Select committee: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Conclusion 27
2nd Report – Review of the 2024 general election
Published 22 Jul 2025
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Review of the 2024 general election All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Data should be shared across government and with appropriate public bodies with the purpose of identifying people who are not on the register or whose details are not up to date. We encourage the Government to develop an automated electoral registration system that actively prompts people to register to vote or update their details, but retains the key democratic function of people actively placing themselves on the register. This would harness the power of the data already held to help make the electoral register both more complete and more accurate. As part of these reforms, a mechanism should also be developed by which people can easily check to see whether they are on the electoral register and confirm that their details are up to date. (Recommendation, Paragraph 90)
From: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, 2nd Report – Review of the 2024 general election (HC 487), 22 July 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 16 October 2025 (deadline 22 September 2025).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government's response supports some of the Committee's principles and agrees with some recommendations, but declines or does not consider necessary several others, citing the independence of Returning Officers, cost and the priority of manifesto commitments.
- On consolidating electoral law, the Government says major reform "would require careful consideration and an extensive amount of time" and "would be the job of more than one Parliament", and says it is focused on its manifesto agenda.
- On voter ID, it agrees with the recommendation on digital IDs and intends to create a digital VAC, and will amend legislation to permit UK-issued bank cards as accepted voter identification in Great Britain.
- On postal voting, it considers printing ballot packs on a rolling basis "impractical", and says first-class postage for poll cards would cost about £52 million for a UK Parliamentary election, which it would not consider "a viable option" at this time.
- On the Electoral Commission, the Government has "no plans to establish an independent review" of its powers, but intends reforms including raising its maximum fine to £500,000 and extending its civil sanctioning powers to political finance offences by candidates, local third parties and recall petition campaigners.