Grand Committee
Local Government Finance Bill
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this is a probing and, I hope, brief amendment. I apologise for the tardiness in laying it, but it was prompted by the statement of intent on information sharing and powers to tackle fraud —a statement which I found really useful. The problem with statements is that they answer lots of questions but sometimes throw up one that you had not thought of before, hence the amendment.
New Section 14B, inserted into the Local Government Finance Act 1992 by Clause 13, enables regulations to be made to describe a number of offences. It is proposed that they cover such matters as causing delay or obstruction, dishonest representations and false representations. The statement of intent explains the plan to introduce offences that are equivalent to those that currently exist in relation to council tax benefit and other benefits. However, paragraph 3.25 of the statement indicates that not all existing offences are to be replicated, only those that are deemed “necessary and proportionate”. Thus the probe is to ask which offences that currently apply are considered to be disproportionate and unnecessary in the new regime. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)
My Lords, my understanding was that this is a probing amendment, and I thank the noble Lord for confirming that it is. The effect of the amendment would be to remove the words “by a person” from new Section 14B(1) of the Local Government Finance Act.
Powers to investigate potential fraudulent claims for reductions in council tax liability and to prosecute and issue the appropriate penalties will be vital to local authorities to ensure the effective administration of schemes and the control of costs. As the Government made clear when they amended the Bill in the other place by introducing Clause 13 to insert new Sections 14A to 14D into the Local Government Finance Act 1992, we believe that it is important that existing investigatory powers in relation to local authorities offences and relevant penalties to tackle fraud under social security legislation are available to local authorities in relation to council tax.
In response to the consultation on localisation of council tax support last year, a majority of local authorities that responded said that they would need the same or similar powers for local schemes as they currently had to investigate and tackle fraud in council tax benefit claims. Therefore, it is necessary for the Government to provide authorities with the appropriate equivalent powers to be able to deal with fraudulent claims for a reduction in council tax liability.
New Section 14B specifically will allow the Secretary of State to create offences equivalent to those that currently apply. In particular, the Secretary of State may make regulations providing that it is an offence for a person to delay or obstruct an officer exercising his powers to require information or to refuse or fail to provide information when required.
Regulations may also create offences where, for instance, a false statement has been made in connection with a person’s council tax liability or a person has failed to notify a change in circumstances that affects their liability to pay council tax. This includes the ability to create equivalent offences both of dishonesty and of dishonestly and falsely making representations for council tax reductions. We will not be giving local authorities powers to enter premises, powers to conduct inquiries or to remove and copy documents from such premises. The powers we are giving requiring people to supply information and enter into arrangements under which access is permitted to relevant records will be sufficient for council tax purposes.
To be clear, we are not introducing new powers for local authorities through these provisions. We are simply ensuring that some of the powers they currently have in relation to council tax benefit are recreated for reduction schemes. Nor are we simply reintroducing all the existing powers for local authorities that they currently have to tackle council tax benefit fraud. Instead we have worked with local authorities to identify those powers and offences that will be needed for local schemes.
Regulations under new Sections 14A to 14D will be subject to affirmative procedures so that both Houses will be able to consider the appropriateness and proportionality of offences under the regulations. The noble Lord asked me specifically which current powers in relation to fraud we are not planning to recreate in these regulations. Perhaps I may go through the ones that we are not planning to reintroduce. The first is allowing the Secretary of State to authorise individuals to carry out investigations. Local authorities currently authorise the individuals carrying them out, and this power will remain. As for the Secretary of State’s power to require individuals to enter into agreements to supply electronic information, local authorities’ existing powers to require electronic information will be retained, so taking the Secretary of State out of those requirements. On powers of entry, we have made it clear that we will not reintroduce wide powers of entry. Local authorities will have powers to request relevant information which is proportionate to the needs of council tax reduction schemes. I hope that that answers the noble Lord’s question.
In the statement of intent, to which the noble Lord referred, published on 9 July, we set out exactly how we intend to use the powers under new Sections 14A to 14D to make regulations, making clear that these powers would relate only to reduction schemes. I am clear that the powers in the Bill are sensible measures to ensure that local authorities have the appropriate powers to investigate and prosecute fraud. I hope that the noble Lord will be reassured by what I have said.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for that response. We support and accept that local authorities should have powers that are necessary and proportionate for them to carry out their duties in tackling fraud. The noble Baroness itemised the current arrangements which are not to be carried forward. Frankly, I would like to read the record on that, but I believe that it deals satisfactorily with the purpose of this probe. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Council tax reduction: disabled people
Nothing in this Act shall affect the current eligibility of disabled people to receive a reduction in their council tax liability through the disabled band reduction scheme.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, this is a probing amendment seeking reassurance from the Minister that the existing system will be retained by which disabled people who have made adaptations to their property do not find their property going up a band. It should stay in the band, or, in some cases, drop a band. I have no reason to think that the Government intend that this should change, but, given the discretion to local authorities, I would be grateful if the Minister would give us reassurance on that point.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we speak in support of my noble friend’s amendment, which is a probing amendment, as she explained. I dug out some of the requirements for getting the benefit of the disabled band reduction scheme. It talks about,
“an additional bathroom or kitchen … a room (other than a bathroom, kitchen or toilet) required to meet the needs of the disabled person, and used predominantly by them … extra space inside the property to allow for the use of a wheelchair”.
It says:
“The room or the wheelchair must also be of major importance to the disabled person's well-being, due to the extent of their disability”.
I hope that that is still available in the system. Is there the potential for an inconsistency in government policy between supporting as we do the disabled band reduction scheme and the consequences of potential deemed under-occupation of social housing, which could lead to the withdrawal of housing benefit?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, with regard to the very last point, the noble Lord has a very neat habit of putting one last question to which nobody has a clue about the answer—and I have to tell him that he has done it again. If I may, we will write, because it involves an interaction between two bits of legislation. I do not think that I am equipped, and my team behind me look a bit blank. So perhaps I could write on that particular aspect, but I hope to be reassuring on the rest.
Amendment 93A seeks to ensure that any changes made by the Bill will not impact upon the disabled band reduction scheme. The scheme offers a reduced council tax bill, where a disabled person lives in a larger house than they would have needed if not disabled or where the living area for normal use has been reduced. The Council Tax (Reductions for Disabilities) Regulations 1992 set out the qualifying criteria for a reduction under this scheme. No part of the Bill has an impact upon the scheme, nor will any of the subsequent regulations that will be made. The Government regard this scheme as an important form of support to disabled people and have absolutely no wish to make any changes to it. Given that there is no question of any change, I invite the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I thank the Minister and my noble friend. I am very glad to hear that, and I am grateful that the Minister was able to give us the reassurance that we sought. With the permission of the Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Additional council tax band
The Secretary of State shall consult with local authorities for the introduction of an additional higher band of council tax —“I”— in England, for dwellings with a 1991 property value of £420,000, at a tax rate relative to Band D of 21/9; or its 2013 equivalent.”
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
This amendment will not be debated quite so fast or, I suspect, quite as supported in its intent. It is a probing amendment, and I am very sorry that the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, could not be here at this stage for these discussions, because I know that he supports the issue in general, although he might have particular concerns to raise. I know that he believes that this is something that we should discuss.
I favour council tax over local income tax, let alone the poll tax, because half the charge relates to property and half to a two-person family. The property band on which that half of council tax rests is determined by the 1991 valuations and hinges around the fulcrum of band D, to which I shall come back. The amendment does not try to introduce a new higher rate band I but asks instead that the Secretary of State explore that with local authorities and puts it on the agenda for discussion. That is all that it seeks to do. Why does it propose that? There are two very simple reasons—income and fairness. It would add to local authority income flows, although obviously the amount would vary sharply from place to place. It would be fairer, too. It is not reasonable that a £2 million property, let alone one worth £20 million, should be in the same council tax band as a property one-third or even one-tenth of its value.
When we debated the introduction of council tax to replace poll tax in the early 1990s—and I remember that well—I assumed, like others taking part in the debate, that all future Governments would seek regular revaluation, at something like every 10 years, with boundary reviews. My Government should have done it but did not do so. As the discrepancy from the 1991 evaluation has grown wider, it is less and less attractive to any Government to seek to revalue, even though they should. Obviously, you hear from the losers and not from the winners; as a result, council tax as currently structured can be increasingly regressive.
The unfairness grows. In Kensington—in W8, for example—the average property is worth £1.87 million. In Knightsbridge, Chelsea and Notting Hill, the average is around £1.4 million. In one street in Kensington Palace Gardens the average property value is over £22 million. So up to half of all properties—these figures come from the Times, which did not reveal whether they were mean or median figures—will be above that figure.
Lord Shipley
My Lords, I can give some support to the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. Like her, I am not a supporter of local income tax. I prefer council tax, which is essentially a property tax but indirectly related to income. A local income tax would primarily be a tax on work, and the case for asset taxation at a local level is strong. If we accept that, however, it follows that the real spread of asset values needs to be reflected in the council tax banding. On the question of a possible band I, the test for me is whether there would have been a band I had we known in 1991 that property values would change as they have. Had we known that in 1991, I think that we would have had a band I. For that reason and all those identified by the noble Baroness, I am in favour of a consultation to try to secure a further band.
Lord Smith of Leigh
My Lords, the Committee may recall that on Second Reading I mentioned revaluation of council tax, which is something that I have raised with Governments of all persuasions. Perhaps we should be buying a cake as it is the 21st anniversary of the current valuations—which, as my noble friend said, are totally out of date.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that the council tax system is a property tax. Although I support it in principle, one of the problems with it is that it was introduced in a rush. It was brought in because there was such a panic about the poll tax and the need to get rid of it—so anything was better than the poll tax. Because of the rush the valuations were not done properly and a national scale was used. Some of the problems that my noble friend mentioned about the difference in values between areas of the country in 1991 were therefore reflecting the fact that, yes, in my authority the vast majority of properties are in band A and B. Band H is pretty irrelevant to us, and a band I would probably not be of much help either. That use of a national scale for valuing is the problem.
When my noble friend cited the areas from which substantial benefits would come with this measure it just illustrated to me the further geographical bias there has been in the housing market over the past 21 years. The fact is that the areas she quoted are all in the south and the south-east and have had economic prosperity during that period, which has pushed up house prices. In other parts of the country economic prosperity has not been on the same level. House prices have gone up for some of that period but in the past two or three years those prices have been going down in many parts of the country, including my own.
I would clearly therefore be interested in some kind of revaluation. What is missing from my noble friend’s amendment, if I may say so, is that it would have such a huge geographical bias in its outcome that we would have to have a different form of equalisation. Those areas in the north, the Midlands and so on, which would not benefit from this, would be in a much worse situation if all we did was to put the amendment through without following it up with some equalisation.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, my concern is about the people at the bottom of the heap and the changes in council tax benefit. I know that many colleagues who are in this Room also share that concern. I would be very interested in having the Minister look at what funds might be raised through this amendment and whether something could then be done about the 10% reduction in council tax benefit. As we know, that reduction will not affect pensioners and will therefore affect other households incredibly heavily and disproportionately. Maybe there is a small possibility here to prevent unbelievable hardship as a result of this cut to council tax benefit. We would then achieve less regression—both by the changes at the top end and by using that money to effect changes at the bottom. I would be grateful if the Minister would respond to that.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, like my noble friends Lady Hollis and Lord Smith and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I am not an advocate or supporter of local income tax. My noble friend Lady Hollis has, as ever, made a challenging case for the introduction of a new band, although her case is, in a sense, seeking a process of consultation. My noble friend is aware that, from this Front Bench, we are not yet able formally to support that proposition, although I note that she has occasionally trail-blazed an opinion and the party—or otherwise—has caught up with her later. There is obviously a range of issues here and my noble friend Lord Smith instanced some of the wider ramifications, such as the redistribution of revenues that might come from this. However, I am interested in the Minister's response on this and we should recognise that there are growing discrepancies and inequities in the current system, if for no other reason than the passage of time. This amendment raises a serious issue.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing this amendment and the others who have spoken. I do not think that she will be entirely surprised that I am not able to accept her amendment, but I will give the reasons.
Amendment 93B seeks to create an additional council tax band in England based on properties with a 1991 value above £420,000, as the noble Baroness explained, and with a 21 to nine multiplier based on the local band D amount. This Government, like the previous Government, have made no plans to change the banding structure on which the council tax system is based. We are absolutely clear that such a change would have major implications for local government finance, create additional bureaucracy and administrative costs and have significant distributional implications, to which I shall return. To create a new band, there would have to be a general revaluation, and the Government have been absolutely clear that there will be no revaluation in England during the lifetime of this Parliament. Indeed, the coalition Government—I nudge my noble friend Lord Shipley on this—made a clear pledge to Parliament not to undertake a council tax revaluation in this Parliament. A revaluation is unnecessary, expensive and time-consuming and will lead to higher council tax bills.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her courteous reply and my noble friends and others for their support, qualified as it may be.
At the heart of this, which the Minister did not touch on, is that the current bands are based on 1991 valuations and that, since then, there has not been even growth. If there had been, nothing would have changed, because we would be in a zero-sum game, but because of uneven growth, in the south-east and London in particular, property values have raced away in comparison to others. There has been a huge increase in unearned wealth, including that of my house, compared to other places, which in no sense is making an appropriate and proper contribution to the local economy through the council tax levy. It is because of that growth of unevenness that the consensus around the Room—with the obvious exception of the Minister, who might agree in her heart that this is the right thing to do—is that council tax bands no longer fairly reflect property values in this country. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and others made this point, and they were absolutely right.
The Minister’s reply was twofold—Scylla and Charybdis, if you like—that on the one hand it is not possible to do a full revaluation; and on the other that you cannot possibly do a partial revaluation. I agree that the first, although desirable, is a major undertaking and would need a lot of preparation, but unless we are going to have 1991 valuations in 2091, at some point there will have to be a revaluation. The truth is that the more frequently you do it, the less acute are the losers and winners in the equation. My Government were equally to blame—no Government want to tackle it. But the point is that it is, bluntly, cowardice to walk away from this issue knowing that you could be bequeathing an even larger problem to the generation following you, as housing property values continue to develop in different proportions to their bands.
The Minister is worried about full revaluation. In an argument against full revaluation, she said that in Wales there were large movements with properties going up several bands. The point here is not the shock at properties going up several bands—is it not right that they should have done? Is that not right when the value of that property can be such that the owners of a property have enjoyed to some extent a more repressed contribution to council tax than they should have made if their property had been fully valued from day one? I believe that to be the case. If they are not paying their full share, other people have to pay more. It falls particularly on properties in the lower bands A and B; if you do not have enough higher band levies, it means that the band D reduces and properties below band D have to pay more to get the levy in.
The Minister went on to say that, given that a full revaluation is not possible, neither would it be possible to revalue only within band H. I agree that it is not the most desirable outcome, but I assure her that I have talked to three separate valuers on this, none of them as far as I know connected to each other, and they all assured me that it was entirely possible because they do it now. The point that I was trying to make was that, particularly if it was phased in over three years, the extra workload in reviewing band H properties would not be so great. We know where they are; there are only 60 in the entire city of Norwich. You could go round them in a week, so we are not talking about a major increment in workload here. If you spread the process over three years it would mean revaluing 20 properties a year in addition to the properties that are valued each year because they are new-build and those revalued each year to go up or down because of alterations made to them or to the environment. So as an addition to the workload it is relatively modest, though not insignificant. As a practical possibility they are doing this now with properties scattered across all the bands all the time. If they can do it to see whether a property in band D should go to band F or one in band F should go down to band E, and they can do it now with properties scattered across the full range of bands, they can certainly do it with the discrete number of band H properties that there are in most local authorities. So I simply do not accept the Minister’s statement that it could not be done.
Baroness Hanham
This is fine as regards revaluations, but it takes no account at all of the people in the properties. Can you just imagine the number of appeals that there would be against this form of rebanding? The noble Baroness speaks as if it is just a matter of getting a revaluer to come and say, “We charged that last year, and this will be all right this year”, and it will go up and down. You cannot do that, because people who live in the properties are not going to allow a movement to take place if they do not think it is satisfactory.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I perfectly accept that there may well be appeals to valuations. There are appeals now, which is often why individual properties are revalued. That is a perfectly proper element of the process. But the Minister cannot persuade me that people in band H properties, worth £22 million on average in Kensington Palace Gardens, and on average—with equal numbers below and above—worth around £800,000 in Virginia Water, and so on, are going to be financially so embarrassed by their council tax going up by an additional two-ninths over what they pay, given the valuation of those properties. We are not talking about pensioners who are eligible for council tax discount on band C possibly going up to band D. We are talking about the very top and about people who have property worth millions, who will have an income commensurate with it. I am arguing that they should pay their way fairly because otherwise to a degree they are free-riding on the council tax levies of those who live in lower banded property.
As for the Minister’s point about the money and where it would go, I do not have a view about that. It would be a matter for consultation. It could stay within the individual borough, if that was thought appropriate; it could be used for redistribution across London, going from the wealthier boroughs to the Hackneys or Tower Hamlets. Or it could, as I would prefer, be taken account of in the equivalent of the equalisation and revenue support grants that go to local government. That would be the fairest way; in that way, some of the gain would go to places like Wigan or Hartlepool, which are severely hit by the current system because they have to levy much higher increments on bands A and B as a result.
I will not take this any further now. However, in answer to the first argument which the noble Baroness raised—that we cannot have revaluation across the board—I think that at some point some Government will have to have the courage to have those discussions and engage with local government. The longer you put it off, the worse the problem will be. As for the noble Baroness’s second argument—that it cannot be done on a partial basis—that is simply untrue according to the evidence available to me, although the Minister will have been advised differently. Her third argument is that it will come as an unfair and unreasonable shock to those who are occupying properties worth £5 million, £10 million or £15 million that they might pay a further two-ninths a year on their band D council-tax bill of perhaps £600. I do not think that that is a valid argument. None the less, with the support of the Committee, and with my grateful thanks for the discussion that we have had, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Meacher
“Enforcement of council tax
Councils shall include procedures in their contracts with bailiff companies covering the enforcement of council tax which allows for the return of a warrant by the bailiffs to the councils for reconsideration when—(a) there is a mistake in the decision to issue the warrant in the first place;(b) the warrant was imposed by the local authority before the relevant facts of the case were known;(c) the circumstances of the defaulter have changed since the warrant was issued by the local authority;(d) the defaulter is experiencing financial hardship and is unable to pay the tax; and(e) the circumstances of the defaulter fall within the circumstances of “vulnerable situations” on page 9 of the National Standards for Enforcement Agents issued by the Ministry of Justice in 2012.”
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, Amendment 94 proposes a new clause the aim of which is to protect individuals and families in financial need from having their essential belongings, and even their homes, seized by bailiffs executing a warrant for the repayment of debts. Very often, of course, those debts are unavoidable. Let us just think for a moment about the level of income that many of these people are on—I am sure that these income levels have been mentioned during Committee days 1 to 5, and I must apologise that I was not able to be with the Committee on those days. However, I think that this amendment is incredibly relevant because of the fact that many of these people have so little room for manoeuvre as they are on JSA of £71 a week for a couple or £54 a week for a single person. It is a tiny income.
Those of us who were involved in the debates on the Welfare Reform Act and appealed to the Government not to devolve council tax benefit to local authorities will be well aware of the disproportionate hardship being imposed on households which are already in financial hardship due to the welfare reforms. I know that that is, in one way, not relevant to this debate. However, it is incredibly relevant as a context for this discussion.
One of the major issues is the cross-cutting costs imposed on these very poor households by the disconnected policies of the DWP, the MoJ and the DCLG and the ensuing debts which might arise in relation to these three different departments. These debts then generate further costs so that one has not just the debt but the costs associated with the fact that one has been unable to pay one’s debt, creating yet further debts and leaving those households spiralling down to a point where they just cannot get themselves out of that rather deep hole.
One has only to think about the sorts of results we will see following implementation of the Welfare Reform Act. A household might be in a flat that is deemed too large or too expensive to receive full housing benefit. Perhaps the household will learn of this a little late or it will take them time to move to a cheaper, smaller flat, during which time the debts will mount. That is why I raise the point about levels of income. You just do not have any room for the debts mounting up as a result of these changes over which people have no control, and yet these changes have the most incredibly disproportionate impact on these people. Just imagine what would happen if you lost a piece of your rent and you had to take it—perhaps £8 a week—out of your £54. I cannot imagine living on £54 a week for housing benefit and all the other bits and pieces you get. As for the idea that you then lose a bit of that as well because you are in the wrong flat and have to move, what about the costs of moving and all the rest of it? It is unthinkable that these people will be able to cope at all.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth
My Lords, in adding my name to the amendment, I fully support everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, said, and I do not intend to repeat a single word of her speech.
I simply draw attention to subsection (d), which states that,
“the defaulter is experiencing financial hardship and is unable to pay the tax”.
Obviously, that raises the question: what is meant by financial hardship and how do you define it? Are there any indicators?
As has the noble Baroness, I draw attention to the work of the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust, which has worked for more than 40 years with benefit claimants and the most vulnerable people in society, and some recent research by Brighton University on indicators which the three departments could use. Of course, people will say that they are not very precise, but we believe that they are the best that can be done, emerging from people with real experience of what financial hardship means. Those people have put forward eight indicators which, I should point out, make no distinction between disabled and non-disabled because both suffer financial hardship.
First, hardship happens whenever incomes in work or unemployment are too low to cover necessary expenditure; and when such circumstances are beyond the control of its victims, it impacts with great severity on both the disabled and the not disabled. Secondly, necessary minimum expenditure includes food, fuel, water, clothing, transport, some personal necessities, rent, council tax, fines, insurance and pensions. Too often, as we know, choices have to be made between paying the rent, heating or eating.
Thirdly, necessary expenditure is increased by debts that include fines, courts, bailiff costs, liability order costs for council tax, payments of court orders, debt collectors, bank charges, the high interest to doorstep pay-day lenders and loan sharks, DWP overpayments, sanctions, civil penalties, caps and cuts. As your Lordships can see, there is quite a long list of possible debts that people at the bottom of the pile can incur before they know where they are. Fourthly, debts occur due to the innocent mistakes of both welfare claimants and officials in the delivery of welfare. People then borrow to eat or to pay bills or pay off other debts. A visit to a food bank is obvious evidence of hardship.
Fifthly, circumstances beyond the control of welfare claimants that lead to hardship include unexpected illness, divorce or separation from a partner who leaves when debts have not been paid, a serious accident in the family, a bereavement and funeral costs, a pay cut, redundancy and unemployment, flooding, and any accidents or theft for which the claimants cannot afford insurance. Sixthly, hardship leads to an inability to communicate with the authorities, courts and creditors, due to the lack of a landline phone and dependence on pay-as-you-go mobiles that run out of money when claimants run out of money—normally, on the basis of their experience, once a week.
Seventhly, as the noble Baroness pointed out, there are some very heart-rending cases of people running into huge debts because of mental health problems, or of such problems occurring because of all sorts of misunderstanding about the debt. The Royal College of Psychiatrists reports that 50% of people in debt have mental health problems. The figure is 50%, so, to put it the other way round, 25% of people with a diagnosed mental health condition are in debt. Those are startling figures.
The last indicator is that hardship exacerbates the risks of low birth-weight babies being born to women who are unable to afford a healthy diet before they conceive and while they are pregnant. As we know, the £71 a week jobseeker’s allowance is much too low to live on and, based on all sorts of very sound research, low birth-weight associated with foetal growth restriction is the strongest predictor of poor learning ability, school performance, behavioural disorders and crime.
Fraud is another area that results in hardship but I have not covered it because it is deliberate and should be rooted out. The circumstances of hardship that I have described happen because they are beyond the control of the victims. The purpose of describing these hardships, based upon the long experience of people working closely with those who are most vulnerable at the bottom of society—that is, welfare claimants and others on very low incomes—is to put them forward to assist the three departments involved in the hope that they might come together when drafting relevant laws, regulations and guidance and use some of these eight indicators to help them in that important task.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, the national debt advice charity that has helped over 1 million people with unmanageable debt problems in the past few years. I strongly support this amendment, which provides a simple solution to a long-standing problem: how to ensure that financially vulnerable people struggling to pay council tax arrears do not suffer undue costs, worry and hardship as a result of bailiff action to recover those arrears. Nearly 9% of those who received phone or online counselling from our charity this year had a council tax debt, which is up from 7% last year. For many of them, problems in paying council tax were part of a complicated and serious multiple debt problem. Our median user owes just over £17,000 to seven different creditors, including credit cards, personal loans and overdrafts.
These are hard times. All the experience that our charity has in giving debt advice shows that people facing severe financial difficulties need help and support to get their household finances back under control. We think that everybody who gets into debt should repay their borrowings over time. We are not into debt forgiveness, but with support they can get themselves out of debt and back into a good relationship with credit.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I want to take this opportunity to ask the Minister a question. I do not want to add to the very important issues outlined by the noble Lords, but I am prompted by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, to ask what is happening to ensure that advice agencies are able to give the appropriate advice to people who may find themselves in the kind of debt described in this amendment to make sure that they avoid having enforcement action taken against them, or to get advice in dealing with it if it does happen. I am very conscious that there have been cuts to advice agencies nationally and locally and that social welfare law has been taken out of the scope of legal aid in its entirety. Given that and the speed with which this change is being introduced at the same time that the entire benefit system for working-age people is facing a revolution, what steps has the department taken to satisfy itself that advice agencies will be up to speed in time and will be sufficiently resourced to enable them to advise clients to make sure either that they do not face enforcement action or that they have somewhere to go for advice if it is applied to them wrongly?
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
To reinforce my noble friend’s point about advice agencies, my local Norwich CAB, whose income for the current year will be £1 million, will find a fall of £400,000, down to £600,000 next year, because every penny of the £400,000 it gets from the Lord Chancellor’s department is being withdrawn. As a result, people are not going to be able to use its services, staff will be laid off and the very issues that my noble friend has raised will impact on those who most need help.
Lord Best
My Lords, sadly, I have to accept that there are cases where local authorities have acted in an insensitive and inept manner in using bailiffs to pursue the debts of vulnerable people who owe council tax. However, I fear that local authorities are the victims too. They have no desire to be sending bailiffs to hound poor people to pay their debts.
The very worst aspect of this Bill is the expectation that councils will have to start collecting council tax from the very poorest households—the 20% or so of those of working age. They will be asked to find the money from their extremely low incomes, which have been provided mostly through benefit for other essential expenditure. The Bill means that councils are bound to face more arrears and more wasted expenditure in trying to extract small sums from poverty-struck people who simply do not have the money to pay. It is no fun for local authorities to be sending in the bailiffs when they feel that they must pursue these debts.
I support this amendment to protect vulnerable households from the heavy-handed action of unscrupulous bailiffs and I am grateful to the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust for bringing these matters to our attention today. However, the solution to the problem of these cases growing in number is to allow councils to avoid having to start taxing the poorest by giving councils the flexibility to raise the funds required by the Treasury in other ways—for example, as I suggested last week, through the painless reduction of the single person discount from 25% to 20%, on average. Councils are victims in this matter too.
The Earl of Listowel
I support the amendment and I raise a particular concern about care leavers and care-experienced adults who might be impacted by this. Of course, many care-experienced adults will be in this group of the very poor who have had poor educational experience and may have experienced long-term unemployment. The Committee has heard about parents and families struggling to survive and not functioning very well. Statistics show that if one has been brought up in care and becomes a mother, one is far more likely to have one’s own child taken into care. I am worried that this is an additional burden on particularly vulnerable families that is unwelcome.
I understand that care leavers will be assisted to the age of 22 with regard to council benefit—I may have that wrong and would be grateful for any correction in that area—but one has to keep in mind that while most young people leave home at the age of 24 nowadays, 20% of care leavers will have left care at the age of 16. The statistics for the mental health of young people in care highlights that 40% have mental disorders, which compares with what may be 10% of young people in the general population. That is what one would expect because of the history of trauma before they enter care, the experience of being taken from their families and often, unfortunately, their having an unsatisfactory experience in the care system. This is one group within the groups we are discussing to which we should pay particular attention.
I would be grateful for clarification about the experience of care leavers. In the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Looked After Children and Care Leavers, I have certainly heard of young care leavers describing their difficulties in trying to manage their finances on leaving care, with their homes eventually breaking down and all sorts of adverse consequences arising from that. I support the amendment and I am grateful to the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust for drawing my attention to this issue. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Smith of Leigh
My Lords, noble Lords are absolutely right that poverty is on the increase. I talked to someone from my local advice agency who told me how in the past month the number of cases that he had been dealing with had gone up significantly. One of the growth industries in my area is payday lending. There are increasing numbers of lenders and people relying on them. Unfortunately, while the use of bailiffs by local authorities is regrettable it is unavoidable and necessary on some occasions. We need to make sure that we use them sensitively. As a result of this legislation, however, there will be more need to use bailiffs because we are putting a tax back on to those who are least able to pay.
I remind noble Lords, as I do on any occasion I can, that the nearest we had to this was in the poll tax era: we were putting a tax on the lowest paid then. There were two elements to the campaign against it. There was a “Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay” campaign, which was reflective of the reaction to it, and we got into a downward spiral where people were unable to pay. The cost to local authorities of collecting the poll tax was rising all the time and less money was coming in. There was greater use of the courts and bailiffs at that time, which was a good income for the courts and probably for bailiffs but not very good for local communities. Noble Lords may recall that the consequences were that pensioners were jailed in certain parts of the country because they had not paid the poll tax. The public reaction that followed meant that we lost the legislation.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I find myself in happy agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara. People should pay their debts, and I imagine that the Minister will join me in looking at things that way too. It is a good basis for looking at this amendment. However, I support the amendment, particularly because of my view of what local authorities are getting up to.
Baroness Meacher
Where errors have been made by officials, most particularly, it is completely immoral to turn on the recipient family, couple or individual and expect them to deal with what can be an enormous debt, about which they have no knowledge whatever. It is not their fault. We need to be careful about saying that in all circumstances people should pay their debts.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I think that the noble Baroness misunderstands me. I was picking up on what the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, said and the way in which he described that this should be done. I am not trying to address myself to the particular circumstances of that part of the amendment. I support the amendment, by and large, but I am looking at it from this point of view: when I read this, I see an instrument for getting local authorities to behave better than they do and to pay more attention to their duty of care to the people to whom they are charging council tax.
About 3 million liability orders are issued in respect of council tax each year. Councils charge an average of about £100 a time for this, which is £300 million a year that councils are charging for liability orders. This charge is supposed to be based on the cost to councils of getting the liability orders and the magistrates’ court orders together. It is totally out of proportion to that cost. It is high time that the Government did a little audit to check out what one or two councils are charging and to see whether those costs are real.
It is no good, particularly when you are looking at charging money to people who often do not have it, to proceed in the same way as councils do with motorists: we all know that those charges have nothing to do with the costs of providing services, that they are completely out of proportion and that the councils are running them as a profit centre. I gather from the hornets’ nest that the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea continues to do that, which is certainly my experience from being on the wrong end of their fines. Parking has become a major profit centre for some boroughs, and I can understand why they consider that people who have cars have money to be got. However, that should not be their attitude to those who find themselves unable to pay council tax.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
What the noble Lord is saying is important. As we are in Committee, can he give the Committee any detailed information of the actual cost to a local authority and the alternative charge given in addition to the debt to be recovered from the individual, so that we have some evidence that local authorities are to some extent profiteering from their bailiff actions?
Lord Lucas
My Lords, is the process of getting a liability order, which costs £100, really 10 hours’ work for somebody? That is ridiculous. It is something that is done in bulk; the requests are sent to the magistrates’ court in bulk and signed off in bulk. Doubtless the council can argue that there are associated costs, but if it is spending £100 a time on these things it is being grossly inefficient. It should be able to do the business for £20 a head; that would be a fair estimate of what it should cost a council, if run well, to get a liability order, rather than the £100 that they charge. There is nothing that I am aware of in the legislation requiring them to be slower about it than that, but because there is no statutory limit on these things it has become a practice to charge a large amount.
The other destructive thing that councils are doing is that when somebody falls behind for a month or two with council tax payments, they say that they will not accept instalment payments any more—the whole lot is due. That is daft. As the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, was saying, the right way in which to deal with these things is to agree proper staged payments. To withdraw that and put the debtor through the whole business of bailiffs and additional charges, in order to come out at the other end with some kind of agreed staged payment, is ridiculous. It is a great injustice to the person who has fallen behind with paying the council tax, particularly if they find themselves in positions of hardship rather than just forgetfulness.
