Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Angela Smith Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Davis
That is why I start from my concern about the guillotine, because this is a Bill that in past decades—not past years, sadly—would have spent hours, days and weeks on the Floor of the House. It would have been preceded by a proper consultation, a cross-party agreement, a Green Paper and a White Paper—there was a White Paper, but as far as I could tell, it did not refer to part 2 at all. The Bill has not gone through what in my view would be a proper constitutional process and so will of course be subject to unintended consequences all over the place.
I accept that the Government will not have intended many of the consequences—I will come to some that they do intend in a minute. I accept that the deleterious consequences of the Bill were not intentional, but they arise directly from how the Government started the process. We had a brilliant report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, as chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), which could have provided a basis. That Committee could have been the vehicle for the process. The hon. Gentleman is right: there will be deleterious consequences, most of them unintended, but most of them because of how we have addressed this Bill.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the National Council for Voluntary Organisations has made it clear that it has similar concerns outstanding, despite the apparent movement by the Government on clause 26? It says in its brief:
“'We remain concerned that…voluntary organisations…may still be subject to ambiguous and damaging legislation. NCVO believes in a society where freedom of speech, the freedom to associate and the right to free and fair elections are all similarly inviolable.”
Mr Davis
Let me pick up that point and develop it a little—we are principally talking about clause 26, but it also relates to later clauses, which will be dealt with later in the day. It is in this context that the comments from the Electoral Commission—the primary executing agency of this Bill—come into play. It uses the words “significant regulatory uncertainty”, saying that parts of the Bill are “impossible to enforce” and pointing out “significant issues of workability”. What are we doing? We are transforming a bureaucratic organisation, with the powers to make rules on policy campaigning, as well as to relax those rules, tighten the rules, amend them retrospectively and then apply them retrospectively to freedom of speech—something that is, by definition, oppressive. By definition, that will chill freedom of speech. This Parliament has created a bureaucracy without the ability to alter, change or amend the rules before—it was known as the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. What we are creating in this Bill is—if we want a precursor of how this will play out—an IPSA for elections.
Let me turn to new clause 4. When it comes to political campaigns—whether electoral campaigns or other campaigns—the world is changing. Twenty-five years ago, I think only 8% of the population did not feel an affinity to one or other party. That figure is now 25%. All the political parties are declining—there is no party point in this; we are all dying on the vine as organisations. It is the nature of society that people’s interest in something tends to be more piecemeal than it was 25 or 50 years ago. This Bill is trying to swim upstream. It is trying to defy the nature of modern politics and the fact that political decision making now is by web-based campaigners, web-based petitions or 38 Degrees.
I get as annoyed as everyone else when I get campaigners from 38 Degrees writing to me—they say that they sometimes get dusty replies—but as Voltaire would have put it, I may disagree with what they say, but I defend to the death their right to say it. What part 2 does—not intentionally, but by accident—is jeopardise that entire tradition of our country. This is the home of free speech and this Chamber is the original defender of free speech, so what are we doing making these changes by accident? That is why I am concerned.
Susan Elan Jones
I agree totally.
I am sure that some Members will have read the beautiful article by the Royal British Legion’s director general Dr Simpkins in The Daily Telegraph last week, which told how:
“In 1921, a year before a General Election, The Royal British Legion successfully ran its first campaign, lobbying the Government to ensure that three-quarters of those employed on relief works were veterans of the First World War.”
Our tradition of charities being allowed to campaign on political issues germane to their charitable activities is at the heart of British life and our democracy. It has been established in case law since 1917, a year before universal male suffrage. Well before women had the vote, Lord Normand, in the case of Bowman v. Secular Society, held that a society whose predominant aim was not to change the law could be charitable when its campaign to change the law was merely a subsidiary activity. That tradition has a long pedigree in this country and I do not believe that it should be for tinkering politicians, perhaps fearful of the impact of Cameron and Clegg non-mania in 2015, to play with it.
Angela Smith
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument in defence of the right of charities to engage in civil society. However, does she agree that we are up against it on this point? Only eight months ago, one contributor to “ConservativeHome” said:
“When exactly ARE we going to stop funding these so called ‘charities’…? For example, ‘Shelter’ do absolutely nothing to practically help the homeless. Their sole purpose is to lobby government to increase the funding for housing and homelessness. And for this, they are funded BY the government! Crazy!”
