My Lords, I beg to move that the Commons reason be now considered.

Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.

[The page and line references are to HL Bill 58 as first printed for the Lords.]

8B: Before Clause 13, insert the following new clause—

“Registration: personal identifiers

(1) The 1983 Act is amended as follows.

(2) In section 10 (maintenance of registers: annual canvass), after subsection (4) insert-

“(4A)Subject to subsection (4B) below, the information to be obtained by the use of such a form for the purpose of a canvass shall include-

(a)the signature of each of the persons in relation to whom the form is completed, and

(b)the date of birth of each such person.

(4B)The registration officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.”

(3) In section 10A (maintenance of registers: registration of electors)-

(a) after subsection (1B) insert-

“(1C)Subject to subsection (1D) below, an application for registration in respect of an address in England, Scotland or Wales shall include-

(a)the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and

(b)the date of birth of each such person.

(1D)The registration officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.”;

(b) in subsection (5), at the beginning insert “Subject to subsection (5A) below,”;

(c) after subsection (5) insert-

“(5A)A person’s name is to be removed from the register in respect of any address if-

(a)the form mentioned in section 10(4) above in respect of that address does not include all the information relating to him required by section 10(4A) above; or

(b)the registration officer determines that he is not satisfied with the information relating to that person which was included in that form pursuant to that requirement.”;

(d) in subsection (6), after “above” insert “or his name is to be removed from it by virtue of subsection (5A) above,”; and

(e) in subsection (8), after “5” insert “, (5A)”.

(4) In section 13A (alteration of registers), after subsection (2B) insert-

“(2C)Subject to subsection (2D) below, an application for registration under subsection (1)(a) above in respect of an address in the United Kingdom shall include-

(a)the signature of each of the persons to whom the application relates, and

(b)the date of birth of each such person.

(2D)The registration officer may dispense with the requirement mentioned in subsection (4A)(a) above in relation to any person if he is satisfied that it is not reasonably practicable for that person to sign in a consistent and distinctive way because of any incapability of his or because he is unable to read.””

The Commons disagree to this amendment for the following reason—

8C: Because it is not appropriate for personal identifiers to be collected as part of the registration process for all purposes

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 8B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason numbered 8C.

As I have mentioned in previous debates, the Government accept the principle behind your Lordships’ amendment for individual registration, but we believe that we should make changes that affect our democracy only with great care. To do otherwise could cause damage. Therefore, on reflection, we ask that your Lordships’ House does not insist on its amendment.

We have already agreed unanimously, between both your Lordships’ House and another place, on a new system for personal identifiers for postal voters, which is of course where the main risk of fraud occurs. We will, as we have committed to do, examine what lessons we learn from this in some form of post-legislative review, as I indicated in our previous debate on the subject.

The key challenge for us is to ensure that we can get these important measures in place in time for next year’s local elections in May. This will be a significant challenge for administrators and the wider electoral community and can happen only if noble Lords approve this Bill, which I hope they will do today. If this Bill is passed today, I hope we can send out the message that your Lordships’ House has approved measures which will significantly improve the security of the system. I believe that this is critical to public confidence.

As noble Lords will know, within this legislation we have in place that the Bill requires personal identifiers for postal and proxy votes to protect against postal voting fraud. It creates two new election offences; it revises the offence of undue influence, enabling the offence to be prosecuted even where influence has not led to any action being taken; it increases the length of time available for the police to carry out investigations; and it provides the statutory secrecy warnings to accompany postal voting papers. These measures, and in particular the use of postal voting identifiers, will help to eliminate electoral fraud and increase public confidence. This is a comprehensive package of important changes. I believe it deserves, and rightly has, the support of your Lordships’ House.

Moved, That the House do not insist on its Amendment No. 8B, to which the Commons have disagreed for their reason numbered 8C.—(Baroness Ashton of Upholland.)

My Lords, I find myself back in a familiar place. Indeed, I am reminded of Sisyphus, who was condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a mountain, only for the stone to fall back on its own weight—a punishment of futile and hopeless labour. The hopeless labour has been to try to persuade the Government on at least three occasions to make it a requirement to provide personal identifiers for all those on the electoral register, not just postal voters. The Government conceded that early on during the progress of the Bill through this place, as the Minister said.