Councils should be taking a more sensible and rational attitude to this. They should look at the citizens who they have charge of and say that if those people are in difficulty, they will work with the sort of organisations that the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, represents to enable them to pay their bills over a sensible period or to otherwise get out of the difficulties in which they find themselves. It should not be necessary immediately—without question and without thinking—to go to the bailiffs. I can encourage the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, because I think that we will get bailiff legislation and reform. I saw the Minister a few days ago and have committed to give a half-hour speech on the subject in November. I am seriously optimistic that I will have something to say when we get there, but it has been a long road. I quite agree with the noble Lord.
However, councils are the employers of bailiffs and it is terribly important that when they employ them they have a care for the people whose—
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
Nobody wants to see bad practice, but I have not experienced councils behaving in that way in my time as a local councillor. Using bailiffs was the last, not the first, thing you did. I am perfectly willing to believe that there may be bad councils in this field or that one or two cases may be badly handled. Obviously, that may well be the case. If there has been impropriety in that way at all it should obviously be remedied, but I hope that if the noble Lord is coming back with that argument he will back it up with some information and not just broad assertions about how local authorities behave. I do not recognise his description of that. Certainly, before I sent in any bailiffs we would have gone through hoops to see whether we could have gradual repayments or otherwise help those people through their hardship, perhaps by getting them into a debt counselling agency. To send in bailiffs and make that person homeless is the last thing that a housing authority wants, because then it would have to send them to a B and B.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, my experience of this comes entirely from the bailiff end of things and in particular from the complaints that people make when the bailiffs come through. The complaints are not necessarily about the bailiffs but about the process that has led to them finding the bailiffs at the door. The level of liability or of the charges is a matter of public record, as is their volume. The policy of councils to make the whole debt due immediately if there is a failure over a couple of months to pay instalments is there on council websites. Both of them are fundamental injustices. The council may be good-hearted in the way that it deals with things. I do not have data on which councils are good or bad; I am merely looking at the overall practice, and I am conscious of the level of complaint and anguish that reaches those who deal with complaints against bailiffs, which is where my understanding comes from.
However, coming back to the basic figures, if you charge £100 for a liability order, it seems to me that you are grossly overcharging, and if you say on your website, as councils do, that if you miss a couple of payments the whole lot is due, that is a fundamentally mistaken way to deal with debt. I therefore like this amendment because I read it as putting some of the onus back on councils, which is where it should be.
Lord Smith of Leigh
I thank the noble Lord for setting that out. However, I really cannot accept the two points that he is making, certainly as they apply to my council. First, the cost may well be averaging £100 but that is because of the care that local authorities take in individual cases. They are not simply sending huge numbers of debts to courts or getting orders. Each case has to be looked at properly to make sure of it.
The noble Lord’s second point is, in a sense, a misunderstanding. Essentially, there is a contract between a local resident and the council to pay the council tax. The council says it will withdraw that contract only if the payment has not been received and the resident has not informed the council of a change in their circumstances. If residents come back to councils—certainly to mine—to explain their circumstances, we negotiate a new form of payment. If we did not have that provision, people would simply not inform the council and they would not pay on time—and the costs would be even higher than they are.
Lord Tope
My Lords, I am very pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and the noble Lord, Lord Smith, have intervened here because I was growing increasingly concerned that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, seemed to be suggesting that all councils act in this way. They do not. It is not in their own interests to do it that way and it simply does not happen. I think we can all accept that mistakes are made and that things happen that probably should not. Sometimes, mistakes are made but they are usually at official level because it is the officials who deal with these issues. Sometimes the reason is poor communication, on both sides, but to suggest that sending in the bailiffs is the first action of any local authority is, frankly, nonsense. It is almost always—and certainly should be—the very last action.
Let us remind ourselves that local authorities have a fiduciary duty in respect of all their taxpayers to try to recover debts that are legitimately owed to them. They have been put under even greater pressure in recent years by central government and the amount of attention that is paid to reports from the Audit Commission on council tax collection rates. We have touched on that a few times in this Committee and on the expectation, which is reasonable, that collection rates will fall as a result of the legislation that we are debating. However, to suggest that the use of bailiffs is a first resort by most, or possibly all, local authorities is simply not the case. Like others, I should be interested to hear of substantiated cases of bad practice. I am sure that they occur but I doubt that they occur quite as often as we might read in certain national newspapers. I am quite certain that they are the exception.
I had wanted to start by saying how grateful I am to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, for moving this amendment. I am not certain that the amendment needs to be made to the Bill but we certainly needed it in order to have this very important debate. When the Minister responds in a minute, I am sure she will agree with that, but I also hope that at the very least she will agree to take back the issue and consider how it can be best addressed, whether through legislation or through action that is already under way. Nevertheless, it is an important issue.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we support the amendment. It seems that our debate has had various strands to it, including the issue of governance for bailiffs. My noble friend Lord Stevenson talked about the three fundamentals that are missing—the balance of incentives, no independent oversight and no process for those in financial difficulties. Part of that theme is the need to support people who get into debt and to help them to make their payments, as well as the importance of effective advice being at hand. With regard to the challenges that are being felt now, my noble friend Lady Hollis instanced what is happening to the CAB in her area, and my noble friend Lady Sherlock asked the Minister about the assessment that is being made of available support.
However, one strong strand has been the importance of this issue, because it focuses on dealing with poverty. As the noble Lord, Lord Tope, said, everything that is going on—the economic situation that the country and much of the world faces, as well as specific policies, including those that we are debating in this Bill—has a cumulative effect on people. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, about financial hardship and why it is of increasing importance in the circumstances in which we find ourselves.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, made the point that in some ways local authorities are victims of the current circumstances. They have to deal with the effects of this Bill and other legislation, particularly cuts in council tax benefit or support. We know and have debated the consequences of that. I recognise the hand of the Reverend Paul Nicholson and the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust in all this, and he should be congratulated on his continued efforts. As a Minister, I always shuddered a bit when a briefing came through from the Reverend Nicholson; I still do.
This amendment focuses on the enforcement procedures, particularly the relationships between bailiffs and councils, and it calls on contractual arrangements between bailiff companies to allow—why not require?—the bailiffs to return a warrant to the council for reconsideration when certain circumstances arise. We support the thrust of the amendment. I do not know whether we need to unpick some legal issues here in order to differentiate between bailiffs appointed by the court and enforcement agents acting under contract to the local authority—that is, whether the return and possible amendment of the warrant is just an issue between the council and the agent. Doubtless the Minister will be able to help us on that.
We have all heard horror stories about the actions of some bailiffs towards vulnerable people, including the very poignant case explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher. In the National Standards for Enforcement Agents there seems to be no problem in setting out who is considered to be vulnerable; perhaps the Lord Chancellor’s Department will be able to assist the DCLG in this regard. I am sure that we all find some of the instances we have heard about completely unacceptable. The amendment refers to the National Standards for Enforcement Agents, a document issued by the Ministry of Justice, but, as my noble friend said, it is really just a rerun of something that happened in 2002 and the problem is that it is not mandatory. I wonder whether we should at least require all local authorities to contract only with those who explicitly adhere to those standards, although they may not be binding.
The standards explicitly refer to vulnerable situations requiring enforcement agents and creditors—the councils —to recognise that they each have a role in ensuring that the vulnerable and socially excluded are protected and that the recovery process includes procedures agreed between the agent and the creditor about how such situations are dealt with. The document states:
“The appropriate use of discretion is essential in every case and no amount of guidance could cover every situation, therefore the agent has a duty to contact the creditor and report the circumstances in situations where there is … a potential cause for concern”.
That is the essence of what this amendment seeks to achieve, but there is also an issue about how councils play their part and this is also implicit in the amendment.
We have discussed council tax support schemes. In many cases, the cut in support for schemes, effectively of the order of 20%, will leave poor people having to pay council tax when they were previously exempt. Even a few pounds a week could push those existing at the margins over the edge, especially when coupled with the other cuts that they have to endure. Given the reminder that local authorities have had from central government about their responsibilities regarding equalities duties, homelessness provisions and the Child Poverty Act, this places a special onus on local authorities to ensure that life is not made even more intolerable by insensitive and inappropriate enforcement processes. We welcome the content of these amendments.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for introducing this amendment. There has been wide discussion, as I rather expected, and I acknowledge the part played by the trust of the Reverend Paul Nicolson and the work it does in support of people who end up in serious debt. I also note what has been said about many people in serious debt having mental health issues. I agree that these are all matters that ought to be taken into account by local authorities, and doing so is very much part of their work. As for the advice agencies, the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, will know that this is a matter for local authorities. The funding, apart from the Lord Chancellor’s funding, by and large comes from local authorities and therefore it is in their own interest to ensure that people have proper advice.
The discussion, as I would have expected, has gone widely into the problems that bring in bailiffs, but it is the bailiffs on whom we are concentrating today. That is what the amendment is about, although I understand that it has triggered much concern about the general situation. Unfortunately, it does not quite do the trick. The noble Baroness probably did not think that it did but that it was another opportunity to have this discussion and bring the matter to wider attention again. It does not work for local government because, essentially, it is not properly worded. It requires authorities to include procedures in their contracts with bailiff companies covering the enforcement of council tax. These would allow the bailiffs to refer the decision to take enforcement action to an authority for reconsideration where there are concerns about the debtor’s liability or their ability to pay. I agree with the noble Lord that that should just be part of the practice: that if bailiffs find something wrong, they should automatically take that into account.
I should explain that the amendment does not accurately reflect the way that bailiffs are authorised to take enforcement action in respect of council tax, because no warrant issued by the local authority is involved in the process. Under the Council Tax (Administration and Enforcement) Regulations 1992, bailiffs can be used to recover unpaid council tax—that is, levy distress—only where a magistrates’ court has made a liability order. That was the point made by my noble friend Lord Lucas.
The local authority is allowed to apply for only reasonable costs, and those are capped at £70. There will be further costs only after distress from the bailiffs is levied. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Smith, that a great deal of work is involved before schedules are produced before the court—I used to deal with them frequently, and magistrates do not just wipe them through; a lot of questions are asked.
That was a slight diversion. I am keenly aware that the use of bailiffs to enforce unpaid council tax is an emotive and sensitive issue—we have heard about many of the reasons why today—particularly when used against vulnerable people. Many disquieting examples have been given this afternoon of where that is happening. The Government believe that the use of bailiffs should be a last resort. I think that most local authorities believe that and that everything else should be done before they say that it must go to the bailiffs. It follows that we do not believe that they should be commissioned disproportionately; they should be a last resort. Councils should take direct responsibility for ensuring that bailiffs abide by acceptable practices. No one can be content with people working on their or the courts’ behalf who do not act reasonably, courteously and sensitively.
However, whether enforcement action is justified is a matter for local authorities and, finally, the courts, having taken account of all the relevant information on a case-by-case basis. Of course it is the local authority’s responsibility to ensure that it is taken only after all the procedures and all efforts have been made to have the matter dealt with in another way.
Although the Government have no plans to make changes to the enforcement regime for council tax, which is what we are talking about in particular, as my noble friend Lord Lucas mentioned, we are looking at bailiff reform. There is a wide perception across the country and across government that it is not working absolutely brilliantly. I say to the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, that we are talking about the bailiff service, not the enforcement service.
The Ministry of Justice consultation, Transforming Bailiff Action, which was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, closed on 14 May. It looked at how the Government—that is, going across government —can provide more protection against aggressive bailiffs and encourage more flexibility in their use, including the need for more care in how the bailiffs go about their business. One reason why the amendment is not appropriate to this Bill is that the issue goes across government. The use of bailiffs is a responsibility of the Ministry of Justice; then we get to the Department for Work and Pensions, and then we come back to the DCLG. It is extremely important that this does not just get logged in one department; it must be addressed across the piece. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, knows that because she said so. She knows that the amendment is not appropriate, but I do not go over her will to see this matter debated—it is very sensible.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I should say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, that I will indeed do what I can to provide her with some evidence. I should be grateful if either she or the noble Lord, Lord Tope, or anyone else who was belabouring me for being beastly to councils could point out to me where on a council’s website there are references to the sort of behaviour which they say goes on as a matter of routine. I have just looked at some; I looked in vain at Norwich, and at several others, and they all lay out the bare bones of the charges and the bailiffs and say nothing about finding your way into the care of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, or other ways in which to deal with the problems that you may have. It is not there on their websites. I cannot say that I have seen them all, but I have looked at half a dozen in the course of the winding up. I would be very grateful if those who have belaboured me could show me where on the websites of the councils with which they have involvement this sort of attitude to people who fail to pay their council tax is demonstrated. I hope that we shall manage to make some progress at Report in this direction, because it seems that there is considerable scope for not only bailiffs but councils behaving better to take care of the vulnerable but also effectively and efficiently recover council tax while causing a minimum of distress on the way. I am delighted to hear that things are better than I had understood, but I would love to see some evidence.
Baroness Meacher
My Lords, I thank the many noble Lords who have spoken in this debate so powerfully and helpfully. I must also thank the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust and the reverend Paul Nicholson, who has been behind all this.
Important points were made in this debate, albeit that, as I mentioned in our meeting with the Minister, this is a probing amendment raised in the context of the DWP and the MoJ. The point was to bring to Ministers’ notice the relationship between the three departments and the similar issues that apply, whatever words one might use. I certainly agree that the amendment does not deal with all the problems. I particularly endorse the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that we need a regulatory or licensing system. Ten years ago, when I was chairman of the Security Industry Authority, I pressed hard, as far as I could at that stage, for such a regulatory system for bailiffs. Often they say it takes 10 years before an idea comes to fruition, so this is about time for the regulation of bailiffs. I am sure that it was raised 20 years ago, and, no doubt, 30 years ago, but there we go. It is certainly time that that was done.
I also very strongly support what was said about advice agencies. It is in no one’s interest that advice agencies are being cut back now. I appeal to the Minister to do anything that she can to ring-fence or support local advice agencies and prevent the totally destructive withdrawal of funds from those bodies. Of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith, said, local authorities need to collect the money, but they seem to be spending an awful lot of money on trying to do so, which again is self-destructive.
I understand the Minister’s comments, but we need this looked at across the three key departments—there may be others—to see whether sensible regulations can be drawn up. As has been said, guidance is fine, but it is not mandatory. We would like mandatory provisions within regulations that cover the collection of debts from those families and individuals who are in financial hardship and where some injustice is being done.
Having said all that, and hoping that we will have further discussions with the department and its officials, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
“( ) In Schedule 11 to the LGFA 1988, in paragraph 8(3)(ea) (regulations about procedure before tribunals)—
(a) for sub-paragraph (iv) substitute—“(iv) paragraph 15A or 15B of Schedule 2 to the 1992 Act or regulations under that Schedule;”,(b) omit the “or” following that sub-paragraph, and(c) after “1996” insert “or of information supplied under section 131 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 for purposes relating to council tax;”.”
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the amendment will enable regulations to be made about how information supplied to billing authorities by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Department for Work and Pensions may be used as evidence in an appeal to the Valuation Tribunal.
As noble Lords know, data-sharing will be an important way to maximise convenience and reduce complexity for applicants, while helping to reduce administrative costs. It will reduce the need for applicants to have repeatedly to provide the same information and evidence to various public sector bodies.
Section 131 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 provides for the sharing of information relating to social security benefits and welfare services with a qualifying person for prescribed purposes relating to welfare services or council tax. That will enable data held by the Department for Work and Pensions about current benefits and, in future, universal credit, to be provided to English and Welsh billing authorities and Scottish local authorities for the administration of local council tax reduction schemes. With the move to universal credit and the sharing of real-time income information, an increasing amount of the information that the Department for Work and Pensions will use to calculate entitlement will originate with and be owned by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Amendments made in the other place introduced new paragraphs 15A and 15B to the Local Government Finance Act 1992. They will allow for information held by HMRC to be shared for prescribed purposes relating to council tax.
Amendment 96ZA makes an amendment to paragraph 8(3)(ea) of Schedule 11 to the Local Government Finance Act 1988. This currently provides that regulations may be made about the use of evidence at the valuation tribunal, including, in particular, the use as evidence of information supplied under specified legislation. This amendment adds to the list of specified legislation, to ensure that regulations may also be made about the use as evidence of information supplied by HM Revenue and Customs under new paragraphs 15A and 15B in Schedule 2 to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 and the Department for Work and Pensions under Section 131 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 for purposes relating to council tax. The amendment is being made to allow regulations also to be made on how information supplied to a billing authority by HM Revenue and Customs and by the Department for Work and Pensions for council tax purposes may subsequently be used as evidence in any appeal in relation to an applicant’s council tax liability. With that explanation, I beg to move.
Baroness Hanham
“Power for HMRC to supply information for purposes of rates in Northern Ireland
(1) A Revenue and Customs official may supply information which is held by the Revenue and Customs in connection with a function of the Revenue and Customs to a qualifying person for prescribed purposes relating to rates.
(2) The following are qualifying persons—
(a) the Department of Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland (“DFP”);(b) the Northern Ireland Housing Executive (“NIHE”);(c) a person authorised to exercise any function of DFP or NIHE relating to rates;(d) a person providing services to DFP or NIHE relating to rates.(3) Information supplied under this section may be used for another prescribed purpose relating to rates.
(4) Information supplied under this section may be supplied to another qualifying person for a prescribed purpose relating to rates (whether or not that is a purpose for which it was supplied).
(5) A person to whom subsection (6) applies is guilty of an offence if the person discloses without lawful authority any information—
(a) which comes to the person by virtue of this section, and(b) which relates to a particular person.(6) This subsection applies to—
(a) a qualifying person other than DFP;(b) a person who is or has been a director, member of the committee of management, manager, secretary or other similar officer of a qualifying person;(c) a person who is or has been an employee of a qualifying person.(7) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—
(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years or a fine, or both;(b) on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or both. (8) It is not an offence under this section—
(a) to disclose information in the form of a summary or collection of information so framed as not to enable information relating to any particular person to be identified from it;(b) to disclose information which has previously been disclosed to the public with lawful authority.(9) It is a defence for a person (“D”) charged with an offence under this section to prove that at the time of the alleged offence—
(a) D believed that D was making the disclosure in question with lawful authority and had no reasonable cause to believe otherwise, or(b) D believed that the information in question had previously been disclosed to the public with lawful authority and had no reasonable cause to believe otherwise.(10) For the purposes of this section, “lawful authority” has the meaning given by section 117 of the Social Security Administration (Northern Ireland) Act 1992.
(11) In this section—
“Revenue and Customs official”, “the Revenue and Customs” and “function of the Revenue and Customs” have the same meaning as in section 18 of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005;
“rates” has the same meaning as in the Rates (Northern Ireland) Order 1977 (S.I. 1977/2157 (N.I.28));
“prescribed” means prescribed by regulations made by DFP.
(12) Regulations under this section must not be made except with the consent of the Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
(13) The power to make regulations under this section is exercisable by statutory rule for the purposes of the Statutory Rules (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 (S.I. 1979/1573 (N.I.12)).
(14) Regulations under this section are to be the subject to negative resolution (within the meaning of section 41(6) of the Interpretation Act (Northern Ireland) 1954).
(15) This section comes into force at the end of the period of 2 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”
Baroness Hanham
Amendments 96A, 98, 99, 100, 102 and 103 insert a new clause to allow Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to supply information for prescribed purposes relating to rates to the Department of Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. They provide for offences relating to the misuse of that information and make consequential amendments to Clause 19 of the Bill. Amendments are also made to Clause 17 to provide that any consequential changes to an Act of the Scottish Parliament, an Act or measure of the National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland legislation will be subject to affirmative resolution procedure. Consequential amendments are also made to Clause 19 to provide that this new clause extends to Northern Ireland and Clause 17 extends to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Data-sharing will be an important way of maximising convenience and reducing complexity for claimants, while also helping to minimise administrative costs. It will reduce the need for individuals to repeatedly have to provide the same information and evidence to various public sector bodies. From April next year, in a similar way to the council tax reduction schemes introduced by this Bill, the current system of supporting households with rates payments in Northern Ireland will be taken out of the social security system and become a relief funded from the Northern Ireland block grant. The primary purpose of the new clause is to allow the supply of HMRC information to the appropriate bodies to assess rates support for vulnerable households in Northern Ireland.
Proposed new subsection (1) of Amendment 96A will allow HMRC to supply information held for the purposes of its functions to a “qualifying person”. Proposed new subsection (2) in Amendment 96A defines qualifying persons as DFP and NIHE, as well as anyone authorised to exercise any function of those bodies, and to service providers for purposes relating to rates. I will find out what those abbreviations mean and come back to noble Lords.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this is totally clear to us and we are very happy to support the amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
“Grants paid under section 70 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012
(1) Any grant paid to local authorities under section 70 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 (social fund) shall be expended by the local authority only for said purposes.
(2) Any such grants will be made under the guidance of the Secretary of State with regard to the application of any “local connection rules” including so that any such rule does not apply to—
(a) people who have fled domestic violence; (b) young people who have left local authority care;(c) people who are homeless, or who have been homeless within the last 12 months;(d) people who have left institutional or residential care, including a hospital, prison or young offenders’ institution.”
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I can hardly hope to match that performance, but I shall do my humble best. I rise to move Amendment 97 in the name of my noble friend Lady Lister of Burtersett, to which my name is also attached. My noble friend apologises to the Committee for her absence today. She is receiving an honorary degree, which could not be readily rearranged, so, disappointed as she is—particularly, I think, to have missed that last amendment—she has asked me to do my best to share with the Committee the points she would have wished to make. I acknowledge her considerable expertise and any errors that creep in are entirely my own.
In April 2013, local authorities will have to deal with the transfer of responsibility not just for council tax benefit but also for the discretionary Social Fund, described by charities as a lifeline for some of the poorest and most marginalised people in society. Through a system of community care grants and crisis loans, as noble Lords will know, the discretionary Social Fund provides vital cash assistance to some of the most vulnerable members of the community. Community care grants help people on out-of-work benefits to remain in or set up their own home and to retain their independence. These may be, for example, young people leaving a children’s home or foster care; people with chronic health conditions or disabilities who need aids or adaptations in order to allow them to live in the community; or women who have fled domestic violence. Crisis loans are interest-free loans payable when they are the only way of preventing serious damage or serious risk to health or safety as a consequence of an emergency or a disaster.
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 abolishes these provisions with no guarantee that local authorities will pick up the pieces using the money allocated to them. The first part of Amendment 97 is designed to ensure that the money transferred to local authorities is used for the purposes intended. Experience suggests that without a clear legal obligation, there is no way of ensuring that the money allocated to local authorities will be spent in the way that the Government and Parliament intend. This is not a criticism of local authorities, but simply a realistic appraisal that, in the current climate, many local authorities are struggling to meet their statutory functions in the face of budget cuts to which the Bill adds. Research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation indicates that:
“It cannot be assumed that the needs of disadvantaged residents and communities will inevitably be to the fore as councils manage budget reductions”.
This pot of money, transferred to local authorities to meet the needs of some of the most disadvantaged residents, could be very tempting.
The experience of Supporting People, a fund designed to help vulnerable groups, is not very encouraging. Since the ring fence was removed, overall spending on Supporting People has been cut by over 10 percentage points more than the settlement received by local authorities for that purpose would require; and that is an existing budget—how much greater will the temptation be with a new budget? The fieldwork done by the Department for Work and Pensions with local authorities shows some interesting things. While some authorities were unenthusiastic about any ring-fencing, a number were,
“concerned that without a ringfence ... funding would quickly become amalgamated into existing budgets and as a result its identity, visibility and purpose would be lost. A second concern was that councillors or directorate heads”—
none present, I am sure—
“would redirect the funding to plug gaps in other budgets”.
It is just such fears that this amendment is designed to allay.
Both the present and the previous Social Fund Commissioner have expressed similar anxieties. The potential consequences have been spelt out by organisations such as Citizens Advice and Family Action: greater reliance on over-stretched charities, on food banks and on high-cost lenders, as the Joint Committee on Human Rights also warned in its report on the Welfare Reform Bill. Otherwise, people must simply go without, with potential risk to health or safety. I am sure that other noble Lords have similar experiences but I know that the food bank in Durham, which my church supports, is seeing demand rise faster than we could ever have imagined, and that is before the Social Fund is abolished. Therefore, I dread to think what is coming down the track towards us next.
During the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill, the noble Lords, Lord Freud and Lord de Mauley, made clear their commitment to ensuring that the money is spent on and reaches the vulnerable people for whom it is intended. I know that they have gone to some length to try to make sure that this happens by stipulating that the money will be part of a special revenue grant, accompanied by a detailed settlement letter, the details of which we eagerly await. When can we expect that settlement letter?
Ministers may wish to resist this attempt to underwrite the Government’s own objectives in law, perhaps on the grounds that it might stifle innovation or that councils might prefer to invest the money in existing services for vulnerable people. I would never want to stifle innovation, but there is no reason why the amendment should do so. However, investing in existing services, even where these support vulnerable people, may well not be enough.
In his latest annual report, the Social Fund Commissioner warned that the fund’s casework experience suggests that many social fund applicants are not known at all to other agencies such as social services. Citizens Advice has advised its bureaux that entitlement to social services is often set at a very high threshold, which could exclude many of those currently eligible for help under the Social Fund. In other words, they are not necessarily the same people. It believes that it is crucial that there continues to be a last resort source of cash for people who currently apply for crisis loans to meet basic needs, such as fuel, following a disaster or emergency. A recent study from the Child Poverty Action Group of how London local authorities are preparing to deliver the new responsibilities found no authority planning to provide any cash support, although some had not entirely ruled it out.
Proposed new subsection (2) in Amendment 97 addresses a concern raised by a number of charities that local authorities might be tempted to impose a local or residence condition as a way of rationing assistance—in other words, that they might confine help to people who already have a local connection. However, many people who currently qualify for help from the Social Fund are just the people who are least likely to have an existing local connection—for example, women who have fled domestic violence, young people who have left care and others who have left institutional care, or homeless people. Again, this issue has been highlighted by the London authorities study by the CPAG. Its report notes:
“A key issue emerged around local connection rules. Charities ... expressed fears that if applicants to local schemes are asked to prove a local connection, families who have had to move, such as those who have experienced domestic violence, or those leaving prison, may find themselves with no way of accessing support”.
Authorities,
“emphasised the need for an integrated approach”.
The report pointed out that,
“the issue of local connection presents collective action problems; if one local authority chooses to apply local connection rules and others do not, those who do not are likely to see an unsustainable increase in demand for their schemes'”.
The report expresses a preference for no local connection tests so that those who cross authority boundaries can access support, and it calls for a strategic steer from government. This amendment would go slightly further than a strategic steer but not as far as preventing any local connection rules at all. It would simply require local authorities to make grants in accordance with guidance about such rules, and that such guidance should ensure that local connection rules are not applied to the vulnerable groups listed in the amendment.
In the House of Commons, when questioned on this matter, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions assured Members that local authorities had a “moral duty” in this area. I welcome this recognition of a moral duty, but I encourage the Minister cosndier how which she can make sure that that moral duty is fulfilled. The CPAG study picked up concern among local authorities that the reduction in funding for crisis loans to 2005-06 levels will leave them unable to meet considerable amounts of need, so the temptation to use local connection rules as a rationing device could be overwhelming for some of them. Clear guidance on this issue would also be in line with the Social Fund Commissioner’s emphasis on the need for guidelines that,
“set parameters for local discretion”,
so as to,
“achieve some broad consistency of purpose and approach”.
If the Minister cannot accept the amendment, can she at least reassure the Committee that she will consider the case for guidance on local connection in the settlement letter in the way that I described? However, I hope that that will not be necessary and that the Government will accept the amendment. It would cost no money but would provide some protection for some of the most vulnerable members of the community and ensure that the money voted by Parliament was used for the purposes intended.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I strongly support the amendment moved so powerfully by my noble friend Lady Sherlock. I want to add two further points to the admirable way in which she raised the concerns that I think we all share. The first was the implication for social workers and the second is the implication for certain local authorities. I will glare at the noble Lord, Lord Tope, when we come to the second point as he will guess where I am going on that.
On the implications for social workers, they are being asked to undertake a role that is not consistent with their current responsibilities. Their work towards helping children with occasional financial support is based on Section 17 of the Children Act 1987, under which they are expected to intervene when children’s health and development is seriously at risk. That may involve issues of abuse or when children need to go into grandparents’ care, and so on. It was never intended to meet basic needs of relieving poverty, providing family housing or accommodation for children separately from the parents unless it was necessary to promote and safeguard their welfare. As a result of the Social Fund—whether ring-fenced or otherwise—going over to local government, social workers will be asked to do two additional things as well as trying to deliver the purposes of Section 17 of the 1987 Act.
First, it is feared that local authorities will not inevitably budget for sufficient funds. Money might run out in January, which is always a problem with cash-capped grants, or the amount will be so low that the Section 17 work will be drawn on, which will diminish the work that we are currently doing to help children who face abuse. Secondly, and more worryingly, social work time will be taken up with assessing whether a child whose parents cannot meet their basic needs is being neglected or is in need according to the Section 17 definition. They will be saying no frequently as poverty alone, or lack of accommodation, does not fit the Section 17 definition. That was taken away from child protection and other work with families with complex needs. It will create friction with families that they are trying to help, as they will frequently have to say that they do not fit the legal criteria and will appear heartless.
Asking local authorities to now be the gateway to cash handouts for cookers, tables and chairs, bedding, and so on, is inconsistent with the role that social workers actually have, which is trying to help families to develop. The same will apply equally to local authorities and council tax benefit. There is a real problem for council social workers. Although I cannot speak for the British Association of Social Workers and do not have its views, social workers I have talked to, including eminent professors of social work, are deeply concerned about what they regard as the deforming and warping of the role of social workers. They will now be guardians of the gateway to cash handouts in a way they have not been before and do not wish to be now.
My second problem is the implication for two-tier authorities. Providing social services is a county function and housing is a district council function. They are splintered because of the two-tier structure that we have in this country. Social services will have discretionary Social Fund moneys, often for claimants for whom they have not previously worked, across a county-wide area—40 miles by 60 miles, perhaps, or with a million people living in it. They will have to make judgments about who to help with a limited budget that is not ring-fenced and which may be used for child protection or social care for the elderly, which has increasing dominance and a higher priority in most county council budgets—and perfectly reasonably so.
Housing authorities, of course, have responsibility for discretionary housing. My authority in Norwich has enough to support 50 families. In the previous year it ran out in November. Some of those families in distress will be the same families; some of them will be dealt with by county council social workers and the Social Fund, and many of the same families will possibly be dealt with by the local authorities at the district level, handling the housing discretionary payments. They are often likely to be the same families in the future. For unitary authorities, I hope that there will be a cohesive service as they should be able to manage the local connection issues. For cities such as mine where we are stuck against our will in a two-tier system, it will not be easy to handle. There will be costly duplication and even more profound problems about the localisation issue; the county might be helping people who live in one district where they have a local connection whose housing needs may be experienced in a different district. The same family may get help simultaneously from welfare rights people at district level as well as social services at county level.
As the measure stands, it is a mess. As noble Lords will know, if they know about two-tier authorities, I cannot see how it can work, when you have county council social workers trying to dish out cash hand payments to a proportion of 1 million people at county council level while simultaneously the district authority is responsible for discretionary housing payments which may have been engendered by the same crisis and is supposed to maintain a separate fund, also not ring-fenced. This is costly and it is duplication. At the very least it should be ring-fenced; at the very least there should be issues of guidance—and, at the very least, central government should require county social services to work closely with district authorities to try to overcome what this Government in a previous incarnation splintered—I refer to housing from social services—which affects the most vulnerable people in our communities.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have just heard a compelling and comprehensive case from and on behalf of my noble friends, with which I wholly agree. As my noble friend Lady Sherlock said, it does not cost any money and it would provide some protection for some of the most vulnerable members of our community. If we could unite around this issue, it would be a good way in which to conclude our Committee deliberations.
The proposal concerning local connection rules is at the very least something that the Government should accept. They are prepared to give central direction to protect pensioners whom they see as vulnerable when it comes to council tax support schemes, so why do we not have some central guidance to protect those fleeing domestic violence, those leaving care, the homeless and those leaving institutional care? My noble friend Lady Sherlock quoted assurances received from Ministers during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill to the effect that funding for what was the Social Fund, now transferred to local authorities will be part of a special revenue grant accompanied by a detailed settlement letter. Can the Minister deal specifically with the inquiry made by my noble friend on that point? We know that there will be a revenue support grant for the first couple of years of the business rate retention scheme, but the position after this is a little opaque. In any event, can the Minister confirm that the funding in question will be provided by central government in addition to the central share of the business rate, on top of the central share?
We know that councils will try to do the right thing for those who most need their support, but life has been made incredibly difficult for them by prior cuts, the cuts in this Bill and more cuts to come. In all the near impossible judgments that councils will have to make, we can provide just a small voice for those who might otherwise not be heard. I support my noble friend’s amendment.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, this has been a short but interesting debate. I thank the noble Baroness for raising this on behalf of the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, and I should say how delighted we are about her honorary degree. I hope that it is in something associated with what we are doing here—but, if not, it is none the less a great achievement.