Susan Elan Jones
Happily, I am not responsible for what people write on “ConservativeHome.”
The Prime Minister once spoke the rhetoric of a big society and a coming together of hearts and minds, yet today we are sitting in this Chamber to discuss a Bill that could mean that a consortium of cancer charities has problems campaigning with realistic staffing levels whereas pro-tobacco lobbyist Lynton Crosby has nothing more to worry about than how much tobacco to put in his pipe. This remains a calamitous, bureaucratic Bill and should be replaced by one that deals with the villains of the piece and does not attack the voluntary sector.
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
I have listened carefully to a number of contributions, and genuine concerns have been expressed. I do a huge amount of work with Mind and Rethink on mental health, and with my 100% support and advice, in the run-up to the next general election they will be setting a number of challenges for the main political parties about how people with mental health problems are treated. They will be seeking positive responses to those challenges, and I need categorical assurance from the Minister and those on the Front Benches that such activities will not be caught by the Bill before us.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
To add to that point, does the hon. Gentleman think that MPs’ websites with links to charities might find themselves included in a charity’s costs if they are considered to be promoting a particular charity’s position in the run-up to an election?
Mr Walker
The hon. Lady makes a constructive intervention, and no doubt the Minister will want to respond. Political engagement at whatever level in almost every form is greatly to be encouraged. I hope that the Government listen to the real concerns expressed today, and that that level of engagement is not suppressed.
Tom Brake
That is the kind of issue that can be taken up with the Charity Commission and the Electoral Commission under existing legislation to establish whether that particular activity constituted electioneering. Nothing that we are proposing would affect that.
The amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Nottingham North seek, as previous amendments have done, to strike a balance between the reasonable intent of expanding the range of activities that incur controlled expenditure, and addressing concerns over the activities of charities and voluntary organisations being caught. Amendment 131 seeks to revise the definition of “for election purposes” as activity that can reasonably be regarded as promoting or procuring the success of a party or candidate. As the Government have indicated, we support the principle of that aim, and we will table amendments on Report which I hope will address that concern to the hon. Gentleman’s satisfaction.
A further amendment tabled by the hon. Gentleman proposes that donations by a third party to a third party coalition group should count towards the donor third party’s spending limits. That seems to suggest that such a grouping would register as a separate, new third party and be subject to the wider controls of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The intention appears to be to repeal section 94(6) of PPERA. That provision stipulates that when two or more third parties work together as a group or coalition in pursuance of a common plan, the whole of the expenditure they incur as part of that coalition must count against each third party’s spending limit separately. However, the drafting of the amendment would not explicitly repeal section 94(6). The amendment also fails to consider that removing the existing provisions on acting in concert would remove a key anti-avoidance measure from PPERA. If total spending by a group of third parties acting as part of a common plan was not counted in full against each individual third party’s limits, it would allow third parties to form many coalitions on single issues in order to evade their spending limits. That would remove a vital safeguard from the integrity of the rules.
Angela Smith
Has the Minister considered the position of the Wildlife Trust in this context? It is not a single organisation but a coalition of trusts working up and down the country; it is a coalition of organisations working as a single body.
Tom Brake
Clearly we have. This comes down to the issue of whether the Wildlife Trust, which I suspect has members drawn from all parties and none, would as part of that coalition campaign in support of a political party or of a number of party candidates. If it did not intend to do so, it would not be covered by the legislation.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
If I had not taken so many interventions I would have finished. The key point is immeasurably simple. There is a duty of care with taxpayers’ money. There is a risk of impropriety if it is spent by third parties on elections. That impropriety is a greater temptation to a sitting Government who control the purse strings than it is to the Opposition who do not. It is something that ought not to be allowed. We do not fund our political parties for their campaigning. We ought not to fund third parties. We ought to make it illegal.
Angela Smith
May I start my comments on clause 27 by declaring a non-financial interest in organisations in the third sector? I am the chair of the conservation and wildlife all-party group, the secretariat for which is provided by the Wildlife Trusts, and I am a vice-president of the League Against Cruel Sports. I am proud to be associated with both organisations.
