rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Representation of the People (Amendment) Regulations 2008.
The noble Lord said: The purpose of these regulations is to introduce a new fee payable by persons who are authorised to be supplied with copies of the marked registers of electors.
A Division has been called in the Chamber. I was hoping that we would get the timing absolutely spot-on but we just missed it. The Committee stands adjourned until 4.17 pm, or that much sooner if all interested parties are back.
[The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 4.07 pm until 4.13 pm.]
The purpose of the regulations is to introduce a new fee payable by persons who are authorised to be supplied with copies of the marked registers of electors, lists of postal voters, proxy voters and proxy postal voters that are produced at elections.
At an election, when a ballot paper is issued to an elector in a polling station a mark is made against the name of the elector in the electoral register to indicate that the elector has received a ballot paper and therefore we can assume has voted at the election. This is the marked register of electors. The list of persons who have appointed a proxy to vote on their behalf is marked in the same way when a ballot is issued in the polling station to a person voting as a proxy. Further, under changes made by the Electoral Administration Act 2006, the lists of postal voters and proxy postal voters are also marked to show which voters have returned their postal votes.
Copies of the marked registers and other lists may be supplied after the election to certain authorised persons, including candidates and political parties, who may use the registers and lists for electoral purposes. The political parties, elected representatives and candidates attach great importance to the marked electoral register for campaigning purposes and for maximising turn-out at elections. Access to these records allows them to see the extent to which electors voted, if their known supporters voted and to gauge the effectiveness of their campaigning. The Government feel strongly that marked registers serve a useful purpose in the democratic process and that we should not hinder access to them by persons who have a legitimate interest in the information contained within them.
The regulations before us set out the new fee payable for supply of the marked register and other lists produced at parliamentary elections in England, Scotland and Wales and at local government elections in England and Wales. The new fee will also apply to the marked electoral register produced at an election to the National Assembly for Wales. I shall go into the details of the regulations shortly, but noble Lords will wish to know that the regulations significantly reduce the fee payable for copies of the marked electoral register.
Ideally, these regulations would have been in force prior to the recent May elections. Unfortunately, it was not possible to complete the various steps required to bring the new fees into force by 1 May. Importantly, we have given careful consideration to assessing the costs to local authorities of producing copies of the marked registers and the impact of any new fee level on them. This has resulted in taking a little longer than originally expected in bringing forward new fees, although we believe that the very thorough and careful consideration has resulted in new fees that are fair and proportionate. I can reassure the Committee that the new fee will apply to requests for copies of marked registers after these regulations come into force, including copies of marked registers from the May 2008 elections.
Let me set out the background and explain why we are bringing forward new fees for the marked register. In the May 2007 elections we introduced a new framework governing access to and supply of marked electoral registers produced at elections. That new framework introduced a formula for calculating the fees. The aim was to standardise the fees and to ensure consistency in the amounts charged for elections across the UK. Importantly, the fee was intended to cover the reasonable costs of local authorities in producing copies of the documents, not to provide a profit for them. The effect of those fees was to increase the amount that political parties and candidates had to pay for copies of the marked electoral register.
The earlier regulations that set out the revised fees were developed in consultation with key stakeholders and they were also debated and approved in both Houses. However, as noble Lords may know, it sometimes happens that the full implications of a new proposal do not come to light at the time that it is put forward. On this occasion, in hindsight, it seems that the impact of the new fees was not fully understood and only became apparent when the new regulations took effect at the May 2007 elections. Clearly there are lessons to be learnt, which we will take on board when developing new proposals in the future.
After the elections in May 2007, the Government received representations from the political parties and a number of Members of Parliament expressing concern about the impact of the new fees. Joan Walley, the honourable Member for Stoke-on-Trent North in the other place, put down an Early Day Motion on the impact of the new fees which was supported by a significant number of Members of Parliament from all sides of the House. We were concerned at those representations and, as a result, last July we issued a consultation paper setting out proposals concerning the fees. The consultation was aimed at political parties, local authorities, local electoral offices in the UK and the Electoral Commission.