Amendment 97 relates to the Social Fund. As the noble Baroness said, this is provided for in the Welfare Reform Act, for which the Department for Work and Pensions is responsible. It states that:
“Any grant paid to local authorities under section 70 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 … shall be expended by the local authority only for said purposes”,
and that:
“Any such grants will be made under the guidance of the Secretary of State with regard to the application of any ‘local connection rules’ … so that any such rule does not apply to”,
various categories of vulnerable people.
Proposed new subsection (1) of the amendment may be based on a confusion, as Section 70 of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 relates to the winding up of the Social Fund and transfer of money into the consolidated fund, rather than the transfer of money to local authorities. However, I believe that the intention behind the amendment is to guarantee that grants allocated to local authorities for local welfare provision, following the abolition of community care grants and crisis loans from April 2013, are used for the purpose intended.
I reassure the Committee that the settlement letter to which the noble Baroness referred will accompany that funding. I am not yet sure when that letter is due, but I will make inquiries and let her know. The settlement letter will set out what the funding is to be used for, the underlying principles and the outcome that must be achieved—although not the method that should be used to achieve it. It will state that the funding is to concentrate resources on those facing the greatest difficulty in managing their income and to enable a more flexible response to unavoidable need.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
How will social workers who have never dealt with those families know? There may be a million people in the area. How will they know which of the 100, 200 or 300 families might need and be entitled to help under what used to be the Social Fund?
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, that is something that the settlement letter will make clear and local authorities will have to make clear to their social workers how they are to administer it. That comes with any legislation: people have to take up the baton and carry out what is asked of them.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
So the Minister accepts that, in addition to child protection work, social care and all the rest of it, there is to be a new tranche of social work activity at a time when they are very hard pressed to do what they currently have to. They will have to be the gateway or the monitor of the cash handouts under the Social Fund.
Baroness Hanham
My Lords, the applications will be made to the local authority, which will presumably decide whether they are warranted or not.
The letter will make explicit that the funding is make new provision for when community care grants and general living expenses—crisis loans—are abolished. It will explain what community care grants are awarded for and why the crisis loans were awarded. Without curtailing the freedom of local authorities to tailor provision, the settlement letter will ensure that the money intended for vulnerable people goes to them. In addition, the Department for Work and Pensions plans to conduct a review in 2014-15 of a cross-section of local authorities to ask them to report on how they have used the funding for the new local provision. That will be aided by the fact that the funding is through a separate, identifiable grant.
I assure noble Lords that the Government are committed to ensuring that the funding goes to help the most vulnerable. That is why we have put the provisions in place. I therefore urge noble Lords to conclude that the amendment is not required to meet that aim.
Baroness Hanham
Directing local authorities to use funding in a particular way would go against one of the fundamental principles of this reform. The policy gives local authorities the freedom to deliver for the public rather than central government and to do what is right for people in their area. We think it important to resist any attempts to curtail those freedoms or dampen down local innovation, so I urge that the proposed new subsection (1) in the amendment be rejected.
I turn to proposed new subsection (2). It is intended to ensure that certain particularly vulnerable groups are not rendered ineligible for support on the basis of a test for local residence or connections. The Department for Work and Pensions has discussed that issue with local authorities—who, of course, are already familiar with it. It is not an issue limited to the Social Fund, as local authorities already deal with boundary issues in the delivery of other services, such as housing the homeless.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, that pertains to district councils. The Government are assuming that they are dealing with unitary authorities that therefore have a body of experience, but half the country is in a two-tier structure and they are asking social workers to do what they have never done, whereas all the expertise is at district level. It would be much more sensible if the money had been aligned and it was for district councils to allow for the discretionary housing payment.
Baroness Hanham
The noble Baroness makes her point. I cannot comment any further on that.
Local authorities already have many duties to provide assistance to vulnerable people under existing legislation and frequently co-operate with other local authorities in doing so. For example, there are differences in what they will be asked to do. A London local authority might be dealing with a large transient population, while a local authority on the south coast of England might be dealing with an older population. That is one of the reasons why each local authority will need to have flexibility to design its own scheme to meet its appropriate requirements.
Furthermore, we will encourage local authorities to link support across boundaries. This already happens in places such as Wandsworth, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea, which already work together to provide joint services. This is done across the country where they may not link up in quite the same way as this group, but they are already working together. The groups referred to in proposed new subsection (2), including young homeless people, those fleeing domestic violence, young people leaving care and people returning to the community from institutional or residential care, already receive assistance from local authorities and central government. Local authorities have, for example, a number of existing responsibilities in relation to the provision of emergency and longer-term accommodation. They have particular responsibilities in respect of those with a priority need, such as those who are vulnerable because of age, mental illness or disability and those with dependent children.
Section 199 of the Housing Act 1996 sets out what constitutes a local connection in relation to people who are homeless. There is also statutory guidance for local authorities from the Department for Communities and Local Government to which local authorities must have regard. The effect is that people initially receive help from the local authority to which they apply whether or not they have a local connection. However, those with a local connection to another area may be referred there, unless they are at risk of violence if they return. A local authority which houses someone would be in a good position to provide help through the new local provision, for example, with furnishing the accommodation that it arranges. I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, does not agree with that.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, the Minister makes my point for me. How much easier it would be if housing and social services were aligned.
Baroness Hanham
This is an example of how the new local provision will allow local authorities to deliver a more comprehensive service as they can use the new provision alongside already existing support. As regards young people leaving local authority care, local authorities have a duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child, and have duties until the child is 21. Local authorities also have duties to support disabled people or those who are destitute. They must make arrangements for promoting the welfare of those with a disability or mental disorder, including the welfare needs of people leaving hospital, having received in-patient care for a mental disorder.
The National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 requires local authorities to prepare a plan for the provision of community care services in consultation with relevant bodies and to assess the needs of people who may be in need. Local authorities are therefore already required by multiple legislative duties to provide support to the most vulnerable. I think that one would accept that they have a moral duty to do so. They will be able to use this experience to deliver the new local provision, so there is no need for local connection eligibility rules to be published. They already have duties to the most vulnerable and are familiar with dealing with boundary issues. I also remind the Committee that the new local provision is not the only support that will be available. There will also be a national payments-on-account scheme to replace budgeting loans and crisis loans for alignment. This will cover need that arises as a result of the benefit system, such as a change in circumstances or a delay in receiving benefit. It will also enable those on the lowest incomes to access interest-free advances of their universal credit as budgeting advances.
In conclusion, the safeguards to which I have referred will ensure that money intended for vulnerable people goes to them. The most discretionary support will be better tailored so that they receive what they need when it is delivered locally. The new local provision and the national provision of payments on account will complement each other. Taken as a whole they will provide more effective and better targeted support. I hope that with that long explanation the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Sherlock
Before the noble Baroness sits down, may I ask two questions? I will respond to her points in a moment. First, is there any requirement that some or all of this provision by local authorities should be in cash? Secondly, I understood her to be saying that the letter of settlement would specify the purpose to which the money should be applied and the outcomes to be expected.
During the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill there was a detailed debate in the Chamber in which the late and much lamented Lord Newton of Braintree asked the Minister what would happen if the local authority were to take the money and spend it on something totally different, such as a road or a swimming pool. This became a matter of some debate. In the end I finally got up and pressed the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, myself and asked, what would happen if a local authority spent the money on a swimming pool? His response was:
“My Lords, the local authority will not spend the money on a swimming pool”.—[Official Report, 17/1/12; col. 475.]
So I put the question now to the Minister: what would happen, what action would the Government take, if a local authority spent the money on a swimming pool or a road?
Baroness Hanham
If the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, said that it was not going to happen, it will not happen.
Baroness Sherlock
A very nice try on the Minister’s part and stylishly done, but one of the reasons I am so glad that she is here is that, during that point we were very conscious that this is a matter of what local authorities do themselves and how they make a choice is a matter in which the DCLG has particular expertise. I would not expect the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, to have the level of expertise in local authority behaviour that I know the Minister has. Surely, she can do better than that.
Baroness Hanham
The noble Lady is not going to get better than that. I have had a huge number of detailed questions about the Social Fund. They are all the responsibility of the Department for Work and Pensions, by and large, until those things are formally announced and we can see how they are going to work. We will ensure that noble Lords and the noble Baroness receive any further information that there is.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I am sorry to intervene, but there is an aspect of this which I do not think has been touched on and that is that there is a new burdens aspect, not in respect of the transfer of the money, but in the cost of administering delivery of the scheme. Presumably, the cost at the moment is borne by the DWP. That cost will have to be met, in one way or another, by the local authorities now actually administering the scheme. Have the DWP or the Department for Communities and Local Government costed that aspect, and will it provide the resources for local authorities under the new burdens doctrine?
Baroness Hanham
The answer to the noble Lord’s question is yes. The Government have said that any new burdens will be funded and the amount of the new burden will be based on what the Department for Work and Pensions currently spends to administer these parts of the Social Fund.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Will the noble Baroness say a little more about this settlement letter? I am trying to envisage the settlement letter in the context of business rate retention schemes and revenue support grants, but will she say whether the funding stream for this purpose is going to be additional and will not come from the central share of business rates, which accrue to Government and then go back? Is it going to be funding on top of that?
Baroness Hanham
This is funding being moved from one area to another, so is it additional? I suppose the answer is probably yes, because it is coming from the Department for Work and Pensions into the Department for Communities and Local Government. Is it additional in terms of revenue support grant? I think the answer is probably yes, because it is within the funding of the local authority but expected to be used for the Social Fund purpose. As for the settlement letter, it will include the detail. I do not know, I am afraid, what the settlement letter will be. I suspect that there are a lot of people in the DWP who do not know either, but I have told noble Lords that as soon as we know when it is being issued and what it contains, we will let them know.
Baroness Sherlock
I thank the Minister for the information she has given me today. I confess that I am disappointed, partly by her belief that I was asking questions of enormous detail. I really only asked two questions at the end. One was, will somebody have to give money out in cash? The second was, what will the Government do if they do not spend it in the way that they are asked to spend it?
They do not seem to be matters of detail: they are important matters about how the scheme will work and whether the Government will be able to do what the Minister, as well as the noble Lords, Lord De Mauley and Lord Freud, have pledged, which is to make sure that the money goes to the purposes to which Parliament intended.
I also do not find the case persuasive that local authorities have a range of other statutory duties already relating to vulnerable people. They already have all those duties and yet successive Governments of different persuasions have found it necessary none the less to have a Social Fund that people could go to, as a last resort, to get some cash for crisis situations. I see nothing in what the Minister said to suggest that that need has somehow disappeared. I therefore find it impossible to understand why the existence of those duties in other areas precludes the need for access to a last resort scheme of cash in the way that successive Governments have seen the need for.
The kinds of things that are bought in requirement at the moment will not all be picked up in the way that the Minister described through budgeting schemes or in dealing with late benefit payments. Those are specifically to deal with particular circumstances in cash. The fact that CPAG found that, so far, no London authorities were intending to give cash suggests grave cause for concern about what will happen to those vulnerable people when that happens.
I now have some information. I would be grateful if the Minister could write to me before the next stage because this is something that we will have to consider carefully at Report. I will go back and look carefully at her remarks, but Lord Newton of Braintree made it clear during the passage of the Welfare Reform Bill that he intended to come back at Report. I so wish that he were here to do that. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, whose work has gone on behind all of this and I will do all that we can on his behalf. Given that this is Grand Committee, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Hanham
( ) an Act of Parliament;( ) an Act of the Scottish Parliament;( ) an Act or Measure of the National Assembly for Wales;( ) Northern Ireland legislation as defined in section 24 of the Interpretation Act 1978.”
Baroness Hanham
“(2A) Sections (Power for HMRC to supply information for purposes of rates in Northern Ireland) and 17 extend to England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”
Baroness Hanham
House of Lords
Nigeria
(11 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Cox
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the recent escalation of violence in Nigeria.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, the Islamist extremist movement known as Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for many attacks in Nigeria. Ongoing intercommunal tensions have also led to conflict, which has recently been exacerbated by attacks on places of worship such as the one in Kaduna state on 17 June. The British Government utterly condemn such violence and work with the Nigerian Government and international partners to ensure the location of a comprehensive strategy to tackle security threats.
Baroness Cox
I thank the Minister for his helpful reply. Is he aware that I recently returned from Kano, Bauchi and Plateau states, where Christians are living in siege-like conditions, especially on Sundays, when many have been attacked and killed during church services; where it is becoming increasingly difficult for Christian leaders to sustain their commendable efforts to prevent retaliation, with the risk of escalating intercommunal conflict, as happened in Kaduna, to which the noble Lord referred; and where there are concerns over the possible destabilisation of Nigeria itself? Will Her Majesty’s Government raise with the Nigerian Government the concerns of the Christian communities, including the frequent failure of the authorities to prosecute and punish the perpetrators of violence against them?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am aware of the noble Baroness’s recent visits and I was very grateful for the very informative report that she shared with Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials on the situation. The British Government are appalled as well as deeply and continuously concerned by what has gone on and by the situation that she described. I can only say that we are fully engaged with the Nigerian Government on these issues and on the essential need to protect minorities more effectively and to bring the perpetrators of violence to justice.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, we are at the beginning of Questions. Perhaps we may hear from the Opposition first. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, will then be next.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
The Minister will be well aware that Boko Haram is only part of an Islamist tide sweeping across the Sahel. In northern Nigeria, a particular problem is the atrocities against the Christian community—the attempt, in effect, to cleanse northern Nigeria of Christians. What specifically are the Government doing to assist Nigeria, possibly in co-operation with our French colleagues because of the general nature of the problem, and to what extent do we fear for the unity of Nigeria?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord is right that this is part of a larger series of trends and developments, some of them of a very ominous and dangerous kind —not least the instability in Mali and the attacks on Timbuktu that have been very much in the news. All those events reflect and connect with the activities of Boko Haram, to which the noble Lord referred. We are working with the Nigerians at all times to see how we can help them increase security. At the same time we are working with the French and other EU partners to address the whole issue of the Sahel, where all these dangers are arising. The noble Lord is absolutely right to call attention to them.
Lord Chidgey
If I may, I will take that point a little further, although my noble friend has just offered us an answer. What assessment have our Government made of the links between Boko Haram, AQIM in Mali and al-Shabaab in Somalia in their logistical, ideological and political operations?
Lord Howell of Guildford
We keep a very close eye on this in making assessments, as do our French colleagues—as I just mentioned to the noble Lord, Lord Anderson—our United States colleagues and others. The precise linkages are fluid and not always easy to identify, but there is no doubt that, where there has been potential instability and turmoil, al-Qaeda, or branches and franchises of al-Qaeda, tend to turn up like flies around any corpses. This is always the danger and we should watch it very closely. As for al-Shabaab, we cannot see a visible connection at the moment, but it too might be involved, although it is quite a long way away.
The Lord Bishop of Durham
My Lords, I have made nearly 70 trips over the past 30 years to Nigeria, many of which in the past few years have dealt with conflict management. Do the Government also remain committed to working with private and civil society organisations, particularly the churches and religious leaders—I am thinking of organisations such as the one run by the bishop of Kaduna, Bridge Builders—which in many ways have been especially effective in dealing with an issue that has religious elements?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The answer to the right reverend Prelate is indeed yes. To reinforce the point, although there are different religious groups in Nigeria we have always seen it as a state of tolerance rather than religious intolerance. That is not the main cause of the violence and horrors that we have seen recently, which arise much more from the provocations and extreme violence of organisations that have intruded and invaded, such as Boko Haram.
Lord Clarke of Hampstead
My Lords, I am sure that the whole House appreciates the efforts made by Her Majesty’s Government so far in trying to resolve some of these problems. Are the Government aware of the reports of the well-armed mercenaries who are operating in the attacks on Christian churches? If they are, are they doing anything to find out the source of the supply of the sophisticated weaponry that is being used against Christians?
Lord Howell of Guildford
We are aware of reports. We always seek more information. These are very important matters in which we take a very close interest. We take a particular interest in the arms trade issue, which we will discuss later on this afternoon in this House.
Lord Elton
Is my noble friend aware that although we in this country are very alert to Boko Haram and to the religious imbalance in this conflict, the media constantly report, particularly to other Muslim countries, that this is a reciprocal fight in which Christians and Muslims are equally engaged? How does he square that with the fact that it is almost always Christian churches that are blown up and Muslim mosques that are left untouched?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I cannot comment on the balance or lack of balance in any media reporting, but of course it is not always balanced, although my noble friend is right to say that there is no equality of violence. However, there are reprisals and it is true that mosques have been attacked as well as churches. We have no doubt that the new levels of horror, violence and atrocity that have been imported into northern Nigeria are initiated and have been provoked by Boko Haram.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, given that 600 people in Nigeria have already been murdered this year by Boko Haram, which states that it wants to extinguish all reference to western ideals, including democracy, why have we not proscribed it as a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom? Has the Minister had a chance to look at the information which I have sent to his office about the links between funding organisations in the UK supporting Boko Haram?
Lord Howell of Guildford
On the first point, it is not HMG’s policy to comment on which organisations may or may not be considered for proscription. On the funding issue raised by the noble Lord, I am very grateful to him for doing so. We were not aware before he raised it of the suggestion that funds were going from UK groups to Boko Haram. I have brought it to the attention of officials who are examining the issue, and I will write to him about it.
Chilcot Committee: Intercept Evidence
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Lloyd of Berwick
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect the Chilcot committee to report on the admissibility of intercept evidence.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, the Government are conducting an extensive assessment of the benefits, costs and risks of introducing intercept as evidence in criminal proceedings. Lawful interception is a vital but complex area, and so it is crucial to get it right. The cross-party advisory group overseeing this work will be further consulted.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
My Lords, it is now four and a half years since the committee was asked by the then Government to find a way of making intercept evidence available in court. It is two and a half years since the committee decided not to go ahead with the preferred solution, which is PII Plus, on the basis of certain legal advice which it had received. Since then, we have heard nothing. Will the Minister take what steps he can to make that legal advice generally available so that we can judge for ourselves whether it still has validity?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I may depress the noble and learned Lord a little when I tell him that it has actually been longer than four and a half years. I gather that seven previous attempts going back to 1993 have been made to try to resolve this issue, which gives some indication of the difficulty of dealing with it. We have made a coalition commitment that the Government will seek,
“to find a practical way to allow the use of intercept evidence in court”.
However, we must focus on the benefits, costs and risks of so doing, and that is why we want to get it right. As regards the legal advice, I can only say to the noble and learned Lord that it would not generally be appropriate to put into the public domain independent legal advice that had been offered by counsel.
Lord Dubs
My Lords, does the Minister agree that if the risks associated with making intercept evidence available in court could be made acceptable to the Government, surely the benefits of using such evidence in court would be enormous? We would bring to justice people who at the moment cannot be brought to justice. It would be a much better way of running these things than having control orders, TPIMs and what have you.
Lord Henley
My Lords, I think I can agree entirely with the noble Lord, but we have to accept that there are risks and that we have to find a balance between the risks and the benefits. That is what we are trying to do. As the noble Lord will appreciate, for a whole series of Governments going back to 1993, this is quite a difficult matter to resolve.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, I do not doubt the difficulty of the subject, but when one looks to see what has been published over the past few years, there is nothing that is recent. Can the Minister give the House any reassurance that progress is being made, perhaps by publishing a further interim report?
Lord Henley
My Lords, it is for the committee of independent privy counsellors, the Chilcot committee, to consider what it can publish. I will certainly look to see whether there is anything that HMG can say, but I am not sure that there is at this stage. We want to get there; my noble friend knows we want to get there since she knows that it is part of the coalition agreement. However, I repeat that it is very difficult.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, does the Minister not agree that, so far as most countries in the developed world are concerned, particularly the English-speaking world—Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States—such evidence is admissible and used to good effect day in and day out? Why is it that, for the past 26 years, successive Governments have set their face so intransigently against the use of such evidence in our courts?
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord is correct to point out that there are other countries that have similar common law legal systems that do use intercept as evidence. They do not have the constraints of the European Court of Human Rights—a point that ought to be made to the noble Lord. As I said, all Governments have been trying to get there since 1993. It is going to be a very long road.
Lord West of Spithead
My Lords, I am scarred from two years of my Liberal Democrat friends slapping me around when I was in government because I took too long to do anything about this. I am glad that now they are in a coalition, they are finding this quite a difficult issue. Does the Minister not agree that some 25 years ago terrorists did not know that when they picked up a mobile phone we would get them straight away? Now there are techniques that, if exposed, would mean that we would not get the tip-offs that we get all the time which allow us to monitor whole teams of people who wish to do our nation harm.
Lord Henley
The noble Lord makes a very valid point about the importance of intelligence, and why we do not necessarily want to risk losing that intelligence by making use of it as evidence. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support, and I look forward to being slapped around on this by noble Lords from all sides of the House for months to come.
Lord Campbell-Savours
Is there a precedent anywhere for Governments having published independent legal advice?
Lord Henley
My Lords, as the noble Lord will be well aware, it is the general rule that legal advice is not published.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, the supposition seems to be that a large number of cases do not proceed to court because intercept evidence is not admissible. Could the Minister give us the Government’s estimate of how many such cases there are that would have proceeded to court had this evidence been available?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I cannot give the noble Lord that, but I remind him of the remarks made by his noble friend Lord West about the number of cases that possibly would never have been pursued at all because of lack of intelligence. He must differentiate between intelligence and evidence. That is what we are trying to do—to make sure we still have the intelligence and do not lose it as a result of making use of it as evidence.
Finance: Loan Guarantee Scheme
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Barnett
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how the loan guarantee scheme, announced in a Written Statement by Lord Sassoon on 18 July, will work.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Sassoon)
My Lords, under UK guarantees the Government aim to kick-start major infrastructure projects that may be struggling to access private finance. Eligible projects will be subject to a detailed assessment process and the Government will conduct and consider the most effective form of guarantee based on the specific project risks. The Government have wide discretion over how a guarantee is structured, subject to the terms and dynamics of each individual project. The guarantees could cover key project risks such as construction, performance or revenue risk.
Lord Barnett
I thank the Minister, although his Reply might have been better as an Oral Statement. I welcome the infrastructure plan. However, with the Prime Minister talking about a 10-year austerity programme and with growth likely to indicate tomorrow that we are in a triple-dip recession, is that not one of the reasons why even companies with 100% guarantees will not want to borrow money? That applies to the main scheme and even the PPP. No one should be surprised. The Prime Minister originally said that the plan would come into force in 2014 at the earliest but, given the economic background, do we not need it now, not in 2014? In those circumstances, could he suggest to the Chancellor that he consider a quadruple U-turn and find a little cash to help kick-start the infrastructure plans, which are so welcome?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, I am very happy to correct the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. Some £40 billion of projects in the national infrastructure plan that are due to start construction before 2015 could well be eligible for guarantees under the scheme. We are inviting applications for guarantees now and, subject to legislation, we hope to have the first guarantees granted this autumn, so this is absolutely not something that waits till 2014. It is because of the strength of the national balance sheet and the fiscal retrenchment that we are able to come forward with a £40 billion scheme that starts this autumn.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, will the Minister confirm that this scheme will extend to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? That being so, will he confirm that there were discussions with the three Administrations before the announcement was made?
Lord Sassoon
I can confirm that the scheme will extend to the devolved Administrations.
Lord Sharkey
Is there anything about the design of the loan guarantee scheme that makes it more likely that funding to SMEs, particularly those in deprived areas, will increase?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, the £40 billion infrastructure guarantee scheme is linked to nationally significant infrastructure projects. Typically, the promoters of those projects will not be SMEs, but of course there will be very many SMEs in the supply chain for the projects that will benefit. SMEs working in the public/private partnership space will also benefit from a possible £6 billion of additional loans that was also announced in this package, as will exporters, for whom a £5 billion export refinancing facility will be extended.
Lord Peston
My Lords, it is obvious that this loan guarantee scheme must involve immense risk because if there were no risk involved, the guarantee would not be required. How will the costs of meeting those risks enter into the public accounts, or will the Government try to fiddle the figures so that they do not eventually appear as public expenditure?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, there will be no fiddling of the numbers by this Government on this or anything else. The position is very straightforward: the financing markets for these projects are extremely difficult but good projects are coming forward in the pipeline, and the beauty of the scheme is that we can use the strength of the government balance sheet. To answer the technical question, the infrastructure guarantees will be financial transactions and will have no impact on PSNB. A project would have an impact on PSND only if there was a non-negligible expected loss, which is not something that we anticipate. The guarantees will generally count as contingent liabilities, and that is very clear.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My Lords, may I gently tempt the Minister to answer the second question asked by my noble friend Lord Wigley? I take it that there was no consultation. Why was that? Was there an intention to show contempt for the views of the devolved Administrations or did the Government just not think about it? What is the answer, please?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, we have come forward with a very positive financing package to help our infrastructure providers and our exporters. I believe that that will be welcomed very widely, as it has been, by business organisations. I hope that it will be welcomed by the devolved Administrations; as I have said, it extends to them.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, of course we welcome this scheme but, as my noble friend Lord Barnett indicated, this is in the context of the UK being in a double-dip or, as he suggested, triple-dip recession. We certainly are the only country in the G20 apart from Italy that is in recession. This modest scheme is welcome. Will the Minister explain, therefore, why the Government axed the similar scheme to support public/private partnerships put forward by the Labour Administration in 2009?
Lord Sassoon
My Lords, again, I am happy to put the record straight. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, may not have noticed that this package includes £6 billion worth of facility available to public/private partnership projects that are ready to start in the next 12 months.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton
My Lords, would the Minister care to help the House by confirming or denying that there were discussions with the relevant Administrations in advance of the scheme being announced—and not announced to Parliament?
Lord Sassoon
I cannot confirm or deny it. All I say is that this is good news for the whole of the United Kingdom and has been widely welcomed.
Public and Commercial Services Union: Strike Action
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Fookes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the Public and Commercial Services Union about the proposed strike on the day before the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Henley)
My Lords, the Public and Commercial Services Union’s decision to call this strike on the eve of the Games is opportunistic and wholly unjustified. The Home Secretary has written to the PCS to express her concern and to make it clear that Her Majesty’s Government are totally opposed to the strike.
Baroness Fookes
Is it correct that only 21% of the union members balloted actually voted at all and that only a very small majority of those who did vote voted in favour? In those circumstances, and given that lukewarm support, is there any responsible person in this country who supports this squalid little exercise that threatens the good name of this country?
Lord Henley
My Lords, I cannot believe that there is anyone who will support a strike of this sort other than that 12% of PCS members who voted for the strike. We are currently checking the legality of the strike and, if satisfied that it is illegal, we will take the appropriate remedies in the courts.
Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland
Is the Minister aware that the PCS has at least my full support? The reason is that every union in the public sector has been provoked beyond endurance by the present Government. The unions are fully justified in negotiating with the Government and it is the Government’s duty to settle.
Lord Henley
I am interested that one person is prepared to put his head above the parapet on this matter and I note that the noble Lord’s leader, Mr Ed Miliband, was in Durham at the Durham Miners’ Gala speaking on the same platform as the PCS, presumably in support of this strike. It would be very interesting to hear his views on this matter.
Lord Dholakia
My Lords, the action proposed by the PCS is a serious matter, particularly when the world’s attention is focused on the United Kingdom in matters relating to the entry, security and safety of travellers coming to this country. Although it is right not to interfere with any negotiations that may be going on, does my noble friend accept that, as tomorrow is the last day on which this House will be sitting, we are entitled to know what contingency plans exist if the situation were to deteriorate?
Lord Henley
As my noble friend will be well aware, we have full contingency plans in place, just as we did on the other four occasions on which the PCS has called one-day strikes. On all those occasions we managed not only to secure the border appropriately but to prevent excessive queues. We hope to do that again tomorrow, but we hope that the PCS will see reason. Our doors remain open to negotiations until the last minute but, as I said, we are also taking legal advice on this matter.
Baroness Smith of Basildon
My Lords, although we would all support an Olympic truce between the Government and the unions, I think the Minister does this House a disservice when he tries to imply that the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, supports the strike when he has made it quite clear, as the Minister and other noble Lords will know, that he does not support the strike. We also recognise that there are real long-term issues about queues at border controls, particularly for non-EEA visitors. Yesterday the National Audit Office blamed the Government for cutting too many staff—more than even the Government planned—far too quickly. We now have a Bermuda Triangle of lost asylum cases being written off, mounting casework backlogs, and even fewer foreign criminals being deported. I appreciate that there are shorter queues at border controls for the Olympics, but can the Minister guarantee that, following the NAO report, the Government will treat this issue as a priority and ensure that there are enough staff and resources to do the job in the long term?
Lord Henley
My Lords, if that was support for the Government’s position, it was very strange support. What we want to hear is a thorough condemnation from the party opposite of the PCS’s action, and I am not sure that I have quite heard that. The strike is due to happen tomorrow. As I said, it is opportunistic and unnecessary. Our doors are open and we continue to negotiate, as the noble Baroness knows full well. However, I want to make it clear that we will take appropriate legal action if it is possible, and that is why we are checking the legality of the strike that has been called with the support of some 12% of PCS members.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
My Lords, I declare an interest as a pensioner of PCS. I do not support the strike; neither does my party. However, is the Minister aware that there is a serious problem with staffing within the border agency? Is he further aware that last week some of us met Deutsche Bahn, the railway firm, which has delayed introducing trains and competition into the Eurotunnel because of the problems over immigration and the inadequate number of staff being engaged by the Government to carry out the necessary border controls? This is losing business for the country and losing business for London, and it is time that the Government got to grips with it.
Lord Henley
My Lords, the noble Lord’s question goes slightly beyond that on the Order Paper. As he knows full well, it is not simply the problems relating to border force but also the problems relating to the layout of St Pancras Station. Those matters can be resolved between now and 2015, which is the earliest possible date that Deutsche Bahn is likely to bring trains in there. I am grateful for the noble Lord’s condemnation of this strike.
Arms Trade Treaty Negotiations
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, negotiations in New York are due to conclude on Friday 27 July. The negotiations are complex and sensitive, and at this stage it is not possible to predict the outcome. However, our ambitions remain unchanged. For the UK, success means a robust and effective legally binding treaty with strong provisions on international humanitarian law and human rights. The treaty must include everything from fighter planes to rifles, and bombs to bullets and ammunition. Arms brokering must be controlled and corrupt practitioners prosecuted. It should establish a transparent system whereby states publish a list of controlled goods and report regularly on their arms exports.
Lord Judd
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he not agree that on matters of such vital importance for global security—as is being underlined every day in Syria, the Gulf, Africa, Asia and elsewhere—that it would have been better for the Government to come with a considered statement on how the negotiations are proceeding and on their position, so that there could have been full and proper exchanges in this House? Does he not accept that there is growing disillusion and indignation across the world that there are all kinds of aspirations but no firm and binding conclusions? If we do not achieve a firm and binding outcome from these negotiations, is there not a case that it would be better to have no treaty at all?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I understand the noble Lord’s strong feelings. He has always been a robust fighter in this very important cause. However, we are at this very delicate and sensitive stage in the negotiations, when we are fighting to achieve a robust treaty and avoid what we would totally reject, which is having to sign a weak consensus. I am not sure that in the middle of the negotiations it would be better to discuss them. The noble Lord, with his experience, will possibly understand that. Although I fully applaud his feelings on this matter, we are at an absolutely crucial stage of mid-negotiation. This is something that has been fought for by officials under successive Governments for over six years. We are poised to achieve the very most that we can, as I outlined in my Answer.
Lord King of Bridgwater
Does the Minister agree that this will very soon represent the culmination of eight years’ work by determined Ministers and officials of both the previous and the present Governments and that we wish them well in these final, concluding days? I have to say that it is very bizarre to have a Private Notice Question that asks for the Government’s negotiating position two days before the final vote, after eight years’ work. Nobody denies the enormous importance of this treaty—for all the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, has given—so that responsible defence industries can operate in the proper, licensed way and so that the illegal shipment of arms which has caused such difficulty can be properly controlled under an international agreement. In these crucial last two days, is not the best thing for us to wish our negotiators the best possible success in this important undertaking?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My noble friend is absolutely right. I fully endorse everything he says. I believe your Lordships are at heart, and certainly have been in past statements, fully in support of these very difficult negotiations and this high ambition of the British Government and that we should today take the opportunity further to reinforce the support for what officials have struggled to achieve over the years under successive Governments.
