessica Morden, Carolyn Harris, Nick Smith, Karyn Smith, Mike Amesbury, Chris Elmore, Chris Matheson, Martyn Day, Peter Dowd and Tracy Brabin present the Bill.

Judith Cummins accordingly presented the Bill.