Clause 27 depends for its validity on clause 26, which we have just discussed. In my opening remarks, therefore, I want to make it absolutely clear that if the Government’s intention is to rewrite clause 26 at some point—as they have indicated this afternoon that they will—the Opposition are justified in not supporting the subsequent clauses that depend on it. The Electoral Commission made this point in its latest briefing notes:
“We recommend that once the definition of controlled spending is confirmed, the Government and Parliament should consider again what spending limits will provide the appropriate balance between freedom of expression and controls on undue influence.”
In that context, the Opposition will find it difficult to support clause 27 as it stands. Indeed, we still fail to understand how the Government can support their own clause 26 when they considered in the previous debate that it needed rewriting, but there we are. We will listen carefully not only to the Minister but to the esteemed Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen).
We support taking the big money out of politics and we support sensible controls on the money spent by third parties. That is why we introduced the cap on third party spending, ensuring that we would never be like the United States, where unaccountable organisations can spend vast sums of money. We have no objection to a tough cap on third party spending.
Andrew Gwynne
Does my hon. Friend agree that the provisions in the Bill do not even attempt to tackle the very issues she is talking about? In the 2010 general election, the main political parties spent £31 million; third parties spent £3 million on campaigning activities in that year.
Angela Smith
My hon. Friend makes an important point that I will come to in due course.
This Bill puts the cart before the horse. Our contention is that this is the wrong way to tackle the very serious issues at stake and that what we actually need is an approach that focuses, first, on taking the big money out of politics and then places changes to third sector funding in the context of this much more fundamental and necessary reform of election funding. Let us be clear: that is the right way to tackle the issue because, to put it quite simply, the big money is not in third party spending. Political parties nationally—as my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) has said—spent £31 million in the 2010 election, compared with just £3 million by third party campaigners. The biggest third party spender spent just 4% of the £17 million spent by the Conservative party.
While the Government claim that this is an attempt to take the big money out of politics, they do not even mention the real source of the problem: the amounts spent on election campaigning by political parties. If the Government are serious about taking the big money out of politics, they would be looking at a reduction in the overall expenditure cap for political parties during election years. If the Conservative party, in particular, is serious about taking the big money out of politics, it will withdraw this mess of a Bill and commit to meaningful reform. This is a bad, and badly drafted, Bill and it is very unlikely that, however much it is amended, it will stand up to serious scrutiny as a fair and workable piece of legislation. It is a Bill found wanting, partly because of the lack of rigorous consultation and partly because of the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny, as the Chair of the Select Committee pointed out.
Charlie Elphicke
On the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), is it the hon. Lady’s position that organisations in receipt of public funds should be allowed to spend the money on election campaigning or that they should not?
Angela Smith
I have noted the hon. Gentleman’s interest in this issue in the past. I point to the answers given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland earlier: funding agreements between the state, local government and charities tend to make it virtually impossible for charities spending public funds to spend them on any other purpose.
This is a dog’s dinner of a Bill and, as the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) said a short while ago, even that description of the Bill is an insult to dog nutrition. So let us be clear: our invitation today to the Conservative partners in the coalition is to place reform of third party spending in elections clearly in the context of a cross-party consensus on political party funding and political party spending. We need to see a cap on donations to political parties—our leader has suggested a cap of £5,000—and we need to see meaningful reductions in spending limits by political parties in general elections. We need to stop this spending race, which sees spiralling sums of money spent on successive elections. No more dodgy dinners in Downing street; no more bankrolling of the Conservative party by a tiny number of wealthy City donors. The Electoral Commission itself has made it clear that reform of third party spending is needed, but not like this. Clause 27 has caused huge consternation in the third sector, because if passed into law, it would play a major part—along with the other clauses in part 2—in effectively gagging the third sector in election periods. The changes will have a chilling effect on our national debate in the year before the election. That cannot be right for any modern, 21st-century democracy.
Mr Anderson
In an earlier debate, our hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) raised with the Deputy Leader of the House, who is no longer in his place, the scenario in which charities would not be allowed to campaign in his constituency, yet political parties could spend £250,000 there, as they did, trying to undermine him and make him lose his seat. Is that not the real scandal of this Bill? It does nothing to address that concern. It will affect charities, who have a genuine right to lobby, but do nothing about such abuses of power.
Angela Smith
Our hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) articulated clearly the feelings of parts of many organisations in the third sector, who feel aggrieved that they are being picked on, as it were, in this Bill while the big spending takes place elsewhere.