Lord Hannay of Chiswick
My Lords, does the Minister recognise—and I am not asking what our negotiating position is—that between now and Friday it is highly likely that we will have to make a choice between a robust treaty, which is not signed by everyone, and a weak treaty, which will not be worth the paper it is written on because it will be subscribed to by countries like Russia, which is busy exporting arms to a situation of humanitarian disaster in Syria as if there were no tomorrow? Will he confirm the very welcome position he gave that we will stick to our guns—perhaps a slightly unfortunate phrase—and not water down the arms trade treaty that we have set out to get, even if this means that some of the largest exporters are temporarily at least not going to sign up?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I have said that we are not going to sign a weak consensus. I know that the noble Lord, who is very versed in and a master of these negotiations, would not expect me to make statements about our negotiating position at this crucial stage. I repeat that a weak consensus or a feeble abandonment is not what is contemplated.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, we, too, wish the negotiators well, but I think the noble Lord will understand why we are apprehensive. On 13 July, the BIS Select Committee in the other place concluded that the Government seem to have adopted a different policy from that of the previous Administration and appear to be ready to weaken the arms trade treaty in order to placate the arms exporting countries, looking for what would emerge as a lowest common denominator approach. That apprehension is shared in New York. Any discussion with colleagues there will show that. They are deeply concerned that we did not sign the strong text of support calling for a strong treaty, already signed by 74 countries, and that we should consider showing that intent and good will now. Will the Government do so?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I think that that apprehension is ill founded. Ambassador Moritan, who chairs the process, obviously has had to manoeuvre. We have to be realistic that there are sceptics and that there are countries which, from the start, have been outright opponents of anything other than broad political agreements. We have to accept that. Our determination is not to be deviated from the pattern which was reflected under the noble Lord’s own Government, and I repeat that we are determined not to sign a weak consensus but to go for a robust treaty. That remains our position.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that when in the past decade $2.2 billion-worth of arms have been sold to countries that are under an arms embargo, such as Iran, Myanmar and Zimbabwe, it is terribly important to get a text of some sort? I have to say, with all due respect, the Labour Benches have been fantastic about this treaty, but the binary question they pose to the House is that we either go for a treaty or, given that it is a consensus procedure, we go for nothing at all. Would it not be better to negotiate to the very last moment to get any text on the paper to build for an incremental future whereby we regulate arms than to settle for nothing, which is what I suspect they are posing?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I do not want to be involved in this polarised binary approach, as my noble friend rightly calls it. We are negotiating very hard. She is quite right that there are very high prizes to be achieved if we can get the robust treaty we want. I think I shall leave it there, except to observe that even with the treaty and, indeed, much more so without a treaty, illicit arms continue to swirl around the world and feed Syria, the killing and the murder, and they will continue to do so unless, step by step, we can move from the treaty to tighter and tighter controls.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, those of us who follow these matters closely are hearing very strongly from New York that the sceptics are dominating the floor of this conference. We are constantly being impressed by the request that Britain speaks up more in this conference as a leader of those who wish to see a robust treaty. I shall repeat to the Minister the question posed to him by my noble friend Lord Triesman, about it not being too late for the UK Government to sign up to the statement signed by 74 countries setting out the humanitarian bottom line for a robust treaty. Are the Government prepared to consider doing that? It would send a very strong message to these negotiations.
Lord Howell of Guildford
Strong messages are going all the time. As I think the noble Lord knows, we have always said that we want to have a humanitarian dimension fully in this treaty. We have said that, but how we manage to secure our aims in this last vital stage is a matter of delicate negotiation, and I think I must leave it there, although I fully recognise the strong feelings on both sides of the House about this matter.
Procedure of the House
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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The Chairman of Committees
That the 1st report from the Select Committee (HL Paper 25) be agreed to.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, I congratulate the Chairman of Committees on an excellent and sympathetic report. However, could he arrange for the Procedure Committee to look at another matter: namely, the accountability of Ministers to this House, particularly the accountability of the noble Lord, Lord Green? I have here a table that shows that his attendance in the current Session was less than 10%; whereas, just to take a random example, the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, was here nearly 100% of the time. The noble Lord, Lord Green, was absent yesterday when there was a PNQ, which he knew was coming up, about his attendance. He is absent again today. I do not know where he is, but he is certainly not here. However, he is going to make a statement today, not to this House but to Jeff Randall on Sky television.
It is appalling and a discourtesy to this House and to Parliament as a whole when the noble Lord considers that it is appropriate for him to make a statement on television and not to this House. Since we have the noble Lord the Leader of the House here—I shall wait for a reply to the Committee—he will say that at a time when the Prime Minister is under tremendous pressure with his former press adviser and good friend having been charged with very serious offences and when his judgment is in question, it would add to that for his adviser on banking, a senior Minister of State, not to come before this House and be accountable to the place where he ought to be.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
I apologise for intervening on this issue, but I wish to say something. I address my remarks to the noble Lord the Leader of the House rather than to the Lord Chairman. In view of the fact that the noble Lord, Lord Green, is going to be on television this evening and that he has written a letter to Mr Chris Leslie in the House of Commons, I thought it pertinent to raise this matter on the Floor of the House.
As a matter of procedure, the noble Lord the Leader of the House yesterday told your Lordships’ House in relation to the noble Lord, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint:
“No Minister needs to be accountable to Parliament for their previous career”.—[Official Report, 23/7/2012; col. 482.]
However, in a letter to my honourable friend the shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the noble Lord, Lord Green, does precisely that in giving, as a government Minister in an official letter from a government department, his views on HSBC and what he described as the “failures” of the bank, about which he says, “I share that regret”. If the noble Lord, Lord Green, can make that kind of point in a government letter—let alone what he might say in an interview on Sky television at 7 pm this evening—he should come to this House and make those points here. I therefore invite the Leader of the House, in the light of the actions today of the noble Lord, Lord Green, to make arrangements for the noble Lord, as a Minister and a Member of this House, to take the opportunity to come to this House tomorrow to dispel the questions that are being posed about his ministerial role.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)
My Lords, I think that it is worth replying to this. The noble Baroness the Leader of the Opposition was kind enough to give me notice that she would raise this issue. There are two accusations against my noble friend Lord Green. The first is that he has written to Mr Chris Leslie, who is a Member of the House of Commons. The only reason why my noble friend Lord Green has written to Mr Leslie is because Mr Leslie wrote to him and he has simply replied. That strikes me as being entirely the right and correct thing to do.
The second accusation is that my noble friend has not come to this House to answer questions. The reason why my noble friend has not come to this House to answer questions is because none has been put to him on this subject.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, made much of the table of attendance and referred to my noble friend Lady Anelay. However, she happens to be the government Chief Whip, and if she was not here practically every day, I would want to know why. Incidentally, I also want to know why the Minister for Trade should spend all his time in here when his job is to do his best, banging the drum for British business—as the noble Lord, Lord Jones, used to remind us—rather than coming here. How many questions has the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, put down in the past 12 months to my noble friend Lord Green on matters of trade? I shall check the record later.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
If the noble Lord the Leader of the House would care to check, he will find that the noble Lord, Lord Jones, attended here regularly. He answered question after question. Not only did he do so, but so did the Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, who also attended regularly. The noble Lord, Lord Green, is the senior Minister from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills in this House, but who has to stand in? The noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, who comes very high in the table, gallantly stands in regularly to answer these questions; and if she is not able to do it, the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, stands in. However, we never see the noble Lord, Lord Green. I do not think that the noble Lord the Leader of the House understands that he is the Leader of the House, not of the Conservative Party. He is responsible for the whole House. It is a grave discourtesy for a Minister never to appear to turn up. He is not just responsible for trade and investment; he is the main Minister in that department, and he should be here answering questions.
Lord Strathclyde
I will not continue this for very much longer. All I can say is that if the noble Lord wants to put down questions on trade and investment, my noble friend Lord Green will be here to answer them.
Lord Barnett
My Lords, while the noble Lord is here and answering questions, I hope he does not mind my saying this, but I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Green, should have made from BIS the Statement on loan guarantees. For some reason, he was not here, although I gather he was in the House. Could the noble Lord inquire into why that happened? I would rather that the noble Lord, Lord Green, had answered, given that he was the Minister concerned.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
My Lords, I do not wish to prolong this either. I would merely say that I did not write to the noble Lord, Lord Green, because on a couple of occasions I asked for the noble Lord to come to this House, of which he is a Member, to answer questions. Next time I will write to the Minister responsible, because I know that Ministers do not think that it is fitting to come to this House and to be accountable to this House. Clearly, we have to do things by correspondence.
Lord King of Bridgwater
Can we get a better understanding of this issue? My own memory goes back to two excellent Ministers of Trade: Cecil Parkinson, who is now a Member of this House, and Richard Needham—both of whom will be familiar to many Members of this House. I was rude to them if I ever saw them, because their job was not to be here. At a time when we needed trade and exports, they needed to be out and about promoting British business. The other House respected the fact that they had to lead delegations and had greater impact outside. The more they did, the better they did it. They were very effective Ministers of Trade at a rather successful time for the British economy. If ever we needed a Minister of Trade to be active overseas, it is now. I thought this House would appreciate that.
Lord Strathclyde
My Lords, my noble friend puts it extremely well. In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, a Written Ministerial Statement on the loan guarantee scheme was made by my noble friend Lord Sassoon because it was a Treasury matter. The noble Lord was able to ask him a Question a few minutes ago.
The Chairman of Committees (Lord Sewel)
My Lords, it seems so long ago, but if I remember correctly the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, began by commending the report. I thank him for those very few words on the report. He raised issues that have been dealt with by the Leader of the House. The only thing I should say is that if anyone wishes to take these matters further in light of the Procedure Committee, they can always write. I do not think that any points, let alone points of substance, have been raised on the content of the report, which makes a number of important advances in how we enable people with disabilities to contribute fully to the business of this House. I commend the report to the House.
Housing Benefit (Amendment) Regulations 2012
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Public Bodies (Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission: Abolition and Transfer of Functions) Order 2012
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Freud
That the draft order and regulations laid before the House on 23 April and 14 May be approved.
Relevant documents: 1st Report from the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee; 1st and 2nd Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 12 July.
Equality Act 2010 (Age Exceptions) Order 2012
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Verma
That the draft order laid before the House on 25 June be approved.
Relevant documents: 5th Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 17 July.
House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill [HL]
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, as is usual in these matters, I shall now read the following. I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the House of Lords (Cessation of Membership) Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of the Bill.
Lord Steel of Aikwood
My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a third—and, I dearly hope, final—time.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, very briefly, on behalf of the whole House, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Steel, for his perseverance in taking this Bill through. We shall have to see what happens in the other place. Does the noble Lord think that his Bill just might be part of the answer to the Government’s problem on Lords reform?
Lord Steel of Aikwood
It is above my pay grade to answer that. I hope that it might be but we shall wait and see. In the mean time, like the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, on the previous occasion when we debated this, I quote Aristotle:
“Politics is the art of the possible”.
This item is possible. Let us get on with it and pass it to the House of Commons.
Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill [HL]
Baroness Wilcox
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Baroness Wilcox)
My Lords, in our discussion of Clause 2 of the Bill on Report, I mentioned that we had identified that it would be sensible to bring Article 11 of the groceries supply order 2009 up to date to reflect the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010. I said that we would consider a minor and technical amendment to the Bill to facilitate this, and we are now proposing such an amendment. This was helpfully prompted by the amendment to Clause 2 proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, on Report.
The purpose of this amendment is to enable the Competition Commission to ensure that the order is updated to reflect the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010. The need for an amendment follows in particular from the fact that Article 11(8) of the order refers to Sections 67 to 69 of the Arbitration Act 1996 but not to the similar provisions of the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010.
Section 161(5) of the Enterprise Act 2002 prevents the order being varied unless the OFT advises that the variation is appropriate by reason of a change of circumstances. Clause 21(5) of the Bill already facilitates the updating of the order to reflect the Bill by disapplying Section 161(5) in the case of variations of the order which are consequential on the Bill. This amendment now extends the disapplication of Section 161(5) to cover variations which are consequential on the Arbitration (Scotland) Act 2010. Clause 21(5) will enable the Competition Commission to make these consequential changes in a straightforward way, following enactment of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I welcome this amendment and I am grateful to the Minister who, as she indicated in her introductory remarks, had said that she would bring such an amendment forward. It is relatively simple and I am grateful to her for being as good as her word and achieving this before the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House.
I am also grateful that she recognised that this arose from my worrying away at the arbitration provisions of the Bill. I was aided and abetted by the inestimable Michael Clancy, who is the law reform director of the Law Society of Scotland. I think we should call this the Clancy amendment, actually, because his work uncovered this lacuna in the Bill, which the Government have graciously recognised and corrected.
Of course, this provision anticipates that the Competition Commission will amend the order. The very process of amending the order, in the light of the next amendment that we come to, is a mouth-watering prospect and creates a great opportunity for the farmers of the United Kingdom to have some sort of step taken that protects their livelihoods for the future.
I do not want to anticipate that amendment, but we now know that the order will need to be amended because of this simple provision. I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which she has conducted herself throughout the consideration of this Bill, and her willingness—and the willingness of her Bill team—to listen to arguments for change to the Bill, and to allow them. I entirely support this amendment.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, after a good Report stage last Monday, when we were grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, for some concessions, particularly her generosity to my noble friend Lord Browne, I did not think that there was anything left for us to do today at Third Reading, because we want this to get on the statute book as soon as possible. I share the comments of my noble friend Lord Browne in respect of the way in which the Minister has handled the passage of the Bill through this House, and I am grateful to her Bill team and to those who have assisted me.
Naturally, I was disappointed not to have persuaded enough of your Lordships of the need to give the adjudicator teeth but I naturally respect the clear will of the House and hope that that issue can be addressed in the other place. I was also disappointed that we gained nothing on the issue of a living code, but I also regarded that issue as settled.
However, all that changed at the weekend, which is why we are revisiting an issue raised in an amendment that was not moved on Report by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark. The amendment is simple enough in ensuring in clear English that the groceries code supply order is defined to include, “any subsequent order made” by the Competition Commission under Section 161 of the Enterprise Act 2002. The Minister may tell us that that is unnecessary because any successor order would, as is usual, replace the 2009 order and the Bill would apply to the new order. If that is so, I would be grateful for confirmation.
I would also be grateful for confirmation of a few other things following the events of the weekend. Following the blockading of dairy processors by farmers, crisis talks were held at the Royal Welsh Show on Sunday, led by Mr Jim Paice, the Farming Minister. According to every news report I have seen, the Minister said that he would raise within government the possibility of a role for the grocery code adjudicator in providing a means of arbitration for a code governing the whole supply chain for the dairy industry. This means that the issue that we voted on last Monday is effectively being reopened by the Government. The Companion states at paragraph 8.146 relating to admissibility of amendments:
“The principal purposes of amendments on third reading are … to clarify any remaining uncertainties”.
I am mindful that the Companion goes on to say that an issue that has been fully debated and voted on cannot be reopened, which is why I have moved this amendment in relation to Clause 22.
I merely want the Minister to use this opportunity to clarify the uncertainty around the Government’s position. Has the noble Baroness spoken to Jim Paice about extending the role of the adjudicator since this weekend? On Report, she said:
“As the noble Lord, Lord Grantchester, has said, the specifics of the dairy industry are being considered elsewhere in government. The adjudicator is not intended to address every problem in the sector, and the adjudicator's role is clearly limited to the relationship between retailers and their suppliers under the groceries code”.
Is that still the Government’s position despite the position of the farming Minister?
The Minister also said that,
“it is for the competition authorities to decide whether or not to amend the code—not … the Secretary of State”.—[Official Report, 16/7/12; col. 17.]
Does that extend to Jim Paice? I know he does not know the price of milk but does he know about the independence of the competition authorities from Ministers? Is there any question of him now asking the competition authorities to extend the code or to come up with an additional one?
The Minister persuaded the House, including an impressive solid turnout from the Lib Dems, as ever, with their effective new Chief Whip, to defeat any notion of extending the code. This amendment merely seeks to be helpful in case Jim Paice is driving a policy on this from Defra rather than the noble Baroness or Norman Lamb driving it from BIS. I doubt whether the Minister will accept it but I would be grateful for answers to three simple questions. First, has she spoken to Jim Paice about this since the weekend? Secondly, is it still government policy that the code will apply only to the relationship between direct suppliers and large retailers? Thirdly, will the Government be asking the Competition Commission to revise or devise a code to cover prices across the dairy supply chain?
Viscount Eccles
Does what the noble Lord said mean that he is not really moving an amendment at all?
Lord Knight of Weymouth
Yes, I am moving an amendment. But it is also a way to allow the Government to resolve an uncertainty around the role of the groceries code adjudicator, which is the subject of the Bill that we are hoping to pass today. I beg to move.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I was not present at this weekend’s negotiations, so I rely upon the reporting in farming publications and on the BBC for what took place. My understanding is that, as a result of those negotiations, it was agreed that an order was necessary to cover the issues that had arisen in the pricing of milk provided by suppliers to processors. We understand that the Government intend to assist in the negotiation of an order similar to the groceries code order which is at the basis of this legislation. I also understand—it was covered liberally in the media—that the farming Minister, Jim Paice, told all and sundry that he would consider whether that order required an adjudicator. We are legislating for an adjudicator in this area and setting out the framework for the adjudicator to operate. As the Competition Commission will now have to amend the order at the basis of this Bill, could it be persuaded, once an order is negotiated, to incorporate this agreed order into the new order that it promulgates? By that simple stroke, we would get an order that covered this area and the adjudicator that the Minister apparently wants. Is that possible?
Baroness Wilcox
My Lords, the relationship between this Bill and the groceries supply order is evidently an important one. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, has proposed a technical amendment to ensure that references to the groceries supply order will refer to the order as varied, if that order is subsequently varied. There is no general rule of construction as to whether references to an instrument include references to any future variations of that instrument. This depends on the details of the context and the drafting in each case. In this case, the Government are confident that the current drafting of the Bill would already have the intended effect, which is that references in the Bill to the order include any future variations made under Section 161 of the Enterprise Act. It would not make sense for the adjudicator to exercise his or her enforcement and compliance functions by reference to a version of the order which was different from the version binding the retailers at the relevant time.
As further evidence of this position, perhaps I might also direct the noble Lord towards Clauses 16(4) and 21(5), which contemplate amendments to the groceries supply order. This makes it clear that the references to the groceries supply order are also meant to include any future variations in this case.
I will now turn briefly to the other issue which the noble Lord has raised and on which I am happy to give him the reassurance he wants. The Government share the natural concerns of noble Lords about the situation of dairy farmers. In light of the obvious interest in this matter, my noble friend Lord Taylor will be making a Written Statement tomorrow. However, I would like to give some reassurance on this issue, although I emphasise that these discussions are not within the remit of the amendment. I have not spoken to Jim Paice over the last few days, but I am sure we will have such discussions in the future. The remit of the groceries code adjudicator is clearly defined and will remain so. The proposed code for dairy is voluntary and any adjudicator for that code would be a separate person.
Our adjudicator will, of course, be able to intervene to address any instances of supermarkets breaching the groceries code in their dealings with their dairy suppliers. Dairy farmers who are indirect suppliers will also be able to bring issues to the attention of the adjudicator, for instance if they believe that an intermediary processor who is being treated unfairly under the code might in turn pass pressure on to them. Colleagues in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are deeply concerned about the situation of dairy farmers and are considering a range of ways to help them. We will of course continue to listen carefully to any concerns raised by farmers themselves or by colleagues in government or Parliament. I cannot comment further on the specific points raised by the Minister of State for Agriculture and Food, as these statements were made only recently and he has not yet made any suggestions to me or my department.
Lord Plumb
My Lords, I support the Minister’s response. I waited for her comments before I spoke because I was not sure of the exact position now. I tell the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that the negotiations did not take place on Sunday. They took place yesterday. I declare an interest: I was there—not at the negotiations but not far away—and I had a long talk with the Minister, Jim Paice, afterwards and with many of those present who are directly concerned with this issue.
Following the answer given by the Minister, I do not honestly see any need for the noble Lord’s concern or, in fact, the amendment. It would be advisable to wait for the Written Statement due tomorrow because, as my noble friend said, milk will not be left out of this package. Anyone who is appointed to a job as an adjudicator or is concerned with the grocery trade will realise that within it we have a voluntary code of practice that has virtually been agreed by all parties, and which we have been waiting for for some considerable time. Now that the code is there, the dairy trade will inevitably be not only included but prominent in the concern of any adjudicator or in any response that one might have after the appointment of an adjudicator.
I therefore feel confident that there is at the moment no need for the amendment. We should accept the statement made by the Minister here, and we look forward to the further report from the Agriculture Minister tomorrow on the whole situation of the dairy trade.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her clarifications and to the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, who is never far away from where things are at on these matters and who always speaks with authority on them. I certainly have no wish to interfere with the negotiations or with the voluntary code that is being agreed. I very much applaud the negotiations and the agreements that are coming forward. Clearly, we had a job to do—to scrutinise the Bill—and there was some uncertainty I was looking to be resolved. I am surprised that the Farming Minister did not think it was appropriate to give the Bill Minister in the Lords a call regarding these things because it was fairly obvious these issues might come up today, but that is for the noble Baroness and her colleague to resolve. I think I heard her say correctly from a note that there would be a separate adjudicator if there was to be an adjudicator for the voluntary code. We would subsequently want to explore the efficiency of that arrangement and exactly how it would be drawn up and what status it would have.
We look forward to the Statement from the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, tomorrow. I respectfully ask that some consideration be given as to whether that could be an Oral Statement and not just a Written Statement, because Members of this House may have some questions they would like to be able to ask. Perhaps the noble Baroness could take that back and discuss it with the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, in their office. In the mean time, I am very happy to withdraw my amendment.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Moved by
That the Bill be read a second time.
Relevant document: 6th Report from the Delegated Powers Committee.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the aim of the Bill is to tackle electoral fraud, to increase the number of people registered to vote, to give people greater ownership of their own registration and to improve the integrity of the register. The Bill also includes provisions to improve the administration and conduct of elections, which will serve to increase voter participation, and to make a number of improvements to the running of elections.
Last year, the Cabinet Office funded the Electoral Commission to carry out a detailed analysis of the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register in Great Britain. It showed that as of December 2010 the electoral register was 85% to 87% complete and by April 2011 was 85% accurate. This translates to there being over 6 million people missing from the electoral register compared with some 3 million estimated 10 years earlier.
To provide some perspective, Northern Ireland, which introduced individual registration in 2002, now has an electoral register which is also 85% complete but is 94% accurate. This Bill, by facilitating the use of such things as online registration and data matching, will help tackle the problem of declining registration. In doing so, the Government place equal importance on the completeness and accuracy of the register.
Britain is one of the few countries in the world still to rely on a system of household registration, inherited from the period when only heads of household voted. A system that relies on this notion of the head of household does not engender any personal responsibility for being registered or promote a person’s ownership of their vote. It is increasingly unsuitable in multi-occupation dwellings, where it may not even be clear who the head of household is.
As well as the current problem with completeness, the system is also unacceptably open to fraud. There is widespread concern about electoral fraud in this country. If citizens do not have confidence in the integrity of the electoral register, they will not have confidence in the integrity of election outcomes. For a number of years, observers of UK elections have highlighted concerns about the registration system. In its election assessment mission report on the general election of 2010, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights described the voter registration system in Great Britain as the weakest link in the electoral process because of the absence of safeguards against fictitious registrations. It recommended:
“Consideration should be given to introducing an identification requirement for voters when applying for registration as a safeguard against fraudulent registration”.
That is why in the Bill we are legislating to speed up the introduction of individual registration. The register published after the 2015 annual canvass will consist of entries that, with the exception of some of those for the Armed Forces, have all been individually verified. This is a position that the Electoral Commission supports. Jenny Watson, chair of the commission, when commenting on alleged malpractice in the London mayoral elections, said:
“The Electoral Commission wants to see our registration system tightened up and it’s good that the Government plans to introduce new laws to do this which will apply to any of us who want to vote by post before the 2015 General Election”.
Some individuals have advocated introducing a requirement for electors to provide some form of ID at a polling station. In considering any such proposal, we need to maintain a balance between security and accessibility, and to avoid introducing measures that would risk disenfranchising legitimate electors. The Electoral Commission is looking to carry out a review of the existing policy and is not asking for any changes to be made at this stage. The Government therefore have no plans to introduce ID at polling stations at this time, but will give careful consideration to any findings that emerge from the commission’s review.
Before I set out what we plan to do to reach individuals who are not registered, I will briefly set out the transition from the current to the new system and the steps we are taking to ensure that legitimately registered electors will not be removed from the register in the transition to individual registration. The last canvass under the current system will be postponed from autumn 2013 to spring 2014. This will ensure that the register will be as up to date as possible before the transition to the new system in 2014.
We plan to confirm about two-thirds of existing entries by matching the names and addresses of every elector on the register against the Department for Work and Pensions’ customer information system. Following this data match, electoral registration officers will carry out an amended canvass in the summer and autumn of 2014. The remaining one-third of electors whose details have not been confirmed through data matching will be sent a personal invitation to register under the new system. At the same time, the Electoral Commission will run a publicity campaign to inform the general public of the change to the new system.
If an individual fails to make an application after the first invitation, the registration officer will send them another invitation to register. If they fail to apply, the registration officer will be required to send a door-to-door canvasser to encourage their application. The registration may also, in specified circumstances, require an individual to make an application by a certain date—and if an individual fails to do so, a civil penalty may be issued.
At the same time, properties with no registered electors, and properties where a registration officer believes that there are unregistered residents, will be sent a household canvass form to help identify potential new electors whom the registration officer will invite to register, and follow up, as I set out. Following this canvass, a register will be produced, and only where a registration officer determines that an existing elector is no longer eligible will they be removed from the register. In other words, there will be a “carry forward” provision for existing electors so that, even if they have not had their details confirmed, and they have not made a successful new individual application in 2014, they will still be able to vote at the 2015 general election. However, any individual who wishes to vote by post or proxy at the 2015 general election will have had to have made a successful new application or have been confirmed and retained on the register through data matching. The electors who lose their postal or proxy vote will be informed and encouraged to register individually.
Following this canvass, and up to the 2015 general election, individuals will be able to register at any time. After the 2015 general election, registration officers will carry out another full household canvass. The new household canvass form will be pre-populated—that is, the names will already be on it—with the names of those electors who have successfully applied to be registered under the new system and those confirmed through data matching.
Before the end of the 2015 canvass, registration officers will send personally addressed application forms to existing electors who have not yet made a new successful application and whose details were not confirmed at the beginning of the transition. This acts as a final reminder for the individual to make an application before their name is removed from the register. Following this canvass, registration officers will remove all electors, except some service personnel, who have not made a successful application to register under the new system and whose details were not confirmed through data matching.
Let us be clear that, by this stage, this group will have been data matched to try to confirm them automatically in 2014, invited to register with a follow-up by post and in person in both the autumn of 2014 and the autumn of 2015, and received a final notification that they will be removed from the register. They will also have had the opportunity to register when political awareness was at its highest prior to the 2015 general election. The transition that I have just outlined, particularly the use of data matching to retain automatically the majority of electors on the register, will ensure that the registers created during the transition to individual electoral registration will be robust.
We are not aiming merely to stem the decline in the proportion of electors registering. The move to individual registration will also open up opportunities to improve the completeness of the register in Great Britain. The Bill will, for example, facilitate online registration. This will make it more convenient for individuals to register to vote; more accessible for people with visual impairments; and easier for young people. It will also make the whole process of electoral registration more efficient. We intend that the online system will be fully operational when the transition to individual registration begins.
Following the example of Northern Ireland, the Bill will also enable the use of data mining to find potential eligible electors who are missing from the register. Last year, we ran pilots for the first time to test this process in Great Britain and, subject to parliamentary approval, we plan to run a further set in February and March 2013 to test their use for identifying key target groups. The results of these pilots will allow us to see which data sets can be of most use for electoral registration officers.
We are also currently taking steps to maximise registration among under-registered groups. This will include working with a range of partner organisations, including Bite the Ballot and Operation Black Vote, to reach groups currently under-registered by testing a range of activities. Officials have also recently met the National Union of Students.
I want to touch briefly on some features of the Bill that were debated in the other place. The first of these is the new civil penalty. It is our intention that the warning on invitations to register, well before the question of imposing a civil penalty arises, will help encourage people to do their civic duty and register to vote. The Bill provides that after a registration officer has followed specified steps, they can require an individual to make an application. We have already published draft secondary legislation which sets out these specified steps. The Bill also sets out that the size of the civil penalty will be stipulated in regulations. We are of the view that the penalty should be within the parking fine spectrum, and the draft regulations set out the arguments for it being at the lower end, at around £40, or at the higher end at around £130. We will shortly be engaging with relevant stakeholders to seek views as to the appropriate level and we will make a decision based on these discussions.
It is also the Government’s intention to produce further iterations of the draft legislation by the time this House returns from the Summer Recess. These will include the regulations setting out the appeal procedure for any civil penalties issued and the enforcement mechanism. This will enable the House to debate the details of the civil penalty scheme while the Bill is in Committee.
Another issue that aroused debate when the Bill was in the other place was Clause 6, which provides for a power to abolish or amend the annual canvass. I want to put it on record that the Government have no current intention to abolish the annual canvass. It is, however, sensible to take this power now as it will allow future Governments to keep pace with technological developments. For example, in future it may be that a data matching exercise such as that used in Northern Ireland may be able to replace some or all of the canvass, thus simplifying the registration process further for individuals. I should remind the House that it was the previous Government who abolished the annual canvass in Northern Ireland under the Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2006. The use of this power is subject, in addition, to strict safeguards including, but not limited to, consulting the Electoral Commission on any proposal and requiring it to produce a report. We have allocated £108 million over the spending review period to fund the costs of transition. We will be funding local authorities in England and Wales directly through grants under Section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, allocated for the purposes of paying for the transition. In Scotland, electoral registration is carried out for the most part by electoral registration officers who, barring the two exceptions of the City of Dundee and Fife, are independent of each local authority. The additional costs of implementing the new system will be paid directly to them.
I hope that noble Lords will accept that this Bill, which has already undergone pre-legislative scrutiny and significant consequent changes, represents a reasonable set of proposals which will safeguard the completeness of the register during the transition to individual electoral registration.
I turn now to the clauses in the Bill concerning the administration and conduct of elections. They address issues that have been raised by parliamentarians and stakeholders and make a number of practical and sensible changes that will help to deliver more effective electoral administration. The Bill includes provisions that extend the electoral timetable for UK parliamentary elections from 17 to 25 days. At present, postal voters have a maximum period of two calendar weeks to receive and return their postal ballot pack, but that shrinks when the time taken to print and distribute the packs is factored in. This creates a particular problem for service voters based abroad, their families and other overseas voters. The changes will address these problems by increasing the time period to up to four calendar weeks.
To assist with the understanding of this proposal and the related proposal to require electoral registration officers to publish two additional updates to the electoral register in the run-up to an election, I will today place in the Library of each House a paper which sets out in detail the current electoral timetable, our proposed extension of that timetable, and the benefits it will bring. The Bill also includes provisions that relate to postal voters whose votes are rejected at an election because their postal vote identifiers do not match with the identifiers stored on record. The Bill will enable regulations to be made that will place electoral registration officers under a duty to inform electors, after the election, if they fall into this category. However, electoral registration officers will continue to be able to use their discretion not to inform such persons if any impropriety is suspected.
Alongside this measure, the Government plan to introduce secondary legislation to require that postal vote identifiers are checked for 100% of postal votes, as opposed to the current 20%, at elections to strengthen the integrity of the electoral process and to provide an additional safeguard against electoral fraud. The Bill also includes provisions to allow the Secretary of State to withhold or reduce a returning officer’s fee for reasons of poor performance, on a recommendation by the independent Electoral Commission. These provisions will help to ensure that returning officers are accountable for their actions in respect of the conduct of parliamentary elections, making them liable to lose out on some or all of the fee that they receive for their services in connection with an election if there has been a clear failure to provide an adequate service.
In sum, the Bill will help to stem and reverse the recent decline in the completeness of our electoral register, to tackle fraud and to improve the integrity, administration and conduct of elections. I commend the Bill to the House.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the Bill. This is a constitutional Bill. It comes out of the coalition agreement, which mentions reducing,
“electoral fraud by speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration”.
This Bill is important. Once bitten, twice shy, as far as the Liberal Democrats are concerned. We understand from what the Liberal Democrat leader says that, depending on what happens in relation to House of Lords reform, they may renege on one of the other Bills that came out of the coalition agreement, namely the now Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. I do not know whether this Bill fits within the same category. The two other constitutional Bills that have come out of the coalition agreement are the House of Lords Reform Bill, which is widely regarded as poor, and the now Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which is also widely regarded as poor.