Various options were set out. No fee at all was one option; setting fees at the lower end was another; and making no changes to fee levels was a third. Some 97 responses were received and we have published a response paper to the consultation which sets out a summary of the responses. I can go into the responses if the Committee wishes but I have a feeling that it may not be necessary to do so. There was no consensus on what fee level there should be for the supply of the marked register and there were, perhaps not surprisingly, different views on this issue between political parties on the one hand and local authorities on the other.
In the light of the lack of consensus, Ministry of Justice officials conducted further work. They consulted a sample of local authorities which had responded in order to understand in more detail the cost drivers for producing the marked electoral register. We obtained useful information. In developing our proposals we want to get the balance right between the costs incurred by local authorities and the importance that the political parties attach to the marked register for campaigning purposes and maximising turnout.
Noble Lords will have copies of the regulations in front of them; I think they speak for themselves. Perhaps I may just remind the Committee that the new fee structure will work as follows. There will be a single administration fee of £10 per request for a copy of the marked electoral register, added to which there will be a charge of £2 for each complete, or part of, 1,000 entries in printed format, and £1 for each complete, or part of, 1,000 entries in electronic format. Depending on the mixture of paper and electronic data provided in any request, this produces fees of between £20 to £30 for a ward of 10,000 electors and of between £80 and £150 for a constituency of 70,000 electors. As I said, this represents a significant reduction in the level of fee. The cost of a copy of the marked register at the top end of the current fee regime would be £60 for a ward of 10,000 electors and £360 for a constituency of 70,000 electors.
As I say, we think that we have the balance right. The new fees take into account the information that we have obtained from local authorities about the costs that they incur in producing copies. We do not believe that the new fees will result in a new burden for local authorities. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Representation of the People (Amendment) Regulations 2008. 22nd report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments.—(Lord Bach.)
We are again grateful to the Minister for giving his explanation of the instrument. As he said, the regulations speak for themselves. They deal largely with the fees for the marked registers which those of us involved in the political process regard as a useful tool—I think that everyone here has been involved electorally in one way or another, helping out in elections. The order deals purely with fees. I shall not discuss those but simply use this opportunity to ask the Minister whether he can answer one or two important questions on electoral fraud that have come up before in the House.
There have, as we know, been problems with the register, especially with individual registration, or lack of individual registration. We have had promises from the Government that they will at some stage bring forward individual registration, which would certainly deal with many of the fraud problems experienced at the moment and which certain judges in certain cases have highlighted. I would be grateful if the Minister could let us know where the Government are on that matter and when they hope to bring forward further primary or secondary legislation that might bring forward individual registration to deal with that problem. Having said that, we have no intention of opposing the regulations—which, as I said, relate merely to the fees levied for the marked registers.
As the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said, we all have experience of electoral registers and, indeed, of disposing of skips full of electoral registers. I am not sure whether the Minister was present at the ceremonial burning of the electoral registers following the Henley by-election.
The regulations have one very interesting feature. In previous legislation, in 2007, the fee for registers was £20 in data form and £10 in printed form. We seem to have reversed that. It is now £2 in printed form and £1 in data form. The data form is far more useful and I suspect that the printed forms will disappear. It is a curious anomaly which the Minister might like to explain.
I am grateful to both noble Lords for what I take is their support for these regulations. I agree that when one first looks at this, it is a slight anomaly. Indeed, I asked the same question earlier today. As I understand it, there was a charge of £20 for a data copy and £10 for a paper one as an administration fee under the 2007 arrangement. For paper, £5 was charged for each complete, or part of, 1,000 entries, which is now £2; while £1.50 was charged for each complete, or part of, 1,000 entries in electronic format, which is now £1. These conclusions have been reached as the result of a widespread consultation and represent a fair way of making sure that local authorities do not lose out while at the same time ensuring that it is not too expensive for those who are entitled to marked registers.
We are already committed to the principle of individual registration, but it is a far-reaching reform and needs to be undertaken with great care so that any new system is robust and actually tackles the problem of under-registration. Any move would require careful preparation. Unlike in Northern Ireland where there was a perception of over-registration, in Great Britain the problem is frankly one of under-registration, so we think that a rapid and unplanned move to individual registration would make the problem worse, not better. We support the principle, but it has not been determined how it could be implemented without causing significant numbers of eligible people to fall off the register. We wish to explore the issues involved with key stakeholders.
On Question, Motion agreed to.