The sceptical among us could be forgiven for thinking that in part 2, and clause 27 in particular, the Government appear to be trying to insulate their record and policies from legitimate democratic criticism. For example, a number of recent high-profile third sector campaigns could well have been stymied if this Bill had been in place. They include campaigns such as Stonewall’s equal marriage campaign or the Royal British Legion’s military covenant campaign. Indeed, as has been made clear on a number of occasions this afternoon, the National Union of Students could find it difficult to hold Members to account in the forthcoming election period.
It is perfectly possible that the Bill could also prevent the coalition of charities campaigning for plain packaging for cigarettes from making its case in the forthcoming election period. That is how serious the effect of this Bill could be. Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation could suffer the dampening effect of this Bill, and thereby become reluctant to make their case, while at the same time Lynton Crosby—a lobbyist for the tobacco industry—is working from the heart of the Government machine in Downing street. At a time when trust in politics is at an all-time low, why do the Government want to restrict the one part of our politics that is doing a good job in engaging people from all backgrounds in our political process? Why do the Government want to risk lowering the reputation of our political culture even more?
Clause 27 also illustrates a worrying trend on the right in politics—the challenge to the role of charities in the Prime Minister’s big society. Let us take the recent speech by the Justice Secretary, who proposed in an article in the Daily Mail recently that we ought to curtail the use of judicial review because—in his words—
“judicial reviews are launched in order to try to disrupt Government policies, such as those initiated by anti-HS2 campaigners or by those who believe it is right that taxpayers’ money should be spent on subsidising people in social housing to keep spare rooms.”
More and more, we are seeing challenges to a vibrant civil society—challenges that, if acted on, would contribute to an insulation of Government from the crucial checks and balances needed in a healthy democracy.
Lady Hermon
I would like to draw the hon. Lady’s attention to a problem with how clause 27 will apply to Northern Ireland—I should have intervened on her a little earlier, but I am sure she will not mind my intervening now. She will have noticed that the limit on controlled expenditure will be reduced in Northern Ireland from £5,000 to £2,000—not £2,500, but £2,000. I would like her and her colleagues—and, of course, the Minister—to address the fact that charities like the National Trust are national, covering the United Kingdom as a whole. Will the National Trust’s national expenditure or its expenditure in Northern Ireland be caught by the limit?
Angela Smith
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. The reduced limits for the devolved Administrations relate not just to Northern Ireland but to Scotland and Wales. I do not think the Government have thought clearly about the fact that many third sector organisations in the UK are UK-wide, so I take her point.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend think that there is even a modicum of reason behind the proposal to reduce thresholds based on the fear among those on the Government Benches that an individual might decide to campaign on a third party basis and put large amounts of money into such a campaign? The legislation might catch the organisations that she has described, but does she agree that it would be very easy for an individual to be vague about such arrangements, as has happened in America with third party political action committees and related individual-funded organisations? In such circumstances, the provisions would not work.
Angela Smith
I will comment on the reduction to the thresholds presently. Suffice it to say at this moment that the Electoral Commission itself has suggested that the thresholds might even need raising, rather than lowering.
There is a real suspicion out there in the third sector that, unfortunately, many Conservatives would like to see charities pare down their role, shrink their campaigning brief and concentrate instead on welfare provision. That fear has already been borne out in this debate. There is nothing wrong with charities providing help and support for the sick, the young and the old, or for animals in distress—indeed, there is everything right about it—but they also need the freedom to campaign for the legislation and funding that are necessary to make the world a better place.
We have heard the views of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) on the campaigning role of charities and voluntary organisations. The hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) said recently that
“many charities need to renew their sense of mission, spending less time at conferences and more time valuing their volunteers. They should concentrate resources on helping people rather than campaigns, lobbying and administration”
and the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel)—
Charlie Elphicke
The hon. Lady will know that I was expressing my concern that the chief executive of Save the Children had had a pay rise of some 22% since 2010, while many of our constituents have been struggling to get by. It is right that we should ask the charities to refocus on their front-line mission and to help people rather than helping themselves.
Angela Smith
I believe that the issue of third sector chief executives’ pay is being used as a smokescreen to conceal a real attack on the sector’s legitimate role of holding elected representatives to account and campaigning for the changes in society that it believes need to take place.
