Labour hold opposition day debate on the number of people who’ve fallen off the electoral register

Today Labour are holding an Opposition Day Debate on the declining state of the electoral register.

This debate comes shortly after it became apparent that over one million people have fallen off the electoral register following the Government’s introduction of Individual Voter Registration.

Labour’s proposals to deal with this include

• Allowing block registration for universities’ halls of residences and for care homes and sheltered accommodation
• Introducing a schools registration scheme
• Getting government agencies, like the Passport Office and HMRC to include voter registration in their written and telephone correspondence
• Exploring allowing local authorities to make better use of their own data (e.g. council tax, parking permits, council tenants, school rolls etc.) to automatically register voters

Sadiq Khan, who’s  responsibility for constitutional reform will explain the purpose behind this debate:

“Today’s debate is a chance for Parliament to make clear it won’t tolerate millions of people losing their chance to vote. The lifeblood of our democracy is a healthy electoral register, but it’s very simple – if you’re not on the register, you can’t vote.

“Yet it’s already the case that 7.5 million eligible voters, which works out to be ten cities the size of Sheffield, aren’t signed up to do so. And that its younger people, students, private renters and BAME communities that are the kinds of people unregistered. That’s why initiatives like Bite the Ballot’s fantastic National Voter Registration Day on Thursday are so important in signing up voters. 

“Because of the reckless way this Government is introducing a radical new way of registering, millions more are at risk of losing their vote. Ministers ignored warnings they jeopardised the completeness of the register and already we’ve seen a million voters drop off in a year with the horrifying prospect of millions more over the next 18 months. This is an act of democratic vandalism.

 “Ministers seem disinterested in doing anything about this looming crisis but we urgently need to stop the rot. That’s why we’re calling on Government to adopt a clear set of proposals designed to repair the damage, such as working with schools, colleges, universities and care homes to get people registered”.