We have had a hopeless task getting everyone to have to provide identifiers, despite recommendations from the Electoral Commission, despite the opinion of your Lordships' House which has been positively tested on at least two occasions, despite calls from local authorities nationwide and, most intriguingly, despite calls from members of the Minister’s own party from across the country. Letters to the Minister’s department in response to consultation would have made extremely interesting reading, if only we had received them in time.

My honourable friend in the other place, Oliver Heald, asked in November for us to see the response to the consultation on these matters. On 15 June, after the first amendments had gone back to the other place for consideration, the consultation responses arrived. I have them here. Within them, the honourable Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk supported the view of the Member for Harlow—a Labour Minister in another place—who stated that he would support the use of individual identifiers, as did the London Borough of Merton, the metropolitan borough of Bury and the Borough of Telford and Wrekin, to name but a few. The East Midlands branch of the Association of Electoral Administrators states that,

“individual forms are the only option, particularly if administrators are going to be required to check the identifiers against each declaration of identity/security statement for postal votes submitted at election time”.

Noble Lords will recall the series of fiascos in Birmingham council and my statement on the previous occasion that we considered this matter about people who were in Pakistan managing to appear at the same time at the polling stations in Coventry. The Minister reminded noble Lords on that previous occasion that 10 new security measures were introduced by the Bill, one of which is the need to provide a signature at the polling station, which is contained in Schedule 1. However, there is no formalised means of verifying that signature.

Efforts have been rejected on grounds of convenience. The Minister cited the registration system in Northern Ireland as an example of where personal identifiers have put people off registration. But over a million people are on the register in Northern Ireland—some 91 per cent of the voting-age population. The Minister referred to the legislation going through Parliament as we speak that will revolutionise registration in Northern Ireland—the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill. However, the reality is that that Bill does nothing to seek to end personal identifiers but seeks to alter the timing of the registration canvass. In fact, registration in Northern Ireland is at a high level of participation and a high level of security, so criticism of personal identifiers in that context is a red herring.

We are at the end of a long road regarding this Bill. We on this side are pleased with many of the measures that we have helped to introduce, especially the introduction of personal identifiers in postal voting. Much more could have been done to secure the integrity of the vote if we had been able to secure this final aspect of obtaining individual registration and individual identifiers. Both opposition parties in this House, supported by Her Majesty’s Opposition and other parties in another place, have made gallant efforts which have been consistently ignored on an issue agreed in principle by all.

I will not take this matter any further today, but it is a fact that now we will either have to wait until the next piece of legislation that would enable identifiers to be introduced—which, given the nature of this place and this Parliament, will be a long time coming—or we will have to wait for a different Government to put the balance right. I accept that this matter has twice been referred back to the other place. This House has done its duty. It has drawn more than attention to this matter. It will not go away; but, for today, I do not intend to press the matter to a vote.

My Lords, the Bill does much to improve the quality of electoral administration in this country and will therefore make a significant contribution to improving the health of our democracy. It makes significant improvements to electoral legislation as we left it in 2000. We have clearly all learnt lessons since then about the issues that we failed to address—in particular, those relating to loans to parties and the potential for postal vote fraud in the 2000 legislation. But there is still very much more to do on some of these issues, and I think that the evidence just given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, is something to which we shall return in due course.

We have made progress on these issues—in particular, with the assistance of the noble Lord, Lord Elder, on tightening up the potential for postal vote fraud. We have ensured that a person who returns a postal vote is the same person who applied for it, and that is very welcome. But we have not yet ensured that the person who applies for and returns a postal vote is the same person as listed on the electoral register, and I think that we shall return to that issue at some point in the future.

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others for the enormous effort that they have made on this legislation. We should be of good cheer—it is a good Bill. I know that we have to do more, but we have committed to continue to work post-legislatively in examining these issues. I hope that, in passing the Bill, noble Lords will recognise that this is important legislation and that it has been completed with the help and support of noble Lords on all sides of the House.

On Question, Motion agreed to.