Charlie Elphicke
There is a legitimate role for third sector organisations in making their case to elected representatives, as they have done, but some charities’ pay is out of control and their administrative expenses are too high. In those cases, not enough help is reaching the front line. I am concerned about the alleviation of poverty and about helping people in need on the front line, and it is really important that charities should have those values—
The Temporary Chairman (Sir Edward Leigh)
Order. I think we are starting to stray from the matter before us.
Angela Smith
Thank you for your guidance, Sir Edward. All I would say is that many third sector organisations listening to this debate will have been very interested to hear the comments of the hon. Member for Dover.
Some—not all—Members on the Government Benches are clearly intent on curtailing the third sector’s crucial work of shining a light on inequality where it exists, and of campaigning and highlighting the need for changes in public policy, based on their experience and expertise.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
One organisation that has made a great contribution, under the previous Government as well as this one, is the Royal British Legion. It has campaigned for the rights of veterans, and I was on the receiving end of some of that campaigning when I was a Minister in the previous Government. Its effective lobbying has changed the law under both Governments. Is it not ironic that Conservative Members who have signed up to its campaigns are now saying that such campaigning should no longer take place?
Angela Smith
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Indeed, it would be interesting to trawl the websites of many Members to see the lists of charities that they support on a regular basis. I imagine that every Member of the House supports the Royal British Legion and its campaigning work, and would want that work to continue.
As I said earlier, clause 27 plays its own role in gagging the third sector by reducing the threshold for registration and reducing spending limits on controlled expenditure. Under amendment 66, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), the threshold for registration would be returned to the status quo, thereby protecting smaller charities and community groups from being caught by this legislation, making it virtually impossible for them to participate in the democratic process.
John Mann
On unintended consequences, has my hon. Friend considered the implications of the Oldham East and Saddleworth election petition judgment, whereby the number of votes influenced by the action was not a consideration? By implication, the amount of spending by which one might breach the rules would not in itself be the issue; rather, it would be whether there had been a breach. The complexity of the rules could lead to election petitions and to elected Members being thrown out of the House.
Angela Smith
I thank my hon. Friend. What he said provides further evidence to show how this Bill was not properly thought through before it was brought before us. It shows, too, the amount of work that should have been done and the issues that should have been sorted out before it was brought here.
Helen Goodman
I am sure my hon. Friend is aware—I hope so—of the paper produced by the House of Commons Library, which shows that under the Bill’s proposals, the limits on third party spending in Wales are coming down to £24,000 and to £10,000 in Northern Ireland. That would mean that in Wales and Northern Ireland, it would be impossible to employ anybody in a voluntary sector organisation to run any kind of campaign for one year in four.
Angela Smith
I agree with my hon. Friend on that point.
As I was saying, our amendment is designed to return us to the status quo on thresholds and to help protect smaller charities and groups from being caught by legislation, making it virtually impossible for them to participate in the democratic process. That must be right, and the Electoral Commission has suggested, as I pointed out earlier, that the threshold should be raised. Let me quote from the evidence given by Jenny Watson to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee:
“We said again in our written evidence that one practical thing that could be done to make a difference to the Bill would be to raise the thresholds at which people have to register, and we have a particular concern about that as it relates to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, because those thresholds are low.”
Let me ask the Government why the voice of the regulator is being so badly ignored in respect of this legislative process. Why is the Electoral Commission being ignored? We will listen with interest to the Minister’s response on that point.
As far as the limits for controlled expenditure are concerned, our position is clear: the limits need to be defined in the context of meaningful reform of the funding of political parties and of their ability to throw big money at election campaigns. In other words, the Government need to withdraw the Bill and to rethink. They need to enter into meaningful negotiations with the other political parties and to commit to proper consultation and scrutiny of proposals as they emerge, in relation to both political parties and the third sector.
In concluding my remarks, I ask the Minister to think again about not just specific points in this clause, but something more fundamental. The Minister is a Liberal Democrat; I ask him to take back to his Conservative partners the message that the Government’s whole approach to this issue needs to be looked at again. “Think again” is our message to the Government, who should commit to discussions designed to produce meaningful reform within which we can place sensible changes to the rules on third party funding—changes that we can consult on with confidence, knowing that we have done the right thing overall in changing our politics for the better.
