Baroness Pinnock (LD)

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness. As I was re-elected as a councillor in May, I have a direct interest in the formation of electoral law. As such, it will perhaps be no surprise that I will focus my remarks on some really practical issues. First, voter registration is currently significantly incomplete, despite the best efforts of elections officers. The Electoral Commission estimates that 8 million people are not registered to vote. In my constituency of Spen Valley, that is estimated to mean 10,000 potential voters unable to vote because they are not registered. This has impacts on our democracy; lack of registration is heavily skewed to those who rent and those who move home regularly. This demographic is also likely to be less well off than the average. The further impact is on the boundaries of constituencies, which are based on numbers of registered electors. The reasons for not registering are many, but they include people not wanting others to know where they live and not trusting the opt-out from the open register to safeguard them from, for instance, a violent ex-partner. The move to an opt-in register is therefore a positive move. Automatic voter registration is welcome, but the practical implementation leaves much to be desired. Where is the timetable for action? Where are the proposed pilots, which are essential if there is to be a move to automatic registration? Can the Minister provide those details before its widescale introduction, and will that occur before the next general election? The other issues I want to raise are small but important. The first is that of postal votes. Currently, there is no specified timetable for elections officers to send postal ballots to Royal Mail for delivery. Given that, in some local elections, those voting by post may constitute a significant portion of votes cast—between a third and a half, depending on turnout—naming a postal vote day or days will aid both voters and campaigners. Voters will get information on candidates and campaigners can get the information to them in time. Then there is the abuse of election spending limits, for local elections in particular. Literature from a national political party that does not name a local candidate, specific local issues or the party in the locality is not counted towards local election expense limits. In a recent local by-election in Kirklees, where I am a councillor, approximately £4,000-worth of such literature from one political party arrived on voters’ doormats. This is more than double the enforceable election expense limit for that election. It is making a nonsense of spending limits, and I urge the Minister to consider with the Electoral Commission changes to those regulations. Finally, I will raise a concern about the relative sizes of electorates in local wards—not within a council district, as that is well governed by the local boundary commission. This Bill seeks to improve the representation of people, yet in Birmingham, for instance, the councillor to voter ratio is one to 7,000. In my own area of Kirklees, it is one to 4,700; in Manchester, it is about one to 3,500; and for London boroughs the ratio is about one to 2,500. So in one part of the country the ratio is three times greater than in others. There are serious implications of this disparity. The larger ratio comes with a growing loss of real local representation and the remoteness of those elected in making local decisions. I hope the Minister will reflect on these disparities and how they can be addressed.