The significance of these points—apart from a little dig at the Liberal Democrats—is to indicate that this House has an especial responsibility in relation to a Bill such as this because we know it is the product of a rather unsatisfactory political arrangement. Therefore, the role that we should perform in this House is to see whether it has a detrimental effect on our democracy or genuinely promotes a proper democratic situation. I am glad that we will hear from noble Lords from Northern Ireland who have had some experience of individual voter registration. I am glad that we will hear from my noble friend Lord Wills, who had responsibility for introducing individual voter registration. I am also glad that we will hear from people on all sides of the House who have been engaged in the process of running election campaigns on behalf of individual political parties.
The Bill does two things. First, it changes the timetable and the approach to the introduction of individual voter registration. Secondly—and separately—it makes provision for the administration and conduct of elections. I will restrict my remarks to the first, which is the first part of the Bill. There is no dispute between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party about the fact that individual voter registration is desirable in order to reduce the possibility of fraud. Indeed, the Labour Government introduced individual voter registration. The issue is not the merits of that. The issue is how one introduces it and how one strikes a balance between reducing fraud on one hand and ensuring that there is not a significant reduction in the number of people on the register on the other. I anticipate as well that there is agreement right across the House that the level of reduction in registration will have a damaging effect on democracy.
The current registration process is essentially a combination of household registration and rolling registration. With household registration, a form is sent to each household and one person fills it in with the names of all the people there. Once the form gets back to the electoral administration, all those names remain on the register for as long as the ERO believes that the people still live at that house. There is also a process of rolling registration whereby individuals can either change their existing registration or make a new application if they are not on the register. That system involves producing no proof as to who you are; it involves very little trouble to be on the register.
Individual electoral registration means that you have to fill in a form individually and produce proof—including a national insurance number, date of birth and something else—that you are the person who lives at the particular address. This is much more difficult—not remotely impossible but more difficult—and the consequence is almost bound to be that fewer people will register.
What is the wrong that we are seeking to right by making it more difficult to register? We are seeking to deal with electoral fraud. Mr Mark Harper, the gentleman in the other place who is responsible for promoting this Bill, describes electoral fraud in this country as “rare”. Anecdotally, the feeling is that electoral fraud does take place in this country but it is much rarer here than in almost any other country—
Lord Dobbs
I believe that what the Minister in the other place said was that “proven electoral fraud” was rare, which is very different from suggesting that fraud itself is rare.
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
My Lords, my recollection is that he said it was “rare” but I will check that, if I may, and see precisely what he said. My reading of Mr Mark Harper’s case was not that there was actually a lot of fraud; his point was that one wanted to increase confidence in the system. My recollection of Mr Mark Harper’s speech was that he was saying that fraud was rare, but an opinion poll says that 36% of people are worried that there is fraud in the system. The Bill is to deal with confidence in the system. We on this side of the House are not averse to trying to increase confidence. As long as it does not have a damaging effect on the number of people who participate in our democracy, it is a sensible way to go.
The proposal—indeed, it became law in 2009—was to allow individual registration on a voluntary basis. Each year the Electoral Commission would report on how that was going; then in 2014, after the process had been going for some time, the Electoral Commission would give advice to Parliament on whether or not to move from a household system to an individual electoral registration system. This House could then make a decision as to whether or not the risks to our democracy in terms of the number of people who were not registered were safe enough for the move to be made. I respectfully submit that that is an extremely sensible way of dealing with it.
When this House last debated the issue of how many people were not registered, we proceeded on the basis that the register was probably 91% or 92% accurate. To their great credit, the Government financed the Electoral Commission to do further research in relation to that. This was published at the end of last year and showed that in fact we were underestimating the level of under-registration. From my reading of that research, at its peak the level of registration appears to be 82%, meaning that at certain times of the year, depending on how far away you are from an annual canvass, as many as 18% are not registered in this country. By my calculation that is some 8.5 million people. I would have thought that the consequence of making registration more complicated is bound to increase the number of people who are not registered.
What is wrong with making sure that, before one gets there, one has done as much as one can to get as few people as possible to drop out? Why has the programme been changed? Why are we not taking care of this? We will propose first, by way of amendment, that there should be monitoring as to how the process is going; and secondly, that we as a Parliament should get advice from the Electoral Commission as to whether it is sensible to do such a thing.
Following the points that the transition is being made too fast and that there is no monitoring of its effect, the next point is the boundary review. As I understand what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, there will be a canvass during 2014, and the only people who will be knocked off the register will be people who the electoral registration officer is satisfied are not resident at the address. Even if you do not make an application and even if you do not provide any identifiers, you will not get knocked off the register in 2014 unless the ERO believes that you do not live there. Can the noble Lord confirm that in his winding-up remarks? However, as I understand the position, in 2015 those who can be data-matched with the DWP material will be put on the register without having to make an application. Again, I hope that the noble Lord will confirm or deny that in his winding-up remarks.
In relation to the noble Lord’s estimate, which I have no basis for challenging, from 1 December 2015 the one-third of the electorate who are not data-matched with the DWP material will get knocked off the register unless each one of them makes an individual application and produces the necessary identifiers. That is my understanding of how the transition and the system will work. If I am not one of the two-thirds of the electorate, if I am one of the one-third, I will have to fill in a form and provide the individual identifier—indeed, I think it will be three individual identifiers, one of which will be my national insurance number. If I do not do that, I will get knocked off the register. Have the Government made an estimate of how many people they think will not go through that process? If so, could they tell us what it is?
Am I not also right in saying that the boundary review that will take place for the election in 2020—if the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 leads to five-year elections—will be based on the electoral register that will come into existence on 1 December 2015? In those circumstances we will have new constituencies brought into existence on the basis of the first shot at individual electoral registration.
There is no dispute, from anybody who has looked at this, that the people who are least likely to register are the young, the very old, the disabled, those from black and minority-ethnic communities, and those in private rented accommodation. The danger of all this is that you end up with your social class, your colour or your capacity determining whether you are registered or not. We should be doing our best as a nation to have individual electoral registration—but surely on the basis that it applies right across the board. Everybody agrees that it is worth while, but I am completely unable to understand why a sensible, monitored introduction is not taking place. What is the motivation for not doing what people regard as sensible, in a sensible way? The Liberal Democrats say that the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act is a piece of legislation that was designed to help the Conservative Party—and that came out of the coalition agreement. Is this the same? We need an explanation as to why this important building block in our democracy is being dealt with in what appears, on the face of it, to be a rather cavalier way. Would the sensible thing not be to stick to the timescale, with annual monitoring and the report to Parliament, so we know where we stand in relation to it?
There are three other matters. First, I am unable to understand why those who are currently registered for a proxy or postal vote are not carrying forward their right to a proxy or postal vote for the purposes of the 2015 election. That appears both an unnecessary regulation and one that is very difficult to justify.
Secondly, additional resources will presumably be required in order to achieve the handover or transition that we have been talking about. The Cabinet Office has been kind enough to publish something called the high-level implementation timeline, which involves this year, 2012, for local authorities. Those involved in local delivery will be asked to plan for the introduction of individual electoral registration at a local level, which will include working out what resources they need. They will also be asked to play an important role in developing and testing the new capability to be rolled out more widely in 2013. Will the Minister tell the House how that is going? That is at paragraph 7 of the notes accompanying the high-level timeline. For 2013, the timeline envisages that:
“Electoral Registration Officers and Electoral Administrators will have IT systems put in place, other resources acquired and capabilities—including staff training—built during this phase”—
in 2013—
“in readiness for go-live in the following year. All local capability needs will be ready by the end of this phase”,
that is, by the end of 2013. Can the noble Lord indicate what budget has been set aside to put those capabilities in place, what progress has been made in relation to the development of the IT systems required, and whether he anticipates any teething difficulties in relation to it? Can he also tell this House the extent to which the Government’s proposals depend on their IT systems working properly?
Finally, we on this side of the House will take care to examine these proposals in considerable detail. If they go wrong, there could be a substantial reduction in the number of people on the register. Currently, it could be as low as 82%. What would be the consequences to our democracy if it went to somewhere in the low 70s or even the high 60s? That would be extremely damaging. The question that underlies our approach to this Bill is: why on earth are the Government taking this risk with our democracy?
Lord Baker of Dorking
My Lords, it is entirely appropriate that this unelected second Chamber should be debating, probing, examining and questioning the electoral system in our country. As none of us is elected, we can approach this with a degree of objectivity and dispassion, which was how the noble and learned Lord began his remarks. I welcome that; it is a sort of oblique argument in favour of not having an elected element to this House, but I leave that debate for another day.
The independence of this House in electoral matters was very much evidenced in 2004 when postal voting by demand, introduced by the Labour Government in an Act in 2001, was eventually implemented that year by another Act. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, was involved at the time, as was one of his colleagues. This House insisted that there should be proof of identity in postal voting. That was resisted by the House of Commons again and again, and there was an episode of ping pong. Eventually a proof of identity was put on to the statute book, which I think is entirely appropriate. Anyone who has fought in an election, as have seven or eight speakers in the debate, knows how important the register is. They will also recognise how out of date and inaccurate it is, and how frustrating it is to be met by your supporters during an election campaign who say, “I’m afraid I am not registered”. We have all had that experience. There might be a case for late registration, which should be looked at by the Electoral Commission and possibly by the Government.
The purpose of the Bill is to try to suppress fraud. Fraud in election comes in many shapes and sizes. The old traditional one was a straightforward impersonation in the ballot room—you turned up and said that you were somebody you were not. I think it was derived from the old Irish custom of polling the dead, but wherever it came from that was the most likely method. If you look at the recent fraudulent cases, you will see that that rarely happens now. Fraud in elections has become much more sophisticated, and the real fraud now in elections takes place as a result of having a postal vote by demand. There is a good case for that in trying to increase the number of people who are going to vote in our country, but there is absolutely no doubt that after it was introduced there was a flood of fraudulent activities. I will give noble Lords some idea of its extent. Recorded proceedings were taken and charges were laid in the following places: Birmingham, twice; Coventry; Burnley, twice; Halifax; Middlesbrough; Rochdale; Leicester; Pendle; Hyndburn; Blackburn; Woking; Slough; Peterborough; Reading; Oldham; Bradford; and Tower Hamlets, which has become the centre of this activity and where there is an ongoing criminal investigation.
The original cases in 2005-06 were principally between the Labour and Liberal Parties in the northern cities. The Conservative Party was no slouch in this. It quickly got in on the act and there was really no difference between the various parties in this matter: all parties have engaged in that sort of fraud.
Lord Wills
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Perhaps he could help the House by saying two things. First, what percentage of total votes cast were represented by those challenges in that long list that he outlined? Secondly, is he familiar with the 2008 Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust study on postal voting? If he is not, I suggest he familiarises himself with it. I am going to quote extensively from it later in my speech. I will not tire the House with it now, but I hope that the noble Lord will stay around to hear exactly what it said about the extent of postal vote fraud.
Lord Baker of Dorking
I am familiar with the Rowntree report and I intend to quote something from it which rather refutes it, so we will have an exchange of quotations later. On percentages, the point about the list I have read out is that this particular fraud has certain characteristics. It is urban and it is in marginal seats. In many seats where there is a clear majority, either for the Labour Party or the Conservative Party, there is no fraud because it is unnecessary: it will not affect the result. It will affect the result only in marginal seats where a small balance of a small number of votes can determine who is going to win at a local election or at a general election. That is the comparison that one must make.
This fraud takes place in high-density communities with crowded premises in towns and cities. There is a high turnover because people are moving all the time from flat to flat and from residence to residence. There is often a floating population which can generate what has been described by some electoral pundits as clan loyalty whereby people want to see their immediate friends and colleagues elected. Many of these cases have landed up in court and there has been the imprisonment and bankruptcy of some of the people involved. Mayors and councillors have been involved, and reputations have been destroyed. It has been a very sad episode. It is in the interests of all our parties to try to eliminate this as much as we can.
In May 2010, the Sunday Times reported that 27 people were registered in a single property in Southall and in February this year the Evening Standard reported that dozens of flats in Tower Hamlets were registered with eight people per bedroom. The quotation that I shall use, which is rather later than the Rowntree report, comes from Judge Richard Mawrey, the expert on electoral fraud in our country. He has dealt with many cases. He said that,
“where a small number of votes will make a considerable difference, then the opportunities for fraud are enormous, the chances of detection very small, and a relatively modest amount of fraud will guarantee you win the election”.
That is the problem we have to face. What can one do about that?
I remember when I first stood in a council election back in the 1950s. In those days, if you wanted a postal vote or a proxy vote—fellow parliamentarians will remember this—you had to justify it and explain that you were elderly, housebound, or bedbound, were going to be abroad or out of town, or worked in a town that was different from the town in which you were registered to vote. There was a variety of reasons. You had to have that application signed by a magistrate, an MP, a doctor or a professional person. I well remember—and I am sure my noble friend Lord Rennard will remember because in these matters I look upon him as a professional expert—that in those days in all constituency fights you had a committee of people who sought out postal votes for your party. I think the Liberal Party was the first to do so, but we followed quite quickly. You identified people who you knew were going to be abroad and got them registered. I would go back to something like that, but that may be a little unrealistic unless the checks and balances that we create are effective.
If this business of postal fraud continues—and I think we are going to try to stop it with this Bill, very imperfectly, if I may say so—what can one do? The basis of the previous system was verification by an outsider. Under postal vote by demand the verification is by the registered person and, as the Minister said and the noble Lord confirmed, there will be three qualifications: a signature, a date of birth and a national insurance number. This is going to be a matter for the Secretary of State to lay down in regulations after the Bill. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that the national insurance number will be added. That would certainly deal with the problem of illegal immigrants because the national insurance number is the closest thing we in this country have to a national number.
Other checks are important. The canvass is important. There is going to be a canvass in 2014. That means that returning officers will have to carry out a canvass. I remember this happening once in Dorking. It surprised everybody. People were visited by people from the council who knocked on doors to see who lived there and who they were, but it happened only once during my 30 years-plus in the House of Commons. I think it is an important step in the verification of electoral registers, and there is a possibility that it could be suspended, postponed or done only partially, and that is quite wrong.
The other check is the verification of postal votes by returning officers. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, answered a Question last year or the year before about the 2010 election. In only two-thirds of the cases had returning officers checked the signatures on the ballot papers. Those of us who have postal votes know that you have to sign them, having previously registered your signature. That was done in only three-quarters of the cases. I would have thought that it would be necessary to make that mandatory for all seats.
One other matter I would draw to the attention of the Government is the spate of fraud from about 2005 to this year, mainly based around postal votes, and only partially on proxy votes. There have been one or two cases of late where the fraud seems to have moved to proxy voting. There was one case where somebody turned up with 50 proxy votes; that is just like the 18th century, when the Duke of Newcastle turned up with a number of votes and said, “That’s it”. I would have thought that there is a case for saying that anybody who has a proxy vote should have a vote for only one other person—not for another 50—to bring to the poll. That is not in the Bill; perhaps the Government might consider that carefully, to see whether such an amendment could be introduced.
I would make only these further points. This Bill also extends the length of the campaign from 17 days to 25. I do not know where this proposal came from; I always thought that 17 days was quite enough for a campaign. One of the great virtues of our system is that we have a short, sharp campaign. In America, it lasts for a year or 18 months, but in Britain, 17 days was absolutely ideal. I do not why we need another eight days for campaigning, when one counted and ticked off the days and the hours and hoped for polling day. That will be a big expense for the parties; they will need quite a bit more money to run the campaign for another week. It seems to be government policy and also I suppose coalition policy, too. It was—good Lord. In that case, I support it, although I do not really see the justification for it.
The other point I shall touch on is the extraordinary civil penalty which has been created: that the returning officer imposes a civil penalty on people who do not register. That reminded me of the Anglican confession:
“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done”.
It seems extraordinary to create a civil penalty and a fine for not doing something. It would face enormous trouble in the courts. I am sure the Minister is aware that there are very strange religious cults in our country, which are not remotely concerned with the electoral system here; they are mainly concerned about the accessibility of the next world. They will certainly tell their supporters on no account to bother to register. Sure enough, there will be a case with some awkward person who will actually go to court and challenge this, and almost certainly end up in a human rights court, challenging whether his human rights have been denied by not registering. He would be hauled up because he had not performed his civic duty. Civic duty is another extraordinary concept of this Bill and I have not come across this previously in legislation. I know it as a concept. When the human rights court gets such a case before it, it will almost certainly find in favour of the litigant. After all, it was prepared to disregard civic duty to the extent of allowing prisoners— who have abandoned their civic duties—to have votes. I think this will be a big problem area for the Government; I do not know where the problem arose.
In conclusion, it is in the interests of all parties to ensure that there are no obvious areas of fraud. I believe that in spite of the checks and balances introduced by this Bill, there will be scope for elaborate and very ingenious fraud through postal and proxy voting. That should be checked. It was checked in the 19th century and the early 20th century; we have made it much looser. That is not in the interests of democracy or fairness.
Lord Rennard
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for some of his kind remarks about me. However, in many decades of organising elections, I was always sceptical about how far many candidates actually understood the details of the process. A number of those remarks have not reduced my scepticism about how far candidates have appreciated the detail of elections. I remember the period when, I think, the noble Lord was the chairman of the Conservative Party and the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, was Prime Minister. It was during that period that the fine for not complying with the registration process was increased from £50 to £400. There was great concern that people were not following their proper duty in being on the electoral register; they were possibly seen to be avoiding the poll tax—which we all remember—and therefore the fine was £400. There is sometimes a lack of consistency in the way that some Conservatives argue about the civic duty to be on the electoral register and it being a legal requirement that is, therefore, subject to a fine.
In general, at almost every point in the recent discussions on voter registration, I have asked Ministers to confirm that the aims of making changes to the process are at least as much about improving the completeness of the register as they are about improving its accuracy. However, the impact assessment of the Bill suggests that successful implementation of the move to individual electoral registration may mean only around 85% completion, which is little better than the situation is now. In other words, successful implementation may be deemed by the Government to be based on making the register more accurate but not necessarily more complete. The Government may be aiming rather modestly to do little more than halt the significant decline in registration levels that we have seen over the past 10 years. Therefore, the aims of the Bill are not very ambitious in respect of maximising registration. I should like them to be more ambitious and I believe that we need to know how successful the implementation of a new registration scheme has been before it can be declared fit for purpose for all elections and boundary reviews after 2015.
I welcome the changes to the Government’s approach that have been made since the publication of the White Paper in June last year. However, more detail on the proposed changes is still required and more could be done to improve, rather than weaken, the health of our democracy. I particularly welcome the significant change in the approach to obligations to register from that initially outlined in the draft legislation. The initial proposals would undoubtedly, whether wittingly or unwittingly, have had the effect of depriving millions more people of their right to vote. Instead of 6 million or 7 million people being missing from the register, as there are now, under the original proposal we might well have ended up with 12 million or 15 million people who are entitled to vote missing from the register, and therefore unlikely to be able to vote. With an electorate that should be around 50 million, it should be a source of great concern that so many millions of people would potentially miss out on the opportunity to vote for the lack of a proper process of voter registration, such as is the basis of all democratic systems. Therefore, everyone should welcome the Government’s recognition that there is an obligation to register to vote, and that this gives people the opportunity to take part in an election but does not require them to do so.
There is a significant problem with the existing system, caused by the inconsistency of individual electoral registration officers designing their own forms in every case. The degree of prominence given to the legal requirement has varied and the fact that you can, under the present system, be fined as much as £1,000 for not complying with the registration process is not even mentioned on many of the forms. Best practice requires making the legal requirement and the potential level of fine explicit and prominent on the household registration forms. I am very grateful to the Minister for confirming in the debate in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, on 12 July, that in future,
“the application form that will be designed by the Electoral Commission must include a statement about the possibility of a fine and the size of that potential fine”.—[Official Report, 12/7/12; col. 1292.]
I hope that he can also assure us that regulations will ensure that the statement will be very prominent on those forms.
It will be even more important that we adopt the best possible methodology for the individual registration forms that will follow the household inquiry ones. The Bill establishes the principle of individual forms but the crucial detail about implementation will be in the secondary legislation. Therefore, in considering the principles of the Bill, I ask the Minister to confirm some of the issues of principle behind the implementation that are not featured in the Government’s implementation plan, which was published last Friday, and which I assume are still under consideration.
It seems important that the civil penalty for non-compliance with the individual registration form must not be seen as a one-off fee for exemption from inclusion in the voting register. I agree with the Minister that the level of fixed penalty should be akin to that deemed appropriate for parking offences. However, repeatedly and wilfully refusing to comply with the process should attract repeat penalties. Subsequent compliance with the registration process should then lead to the cancellation, at least, of further penalties and possibly the reduction, or even cancellation, of the original fixed penalty.
Perhaps the Minister will tell us more about exactly how this process will work, and how and when we will know how it will work. He will understand that many of us will want to understand these details properly before we approve the Bill. He should be aware that it will simply not be good enough for someone to pay a fine and then avoid registration completely until the following year. A one-off fine must not become an annual fee for avoiding registration.
We would also like to hear more detail about how we will avoid the fundamental problem that different local authorities tend to have quite different levels of diligence when it comes to the registration process. While we often argue that government processes are too centralised in this country in many respects, the basis for the electoral administration systems that underpin our democracy across the country should be the same across the country. This is necessary both to ensure a democratic outcome in the elections for those local authorities overseeing the process, and also for every set of elections based on using that electoral register.
The electoral register is also important for jury service, for credit referencing and for the purchase of goods and services, the supply of which may be linked to presence on the electoral register. It should not be up to individual local authorities or electoral registration officers to decide how assiduous to be in trying to make the register complete and accurate. The best practice of repeatedly writing to and visiting people who are known to be eligible to be on the register but who have not registered should involve explaining carefully to people four different principles.
First, they are not automatically registered. Many people believe, quite wrongly, that they are automatically put on the voting register. Secondly, there are important reasons for registering, including access to credit and to buying goods and services, often over the internet. Thirdly, it is a legal requirement, subject to fines and penalties, to comply with the process, as now. Fourthly, registration is a very simple process. Explaining these principles in writing and through doorstep canvassing must be not just the best practice but should be a universal requirement if our electoral register is to be in good order.
The Minister has accepted in other debates that the success of the data-matching pilots will be crucial to the successful implementation of individual electoral registration. There are certainly doubts about the effectiveness of the first round of data-matching pilots. I hope that the Minister will confirm that all possible national government or local authority databases will be used to identify individuals eligible to be on the register and that follow-up procedures will then try to ensure that they are registered. These should include, for example, databases such as those of the DWP, the DVLA and the Student Loans Company. Such data-mining exercises should go no further than providing names and addresses of people believed to be eligible for the electoral register. But to make a sufficient success of the changes to the system to enable the register to be fit for purpose, I believe that the Government will have to go further. They will have to show that they are really sincere about their stated aims of making the electoral register accurate and complete.
I believe that they could do so by applying the same principles of data mining that they will use for publicly held records to those held by the credit reference agencies. No more information should be obtained from these sources than names and addresses of potentially eligible voters who can then be invited to apply for the registration process. If they do not exist, or they are not eligible, there will be no further consequences. But if they do exist and they are eligible, they should be subject to the same registration processes as everyone else.
The Bill team has advised me that nothing in the Bill prevents the use of private data in this way. I believe that it could make a substantial difference to the success of implementation. But I would like to know from the Minister whether the Government are engaging with the credit reference agencies to see how, with proper safeguards, we can ensure that people entitled to be on the electoral register, but absent from it, are invited to register without compromising any private or personal information. Quickly confirming existing registration details might be more effective for this database or these databases than simply using things such as the DWP database alone. For example, queries about duplicate registration might be more quickly and easily dealt with by the returning officers with access to these data.
Much of the work to improve electoral registration should have been done decades ago. The fact that it was not done is not a reason for not doing it now. Our existing processes are now known to be rather more flawed than we thought only a few years ago. Above all, we cannot be complacent about the outcome of the process. We cannot let the Government simply say that they have done their best by the time of the next election and reluctantly accept that many fewer people will be able to vote in future.
The changes that will result from the shift to individual electoral registration may not affect any elections until after May 2015. But the local elections in England in 2016, and those to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, should all be based on the new voting system. I am not sure how far the local authorities, the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh Assembly are aware of these changes or have been consulted about them.
After 2016, all elections should be based on this new system. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said earlier, the next parliamentary boundary review, as I am sure he well remembers from very lengthy debates, will be based on the register as it is on 1 December 2015, using the new system with no carryover from the old one. The Government accept that there are risks in making changes to this process. We must therefore be satisfied that the processes have been substantially successful before we can say that it would be safe to proceed to use the new system for elections or for boundary reviews.
Lord Trimble
My Lords, I shall start with a personal reminiscence. I went into the other place after a by-election in 1990. I managed to persuade my party to make me Home Affairs spokesman shortly afterwards with the result that, after the general election in 2002, I found on my desk an invitation to go to the Home Office’s regular post-election wash-up. I decided that I would go, and when I went I found that I was the only elected representative. The other parties were represented by experts in the subject, which I certainly was not; on that occasion, I was a mere practitioner. During one discussion, there was a comment about a problem—I cannot remember whether it was made by a representative from the Conservative Party or the Labour Party. I could not quite understand the problem because reference to it was curtailed. During the coffee break, I went to the Conservative and Labour representatives and inquired, “What was that that you were referring to?”. They said, “We were mentioning a significant problem that occurs in certain areas and affects all our parties. The problem is that there is widespread fraudulent voting in those areas but no one is prepared to talk about it openly because it gets into areas of ethnic minorities”.
They went on to say that in these areas the register is completely unreliable and that there is great difficulty in checking it because in some cases you are dealing with large numbers of people whose surname is merely based on the fact that they all came from a certain village on another continent. That was in 1992. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, referred to cases that were more than 10 years later. More than 20 years have passed since that comment was made in the margins of a meeting—it certainly was not made formally—but the problem has not passed and it should be addressed.
I also recall that once, at an election in Portadown, I came to a narrow, dilapidated, boarded-up house. Those who were with me with a copy of the electoral register drew my attention to the fact that there were six persons on the register for it. That is completely dwarfed by the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, mentioned earlier, but it impressed me at the time that someone thought they could put so many persons into such a small house.
There is clearly a problem. In Northern Ireland, where photo ID is now required for voting, the quality of the register is the main source through which electoral fraud can occur. Mention was made earlier of how individual electoral registration was introduced in Northern Ireland and I want to refer a little to that experience. Individual electoral registration was introduced in 2002; individuals registering to vote had to include personal details, including National Insurance and a signature, and registration was done de novo with no carry-forward of names from the existing register, which had a 12-month life.
The immediate effect was a fall of over 10% in the number of voters. The figures are as follows: in 2002 there were a total of 1,198,504 persons on the register in Northern Ireland. That dropped in 2003 to 1,072,425, a drop of just over 124,000. It dropped further in 2004 to 1,069,000, a drop of 3,000, and in 2005 there was a drop of a further 23,000 to 1,047,601. There are a number of reasons for the decline and, in the absence of any detailed research, which I do not think anyone has undertaken, those reasons are speculative. False registrations were responsible for a significant number, though we cannot quantify it. There were also many people who preferred to be off the register for a variety of reasons, such as not wanting to have their name accessible, though it is not necessary to go into these. There would also, of course, have been those who could not be bothered.
Because of the continuing falls after the initial one, there was concern over this situation and, starting in 2005, a number of measures were adopted to curtail the decline. First, carry-forward was reinstated in 2005 for that year and then permanently. Secondly, a system of rolling registration was introduced in place of the requirement to register annually. Thirdly, provision was made for data matching and, as the Minister says, data mining, though I would have thought that was included in data matching. Fourthly, provision was made for a canvass to be held in 2010 and every tenth year thereafter although, significantly, provision was also made for additional canvasses where the chief electoral officer requested it and the Secretary of State was satisfied that it was in the public interest. Fifthly, the chief electoral officer was given access to the identities of 16 and 17 year-olds in schools and further education so that they could have their attention drawn to the desirability of registering.
These measures have resulted in an increase in the register. In 2006 it increased by roughly 10,000 to 1,157,000 but dropped, funnily enough, the next year to 1,075,000. In 2008 it went up to 1,125,000, an increase of over 50,000, and increased by another 16,000 in 2009 to 1,142,000. In 2010 it was 1,170,000 and finally, by 2011, it reached 1,202,000 and got above the 2002 figure. It has increased in the latest register by a further 2,000. As the Minister said in his opening speech, it is indicated that this is roughly 85% complete.
In 2007 the Electoral Commission, commenting on this experience, said that the fall in numbers reflected the removal of the carry-forward, which had the effect of removing inflationary factors from the register. That lovely phrase “inflationary factors from the register” is a way of avoiding the use of the word fraud, but that is what it was. Significantly, the commission said that it had the effect of “restoring integrity” to the registration process. That is hugely important, and I hope that that integrity has been sustained.
I am slightly uncomfortable, though, because one has heard rumours—I can say only “rumours” because they cannot be proved—about a certain political party in a certain constituency, when it has its post-election get-together, awarding a special prize to the election worker responsible for the most votes. I am not sure what the mechanics of that are these days and I am not going to identify the constituency, but I am sure that if this is happening, and given its discipline and organisation, the political party will have ensured that the number of votes claimed by its election workers is accurate.
It will have been noticed that the Bill retains the annual canvass, has provision for data matching and introduces a civil penalty for failing to register when required to do so. The carry-forward will continue until 2015, by which time the register should have been thoroughly checked. One hopes that these measures may work in maintaining on the register persons entitled to be there but, if there is a reduction, we should not jump to the conclusion that it means that people entitled to be on the register have been removed—one has to remember that it is possible that there is significant fraudulent registration. Not all the measures adopted in Northern Ireland have been paralleled here, but most of them have. However, we may want to consider during the passage of the Bill whether further measures similar to those adopted in Northern Ireland should be introduced.
Finally, I wish to mention another matter, although I will not be in complete agreement with party colleagues. A welcome side effect of the extension of the electoral timetable occurred in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections in 2011 when the early dispatch of poll cards resulted in more than 17,000 changes to the register, of which some 11,500 were new registrations. The extension to the electoral timetable may produce more new registrations, and they would indeed be welcome.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton
My Lords, the Minister told us that the Bill’s purpose was to create a system designed to reduce electoral fraud and increase the integrity of the register. Clearly, individual registration rather than household registration, by removing intermediaries, should go quite a long way to achieving the aim of reducing fraud. That is crucial.
However, equally important should be the aim to increase the level of electoral registration and thereby ensure that the maximum number of eligible people are entitled to vote. That aim was not evident from the Minister’s words in the Commons, when he said:
“I sincerely hope that it will be no lower than the population that is registered today”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/5/12; col. 1178.]
There was no specific reference to the 6 million or 7 million people currently not on the register. Talking in percentages actually undermines the reality, because we are talking about some 6 million to 8 million people who do not have the right to vote. I do not really care about the percentage. I am much more interested in talking about people, and they are missing from the register. Nor have we heard how the Bill will ensure a vast reduction in that number while providing safeguard mechanisms to ensure that the change to IR does not result in eligible electors falling off the register. With respect to the Minister, I have to say that I am not convinced.
Having such a large gap in the electoral roll has to be completely unacceptable. Surely the goal in any democracy must be to achieve a complete and accurate register. I completely agreed with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, when he talked about the completeness of the register—not only its accuracy—and its consistency across the country. I should say that over many years the noble Lord and I have worked together as electoral apparatchiks. I am glad that we are on the same wavelength. However, I really want to concentrate on registration.
Before going further, I must declare in an interest as chair of the HS Chapman Society—a society made up of representatives from the main political parties, ex-apparatchiks like me, party lawyers, the Electoral Commission, and electoral registration officers. We aim to ensure that registration and elections are run effectively and are fraud-free, and we genuinely believe that individual registration is a key component to achieving those aims.
However, given that we had an effective Bill—now the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, which received cross-party support at that time—I find it puzzling why it was necessary to change in the coalition agreement what had already been agreed. It was a Bill that covered both the elimination of fraud and safeguards on registration. I cannot understand why we just have not followed that Bill through. It could have been well on its way to doing its work now.
Rather, we have a new Bill speeding up the process—a Bill that is flawed in many ways and which is causing grave concern among many practitioners. I appreciate that adjustments have been made to the original proposal such as withdrawing the chance of an opt-out for individuals who did not wish to register—I find it absolutely unbelievable that could even be suggested—the agreeing of the annual canvass in 2014, reversing the Government’s original position, and retaining non-registration or providing false information as an offence. In spite of those welcome changes, they do not provide the assurances and safeguards necessary to overcome those concerns.
This brings me to my first concern about this Bill: the proposal to amend the current Section 9A(1) of the RPA 1983—as outlined in paragraph 6(2) of Schedule 4 of the Bill. Currently, Section 9A(1) requires an ERO to take,
“all steps that are necessary for the purpose of complying with his duty to maintain the register under section 9”.