Mr Allen
Let me, just for a moment, return to our earlier debates, and ask Members in all parts of the Chamber to accept with good grace the Minister’s offer to rewrite clause 26. I do not want any Member in any part of the Chamber to talk about U-turns, or to gloat. I think that the Government have realised that the Bill is flawed in considerable part, and that, to their great credit, they have recognised that clause 26 needs to be rewritten along the lines suggested by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) and by my Committee.
No such magnanimity, however, can be extended to clause 27. Clause 27 is the clause that is the most obnoxious to the charities that many of us support and view with great pride. Two things are being attempted. The first is to tie up those charities in red tape, with massive, indeed unprecedented amounts of reporting, and the second is to impose limits on their spending that are far more fierce and far more rigorous than those that currently apply.
The Temporary Chairman
The hon. Gentleman is a very courteous Member. He will want to know that six other Members are trying to speak, and the Minister, so I know he will want to allow other Members to get in—but there is an intervention.
Angela Smith
My hon. Friend’s hypothetical example prompts me to point to the supreme irony that the Bill has pulled together the Countryside Alliance and the League Against Cruel Sports in opposition to it.
Mr Allen
I am conscious of the justified blandishments of the Chair. I had assumed that I was being required to speak to take us somewhere towards the Division, but I will conclude quickly.
First, thresholds for registration are in clause 27. My Select Committee said:
“In the absence of any evidence that there is a need to lower the threshold for third parties to register with the Electoral Commission, we recommend that the Government revert to the existing levels. To this end, we recommend that clause 27…is removed from the Bill.”
Secondly, as far as the Committee could see, there was no justification for the new lower spending limits. Witness after witness came before the Committee, and not a single one said, “This is fantastic. We have been waiting for ever for the Government to do this on spending limits.” The Joseph Rowntree Foundation said:
“The cost limits are reduced in a way that is neither explicable, nor relevant.”
The NCVO does not know the basis on which the Government decided on the new limits for expenditure, adding:
“One may suggest that they are arbitrary.”
That is why we set our face against those limits, and we say to colleagues in all parts of the House that until there is a proper justification of that, we feel that clause 27 should not progress.
Finally, as a chair of a charity and a trustee, I will remake the point that I made the other day in respect of clause 27. If there is even the faintest question mark over the hard-earned money of my charity, due to the possibility that we may get sucked into legal action and have to pay someone else’s costs on a six-figure basis, I am looking at having to sack people. I am not going to do that. It is no good, Minister, restraining, by some technicality, something that I have worked very hard to create.
Charlie Elphicke
I was sent spontaneous e-mails on the Bill by a number of constituents. I believe that a number of Members of the House received such spontaneous e-mails, which of course had not been written by anyone else whatsoever. In response to those e-mails, I set out my position on charities and my concerns about pay in the boardroom and the amount spent on administration. The shadow Minister said that she is certain that people will be listening to the debate and will e-mail me right away to criticise me for the position I have taken, but many of the considered and detailed replies I received from those constituents who had e-mailed me with the so-called spontaneous e-mails said, “Actually, we see where you are coming from on charities and agree with your concerns. We think that they are important and that it is legitimate to raise them.” Far from what the shadow Minister thought the reaction would be, I had considerable support from people who, as she knows, would not naturally be supportive of me, or indeed my election.
Angela Smith
I feel the need to respond. I do not think that I said that third sector charities would be e-mailing the hon. Gentleman; I said that they would be listening very carefully to what he was saying in his interventions.
Charlie Elphicke
I thank the hon. Lady for that clarification. I think it is important that we represent our constituents. Following my direct responses to the 38 Degrees e-mails, many constituents replied and said that they saw that as a matter of great concern and that they agreed and had considerable sympathy with the position I had taken. I must say that I was surprised by that support. Having been forthright in my response, I did not expect to find much support from that particular quarter. I think that there is a message for Opposition Members to take away and consider, just as there is for Government Members. State-funded activists are engaged in direct lobbying of politicians and indirect lobbying of the public using taxpayers’ money, and I think that blurs the distinction between private and public action.
I also think that we all have a trust to uphold, in relation to the votes of supply and the impost we put on our constituents for the funding of Government and public money, to ensure that it is spent in a way that is targeted at particular social purposes and need. My concern is that if taxpayers’ money then finds its way back into arguing for more money to be spent on particular things, or indeed on the election of particular candidates or parties at an election, that is an abuse of the public trust that we are sent here to represent.
