Is Labour responsible for falling voter registration?
8 September, 2010 - 12:19 -- Full Fact team
In opposing the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill the Labour benches have highlighted the problem of unregistered voters. But is this a problem of the previous Government's own making, as suggested by Conservative MP Greg Hands? Full Fact investigates
MPs returning to Westminster from their summer breaks on Monday were forced to hit the ground running as the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was given its second reading.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s flagship reforms have proved contentious since it was unveiled in the Coalition Agreement, with disgruntled Conservatives finding themselves in an unlikely alliance with the Labour benches in opposing the Bill.
Speaking for the Opposition, Jack Straw argued that proposals to redraw constituency boundaries “represent the worst kind of political skulduggery for narrow party advantage”, partly because the limited timeframe of the legislation does not allow for the Boundary Commissions to account for currently unregistered voters.
The claim
But is Mr Straw crying crocodile tears?
That was the suggestion of Conservative MP Greg Hands, who accused the Labour Party of failing to address the problem of unregistered voters whilst in Government.
Mr Hands said: “for the first time in 50 years, under the previous Labour Government, the total UK electorate registered in this country declined when the UK population was rising-between 2001 and 2005.”
So is it fair to lay the blame for unregistered voters at the previous administration’s feet?
Analysis
Full Fact contacted Mr Hands for further information about this claim, and at the time of writing was still awaiting clarification.
The Government’s official statistical body, the Office for National Statistics confirmed to us that they only hold figures for registered Parliamentary electors dating back to 1996.
However the body responsible for monitoring and maintaining the UK’s electoral register – The Electoral Commission – was sceptical about Mr Hands’ interpretation of the trend.
A spokesperson told us that their research had recorded a decline in the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register stretching back over 50 years.
“Although the rising population has meant that generally the numbers on the register have been increasing, there have been falls previously, such as in 1991,” she said.
This was also the conclusion reached by a separate study conducted by Professors Iain McLean and Jeremy Smith, who estimated in their essay ‘The Poll Tax and the Electoral Register’ that the introduction of the Community Charge (commonly known as the Poll Tax) resulted in a decline of 600,000 registered voters.
However the fall in electors on the register between the 2001 and 2005 general elections identified by the Tory Junior Minister is a particularly marked one.
As the Electoral Commission notes, “the decline in registration levels between 2002 and 2004 appears to have been greater than the last notable fall, in the early 1990s.” Mr Hands’ criticism of the Labour administration could therefore still be legitimate.
The Commission, however, does point to a number of background factors that help to explain the sharp decline in the numbers of people registered to vote between 2002 and 2004.
For example, in 2002 Northern Ireland changed to a system of individual voter registration, resulting in an anticipated dip in numbers on the electoral roll accounting for a quarter of the fall across the UK.
Furthermore, the Commission’s report notes that the rapid increase in inward immigration seen over the first part of the decade may have reduced the proportion of the population eligible for registration. Whilst the general population was rising over the period therefore, it does not necessarily follow that the numbers able to register to vote were doing likewise.
However, of equal or greater importance to the Commission is the decline in public interest in politics and increasing levels of personal indebtedness, meaning more voters were reticent to have their details made a matter of public record.
The extent to which the previous Government was complicit in this is of course a matter of interpretation; however such factors do seem to hint at a greater complexity than is allowed for by Mr Hands.
Conclusion
Whilst the sharp fall in the numbers registered to vote in Parliamentary elections between 2001 and 2005 noted by Greg Hands is undoubtedly a severe drop, it is not the “first time in 50 years” that such a decline has been recorded. Both the Electoral Commission and independent researchers point to a fall in 1991 following the introduction of the Poll Tax as another recent example of this phenomenon.
On top of this, the reasons for the decline in the early years of the century appear to be more complex that Mr Hands allows for, and not all of the causal factors identified can be directly linked to the policies of the previous Government.
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