This Bill proposes to amend this to include the words,
“so far as is reasonably practicable”.
However, as the Minister said, this duty is extremely important to ensure that the EROs do all that is necessary to improve the accuracy and completeness of the register, including conducting house-to-house inquiries where other steps have not yielded the necessary information. We may be told that the change of wording is intended only as a technical amendment. Clearly it is not—not only is the proposed amendment confusing but it has the potential to dilute the effect of the existing duty. Surely there is a good reason not to reduce the duty at this time, when the accuracy and the completeness of the register is so critical.
This brings me to the crucial canvasses being conducted in 2014—canvasses that also, of course, have to be complete and accurate. The Minister mentioned that there was going to be a wide advertising campaign. How is that campaign going to be conducted? I am pleased to hear that the campaign will not be aimed just at the general public but will use different approaches to different communities, be they home movers, the BME community or young people. I would like to hear much more about how much money is going be put into that campaign, what the process will be, and who will be conducting the campaign and be responsible for it, whether it be the Electoral Commission or not.
I need to also ask, appreciating how important canvasses are, whether it is the right time for the Minister to have the power to cancel annual canvasses. I know that the noble Lord said that it would not happen with this Minister, but it could give the ability to other Ministers to cancel those campaigns. I think that is what he said. He will tell me if I have got that wrong. I cannot honestly see why there is any need to put that into this Bill, particularly as it is estimated that the accuracy of the register deteriorates by 1% following the canvass. I fail to understand, without the annual canvass, how that shortfall will be dealt with.
Clearly, all that raises the question of funding for this job to be done effectively, as the financial impact assessment states that it will require significant investment, not least as a substantial part of the implementation will depend on the ERO having the right tools in place to be able to do the job, whether it is electoral software or IT solutions. This means that we must consider how much money it will cost. The Minister in the other place stated that £108 million would be provided for the transition to IER. I do know what that includes. Will it buy the sort of equipment that EROs will need? How has the figure been identified and what will the money be spent on? It also means that there must be timely—almost immediate—provision of funds for the initial planning, overall design, tendering and implementation. I would like more detail about how and when the £108 million will be spent.
I appreciate that the funding allocated will be paid under Section 31 of the Act, which covers direct grants. That means it will not be ring-fenced. There is therefore no guarantee that it will be used for the purposes for which it was allocated. From experience, money given in this way often finds its way into other local government expenditure, not least at a time when local authorities are facing cuts. What guarantees will there be that the money will be spent for the purposes for which it has been allocated? The Minister’s reply on this point in the Commons was not in any way adequate. He indicated that the Government would consult about the mechanism, and that local authorities with specific needs would bid for extra resources. There was no detail of what the mechanism or the specific needs would be, what criteria would be used and what would happen if the bids failed and the local authority were left with a funding shortfall.
Another query relates to data matching, which has already been mentioned. Of course it can be useful and helpful against any decline in registration during the introduction of individual registration. While 22 pilot schemes have taken place, they have not yet been evaluated. However, in spite of the electoral registration officers who were involved in the schemes indicating that using government databases to identify new electors had had limited effectiveness, the Government are still steaming ahead with the Bill. Following completion of the Bill, what will be the process for rectifying flaws when the pilots are eventually evaluated in 2014 and changes have to be made?
One of the most disturbing things in the Bill relates to postal and proxy votes. It is right that during the transition phase people without a postal or proxy vote who fail to register under IER will be carried forward to the 2015 register, thereby enabling them to vote in the 2015 general election. However, it is absolutely not right that those with a postal or proxy vote will have to register under the new system in 2014 or forfeit their absentee vote—they will have to vote in person or not at all. The speed of introduction of the process will deprive EROs of the necessary time to verify all applications. This will create a discriminatory situation, particularly against the elderly and the disabled who, through no fault of their own but because of the Government, could be debarred from voting because they are unable to get to the poll because of illness or disability. Organisations such as Scope, Mind, Age UK, the RNIB and Sense believe that the IER presents a real opportunity to improve the electoral processes for elderly and disabled people, so it would be ironic if they were penalised in this way. To debar a single eligible voter from voting is wrong and I question the legality of the Government’s position.
I will say a brief word about fines for non-registration, which have always been in place, as has been said. I am confused about the relationship with a parking fine, and about how one will work within a spectrum. I would have thought that what was needed was a national fine that would be imposed across the country. Perhaps it will be explained that that is the case, but I am confused about what is meant by “spectrum”. It would also be useful to know whether there are any ideas about what the civil penalty will be in that system, because that will affect its effectiveness.
In conclusion, I want to say a word about the 2015 parliamentary boundary changes. As others have mentioned, they will be based on the new electoral register at the end of the transitional period on 1 December 2015 when, under this Bill, the size of the electorate could be temporarily diminished. Under the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, if there is a decline in the number of electors in certain constituencies, for whatever reason, the parliamentary boundaries must be redrawn. This will apply at a time when the electoral register will be at its most variable because of the flaws in this Bill, and many invisible citizens will not be accounted for. It will cause a great deal of concern in certain parts of the country that will be affected more than others. Therefore, while I support the principle of this Bill—I did when the Labour Government introduced the question of individual registration—I hope that it will be amended in Committee so that it not only eliminates fraud but diminishes the possibility of any reduction in the register and provides a substantial increase in the number of people on the register.
It might also be useful to consider amendments to achieve what might be called a registration revolution. I appreciate that we are now registering online but there are other ways in which the registration process could happen. We need to examine new opportunities to make registration easier, such as registration forms, perhaps at government offices or in the Post Office. I disagree firmly with the Minister about registering on election day. If voters have personal identifiers and evidence of who they are, fraud is prevented by registering on the day. A growing number of countries register on the day. In the early 1990s, I worked a great deal in the new democracies in eastern Europe. We established that those people who had not been able to register previously would always be able to register on the day. However we deal with this Bill in Committee, I hope that, in the end, we are able to achieve an increase in the number of people who are entitled to vote.
Baroness O'Loan
My Lords, I wish to bring three brief points to the attention of your Lordships’ House. I welcome the attempts in the Bill to reduce electoral fraud by speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration, which has clearly been very effective in Northern Ireland. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, has referred extensively to the figures. When individual voter registration was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2006, there was a 20% reduction in the number of those registered to vote. That is a significant number in anyone’s terms.
The first matter I wish to consider in detail is the power contained in Clause 2(2) of the Bill, which would insert a new paragraph into Schedule 2 to the Representation of the People Act 1983. This relates to Section 53 of that Act. Those provisions are unexceptional. They permit the Secretary of State or the Lord President of the Council to make regulations, subject to the affirmative procedure, about the registration of voters and arrangements for postal and proxy voting. However, the new provisions pursuant to Clause 2(2) will give power to the Secretary of State by determination, not by affirmative resolution or regulation as is the pattern elsewhere in the Bill, to require that a person seeking registration as a voter must provide specific evidence of identity to prove that he or she is the person named in the application and to enable the registration officer to determine whether that person is entitled to be registered. There is a new sub-paragraph, to which some reference has been made, which states the kind of evidence required, including a person’s date of birth and national insurance number. On the face of it, that sounds quite normal and what one might expect of legislation. However, this provision goes to the heart of the exercise of the right to vote. It removes from any formal parliamentary oversight or challenge the nature of the evidence ultimately required to be permitted to vote. It is left to the Secretary of State to decide by determination. The question here must be: why not by regulation?
There is already confusion about which documents permit one to be able to register as a voter. Searching the web does not always reveal a clear and coherent statement in answer to the question. Moreover, there are many in our society who do not have access to the web and thus to the information that may be available. I think of the elderly, those with a disability, those from the ethnic minorities with language difficulties, and even the very young voter. The explanation given to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, of which I am a member, of why the Secretary of State should be allowed to decide by determination what evidence should be required was that:
“The question of what information or documents have sufficient evidential value to be relied upon is a technical one, and one which changes over time as the technology used by various entities changes ... this information may need to be changed at short notice”.
That is the justification for removing from any form of parliamentary scrutiny that part of the process which will enable intending voters to become registered. We all know that it is possible for primary legislation to be made in the course of a day, let alone amending regulations. In its sixth report, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee stated that the arrangements set out in the Bill are inappropriate.
The reality is that the range of documents which may be used to confer eligibility to register is limited, but there will undoubtedly be circumstances in which people who should be entitled to register will not have the normal documents. Not everybody has a passport or a driving licence; not everybody even has a birth certificate. You can get birth certificates from Somerset House, but that does not actually prove that someone is the person named on the birth certificate. Questions have already been asked as to whether the Government are satisfied that the current data collections in relation to material held about people’s identity are accurate. What of the validity of information which may be supplied pursuant to the Bill by a person of any kind from whom the electoral registration officer may seek information?
The matter is complicated by the fact that if you are a citizen of one of some 105 European Union or Commonwealth countries, British Overseas Territories or British Crown dependencies and you are resident in the United Kingdom, you are eligible to register to vote. That means that the nature of the documentation could in some circumstances be very different from that which might be required of a UK citizen. This is of fundamental importance to our democracy and I would suggest that, like all the other provisions in the Bill, there should be a proper arrangement for this process.
There has been considerable discussion of the issue of proxy and postal votes and the carry-forward arrangements in the Bill. I endorse much of what has been said about the importance of cleaning up proxy and postal votes, but I want to emphasise the fact that, for those with disabilities and for the vulnerable, it will be necessary to make further carry-forward arrangements. Otherwise, they will be deprived of their right to vote.
There is another issue that I would like to raise. A survey undertaken at the last general election by the organisation Scope called “Polls Apart” found that there are approximately 15,000 potential disabled voters per constituency, with 67% of polling stations representing one or more access barriers for disabled people. Five charities, Mencap, the RNIB, Age UK, Scope and Sense, have suggested that the Bill presents a real opportunity to improve the electoral process for disabled people, particularly by recording information about electoral access needs at the point of registration. Recording disabled and older voters’ access needs at the point of registration could be used to improve the accessibility of the current system during the transition to IER and over the longer term. I am also informed that this recommendation is supported by the Electoral Commission. Such information could inform plans for the creation and renovation of polling stations.
A provision to include a pilot scheme for recording access needs was presented in another place during the passage of the Bill. At that point, the Government did not commit to ensuring that a pilot would take place. This Bill undoubtedly represents an opportunity which should not be missed to make provision for a pilot that would provide the information at the time of registration about the access needs of the applicant. It would be a simple amendment that would make a significant contribution towards giving the disabled and the vulnerable the access necessary to exercise their democratic right to vote.
Finally, I will speak briefly about the imposition of civil sanctions by electoral registration officers. I can see no purpose in the imposition of civil sanctions for failure to provide information to register. They do not go to the purpose of the Bill, which is to prevent electoral fraud. There is a risk that, like so many other provisions where a low penalty is introduced by the Government, it will simply be regarded as a further money-raising exercise. I do not mean to be offensive, but we have had an enormous number of additional fines and penalties recently. They will be costly to administer. There is no provision for a scrutiny process—there is a review process but not a scrutiny process. I think the fact that discretion is given to the electoral registration officers as to whether to fine or not may well lead to unfairness. There being no legal duty to vote, why should there be a legal duty rather than a moral compulsion to register and to provide the information to vote? Why should that legal duty be accompanied by a penalty if one does not comply? What is required is further education about democracy itself and about the level of prosecutions for failure to provide information. In Northern Ireland, since 2006, there has been one prosecution for failure to provide information, and the penalty imposed by the magistrate in the court was a fine of one penny.
Lord Norton of Louth
My Lords, there is a problem of trust in the process of registering and voting. I believe we should privilege the integrity of the ballot over convenience. We have leaned a little too far in recent years towards convenience. I therefore welcome the Bill—it is a step in the right direction. However, I very much agree with my noble friend Lord Rennard that we should aim for a full as well as an accurate register. They should be seen as compatible goals. We need to ensure that the resources are made available to deliver on those goals; it is a question of resources as well as rules.
I had intended to devote the first part of my speech to discussing individual electoral registration, but most of the points I wanted to make have already been made. I will therefore discard that part of the speech and not repeat what has already been said. Instead, I will focus on concerns not yet expressed by others. I have a concern about one particular provision of the Bill and then I wish to address what I see as two omissions—both were touched on in debate in the other place.
The first concern relates to Clause 21, repealing the provisions of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 for the creation of a,
“co-ordinated on-line record of electors”.
I recall the debates we had when the 2006 Bill was in Committee. The Government do not wish to pursue having such a database because, as the Minister, Mark Harper, said last year in a Written Ministerial Statement, establishing such a system would not be,
“proportionate, cost-effective or consistent with the Government’s policy on databases and reducing the number of non-departmental public bodies”.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/7/11; col. 70WS.]
I understand all that. It may be an expensive way of getting rid of redundant entries as well as ensuring that people who are registered at more than one address do not vote more than once. Given that the Bill is designed to enhance the integrity of the register, it is incumbent on the Government to explain what they propose in place of the provisions for an online record of electors. I do not think that Clause 21, by itself, is sufficient. Therefore, I ask the Minister, what is the Government’s alternative? What plans do they have to take to prevent fraud in this respect? The introduction of individual electoral registration is necessary for that purpose, but it is not sufficient.
My other concerns cover what is not in the Bill. There are two omissions. First, the Bill does not address the 15-year rule for those British nationals who live overseas. In the last Parliament, I raised the issue of British nationals working for international organisations. Here my concern is more general. It is an issue that was raised in the other place during the passage of the Bill by Geoffrey Clifton-Brown. As he noted, although there are 4.4 million British citizens of voting age living abroad, only just over 23,000 are registered as overseas voters. In response the Minister, David Heath, said that the Government would give the issue “serious consideration”. I appreciate the reasons for not wishing to rush to judgement. There are practical issues as well as the issue of principle raised by the Minister—the two come together in terms of ensuring the integrity of the ballot. However, there is a countervailing principle in respect of the rights of those who, while they may live abroad, retain British citizenship. It will be helpful if my noble friend gives some indication of the Government’s thinking in the light of the discussions in the other place.
The other omission is a provision dealing with the edited electoral register. This is something that I have raised on a number of occasions. An edited register is produced as a by-product of citizens fulfilling a statutory obligation. There is the option not to be included in the edited version, but it is an opt-out process and one exercised at the moment by the head of the household. The move to IER will at least ensure that individuals are exercising their right to opt out. None the less, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons as well as the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators have argued that the edited register should be abolished. A survey by the Local Government Association and the AEA found that almost 90% of electoral officers surveyed believed that the practice of selling the register discouraged people from registering to vote.
There are thus significant problems arising from the generation and publication of an edited register. I am familiar with the arguments for its retention. The magazine Parliamentary Brief has regularly rehearsed them, albeit ignoring the fundamental objection of principle adumbrated by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and one that I have previously advanced. The arguments for the edited version were also repeated at Second Reading of the Bill in the other place by Dan Rogerson.
The Government are seized of the issue and have undertaken a consultation on the future of the register. In response to the report of the Constitutional and Political Reform Committee, they said the arguments were “finely balanced”. During the Committee stage of the Bill in the Commons, Mark Harper reiterated the point in saying that the Government had decided to retain the register. That decision is one that we need to explore in some detail. There is the argument of principle. If the edited register is to be retained, then we need to address a number of changes that may be necessary. At present, the edited register can be sold to anyone. Direct marketing companies—generators of junk mail—are on a par with charities and other bodies pursuing functions that may be as meritorious as those of some of the bodies that are entitled to copies of the full register.
Inclusion in the edited version is automatic unless one makes the conscious decision to opt out. The information provided to electors as to the nature of the register and their right to opt out is not as clear as it could be—I gather practice varies. If the edited register is to be retained, then these are all points that need to be addressed. Again, it would be helpful if my noble friend could indicate the Government’s thinking.
I welcome the Bill. As we have heard, the principle of IER is compelling, but it is essential that its implementation is sound. We cannot afford to skimp in ensuring that a fundamental civil right is delivered.
Lord Wills
My Lords, as we have heard from almost every speaker so far, there is widespread support for the objective of the Bill, but there is also profound unease about the way the Government are going about it. The Bill aims to bring in individual electoral registration which, as the Minister and others have described, has significant advantages over the current system of household registration. That is why the previous Government brought in legislation, for which I was the responsible Minister, which introduced individual electoral registration. However, unlike this Bill, that legislation secured cross-party support. That is because, unlike this Bill, it was designed to have no partisan effect in the way it was delivered.
This Government have abandoned that careful cross-party approach; instead, this Bill seeks to rewire our electoral arrangements in a way that is likely to have a partisan impact and damage our democracy. This may seem strong language to apply to what may appear to be a narrow and technical Bill, but while electoral registration is often a highly technical issue, it is always an important one. The struggle for the right to vote defines the history of our democracy and electoral registration makes that right a reality.
As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said in his opening speech, the key question that has to be addressed when scrutinising this Bill is: why did this Government abandon the previous Government’s approach of bringing in individual electoral registration by linking it to the achievement of a comprehensive and accurate electoral register? That is the key question because all the evidence and expert opinion suggests that for all its merits, the introduction of individual registration carries with it the severe risk that significant numbers of people eligible to vote will not register and so will be unable to vote. This was the case in Northern Ireland when it moved to this new system, although, as we have heard, there were special circumstances there. The independent report on that experience by the Electoral Commission concluded that, while its findings about the impact on registration related directly to Northern Ireland,
“they are not unique and reflect the wider picture across the UK. They present a major challenge to all those concerned with widening participation in electoral and democratic processes”.
In evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee of the House of Commons last year, Jenny Watson, the chair of the Electoral Commission, upon whom the Minister relied in his opening speech, said it was possible that,
“the register could go from around a 90% completeness that we currently have”—
actually it turned out to be a bit less than that—
“to around, say, a 60% completeness”.
There is already a serious problem with the electoral register in the United Kingdom. As we have heard, the latest estimate suggests that at least 6 million people eligible to vote were not registered to do so in December 2010. The problem is all the worse because those eligible voters who are not on the register are disproportionately concentrated in particular groups: young people and students, people with learning disabilities, people with disabilities generally, those living in areas of high social deprivation, and ethnic minorities. The introduction of individual registration risks making a bad situation significantly worse, which is why its introduction was delayed for so long. The improvements it is likely to bring to the accuracy of the register by helping to ensure that all those on the register should be on it are balanced by the deterioration in accuracy it is likely to bring about as increasing numbers of eligible voters do not register.
As I have said, the previous Government sought to address this problem by linking the implementation of individual registration to the achievement of a comprehensive and accurate register by 2015. This timetable allowed for a phased introduction of the new system but we showed our commitment to meeting it by giving the Electoral Commission the power to oversee the process and the obligation to report annually to Parliament on its progress in achieving the objective, and substantial new powers to help it do so. This approach has now been junked by the Government, who want to bring in individual registration whatever the consequences for the coverage of the register.
I know that the Government, in good faith, are taking measures to increase registration and they are all welcome. But they are essentially a continuation of the same measures the previous Government brought in and, as I keep telling Ministers in this Government, when I was the Minister responsible for bringing in these measures I hoped that they would halt and reverse the likely decline in registration but I could not guarantee they would do so. That is why we took the approach we did. As I have said before, I could see no justification in advancing towards one public policy objective at the expense of another when it was perfectly possible to advance towards both at the same time.
In response to questioning in a debate in your Lordships’ House on I2 July, the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, admitted that he could not guarantee that this Bill would not cause the numbers on the electoral register to go down but he appeared to justify this by saying that the numbers have been falling under the present system of household registration. I hope that, on reflection, he is not seriously seeking to argue that because a problem already exists, it is acceptable to make it even worse.
The impact assessment of this Bill carried out by the Cabinet Office is a very interesting document. It admits that in the long run the register is expected to remain 85% complete. In other words, all the efforts the Government are making to increase registration, which are considerable, will be counteracted by the damage to registration levels caused by the Government’s approach to bringing in individual registration. That figure of completeness is more or less where we are today.
The Government seem content to accept that, by their own estimates, some 6 million eligible voters will remain off the electoral register—even though the Minister has told us today that the Government place equal emphasis on the completeness and the accuracy of the register. This is in contrast to the previous Government’s approach, where there were continuing incentives to improve registration rates by tying them to the delivery of individual registration—a goal on which the whole of Parliament, I think, can agree. There was also provision for annual progress reports to Parliament by the Electoral Commission, giving Parliament the opportunity every year to introduce new measures should they be needed. All that was agreed by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in opposition; all that has been junked by them now they are in government.
My concerns are increased by the silence of the impact assessment on two important issues that could make electoral registration even more worryingly incomplete. First, it does not say what levels of investment it assumes will be made by local authorities in registration. This Bill gives a lot of powers—we have heard a lot about data-matching—but it does not say how much local authorities are actually going to invest in the process of registration. Your Lordships will be aware that the money allocated by central government to local authorities for electoral registration is not ring-fenced. It is therefore likely that, at a time when local authorities are subject to intense pressure on their budgets, some—possibly many—of them might be tempted to spend those funds not on electoral registration but on other hard-pressed services.
Can the Minister say whether, in making projections about levels of registration, the Government have assumed that every penny of the money allocated for electoral registration will be spent to that end by every local authority? If they have not assumed that, what assumptions have they made about levels of local authority spending on registration? Will the Minister also share with your Lordships the calculations the Government have made about the impact on levels of registration if local authorities do not spend the funds allocated to them for that purpose to that end?
Secondly, the impact assessment is silent on the differential impact of this change on the system of registration. As I have said, under the current system, registration rates are lower among particular demographic groups and in particular parts of the country. Will the Minister set out the methodology through which the Government reached their assessment of the impact of this legislation on levels of registration? Can he say if the Government made any assessment of the impact on those groups and those parts of the country in which registration is disproportionately low under the current system? If so, what was that assessment?
Why are the Government risking such damage to the electoral register? They have suggested—in the Explanatory Notes, for example, and we have heard it again today from the Minister—that the aim of this Bill is to,
“reduce electoral fraud by speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration”.
Their argument appears to be that the problem of electoral fraud is so pressing that tackling it is such a priority that the Government must abandon the previous Government’s timetable and all its protections for levels of registration.
No one can quarrel with any measure that reduces electoral fraud, and I agree with the Government that individual registration can play a part in doing so; that was one of the main reasons the previous Government legislated for it. However, this argument needs to be kept in perspective. There is no evidence—none—that electoral fraud is widespread or systemic. That is what the independent bodies tasked with safeguarding the integrity of our electoral system have found over and again in their study of all the elections that have been conducted in this country over the past 10 years and more. To quote from just one analysis carried out by the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Electoral Commission into the 2010 elections, they found,
“no evidence of widespread systematic attempts to undermine or interfere with the May 2010 elections through electoral fraud”.
With great respect to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who seemed to be making a slightly different point, they went on to say about those elections,
“we are not aware of any case reported to the police that affected the outcome of the election to which it related nor of any election that has had to be re-run as a result of electoral malpractice”.
There is never any justification for any complacency about even a single instance of electoral malpractice. I agree with everything that the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and others have said. However, the evidence does not suggest that electoral malpractice justifies the risk that the Government are running with the register. The Rowntree Reform Trust report of 2008 concluded:
“It is unlikely that there has been a significant increase in electoral malpractice since the introduction of postal voting on demand in 2000”.
It went on to say that what malpractice there was,
“related to a tiny proportion of all elections contested”.
Nor will individual registration address all the cases of malpractice. ACPO and the Electoral Commission have concluded that the nature of recorded electoral malpractice tends to change as efforts are successful in tackling previous forms of it. Indeed, the Bill suggests the Government are actually not that worried about electoral fraud; they could have included measures to tackle it but they have not done so. They have not included, for example, anything to implement a suggestion by ACPO and the Electoral Commission that to strengthen the security of the electoral process the Government might require proof of voters’ identities at a polling station. There are strong arguments against it, but there is no consideration of it in this Bill and they have not brought anything forward to deal with it.
If the Government were really so concerned about electoral fraud, the Bill would include further measures, for example, to tackle directly personation, which still exists from time to time, and it would carry forward measures to tackle postal vote fraud. I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on the advantages of 100% verification of postal vote ballots; he is absolutely right about that. At the moment electoral returning officers verify a small percentage of them, but 100% verification would help to tackle what postal vote fraud exists. There is nothing about that in the Bill; there could be, but it is costly. If the Government were as worried, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, seems to be, they would make provision for it, but they have not.
Looking again at the impact assessment, we can see that the Government are not altogether convinced about their own case. It suggests that the “problem under consideration” is the,
“widely held view that the current system for registration is vulnerable to fraud and a public perception that this allows electoral fraud to occur”.
In other words, the problem is not necessarily something that exists in fact but simply the perception that it might do so. Of course we need to be worried about perceptions—any doubts about the integrity of the electoral process are very important—so how widespread is that perception? I think the most recent evidence we have is from the tracker survey carried out by the Electoral Commission in 2011. That survey found that 36% thought that electoral fraud was a big or a very big problem but 50% thought that it was not a big problem or not a problem at all, so only a minority are worried about it. That becomes even more relevant when we look at the sample where those who said that they knew a lot about the problem amounted to a total of 6%. This hardly seems like a secure evidence base on which to bring legislation before Parliament. The Government seem to recognise this because they bring forward financial fraud as another reason for this legislation.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord and, as always, I hesitate to interrupt in debates, but it may be helpful to all noble Lords taking part if I remind them gently that the Companion says, in chapter 4.44:
“In debates where there are no formal time limits”—
and this debate is not time limited—
“members opening or winding up, from either side, are expected to keep within 20 minutes”—
which, indeed, they have done. It continues:
“Other speakers are expected to keep within 15 minutes”.
I am sure that the noble Lord is coming to the end of his speech.
Lord Wills
I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness for her guidance. I am actually about to come to the end. However, I would point out tactfully, although I am not intending to take advantage of this, that the notes issued by the Government Whips Office suggests that the House is due to rise at 10 pm, so I suspect that there is a little time left for me to conclude.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, that was perhaps taking account of the elasticity of the previous business, on which the House was commendably succinct.
Lord Wills
I assure the House that I will not tire it any further. However, as I spent a great deal of my life on this issue—not altogether of my own volition—when I was a Minister, I had hoped that I would be able to contribute something to the debates as we went forward. I hope that I may be allowed a little more latitude—another two or three minutes, if that is acceptable. I see that I am being allowed to continue for the time being until I get a signal from my own Whips.
I shall deal with the question of financial fraud because it is put forward as an important justification for the Bill in the impact assessment. No one has mentioned it so far, but the Government estimate that there could be a reduction in such fraud of £17.5 million by 2030. When we look at the arguments for this, though, we see that that figure is reached only if the amount of fraud detected and prevented is a linear function of the electoral register—but then it is admitted that no such assumption can be made. The impact assessment states:
“This figures should be considered to be indicative”—
a slippery word—
“only however because the mathematical relationship between the accuracy of the electoral register and fraud is imperfectly understood”.
In other words, it might be a strong argument for this Bill but it might be no such argument at all. We really should not be legislating on such a flimsy evidence base, and the flimsiness of the case for this legislation is matched by the damage that it is going to do to the electoral register.
What are the consequences of this? Clearly it damages our democracy when millions are excluded from the electoral register. Most agree that eligible voters who do not register are more likely to vote Labour when they do vote. The Government recognise this problem by allowing a carryover from the household system of registration for the general election in 2015. Significantly, though, as we have heard, they have not allowed for such a carryover for the boundary review that is also going to take place in 2015. What are the consequences of that likely to be? As I have previously argued, Labour constituencies are likely to see disproportionate declines in those on the register because those less likely to register are disproportionately concentrated in such constituencies. Because of the very tight numerical limits on constituency size imposed by the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, that is likely to mean fewer Labour seats. Furthermore, because of the way that Labour constituencies are often surrounded by strongly Conservative constituencies, that is likely to mean that more Labour safe seats will become marginal and more marginal Labour seats will become Conservative ones.
I have asked your Lordships before, and I ask you again today, to consider the impact on our democracy if it turns out that the outcome of a general election has been determined by the fact that millions of eligible voters could not vote because they were not registered to do so and this was the result of a government policy, deliberately pursued despite all the evidence that it would have precisely this consequence. As it stands, this Bill is noxious to democracy, and this is compounded by the broad order-making powers that Ministers wish to give themselves to alter the system further in future.
However, despite all that, I do not think that the Bill is beyond redemption. A number of amendments could rid it of its partisan elements while still securing its overriding objective. I conclude my remarks with a plea to all those Peers who have an understandable reluctance to amend too vigorously legislation that affects elections to the other place. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said about our slight remove and therefore our greater objectivity in these matters, but I also understand that many Peers do not wish to interfere in electoral matters. I ask any Peers who feel like that to recall that your Lordships’ House has historically seen the protection of our country's constitutional arrangements—
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, the noble Lord is now in the 21st minute. The Companion says that even if the speech is of great significance to the nation that it should not continue beyond that period. It is a matter for the Minister to decide, of course, whether he responds to points put by the noble Lord. Given the general nature of this debate, I am sure that he would wish to do so. The Companion is clear and is there, for fairness, to all Peers because we are all treated equally.
Lord Empey
My Lords, during his opening remarks, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, said that perhaps those of us in Northern Ireland who had experienced this system, or a variation of it, for the past 10 years might be in the position to give some indication to the House as to how it had gone. By my calculations, something in the region of nine elections have now taken place under the individual registration system. That includes local, Assembly, European and national elections. I think that the noble and learned Lord would agree that, by any standard, it is a reasonable test bed for what is likely to happen.
Along with the noble Lord, Lord Wills, I do not believe that the circumstances in Northern Ireland are so unique or different that lessons cannot be drawn as to the likely outcome. I broadly support the principle of individual registration, although, as many noble Lords have said, there are a wide variety of detailed points that will be crucial when determining how effective the new legislation will be. As the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, said, initially there was a substantial drop in the number of people registered to vote. By agreeing to the rollover provision initially, the Government should avoid the substantial precipice that we encountered and therefore the reduction, if there is one, should be much less than that we experienced in 2002 to 2003.
I will give just one example. Registration in the Botanic ward in the city of Belfast, the ward immediately surrounding the university, dropped from something in the region of 3,800 to 2,200. That was the most notorious example where a substantial drop took place but, as noble Lords can imagine, that was because there were houses in multiple occupation and students who came up from the country and preferred to be registered at home rather than at the university—there was some reason to believe that some were registered at both, although that is not an offence unless people vote at two locations in the one election. That was an extreme example but there was systematic evidence to suggest that the process reduced the number of people on the register. To what extent that reduced the accuracy of the register, which is of course a different thing, is another matter. However, having the rollover should avoid the worst excesses of a reduction.
There are other ways in which a reduction can be offset, particularly among those groups less likely to vote, who, by and large, are the same wherever you are throughout the country—we all accept that. I received, as I am sure a number of other noble Lords did, representation from Callcredit and other organisations, which made the point that their services were providing a positive national contribution and a resource. However, such organisations are one of the principal reasons why people do not want to be registered. People do not want to be chased for credit; they perhaps owe money and feel they will be pestered for information, cold-calling, sales and other purposes. That can have a negative effect on people’s wish to be registered to vote.
The other issues that I have grave concerns about have been mentioned already, including the postal voting system in Great Britain. I feel that the way it is set up here verges on the reckless. We tried that system once, I believe in the 1970s, where you had a purely on-demand requirement for postal votes. It is not hard to imagine that people would knock on the door and say, “Missus, I wouldn’t mind to have your wee form please”. This sort of thing happened and we disposed of that process, so that now you have to have a specific reason for not voting in person and for using a postal vote. It is not terribly restrictive—you can have it for illness, for being on holiday and for work purposes. Nevertheless, it has to be witnessed and signed, and it is pursued, I can assure noble Lords, by the electoral authorities. A completely open-ended thing—which I think had the right motivation at the time, as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, said—is today highly open to abuse, following some of the examples we have heard. I strongly support changes to that proposal.
I also do not understand the reticence about having identification for individuals. We introduced a thing called the electoral identity card, which any individual elector can have access to if they do not possess a passport, driving licence, Senior Smartpass or some other photographic form of identification. You can get it in the electoral office, but the Electoral Commission at home took out a mobile unit and brought it to schools and housing estates, because many people discovered they were not able to vote because they did not have another form of photographic identification. If you push at it and pursue it, there are ways in which you can actually improve the registration. The commission has gone into schools, spoken to sixth forms, and brought the mobile unit to the school. It is perfectly possible, with a bit of effort and work, to achieve the two objectives of having the confidence that the electoral register is genuine and, at the same time, do a lot of work to ensure that as many people as possible can participate.