Political and Constitutional Reform Committee: Wright Reforms
Angela Smith Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the publication of the Third Report from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, on Revisiting ‘Rebuilding the House’: the impact of the Wright reforms, HC 82.
I am delighted to see you, Mr Speaker, in the Chair for this debate, which has some historical resonance. In 1642, our legislative predecessors fought a bloody civil war to control Executive power. They would be aghast at how their hard-won victory had been eroded and overturned and at how the Government are still not directly elected yet control a legitimately elected Parliament, right down to the minutiae of its daily agenda. They would be surprised at the mindset of many individual Members of Parliament, many of whom remain blissfully unaware of the difference between being in an independent Parliament rather than an Executive sausage machine.
The third report of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee does not propose a new civil war, or even a proper separation of powers, but we do reserve the right to heckle the Executive steamroller.
I report to the House that we have examined the work of the Wright Committee, named after its Chair, our distinguished former colleague, Dr Tony Wright. I declare an interest, as a member of that Committee. Wright urged major change, calling on the House to give Back Benchers more say in setting the House’s agenda. Wright recommended the establishment of two new Committees: the Backbench Business Committee and a House Business Committee, which would itself have Back-Bench representation. Wright also proposed the introduction of elections for Chairs and for members of Select Committees, and called for various improvements to the petitions system.
The Wright Committee’s proposals were initially blocked by the then Labour Government—the heirs to Tom Paine and the Fabians had long since given themselves up to Sir Humphrey. But then a new Government—yet to be reprogrammed, and with a radical Leader of the House—acted swiftly to implement some of the key proposals.
It is important briefly to recap on some of those proposals, as many new Members may take as obvious what in fact took years to achieve. They will need to work hard to retain these minor improvements and to have a sense of what their generation needs to build for those parliamentarians who come after them.
The election of Select Committees by Members of Parliament in a secret ballot, rather than their being appointed, was one of the biggest steps forward. The second achievement was the election of Select Committee Chairs by MPs in a secret ballot of the whole House, meaning that they now speak for Parliament and their colleagues, not for the Government or the alternative Government. Our report welcomes the consequent advances in the effectiveness and quality of Commons Select Committees, which is broadly recognised by those who gave evidence to us in our proceedings. Yet the report says that some issues remain and must be addressed if the momentum towards an even more effective set of Select Committees is to be maintained.
It is unacceptable that Government Bills are scrutinised by Committees appointed by Government appointees not elected or even approved on the Order Paper of the House. As a minimum, the House should be asked to endorse—and, where it so wishes, amend—those who are proposed for membership of Government Bill Committees. The legislative scrutiny process in Bill Committees is so unchallenging and so irredeemable that some of us actually helped to invent pre-legislative scrutiny to try to bring some order and some sense to it. Our report underlines that pre-legislative scrutiny must in future be standard practice—an integral and mandatory part of the process of consideration for every Government Bill.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Does the Committee endorse the use of the Select Committee system for pre-legislative scrutiny, which Labour believes to be incredibly important in ensuring that legislation is rigorous and fit for purpose?
Mr Allen
Proper pre-legislative scrutiny can be undertaken in many ways, including by Select Committees, elected Committees, or a properly elected Bill Committee. It is not beyond the wit of Members of this House to come up with a system that is far better than having colleagues sitting and reading their newspapers, being told what to do and not to intervene. It is our role to intervene during the progress of legislation in order to make it better, and we should not be told by the Government that that is inappropriate behaviour for Members of Parliament.
Business of the House
Angela Smith Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I thank the Leader of the House for giving me early sight of his statement.
It would be incredibly helpful if the Leader of the House told us when the motion for the debate will be published. The Government must have known for some time that they were going to schedule this business for next Monday, yet there is no clear indication of what the motion will look like. Will the Leader of the House commit to ensuring that the motion will be published before the close of today’s business, and will he confirm that it will be amendable?
Is the Leader of the House prepared to guarantee the time that will be available for debate on Monday? Yesterday we heard two major statements which, taken together, seriously curtailed the time available for debate on the main business of the House. Will he therefore guarantee the time that will be available for the debate on this important topic on Monday?
May I go one step further and ask why the debate on this topic has been scheduled so quickly, especially given that the Home Affairs Committee was promised that it would have the chance to scrutinise the proposals before a decision was taken? We will not have the benefit of the views of the Home Affairs Committee on the proposals before we debate and vote on them on Monday.