The other thing in the figures that the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, read out to us was that in recent years there has been a massive amount of immigration into this country. As a consequence, European Union citizens—non-UK citizens—have rights to vote at certain elections. Taking all that into account, I wonder about the accuracy of the figures that we have been given in terms of the validity of the electoral roll. Is it 82% or is it more than that? I suspect it is probably a lot less because the register decays with time and from year to year. The further away you get, the less the likelihood that it is accurate. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, made the point that anybody who has run elections or been a candidate for election runs into dozens of people who say, “Well, I’m sorry, mister, I’m not on the register this time”. We all meet so many people in the course of our politics who have that message to say and, indeed, do so accurately.
One other thing I am glad to see us moving away from is this idea of the head of a household. It is an outmoded idea in this day and age. Taking a mythical example, let us assume we had the Wallace household—any Wallace household, not necessarily the Minister’s. Who is actually the head of that household? There might be some dispute as to that, and perhaps rightly so, but there may be somebody there who fills out forms. Within a household, it has been known for people to have political disagreements. Indeed, I have known households where people are in different political parties. Would noble Lords really be satisfied that the return from that household is accurate? I would not be so sure about that. I certainly think that the head of the mythical Wallace household will be glad to be relieved of the responsibility of filling out those forms.
We have to get more research done as to why people stay off the register. I think that credit issues are one reason. I conclude by making one final point about the risks to certain groups of individuals of being on the register. It is not unknown for thieves to look at a register to identify places where, say, women are in single occupation of a dwelling and might be seen to be vulnerable. People look at issues like that, and I have been told that some people are concerned. Obviously we have specific security concerns at home—while they are not gone, thank God they are significantly reduced—but certain groups of people find it uncomfortable to have their names known to different groups of people. We should do some research to establish who these people are and why the register is deficient.
I hope that in Committee and further down the process we can address many of these matters in detail. I understand the Government are bringing forward secondary legislation which will deal with a lot of the detail. In those circumstances, I hope we can refine what is in the Bill with the objective of making it sound and so that we have confidence in it, but at the same time having measures in it to ensure as much participation as is possible.
Lord Bates
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Empey, who has great experience in this whole area, having seen it work successfully in Northern Ireland in nine elections, I think he said. That should give us some confidence that we are on the right lines. We are all taking about how we can reduce the likelihood or the perception of fraud while increasing the level of participation in the democratic process. That is the circle we are trying to square. It may not be possible, but this is an unfolding process.
I was slightly disappointed to hear the tone of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, in his lengthy remarks on this subject because I feel that we are continuing something that was begun under the previous Government in the Political Parties and Elections Act, which they brought forward. With a little bit of encouragement from the opposition parties, they came forward with the idea of having individual electoral registration. That was seen as being absolutely right and proper. We are debating the timeframe over which that is introduced, but the actual idea is beyond dispute. On that point mention was made by Mr Harper in the debate in the other place on the report by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe when describing the voting system in the United Kingdom. He said that.
“the weakest link of the electoral process [is] due to the absence of safeguards against fictitious registrations”.—[Official Report, 23/05/12; col. 1177.]
In many ways, that backs up the fact that there is a problem that we need to address. Again I was slightly disappointed by the tone in the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, because I felt that the Government have brought this forward in a responsible way. They had evidence-based analysis undertaken by the Electoral Commission on which to draw conclusions. They subjected the Bill to pre-legislative scrutiny, for which we in this House are always arguing. Indeed, there had been an excellent report by the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, chaired by Mr Graham Allen, which came forward with a number of suggestions, but did not entirely endorse the approach.
At Second Reading in the other place, Mr Mark Harper made quite a lengthy speech in his opening remarks. One of the reasons for that was that he announced four or five substantial changes to the Bill to take account of the concerns that were being made. There is much to be welcomed in the Bill as it stands. Some people will be surprised that these things do not happen already. The idea that we are going to do data matching between different government departments to check that the data held are the same—that is, that the data held at the DWP are the same as that held at the DVLA—would be greeted by most people with, “We kind of thought you probably would be doing that already”. The fact that it was not and that it now is has to be welcomed.
I think that the provision could go a lot further. We live in a world where we are used to having to produce utility bills and driving licences as proof of ID for the most menial of purchases in stores. However, having left your electoral registration card at home, you can wander into a polling booth to cast a vote in a general election and just point to your name on the electoral register, be given a ballot paper and be able to go into a booth to fill it in and cast a vote. People might find that rather strange, but perhaps that debate is for another time. We certainly want to reduce fraud.
Again I refer to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Wills. It is not easy, but you cannot argue that not taking action over suspected fraud is justified because you believe that action might result in a decrease in the number of people registering. A decrease in the number would not necessarily be a bad thing if the wrong people were on the list in the first place. In 2001, the Electoral Commission estimated that the number of eligible people missing from the register was 3 million, and in 2010 that figure had risen to around 6 million. There is therefore a problem to be addressed.
I defer to my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking on virtually all matters, but as regards lengthening the election campaign period, I would be happy to see it increased to 25 days simply because I think that allows a longer period. Fixed-term Parliaments will also strengthen the ability to increase awareness. I think that 25 days is the same length of time that was given to local elections. We are simply coming into line and into the 21st century, so I am quite comfortable about that.
It would be good if in the wind-up speech the Minister could comment briefly on civil penalties and say whether there will be nationally set rates or whether there will be some local discretion along the lines of parking fines. If it is to be a national thing, the idea that there will be some locally set rate as to what that penalty should be would seem a little odd. The reason we want to do this is because it is relevant not just for voting in the elections, but for jury service. There are substantial penalties for not turning up for jury service and there are substantial penalties if you do not complete your self-assessment tax return, so the fact that there should not be any penalties for not registering to vote seems to me to be an argument which, let us say, is not the strongest.
Postal voting is a very interesting area. I totally support the idea that we should move from a 20% sample testing to a 100% test against verification. But that will result in a sizeable increase. If the figures produced by the Library in a very helpful guide or companion to this debate are correct, they would suggest that of a 20% sample about 150,000 ballot papers were rejected. If one extrapolates that—it could be wrong—and if you go to a 100% test. you might get 750,000 cases where the signatures do not match or where the dates are not connected. If national insurance numbers and identifiers within that are required, the potential for that number to increase goes up significantly. People will be advised after the election that they did not qualify. It will be a useful, if bureaucratic, process, but it would be an awful lot more helpful if somebody could tell them before that happened. The figure for postal ballots at the previous election was 7 million, and there were 150,000 spoilt ballots. The overall total was about 3.8%. It would be helpful if in winding up the Minister would comment on whether that level of spoilt ballot papers in postal votes is higher than normal for votes cast in the polling both. That would be interesting to know.
I have two ideas to increase the number of people on the register. One has already been referred to, so I shall not spend a great deal of time on it, other than to say that the fact that we have only about 25,000 or 30,000 overseas voters on the register is a real weakness of our current system. It would be great to see that figure of 4.5 million increased to 5 million. My son is at university overseas, and I know that registering from overseas is a very bureaucratic process. You have to go back to the place where you lived, track down the electoral register and work from there. I do not see why we do not have an office for overseas voters where people could register online to claim their vote. If people think that that might be a horrific prospect, I find it strange that we are able to fill in our tax returns, which is pretty confidential, online through the Government Gateway and, I think, make some benefits claims. Why should people not be able to make greater use of registering online, particularly as this Bill extends that?
My final comment relates to how we extend participation, particularly among the young. We all recognise that that is a problem. A provision in the Bill talks about the Electoral Commission undertaking a publicity and awareness campaign. Even the idea of a publicity and awareness campaign and the Electoral Commission coming together is causing most people to drift off to sleep. The idea that it is going to excite young people seems pretty unlikely. I urge my noble friend on the Front Bench, who I know is deeply sympathetic on all these matters, to look at innovative ways to increase the number of young people voting and perhaps to look at other countries, for example, the US, to see how they have tried to do that. I viewed a message online that was headed by Tom Cruise and included various major stars and celebrities such as Angelina Jolie and Justin Timberlake. All these widely known names were used to get the message across.
We could use social networking sites to promote awareness of voting and the importance of voting. I think the Minister knows where I am going with this because we have had conversations before about “The X Factor”. I think it is an interesting concept, not least because Simon Cowell, with his commercial and artistic genius, managed to generate 15 million votes in the final programme of the last series. That was more than the turnout in the local or European elections. It might just be that, in the process of consulting people about how to increase participation among young people, you could do worse than consult Simon Cowell to see whether he can put a bit of X factor into our voting system.
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port
My Lords, I cannot claim to have the allure or charisma of Simon Cowell but, if your Lordships will excuse me, I am trying to dip my toe for the very first time into the waters of this kind of debate. I have sat for many hours in a House that is stuffed with constitutional experts, people learned in the law and those with glorious and glittering political careers behind them and, in some cases, ahead of them. I cannot compete with them in their analysis of what is happening around us, and I have not wanted to compete with their excellence or experience. However, I feel that I must remind myself that as a citizen of this country, all these discussions relate to the constitutional arrangements under which we all live, claim our rights and want ourselves and our children to flourish, and I have as much right to speak in these debates as anybody else. It is in that sense that I dare, almost with the feeling that I am making a maiden speech, stand here and offer some thoughts now.
I was terrifically interested in the cascade of figures that the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, gave us about what happened when the voting arrangements in Northern Ireland changed from household registration to individual registration. I believe that the noble Lord said it was a straightforward move from one to the other, but that it took 10 years to return to the same level. Perhaps that ought to be a stark reminder that in anything we do in this Bill we should try to avoid losing so many voters that it will take us 10 years to catch up. We might learn from that experience, perhaps avoid making the same mistakes and try to tread a safer path.
One of the great disappointments in my experience of the House is the way we have, in more recent times, got round to discussing constitutional measures. I feel that of all the things on which we ought to seek a consensual arrangement, something that we can all subscribe to, constitutional arrangements ought to be on the highest rung. I have sensed the trading, whether obvious or subterranean, that has been going on between the parties in government as they seek to satisfy each others’ needs and expectations. It has been a major feature of the way constitutional arrangements have been discussed in the House latterly. That may be a layman’s observation, but it is deeply felt, and I feel the need to say so before I continue with my remarks.
In 2009, when we considered our electoral system under another Government, we were all very clear that we must reach whatever arrangements we end up with consensually. Let me read what was said in the other House by the then shadow Conservative Minister about moving towards individual registration. She said that these plans,
“should not be rushed but taken step by step to ensure that the integrity of the system is protected ”—
the noble Lord, Lord Norton, talked about the integrity of the system—
“and not only protected, but seen to be protected, so that there is no perception of harm being done to the system … I can assure the Minister and the House that any future Conservative Government would never take risks with the democratic process”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/09; col. 108-9.]
In that debate, the Liberal Democrats made similar fulsome promises:
“I do not think that anybody was suggesting that the timetable be artificially shortened, or that any risk be taken with the comprehensiveness of the register”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/09; col. 112.]
That was the assurance given us by the Liberal Democrats.
Here we are with an arrangement or a direction of travel that all of us want to see happen, which I am convinced we need to make happen at a pace that will assure us of the assimilation of experience gained and a confidence in destinations reached. That seems to me to be so self-evident that I cannot quite understand why the acceleration of individual registration is being given so much attention. Since I did A-level Latin, I have always subscribed to the tag, festina lente—it is slowly that we make the most speed in a forward direction. After all, we are talking about a change of culture, and a change of culture does not happen by diktat or by the imposition of a set of new rules and regulations that push things forward artificially. Therefore, we should do as my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer suggests; take the proper steps at the proper pace, with good monitoring in place and proper scrutiny at each step, so that we can have confidence in what we end up with.
However, I have one more problem that I want to share with noble Lords. It was an article in one of our newspapers by an Oxford professor—not that Oxford professors are always right. I suppose a Cambridge man might say that. He says,
“To move straight to individual registration risks moving straight to mass disenfranchisement of the young, the urban, the mobile and ethnic minority voters”.
That is my overriding worry; it is the main point that I want to offer in this speech. I have been considering this Bill at the same time as I have been trying to evaluate a report on what happened with the riots in our inner cities almost a year ago. I live in the East End; at my front door is the borough of Islington, at my back door the borough of Hackney. I am not far at all from everything that was happening last year. There are lots of young black teenagers within the company I keep and the people I try to offer mentoring to. In conversation—although I can only be anecdotal about this—I do not detect a heightened understanding of the probity, necessity or valour of voting. It is not just that we have to raise awareness, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, suggested; we must educate and shape the expectations of whole bodies of people who feel disenfranchised and quite at odds with the system. I do not want to say anything that would appear to condone last year’s events. However, I know that if you do not feel you are a stakeholder in a society, you have no motivation to involve yourself with it or with shaping its future. So I look at the literacy and numeracy levels with which people leave some of our schools; I look at the lack of character formation within some of our schools; I look at the brokenness of the homes and the difficult social patterns within which people live. All these things are very real. We frame constitutional arrangements in order to prepare a country for this generation to grow up in, with all the diversity that there is in our land in these days.
I am trying to articulate, then, the needs and deep desires of ordinary, young, urban people across the ethnic groupings of our city. I do not want the system that we end up with to threaten their involvement, because they have so much to give. They are genuinely talented people, but they do not feel plugged in. We must work on that a bit harder.
I have finished my remarks, and since I am six minutes early, perhaps the credit can be given to my noble friend Lord Wills as some kind of compensation.
Lord Lexden
My Lords, we have heard some very wise reflections from the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. It is a privilege to follow him. This is an immensely important Bill, designed to help make democracy in Britain work considerably better than it does now, and to restore the trust in it that has become so badly impaired. The Government submitted the Bill to prolonged pre-legislative scrutiny. It has been significantly improved and strengthened as a result. There could be no better advertisement for the value of this new parliamentary procedure, and the Government deserve great credit for the open-minded way in which they have carried out consultations over the last two years. I hope that the same open-minded attitude will be displayed in Committee.
On the matter before us today, great care is singularly appropriate. Our country has never had a taste for frequent alterations of the fundamental features of its arrangements for electoral registration. Indeed, this is only the second time they have been radically changed since their first appearance in the Reform Act 1832, of which Mr Clegg is such an ardent fan. The Act created a thoroughly bad system under the supervision of incompetent officials, the overseers of the poor. Votes were awarded to the dead and to the unqualified. The 18th century practices—of which my noble friend Lord Baker reminded us with characteristic vividness—were very much alive and well throughout the 19th century. The system only worked creakingly, because the political parties exerted themselves, with the assistance of expensive lawyers, to fill the registers with as many of their firm supporters as possible. They showed no scruples. “As a class”, a parliamentary committee was told in 1835,
“attorneys obtain more fraudulent votes than any other men in the country”.
In all areas, the main function of local party organisations during the supposedly high-minded Victorian age was the manipulation of deeply flawed electoral registers. As late as 1896, the Liberal Party’s agent in Manchester reported that the registration of votes,
“involved an expenditure of about two-thirds of the entire cost”,
of his organisation.
Rectitude and competence finally arrived in 1918, when responsibility for electoral registration was placed in the hands of local government officials. From that point until this, they have sought out the names of voters by,
“house-to-house or other sufficient inquiry”,
as legislation prescribed. Now, however, the 1918 dispensation has fallen into disrepute in its turn. Our long-familiar arrangements are tainted by fraud which, though unquantifiable, has aroused widespread public concern. As my recently married noble friend Lord Bates reminded us, one highly respected international body has ticked us off for lacking “safeguards against fictitious registrations”. At the same time, an astonishing number of people who ought to be on the electoral registers are not—some 6 million to 8 million of them, according to the Electoral Commission’s latest estimate.
Across the political spectrum we all agree what should be done. Registration should cease to be undertaken on a household basis; it should become an individual responsibility, as many distinguished political thinkers have long advocated. As this debate has made abundantly clear, a consensus for change has not, however, been accompanied by a consensus on the path to change, or on the speed of change. Perhaps that was always going to be difficult to sustain. I strongly support the Government in their belief that the magnitude of the registration problem is such that we should proceed more quickly to a new system of individual registration than was proposed before the last election. That is what Part 1 of the Bill provides, and it is to Part 1 that I confine my remarks.
The Government have rightly set themselves the aims of making our country's electoral registers as accurate and as complete as possible. We must take care to ensure that this major reform is not seen as a change designed to benefit particular political parties. After the passage of this legislation, there should be careful monitoring of progress, not least in view of the widespread fear that the transition to individual registration could reduce, rather than increase, the numbers registered, as happened in Northern Ireland when individual registration was introduced there in 2002. That fear may not have been wholly assuaged by the Government's wise decision to allow those on the last register compiled under the existing system to be carried over to the first register of the new system.
In this connection I particularly welcome Clause 5, which will introduce a civil penalty for those who refuse to comply when an electoral registration officer asks them to register. As the debate has made clear, however, there are practical difficulties. This change has been included as a direct result of pre-legislative scrutiny, replacing the Government's original intention of allowing individuals to keep themselves off a register if they wish.
Democracy frequently needs the help of the law to stiffen the incentive to take the right course of action. This is a case in point. In this connection, I remind the House of one of the conclusions reached by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the Commons in its report last November on the proposed new system:
“There appears to be no reason why failure to complete and return a registration form should be a criminal offence in Northern Ireland but not in Great Britain. The Government should take steps to remedy this inconsistency”.
I also welcome the Government’s plans to ensure that a wide range of public data, at both national and local government level, are used to verify the identities of those already on the register and to help pinpoint those who should be on it but are not. As we have heard, a number of pilot schemes have been completed and more are on the way. As the Government have made clear, depending on the outcome of the latest round of pilot schemes, the process of data matching will be used by electoral registration officers throughout Great Britain to ease the transition to individual electoral registration in 2014. The Electoral Commission has said that an,
“elector whose entries match will be confirmed on the register and need take no further action”.
This is extremely important. Electoral registration officers will then be free to direct their resources and efforts towards the minority of existing registered electors who cannot be verified by data matching, and the missing 6 million.
I turn now to Northern Ireland, on which noble Lords from the Province have already commented, drawing on their own direct experience. Northern Ireland tends to be regarded solely as a cautionary tale—a warning that individual registration tends to cut the size of the electorate. However, perhaps it has not been sufficiently noticed that since 2002 several measures have been taken under primary and secondary legislation to rectify the main problems. Annual canvasses have ceased; a system of continuous registration now operates; each elector has responsibility for updating his or her entry on the register; and data matching and targeted canvassing have been introduced in the most effective manner. Since 2008, secondary schools have been among the specified authorities from which the chief electoral officer, who has responsibility for electoral registration throughout Northern Ireland, can request information for registration purposes. This has been an effective and successful innovation, as the noble Lord, Lord Empey, vividly described.
There are in Northern Ireland today some 12,000 more registered electors than there were before the introduction of individual registration. The Electoral Commission announced in May that it would undertake a new assessment of the state of the electoral register in Northern Ireland, which in 2007 it had already found was 96% accurate and 84% complete, compared with 85% and 82% respectively in Britain, as shown by a survey last year. Since 2003, there have been no allegations of electoral fraud although, as my noble friends from Northern Ireland will know better than me, that does not mean that the age-old Northern Ireland customs have ceased completely. Overall, the lessons from Northern Ireland are sources not of universal anxiety but of considerable encouragement.
Electoral law in Northern Ireland remains the responsibility of this Parliament. In their White Paper on individual electoral registration last year, the Government referred in paragraph 29 to their intention to align Northern Ireland legislation on individual registration with the rest of the country. In paragraph 32 they stated that they would include appropriate provision in this Bill. That does not seem to have happened. Perhaps the Minister will be able to provide a word of explanation.
Finally, I urge strongly that the scope of the Bill be extended, as my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth argued, by adding to it provision to enable all our fellow subjects of Her Majesty who live abroad to vote in our parliamentary elections. This would end the existing 15-year limit, for which no clear rationale has ever been offered. There are some, such as Mr Clegg, who are inclined to say that our fellow country men and women abroad should take the nationality of the country in which they reside, even though I understand that Mrs Clegg, who retains Spanish nationality, has a lifetime’s right to vote in Spain’s elections. There are others who say that because they pay no taxes here they should not vote here, but many do pay taxes. In any case, other countries do not admit taxation as a principle for access to their franchises. Others say that our fellow citizens abroad cannot feel a strong attachment to the United Kingdom after some years away from it. However, in the age of the internet, they can follow closely what is happening in their native land and, as online participants, contribute powerfully to developments taking place here whether they live in Perugia, Portugal or Pennsylvania.
I set out the case for change more fully in a debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Wills, in January and I propose to return to it in Committee. The Government have this great issue under active consideration, as the Minister confirmed in a Written Answer to me on 25 June. There could be no better time for action than in this Diamond Jubilee year. Some 5.6 million subjects of Her Majesty live abroad. Many of them today stand hopefully at the bar of British democracy. Let all those who wish to join us be allowed to enter.
Lord Tyler
My Lords, I start from a similar viewpoint to that of my noble friend Lord Lexden. We have heard much in this debate about the potential flaws in the new system but I will concentrate a little more on the known flaws in the status quo. The present system is broke and it needs fixing. We have learnt from several recent Bills that Governments have to identify the problem to which they are offering a solution if the public are to accept that change is necessary. In this instance, there is clearly a problem and change is necessary. The current registration system is so open to fraud that it might as well be an old uncrossed cheque, signed and left on the train.
I regularly take part and lead discussions in seminars with electoral administrators from all over the world, many from developing countries. All are astonished when they learn that any male could walk into the polling station in my district and claim to be Paul Tyler, say that he lived at my address and be issued with a ballot paper. At the previous general election, the presiding officer wanted me to vote for the parliamentary candidate and thought it most peculiar that I was not entitled to do so. I could easily have done so. My noble friend the Minister and other noble Lords have referred to this as a matter for further consideration. We will have to discuss this during the Committee stage of the Bill because it is clearly a serious security issue that needs to be dealt with. We must examine the case for recording signatures, or some other identifier known only to the individual elector, as part of the registration process for those voting in person as well as those voting by post or by proxy.
The alibi for maintaining the current insecurity and inaccuracy of our electoral process has always been to try to achieve notional completeness. I have a long-standing commitment to the integrity of this crucial component of our representative democracy. I declare a non-pecuniary interest as a member of the informal cross-party group that advises the Electoral Commission on some of these issues.
Completeness is an equally important objective, as my noble friend Lord Rennard said. Clearly, there is little point in developing a system that is so secure that even those who should be on the register do not end up there. None of us wants that, but the existing system is by no means insulated from that problem.
The most recent Electoral Commission research, which has already been referred to, found that the existing electoral register is only 82% complete. Even the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, accepted that under the previous Government there was a major problem. It remains. That figure is down from previous estimates of some 90%, which he also mentioned. Seemingly, some 2 million or 3 million electors got lost during the Blair and Brown Administrations. The 82% figure is also the national average. By definition, that means that in some parts of the country registration levels are even lower. A number of colleagues referred to this problem but they did not identify how low the figure is in some areas.
The latest Electoral Commission research, completed in 2009, estimated that Glasgow, for example, has 74% of its residents on the register. Lambeth, just a stone’s throw from your Lordships’ House, had only 73%. In particular areas, one-quarter of those who should be on the register and are entitled to vote are simply not there. That is an extremely important point, which we have to address in the Bill. The status quo is not sustainable or acceptable. Since 2009 when that research was done, the discrepancy, especially among younger and more mobile people in the inner cities, may well have deteriorated further. We should be under no illusions that the existing system is adequate and acceptable. That is why the Bill presents an opportunity at least to start to reverse this deplorable trend. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, who, in the previous Administration, tried to do this. To some extent his attempt to introduce and implement the move towards individual registration was effectively stopped by some of his colleagues, who were fearful of change.
My noble friend Lord Rennard has already referred to the necessity for the Electoral Commission to take on a stronger role in directing the design of registration forms. We have also heard from the Minister reassurances that in future the potential for a civil penalty to be levied when an individual does not register will be prominently displayed. The size of the penalty is not as important as the size of the printed warning on the registration form. I looked at my registration form last week and it was not there at all. That is clearly ridiculous.
It is true, as a number of noble Lords have said, that in Northern Ireland the criminal penalty has been retained and has been found to be helpful in persuading people to do their civic duty. I hope that the Electoral Commission’s guidance will reflect the best practice from across the country.
It could do worse than look at the example of Hounslow. Here I am very grateful to Angela Holden, Hounslow’s electoral services manager, for permission to quote this evidence. In that London borough, the council sends out a sequence of up to five forms. Those who respond to the first are entered in a prize draw to encourage early response. Two further reminders go to all non-responders before canvassers start door-knocking. At that stage each outstanding household receives no fewer than three more personal visits until registration is achieved. Those who are recalcitrant enough still not to be registered at that point receive a fifth form emblazoned in red, in big print:
“Register now or risk prosecution”.
Having made such sterling efforts to get people on the register, Hounslow does follow through its threat of court action with those who still do not respond. This year the authority secured prosecutions against 10 residents. Nine paid out £150 each and another £115. All had to pay £120 or more in costs. As the leader of that council put it:
“Prosecutions are always a last resort, but we want to send out a clear message to all residents that ignoring the electoral registration requirement is an offence, which carries costly consequences”.
The noble Baroness, Lady O'Loan, said that she found it difficult to see what precise civic duty we are emphasising. It is a civic duty to be available for jury service. Imagine in one of those previous boroughs to which I referred, where it is down to perhaps 60% registered, and particular groups of people are not registering. Imagine how representative of that borough the local jury might be if the register is already so inaccurate. That is an important civic duty. It is not just the opportunity to vote, but also the opportunity to be a citizen in our local community.
That is how one borough, Hounslow, acts. It uses the positive—the carrots, if you will—as well as the negative. Its electoral services manager has told me that:
“In January each year, we obtain records from our education department and check that those students that are eligible are registered—anyone not registered receives a letter and a registration form. We also send out a registration form with all new council tax bills”—
not every annual bill, but to those opening new accounts—
“and with British citizenship packs at the ceremony”.
I note the examples given from Northern Ireland, where this automatically goes into secondary schools, as part of the citizenship course, so that people see the natural progress into being a fully-fledged citizen and being registered to vote.
Again, Hounslow invites schools to visit the council chamber each October, during democracy week, and conducts a mock election. This year 602 pupils are coming to visit over four days. That is just one local authority acting with real imagination and determination to ensure that its registers are as accurate and as complete as possible. As a result, the authority reckons that its register is 96.5% complete.
That is a very important lesson. These efforts will be all the more vital when individual registration is introduced, so that the new system can be seen for the opportunity that it is. Here I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wills, that in the end, the vital ingredient for the success of this change will be local commitment and resources, not just what the legislation says.
I and my Liberal Democrat colleagues are localists. We always have been and we always will be, because we acknowledge that Whitehall does not always know best and that councillors are usually closer to their communities than civil servants and Ministers. Yet the binding principle of localism is that when decisions are taken closest to those whom they will affect, it is all the more likely that citizens—by way of election—can choose people who will take the decisions they want.
If that is to work equitably and democratically, the register must benefit from the highest possible integrity. In that respect I am content that the high degree of national direction—which should be the responsibility of the Electoral Commission—over the way in which councils perform their work in this area, to achieve a high level of quality control, is one of the most basic building blocks of our representative democracy. For it to thrive, it is critical that local authorities have the responsibility and the resources to undertake it.
In this respect, as my noble friend Lord Rennard said earlier, local government has to carry out an important national responsibility. I hope the Minister can make clear again, as he did previously, that once the legislation is passed these authorities will be able to make use of extra resources that Government will make available for this purpose. Whether it is practical to have ring-fencing I do not know—the Minister may be able to tell us—but we must make absolutely clear that these resources are for a national purpose and they must be used for that purpose and not any other. Our democracy is far too important to leave to chance. This Bill has the potential to make registration far better, more accurate, and more comprehensive.
Of course, we will discuss important safeguards during its passage through the House. Noble Lords on all sides of your Lordships’ House have referred to safeguards that they may be looking for. I am sure that the Committee stage will benefit from the wise and experienced voices that we will hear in this House. I believe the most important of all those safeguards—the failsafe—is the one that my noble friend Lord Rennard has already suggested. It is very important to ensure that electors in 2016, who will have important local authority elections and the Scottish and Welsh devolved Assembly elections, and which will in due course provide the figures which will be the raw material for further boundary reviews, are dealt with in a way that is fully cognisant of the problems that have been referred to in this debate. If the implementation of individual electoral registration has not gone as well as we would hope, there will have to be a reassessment of that process.
There will be other desirable safeguards. I have heard several suggested during today’s debate. I know we can rely on the wide experience of elections on all sides of this House to work out what they should be. In the mean time, the principle is self-evidently right and has been supported by both Governments and Members of all parties. With those safeguards in place, I hope that the Bill will have my enthusiastic support.
Lord Dobbs
My Lords, this Bill is part of the coalition’s ongoing search for constitutional change. We have had a Bill on how we vote, with AV. We have had a Bill on who we vote for, with the House of Lords reform. Now we have a Bill to decide whether we can vote at all. Let us hope that this Bill is rather more useful than the others.
In essence this is a good Bill, although it will need a great deal of work in Committee if it is to become as sound as it is important. It is a paradox, is it not, that, as so often, it will be this unelected House whose duty it is to sort it? Many of us party politicians—someone suggested today that we should call ourselves party-linked parliamentarians, which is a much nicer phrase—have political backgrounds, although I hope that we can approach this in a non-partisan fashion. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, suggested that this was a partisan Bill. I do not agree with him on that. He did not provide much evidence. I much preferred his points about funding.
Let us face it, none of us owns this or that group of voters and no party has entirely grime-free hands in these areas. Earlier, the noble Lord, Lord Baker, showed himself to be a past-master in the dark practices of electoral fraud, as befits a former Conservative Party chairman. If that has come out wrong, I am sure that the Hansard writer will find a way to make it slightly more acceptable. Of the many instances he gave, we have to acknowledge that some of those involved Tories.
I know that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, is far too young to remember 1969 when the late Lord Callaghan, who was then simply known as Jim, buried a boundary review simply because it did not benefit the Labour Party. I have even heard outlandish rumours that some Liberal Democrats are threatening to do the same now. I wait in expectation for one of them to jump up and say that this is not the case. But we must move on from the suggestion that this is a partisan measure.
The vote was a right that our forefathers and mothers fought for with too much sacrifice and too much suffering for it to be cheapened by this Bill being turned into a game of musical chairs, waiting for others to be shoved out of the way and off the register when the music stops. We all of course have our differences and preferences but I think that we are all agreed that some measure of change is needed.
The current system is open not just to inaccuracy but to fraud. As Judge Maurey has said, the postal voting system is one which,
“would disgrace a banana republic”.
That must change. But I entirely understand the anxieties expressed by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that change that is too rapid or too ill thought through might disadvantage various minority groups. We must take that seriously and study it in Committee, although I have to say that the arguments are frequently overdone. For example, if a student is capable of registering for a loan, he or she is equally capable of registering for a vote. We must test the provisions of this Bill to make sure that they are fair and balanced.
We have heard much in this good and very informative debate. Perhaps I may share with noble Lords my experience of the last election. It is well known that I am a man of limited imagination. As a result, I named my second son Michael. Therefore, in our household we had two Michael Dobbs on the register in Wiltshire. As it happens, some nameless, faceless registration officer decided, quite sensibly perhaps, that there were too many people with that name on the register. But, without any checks or thought, on a personal crusade to implement data matching, my son’s name was crossed off the register. He found himself unable to vote. After many years of being on the register, he was unable to vote last time around. Fortunately, it was of no great consequence. The admirable John Glen was elected in Salisbury with a handsome majority.
However, that is not the point. Under the current system, some who should be on the register are not and some who are on the register should not be. We need to change that. In Committee, we will deal with many issues. This evening, I want to highlight only one; namely, Clause 13, which extends the timetable between dissolution and polling day. The Bill suggests that this should be lengthened from 17 days to 25 days, which sounds innocuous. The reasons for this seem to be to make life easier for returning officers. I believe it is suggested that it delivers a small cost saving. But there is a bite in the tail, and not simply that of voters being bored to death, as suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Baker.
Of course, it is not simply 25 days. There are “dies non” which refer to weekends and bank holidays. In fact, those 25 days stretch to five and a half weeks. We recently passed the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, which, in normal circumstances, means very predictable elections every five years. But not all circumstances are predictable. Let us imagine a national crisis—for example, a desperate economic and financial collapse in Europe, and political paralysis here at home. Let us further imagine a Government no longer capable of commanding a majority and losing a vote of confidence; and there being no agreement on a replacement and an election being called. Because of the provisions of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, that cannot be for another two weeks. Five and a half weeks becomes seven and a half weeks, which adds to the political and economic crisis that has created this situation.
We are talking of a potential situation of political paralysis and governmental chaos at a time of national crisis that could stretch into months. We cannot always predict political crises, let alone avoid them. But we can prepare for them better than the straitjacket of Clause 13. We need to look at it again, and I hope that Ministers will take a look at this and allow us to discuss it in greater detail.
Lord Baker of Dorking
The noble Lord has had great experience at Central Office. I agree with him entirely about the extension. Does he have an estimate of the extra cost that parties will have to bear as a result of extending this campaign? At the individual constituency level, there will be considerable cost. At the national level, all the main parties will want to advertise. I wonder whether he has considered replying to the Liberal Party, which proposed this, and telling it that a great deal more money will have to be found for campaigning in these extra weeks. I wonder where it will find that money.
Lord Dobbs
That is an excellent point. In this Chamber previously, I have suggested that the lack of adequate funding for political parties is one of the things that undermines our parliamentary democracy. We will not solve it through this Bill but there is no reason why it should be worse either.
There are many other details to discuss and I will not detain the House any longer, except to point out that the other place spent three days discussing these matters before the guillotine fell and they gathered up their buckets and spades and departed. Once again, this unelected House will have to do the donkey work of democracy. It leaves me wondering where we would be if we were elected—off on the beach with the other lot, I suspect. On that note, perhaps I may express the wish that your Lordships will long retain the cherished position alongside the mentally incapable and convicts and continue to be denied the vote.
Lord Collins of Highbury
My Lords, I hope to be brief, not least because I hope to pop along to say farewell to Peggy Byatt, who has been one of the longest serving members of staff of this House.
Last May, when this Bill was introduced in the House of Commons, Mark Harper, the Minister for Political and Constitutional Reform, stated that the aim of the Bill was to,
“tackle electoral fraud, increase the number of people registered to vote and improve the integrity of the electoral register”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/5/12; col. 1172.]
No one would disagree with that. As my noble friend Lord Wills has stated, it was for these precise reasons that the previous Labour Government, with cross-party support, put through the Political Parties and Elections Act. Those reasons also paved the way for individual registration.
However, in committing to this, we also provided for a phased timetable and independent testing of any new system, backed up with strong and effective monitoring by the Electoral Commission. Why did we do it in that way? We wanted to make sure that the systems to stop fraud, which we are all committed to stopping, did not also exacerbate an already growing problem of underregistration. As we have heard today, there are millions of unregistered—mainly young and low-income—voters missing from the electoral roll. The Electoral Commission’s briefing, which has also been quoted today, states that the December 2010 register was between 85% and 87% complete, with at least 6 million eligible people missing from it. It is the biggest scandal for our democracy that so many people are denied the opportunity to vote. The other issue that is combined with underregistration is the prospect that the growing number of people who do not vote in elections will not see the point of registering to vote. That concern is also shared by the Electoral Commission.
Without a concerted and prolonged campaign, it is possible that the register may go from the near 90% completeness that we hope we currently have to something like 65%. As my noble friend Lady Gould said, 65% will result in as many as 10 million voters losing the opportunity to vote. What sort of democracy is that? I shall repeat the question of my noble friend Lady Gould. Will the Minister give us the details of the implementation plan now? Will they set out the timetable in more detail and will they give us better figures on a budget to ensure that we have an effective campaign? This is not scaremongering when you consider the experience of Northern Ireland, on which we have had some very interesting perspectives. When the system was changed there in 2002 it resulted in a huge drop in the size of the register. It was such a drop that we had to address it in subsequent legislation, so we know that there is a problem that we need to address.
Although I believe very strongly that the timetable proposed in the Bill is too rushed, I welcome the concession that there will be a carryover for those who are currently on but fail to register individually. However, this will not happen in my household or in the many, many other households where everyone is registered to vote by post. As many noble Lords have pointed out, for many elderly people and people with disabilities, voting by post is their only real opportunity to vote. I do not accept the assertion of the noble Lord, Lord Baker, that the fundamental problem with our electoral system is the extension of postal voting. With the right measures—we have talked about how those measures can be improved—postal voting undoubtedly increases turnover. What we want is more people participating in our democracy. The fundamental problems are more to do with false entries on the register. All parties and all individuals can take responsibility to highlight where they think there are problems and address them. When I had that responsibility in the Labour Party we were very rigorous in pursuing any example where we found multiple registrations.
Why, therefore, will postal voters and proxy voters be excluded from this carryover which, as we have heard, is going to affect a lot of elderly people and people with disabilities? For the record, in my own household, neither my husband nor I will be eligible to vote when it comes to the general election; me because of my membership of this House and he because he is a Spanish national. We have talked about the errors that can occur and about checking each signature. Unfortunately, on one occasion—I am not going to say which election because I have proudly voted in every one—when we were completing our postal votes on the dinner table, I mistakenly signed his declaration and he mistakenly signed mine. Despite efforts to contact the appropriate authorities, I fear that my vote was not counted on that occasion.
As many of my noble friends have pointed out, the Bill rushes through a process that actually needs a lot of careful consideration and planning. Why the rush for the next general election? My sentiments about the Bill are accurately reflected in the following quote:
“I also agree with the Minister that it would be difficult to introduce a new system shortly before a general election. There should be other ways of testing the system along the way to ensure that the accuracy, integrity and comprehensiveness of the register and the system are always utterly watertight. I hope that that reassures the Minister on that point”.—[Official Report, Commons,13/7/09; col. 109.]
That was Eleanor Laing MP, Shadow Conservative Minister, speaking in 2009.
The noble Lord, Lord Empey, in his excellent contribution, mentioned those dreaded words “ID cards”. This is why I have always supported the principle of national ID cards—a national ID system. I have always been committed to it because it carries with it clear rights and responsibilities. I am sorry that many of my noble friends—I mean to say many of the noble Lords opposite—are not committed to that principle despite the fact that they want to ensure that the electoral register has as many constraints on it as possible. Yet they are not in favour of the one thing that would deliver a system of integrity in our democracy.
Lord Empey
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for giving way. I referred to our system of electoral identity cards which are very specific and can be used only for voting purposes. They are slightly different from the national identity cards which were proposed here some time ago. Nevertheless, I am sure the noble Lord accepts that I agree with the point, which I suspect he is trying to make, that it gives an opportunity to know that the person standing in front of the polling station clerk is the person who is entitled to vote.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I thank the noble Lord for that contribution. I agree with him completely but I have to confess that I was using the opportunity of his reference to ID cards to have a little go. When we are talking about secure systems, we have to understand that that issue cuts across all civic society.
We need to ensure that any scheme of individual registration passes the test of accuracy and completeness. Here I agree 100% with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. He and I have a lot in common in terms of our previous experiences of elections. He may have won a lot more elections, but the fact is that we spent our livelihoods and lifetimes trying to tell politicians to follow the rules and regulations. I agree with him 100% when he asks whether by focusing on accuracy we are missing the fundamental importance of completeness. That is what this debate is about, and it is what the Bill needs to focus on. I am sure that that is what the discussions in Committee will be about.
Despite some welcome concessions from the Government that we heard articulated today, I am afraid that they do not represent sufficient safeguards to ensure that the Bill will not result in millions of people being unregistered and therefore unable to vote. What we have is a speeded-up timetable for the introduction of individual registration purely—I put this at its best—to save money. Combine that with another important issue, the downgrading of the role of the Electoral Commission, and we are left with the potential for long-term deterioration in the accuracy of the electoral register.
Baroness Eaton
My Lords, I add my strong support for the aims of the Bill. The disadvantage of being so late in the speakers’ list means that most areas have been covered by other noble Lords. However, the advantage is that I have had the opportunity of hearing their interesting, wide-ranging and well expressed comments. Those wide-ranging views have covered fraud, fines, timetables, reduction of numbers on registers, postal votes and many other points. All will be discussed in great detail in Committee.
My main reason for wishing to speak in this Second Reading is because of my serious concern at the existence of electoral fraud. I have had personal experience of it, but I hasten to add that it was not as a fraudster but as the past leader of a council in one of the cities mentioned by my noble friend Lord Baker. Three members of my political group were found guilty of electoral fraud and, unfortunately, the common comment in the community and of other politicians at the time was that the three who were caught were less practised in fraud than the many other party members who practised it, managed it with expertise and got away with it.
I do not take pleasure or comfort in reminding your Lordships that politicians of various political persuasions have been convicted of electoral offences. I must say to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, that he may feel that this is not a major issue, but such circumstances are hugely damaging to citizens’ views of the democratic process and to the political process.
Lord Wills
The noble Baroness may not have correctly heard me. I was quoting a report by the independent Rowntree Reform Trust and made it clear that even a single incident of electoral fraud should be taken extremely seriously. I am afraid that the noble Baroness inadvertently misrepresented my position.
Baroness Eaton
I apologise if that is the case.
It is not an enjoyable experience hearing, first-hand on the doorsteps at election time, voters clearly expressing the view that it is a waste of time voting when there is so much fraud taking place that can affect the outcome of the election results. Particularly in council elections where majorities can be small, these events can have a major impact on the outcome.
There is an issue that no one has raised but I have observed. There seems historically to have been a reluctance by the police to tackle and track down electoral fraud. Perhaps the Minister will say whether he thinks the new system of personal registration will help in this regard.
I should like also to express my concern about personation, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, because it often referred to as a potentially bigger issue than many of us recognise. I fear that we must urgently move to an electoral registration system that gives all electors confidence in the integrity of that system because it prevents fraud. I am sure that in Committee we will give a great deal of time and attention to the detail, and that we will all be pleased to accept the end product.
Lord Prescott
My Lords, in the four minutes available to me, I should like to make one or two points about the Bill. I agree with some of it, but my main concern, as a number of noble Lords have expressed, is the turnout. After all, one hopes to get the highest turnout in democratic participation.
Some things in the Bill may improve that. Clause 14 makes it clear that there will no longer be the discrimination whereby there must be three weeks between parish and community council elections. They are being brought together to take place on the same day as the European elections, local government elections, and the parliamentary general election. Those elections are regularly held. However, what about the police commissioner elections? They will be held every four years but are not mentioned in the Bill. Is it necessary to include them to make sure that they can be held on the same day? It is important to do that because the Government, for one reason or another, have decided to hold the elections for police commissioner in November, which will certainly affect the turnout. I therefore hope that when we discuss these matters the Government will look at how the timing will affect those elections.
I had three points to make. The second relates to the statement on the cover of the Bill in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights. It refers to Section 19(1)(a) of the Human Rights Act and then explains further inside. However, Article 8 is about voting. What is the Government’s position on prisoner voting? Does this mean that the human rights provisions apply only in a narrow sense, because there is difficulty? As the Deputy Prime Minister in the other place made clear, the legislation on House of Lords reform does not conform to the Human Rights Act and it could not be written on the face of the Bill. What is the position now? Can the registrar register prisoners? Can they have a vote? Or has there been just a limited human rights interpretation? Perhaps the Minister could tell us.
I apologise for raising matters directly on the police commissioner elections, but on the day that the Grand Committee dealt with that legislation we had the Statement on G4S. I chose to attend here in the Chamber and was therefore denied the opportunity to raise points in that Committee. I hope that the Minister will bear with me as regards a particular point that he may be able to help us with, perhaps not by answering today but by writing to me about it. There is the problem of this new kind of election, which involves police authorities, chief constables and the inspectorate all making decisions in their own different ways on how the candidates are to be consulted. Some are laying down rules for some candidates by saying, “You must all sit in the room together”. As we know, there is nothing in that which we would agree with. You could do it on the first occasion, but each candidate must individually have the right to talk to either the chief constable or the police authority. That seems to be the agreement between those two bodies, but it is not the opinion of Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, which I have here. It makes it clear that the meetings should take place on a one-to-one basis.
Obviously there are different ways of running this. An example is the financing of the mayor’s election. There will be financing for that but not for these elections. Different rules apply. What concerns me most—the Minister made it clear—is that the Government are looking for a common way to run elections in the future. I understand that and there is a lot of sense in it. However, if we are deciding new rules particularly for this election I wonder whether they might say that legislation is not required, but merely a message from the Home Office to say to the parties involved, “Why don’t you actually allow what is normal in other elections?”. If a candidate chooses to talk to the parties whom he is supposed to ask for information—or, indeed, if he has a responsibility to produce a plan—he should be able to consult them. I hope the Minister will tell his colleagues that they should set out that message, because things are under way. Finally, it is said that things will have to wait until you are registered as a candidate. That will be in October. Then a five-year plan will be produced for us, all within six weeks, that will have to be ready to give to the Government. A bit of common sense should apply here. There should be a common rule and candidates should have the right to be able to talk face to face.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, this has been an informative debate with much commonality of approach, especially regarding the desire for a complete register. As my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer said, this side of the House supports in principle the move to individual electoral registration, and indeed we congratulate the Government on listening during their consultation and making some significant adjustments, as set out by my noble friend Lady Gould, especially to introduce a civil penalty, to remove the opt-out and to have a full canvass in 2014.
Individual registration recognises the increased emphasis on the rights of the individual and it reflects how we vote—as individuals, not as family blocks. As has been said, it was the previous Labour Government who legislated for this to deal with inaccuracy, but particularly the incompleteness, of the register. We want to capture those 6 million people who are effectively disenfranchised; nearly half of whom think that they are on the register; the figure is 25% in some areas, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, reminds us.
However, individual registration has only a part to play. The democratic deficit also arises from insufficient preparation in schools for participation in the political process, despite the very good example that the noble Lord gave us of, I think, Hounslow. Our press, which is forever decrying the role of democratic governance, does not help, and there is also the lack of action to ensure that under registered groups, be those private sector tenants, BME residents or the young, are motivated both to register and then to vote.
Added to this will be the new boundary rules, which will force changes to constituencies every election. Those rules are actually quite undemocratic because they will break the ongoing link between an elected Member and her or his constituents. Voting alone, which particularly those in the House who have been MPs will know, is not all there is about democracy—it is also about accountability. That means going back to those who elected you after a five-year Parliament for their verdict on your record. This is going to be denied to the proposed elected Members of your Lordships’ House, but will also lessen as a parliamentary seat’s make-up keeps changing to accommodate the coalition’s obsession with statistically numerical definitions of a constituency, quite trumping habits, travel, community, geography, history and place.
The ConservativeHome blog, which I recommend to everybody, told us last week the real reason for these new boundaries, which is quite different from producing identi-sized seats. As Tim Montgomerie, known I am sure to those sitting on the opposite Benches, blogged:
“One leading aide to the Party Chairman told me yesterday that the passage of the new boundaries was the most important single legislative change for the Conservative Party’s chances of winning the next election. CCHQ is pleased at the outcome of the boundary review and it has confirmed the general view that the party needs a 10.5% lead to win an outright majority on existing boundaries but a much more modest 7.6% on the new boundaries”.
So there we have it. It is nothing to do with a more equitable spread of the electorate but the search for an outright majority to dump the Lib Dems. No wonder they are thinking twice about voting for those new boundaries.
I digress. The issue before us today is about just one part of boosting the accountability and representativeness of elections, whether for police commissioners, to the Commons, to local authorities, to the European Parliament, to devolved Administrations and maybe even to this magnificent building. However, there are serious concerns that the Government must answer.
First, on methodology, why, as everyone has asked, is there no carryover for postal votes, which are largely used by some of our most disadvantaged groups who can no longer get out and about for the joy of a walk to the polling station? Interestingly, these electors are already individually registered rather than household registered, so they are a little ahead of the game. Postal votes should, as I think many noble Lords have said, be carried over to the register for the 2015 election; there is really no democratic case against that. The way in which the register is compiled will be crucial, and to be successful there must be sound strategic planning plus adequate ring-fenced funding. It cannot be allowed to fail because of Treasury miserliness.
Secondly, on timeliness, why are the Government so keen on speeding up individual electoral registration? No explanation was given throughout the passage of this Bill through the other place although, as the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, said, that was a rather short period. This is the biggest change to the registration system since 1928 and therefore needs careful planning and implementation. We have spent years building up the register, and we should not jeopardise it for some quick-fix formula. I ask, as others have, whether the Government have a coherent implementation plan. I was somewhat taken aback by the Government publishing on 17 July, just as MPs who know about the intricacies of registration and its drawbacks were—again, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs—packing their buckets and spades for their week at the seaside. It does not sound a very good time to produce the so-called implementation plan. It is a bit weak and seems to provide more evidence about this ruinous timescale for proper scrutiny as well as implementation. This is very different from the step-by-step approach quoted by my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port.
There are risks in speeding up the timetable for what should be an invaluable democratic tool, but a tool which, if mishandled, could undermine trust in the voting system in a way that will rebound not only on the present Administration but on the whole system of elections, which will be bad for all of us.
The results of the data-matching pilots will not be known until this Bill becomes law, yet there is no built-in safeguard should the pilots demonstrate significant flaws in the chosen methodology. Given that the present register does not contain dates of birth, there must be questions about how well it will match with DWP information, especially for those with common surnames such as a Baker, a Collins, a Wills or a Dobbs who is even less imaginative in insisting in cloning his name within the same household.
Indeed, as the Minister will recall, in Grand Committee I questioned what would happen if the Electoral Commission’s and the Cabinet Office’s assessments of the pilots varied. Answer, I am afraid, came there none. The evaluation of those pilots may not even impact on the Government’s determination to move forward on an individual register to their predetermined timetable, no matter what their outcome. The previous Government proposed a gradual implementation along an agreed timetable; now it is hurried and done without consensus. No wonder people are worried.
Thirdly, there is the apparent downgrading of the monitoring role of the Electoral Commission. Surely the commission should have to certify that individual registration is functioning properly before anyone previously registered to vote loses that right. As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, we must know that it is working before we use it as the basis for boundary changes or for the 2015 general election. Will the Minister share with us the risk register for this project? If he does a Department of Health and refuses, will he at least let the Electoral Commission have the risk register so that its work can take account of the likely pressure points and vulnerabilities of the scheme?
Fourthly, why does the Bill seek the power to abolish the annual canvass? This is essential. It is not a luxury that all eligible voters should be on the register. As the noble Lord, Lord Empey, said, the register decays with time. As a people, we continue to move, probably more rather than less. Families form and, sadly, break up; people’s employers change far more than those of our parents’ generation; people move abroad and back; and people change their name—even women. My generation of women’s-libbers assumed that none of us would ever take our husband’s surname, but strangely that has not been the case. An enormous number of changes are going on. We will seek in Committee to remove this pernicious little power.
Allowing an elected politician to tamper with the register of voters in this way is something akin to a Henry VIII power. It was as far back as 1918 that responsibility for compiling registers was transferred to public officials who were independent of the candidates and their friends. We should not undo this staunch underpinning of the voting system. We have been reminded how the register was undermined by the poll tax, when suddenly there was a price to being on it. It has taken much work to pull back from that, so never again should a politician be able to take a decision, such as ending the annual canvass, that could so impact on people’s right to vote.
What is lacking in the Bill? What does this House, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, have a duty to sort? First, we must secure cross-party agreement on timing and implementation to ensure that this is done for the sake of our whole democracy and not just one part of it—or should I say “party”? We want a guarantee of adequate funding for the job; “Don’t skimp” was the advice from the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. We need a proper mitigation plan should the pilots suggest that the methodology is not robust. We need sufficient safeguards to ensure that there is no reduction in completeness and fairness. We need provision to carry over postal votes to the new register without people having to reapply for them. We need the removal of the power for a party-elected Minister to abolish the annual canvass. And we need to carry over the May 2015 register for the December redistribution of boundaries, otherwise it will look as if the parties in Government are artificially omitting those least likely to register, such as the young, tenants and the mobile, from the all-important numerical count.
My predecessors fought for the right of women to vote. The noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, used the word “sacrifice”—and they did. Today we must ensure that the urban, the young and even the rioters, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, are enabled and encouraged to register. The new scheme must help make the right to vote a reality for a greater proportion of our citizens. We must do all that we can to make individual registration a benefit and not a way of excluding voters. This should be above and apart from party politics. It is too important to play games with. It is a matter of fairness, accuracy, inclusivity and consensus. We hope that the Government will heed our concerns.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, this has been a very worthwhile Second Reading, and a number of very valuable points were raised that we will all pursue further in Committee. I say straightaway to the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, that he raised a number of very interesting points on which I was not fully briefed, so I will be very happy to write to him on them.
We can take either a partisan or a non-partisan approach to this Bill in Committee. I very much hope that we will follow the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. Surely our goal must be to achieve a complete and accurate register—although I have to say, as complete and accurate a register as possible, because we all recognise that we already have problems with the register in both respects. We are trying to improve that, and none of us has the hope that we will be able to get complete accuracy or completeness. So let us take as non-partisan an approach in Committee as we can.
If I were to take a partisan approach, I would be quite sharp with both the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, whose opening speech reminded me of one that a prosecuting counsel might make in a case where he knew that the evidence was relatively weak. The noble Lord, Lord Wills, suggested in effect that this was a vast Conservative conspiracy in which the Liberal Democrats were somehow co-conspirators. I have done my politics in cities and I know of many cases of election fraud, mainly in local elections and often by Labour voters against Liberal Democrats, that were not pursued by the Liberal Democrats because of the immense expense involved in mounting a challenge. I am talking about Kirklees, Manchester and Bradford, although I am well aware of cases in Burnley, Birmingham and elsewhere. As the noble Lord, Lord Collins, said, what sort of democracy is it when we have severe problems at local level? I am also very conscious—
Lord Wills
I must correct the misapprehension that the Minister is under. I do not think that I used the word “conspiracy”, and I was not alleging any grave conspiracy. I was trying to take noble Lords through the consequences of the Government’s approach to the review of boundaries in 2015, and the partisan political consequences that could well ensue—that was all. It is perfectly open to the noble Lord to give me good arguments why those consequences will not happen, and I shall be completely reassured. There is no question of a conspiracy; it is just a question of natural consequences following from what the Government are trying to do.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I shall do my utmost to reassure the noble Lord by the way that we handle the Bill as it goes through. I regret that the level of Cross-Bench participation in this Second Reading debate was not higher, because there is a lot of expertise on those Benches about the groups we most want to reach—the most vulnerable and marginal groups in society who are least involved in politics. We share a common interest in trying to get those people re-engaged in politics, and we recognise that we all have a problem in getting them re-engaged. I spent some time over recent weekends on big estates in Bradford where the level of turnout was astonishingly low and the level of registration fairly low.
To suggest—as I think I also picked up from some noble Lords on the Benches opposite—that somehow these people belong to Labour and are naturally Labour, even if they do not vote or even register, is stretching the argument. They belong to no party, and we all share the problem of how to get them re-engaged in society, politics and community life. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that in this respect we have many problems. We are struggling against a deeply cynical media that reinforces the instinctive scepticism of rising numbers of voters. We all have to demonstrate that we share a concern for the quality of our democracy and of our democratic institutions.
Perhaps I may make one more partisan remark before I return to being my usual entirely non-partisan self. In the 2005 general election, the Labour Government returned to power on 35% of the votes cast—barely a quarter of the electorate—and the majority of the media and the Opposition did not cry, “Illegitimate and improper”. However, it was close to the bounds of democratic acceptability.
How will we engage young people? The noble Lord, Lord Bates, in particular asked how we are working with Bite the Ballot and Operation Black Vote. We have not looked very far into the question of whether we should have campaigns which involve personalities and celebrities. However, we have looked at using social media more. We are looking at the experience in Northern Ireland where working in schools with what are called the “attainers”—16 and 17 year-olds—has provided better civic education. Taking registration forms into schools has clearly had a very positive effect. As we move to individual registration, we very much hope to follow this experience to ensure that we catch the attention of young voters, many of whom are not terribly interested in politics at that time.
The noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, raised the issue of elderly and disabled people. We are consulting Scope, Mind and a number of other bodies on how best to make sure that access is maintained and how to improve access to polling stations where possible. The levels of suspected fraud for postal votes and proxies are much higher than for those giving personal votes in the election. Therefore, asking people to reassure us during the transition that postal and proxy votes are real is a justifiable way of improving the accuracy of the system.
Perhaps I may talk about the difference between this Bill and the previous Act. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, referred to a “ruinous timetable” as if this were being rushed through unannounced. I remind the noble Baroness that this Bill has been through pre-legislative scrutiny and through the other House. We have listened and changed the Bill. When the Political Parties and Elections Bill was introduced in the Commons, it contained no provisions for individual electoral registration. However, when the Conservative Opposition tabled a reasoned amendment and voted against the Bill, relevant clauses were added in the Lords. These were not discussed fully in the Commons, except when the Bill returned from the Lords. It is, therefore, grossly unfair to suggest that we are rushing into this or, indeed, as I understand the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Wills, that the previous Bill was perfect and this is somehow imperfect.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, asked me about the statement on the invitation on the civil penalty and how prominent it would be. The Electoral Commission will design the invitation form and will test it with users to achieve the best possible form to encourage registration. I know that there is much concern about differences between local authorities in the duties of the electoral registration officers. These duties will be clearly set out in the Bill, secondary legislation and in Electoral Commission guidance. We are working closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure, as far as possible, a consistent approach across local authorities. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, will no doubt return in Committee to how large the civil penalty should be and how often it should be applied. If an individual has been issued with the penalty and subsequently applies to be registered, we intend that the penalty will be waived. We are not persuaded by his suggestion of multiple fines in a single year—whatever it might do to assist the Treasury.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, asked what we are doing now to increase registration rates. I have already said a little about that. We are closely studying the experience of Northern Ireland. We have seen the excellent work there and we hope to learn from it to ease the transition, which I have already described in my opening speech. The Cabinet Office is leading a programme of work to maximise electoral registration among the groups on which we all agree—that is, the ones that are currently under-registered or identified as at risk of falling off. However, we recognise that under-registration is not the responsibility of Government alone. We will work closely with partners across the public, private and voluntary sectors. I hope that we will all engage in this effort and encourage people from voluntary organisations to engage in it as well.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, also asked me what evidence should be required. We dropped the requirement for a signature on the grounds that a date of birth and a national insurance number would be adequate in themselves. We propose to require these to enable online registration. We hope that people will gradually move forward with the technological change. I was struck by the DWP evidence about the speed at which people are moving to interact with the state online. Within the next five to 10 years, the overwhelming majority of people, including those of our generation, will be likely to interact with the state online. That is why we are moving in this direction and why it is proper to take in this Bill a power to suspend the annual canvass at some point in the future, as has been done in Northern Ireland, when it seems that the number of people dealing with registration online has reached an appropriate level.
The noble and learned Lord also asked me questions about the budget of the high-level implementation plan. I am sorry that he did not pick up from my opening speech that there is £108 million allocated over the spending review period. We are also making excellent progress in developing IT and we are pleased by the engagement of electoral registration officers of the Association of Electoral Administrators—
Lord Falconer of Thoroton
Although I am very encouraged to hear about the excellent progress being made, perhaps it would be possible to write and say precisely where we have got to because it is not easy to make an assessment when things are going fabulously. One needs a little more detail, if that is possible. I accept that it may not be for now.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I was just coming to the further detail. Perhaps I may issue a personal invitation. A number of parliamentarians have already seen a demonstration of the website that is to be used for registration. I am happy to offer a further demonstration of the prototype if any noble Lord, including the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, would like to see it. Progress is being made, but it is being tested as we move forward.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, and others suggested that the data-matching pilot had not yet been evaluated. The Electoral Commission and the Cabinet Office have evaluated the pilots undertaken so far. A further exercise is taking place this year, and that will be evaluated over the next few months. The first pilots were very valuable in testing the usefulness of data matching and what is required to share and match data effectively. The evidence suggests that we can simplify the transition for existing electors by using data matching to confirm their details as accurate. As I have already explained, it produces a floor of around two-thirds of people, which enables us to concentrate our efforts on the remaining third to make sure that we get them back on the register as well. Later this year we will run a second set of pilots to confirm the conclusions of the first round and to refine the process of matching data.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, suggested that we should use data mining on private databases as well. I have to say that we would begin to get into issues of privacy and access to data if we were to go too far in that direction. As I have been learning about this process—and in regard to the census—I can hear Liberty and some other groups at my back as they begin to worry about it, so there are questions of privacy. However, we are speaking to organisations that hold potentially useful data, including the credit reference agencies, to establish the most useful data for the purposes of finding people who are not registered.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, asked about the publicity campaign. That will be the responsibility of the Electoral Commission, which of course will play a major role in the entire process. I do not accept the suggestion of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that there is an apparent downgrading of the role of the Electoral Commission. Perhaps we can discuss that further before the Committee stage, but if it is a concern then clearly we need to meet it. I anticipated the question about risk registers. The Government do not publish risk registers, and we can return to the point at a later stage.
I was asked why we are abolishing the annual canvass. I again suggest that we have no intention of abolishing it until we are sure that we are getting sufficiently good results by other means.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
The question I put to the noble Lord was why the Government had taken on the power to do so rather than it coming back to the other House.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
It may be that the other House thinks that it needs an affirmative resolution. It is a very good point that we can of course discuss in Committee, but it certainly does not need primary legislation. As the noble Baroness knows, it has been carried through in Northern Ireland and it appears to have been successful there.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, asked about whether there would be a single level for the civil penalty. We intend to reach a single level within the spectrum, but we are consulting with various interested parties on what they think the appropriate level should be. Perhaps the noble Baroness would like to put down an amendment suggesting that we adopt the Finnish system, which is that the appropriate level should be a percentage of a person’s declared income for the year. That is how the Finns impose traffic and parking fines, but that is not our intention at the moment.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton
Or maybe we could use the system in Brazil. You cannot get a driving licence unless you are on the register.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I regret to say that that might be of declining utility. One of the things I have learnt while looking at data sets is that the number of young people who are registering as drivers is declining. It is a good thing for those of us who think that public transport is much more important in the cities, but fewer young people are learning to drive and getting driving licences, which is why that data set is not quite as useful as we thought.
My noble friend Lord Norton asked why the Government were taking in Clause 21 a power to repeal the establishment of a co-ordinated online record of elections. As we have said before, the costs of building and running the record seem to us to be disproportionate when weighed against its potential benefits. He also asked about the edited register, to which we will clearly return in Committee. The edited register is much beloved of charities and voluntary organisations. Now that I have to speak for the Cabinet Office, I have learnt that the lobbies in the charities sector are as determined and uncompromising as the lobbies in any other sector. They are very strong on maintaining the edited register, but the Government are committed to maximising registration rates, although we recognise that there are a number of issues about the names that appear. Perhaps that is another question for discussion in Committee.
Lord Empey
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. Could he address the issue of whether any research has been or will be undertaken to establish why people are not registering to vote? Do we have any detailed research or is any being planned?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That is a very good question to which I do not have the answer, so I will write to the noble Lord about it. I suspect that there is a multitude of reasons. Of course, some people have good reasons for not being on the register, including people in witness protection programmes and some celebrities. A range of issues can be cited, and there are others who are simply moving around too quickly, are not interested or who do not want to have contact with the state.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gould, queried the phrase,
“as far as is reasonably practicable”.
It is intended to refer to the completeness of the register, which comes back to the point that we do not expect electoral registers to be able to be 100% complete, but we want them to do their utmost to get as far as they can.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton
I thank the noble Lord, but that is not the interpretation that is being put on it by the Electoral Commission. It has raised this as an issue that needs to be looked at. Perhaps I could pass the information on because it might be of help.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I have read the note from the Electoral Commission on this.
The question of overseas electors will be raised. I had a conversation off the Floor of the House with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in which we agreed that we are both being lobbied heavily by our local party organisations from Brussels and Luxembourg on this issue. The Government do not have any plans at the present moment to lengthen the period from leaving the country beyond 15 years, nor do we have any really ambitious plans to do what is done in some other countries, which is to allow voting in embassies and consulates. However, the longer electoral period will help.
I hope that that covers many of the questions which have been raised—
Lord Wills
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. I understand from the Companion that the time is now up. However, I did ask quite a large number of very specific and detailed questions, most of which derived from the impact statement published by the Cabinet Office. The Minister has not even referred to them. If there is no time now, I would be grateful if he could write to me with detailed answers to those questions. Also, he told me at the beginning of his speech that he would deal with the particular problem of the impact of any fall in registration on the boundary reviews. Perhaps he might be able to squeeze in a few seconds on that.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
We will return to many of these issues in Committee. We have taken on board everything that has been said in the debate. We are confident that by going through the transition process and learning from the Northern Irish experience, we will come out with a register that is at least as complete as it is at the moment, and more accurate. Let us all recognise that we are operating against a decline in the completeness of the register over the past 10 to 20 years and that, first, we have to stem that decline. If we were to continue with household registration, it is likely that it would decline further. If we can work to reverse that decline and bring about a transition by which we will catch those who move around rapidly such as students and young people, we will have done extremely well.
Lord Wills
I am sorry to press the Minister, but will he provide me with the answers to my questions?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am happy to write to the noble Lord in spite of the fact that he strained the patience of the House and of myself with the length of his speech.