Will the Leader of the House confirm that he will guarantee the time available for the debate, and explain why there is such urgency and why the Home Affairs Committee has been denied the opportunity to scrutinise the proposals before the House debates them?
Political Party Funding
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Sir Roger, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. It is not the first time, and I hope that it will not be the last.
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Antrim (Dr McCrea) on securing this debate, and on his clear and comprehensive exposition of the history and background of the topic. I also thank him for his passionate articulation of his strongly held views on the matter, which were echoed by the hon. Members for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Belfast North (Mr Dodds). It is worth putting on record how consistently Democratic Unionist party Members have presented their arguments and their case.
The measure to provide representative money was introduced by the previous Government in 2006 as a result of negotiations with Sinn Fein on a range of issues. Since then, we have made great progress in Northern Ireland, and despite the scenes that we have seen in the last few weeks, the political landscape has changed dramatically. DUP and Sinn Fein Ministers have sat together in a power-sharing Executive for six years. Policing and justice is devolved, and support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland is required of all parties in the Executive.
Jim Shannon
There is no better illustration of how the landscape has changed in Northern Ireland than Liam Neeson’s comments yesterday on receiving the freedom of the borough in Ballymena. He thanked the DUP publicly for our contribution to making life in Northern Ireland better.
Angela Smith
I pay tribute to the efforts made by all politicians, including those from the DUP, to make life better in Northern Ireland. One can only hope that the peace process continues and progresses as it has done in recent years, despite the problems experienced in the past few weeks.
Much, too, has changed in the House. How public money is used has never been under greater scrutiny. MPs’ allowances and funding for opposition parties are carefully monitored, as is right. It is clear that representative money is an anomaly that needs to be looked at. Our view is that it is a matter for the House and must be decided by the House.
The DUP has consistently argued for the removal of all moneys paid to Sinn Fein and its MPs. However, this debate focuses on representative money. Sinn Fein will receive more than £108,000 in public money in the form of representative money in the current financial year, in addition to the Members’ allowances to which each of the five MPs are entitled. Its Members do not receive a salary, of course, but it is important that there is an equal playing field among opposition parties in how financial support for their work is calculated and what activities they can use such money for.
In June 2010, the then Deputy Leader of the House, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), said that the Government would look into the issue and discuss it with the Northern Ireland parties. The Prime Minister has repeated that commitment inside and outside the Chamber since then, as has the Leader of the House. It is clear that the DUP’s patience on the matter has been tested. The Government should indicate where they are and how far they have progressed in reviewing the situation, as they said they would.
We believe that all Members should take their seats and play a full role in the business of the House. Representative money was introduced in a different political context, both in Northern Ireland and in Great Britain. It is right that it should be looked at to ensure that it meets the standards set by this House and demanded by the public.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Mrs Laing
I was totally taken by surprise to discover that the Minister is urging the House to accept Lords amendment 7 on voters waiting at polling stations at the close of poll. On 27 June 2012, I introduced this very amendment—it was almost word for word—which was known then as new clause 4. I will not repeat the speech I made then. We had a long debate and I was supported in my arguments by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith)—that is all on the record in Hansard, at column 359 and onwards. That is lucky, because we do not have time to debate that all again this afternoon, and I am delighted that we do not have to do so.
In that debate, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) stood there and told me how everything I said was wrong and that I was silly to waste the House’s time by introducing my new clause, which he said was total rubbish and totally unnecessary. He said that returning officers could deal with all the problems and that this was merely a matter of management.
Mrs Laing
I am glad that the hon. Lady agrees with my recollection of what happened on 27 June. I believe she also agrees with my arguments that these matters should not be left up to individual registration officers, especially given that their ability, resources, experience and enthusiasm vary considerably from one part of the country to another.
Oral Answers to Questions
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The fact that we have both a new Leader and Deputy Leader of the House presents us with an excellent opportunity to establish higher standards in how the Government report matters of concern to this House. Will the Deputy Leader therefore take this opportunity to give a guarantee that the Government will report statements to this House before briefing the media?
Sittings of the House
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 8 months ago)
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Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I pay tribute to the work of the Procedure Committee and its Chair, the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr Knight), and commend him for the very clear way in which he outlined the Committee’s position on various issues.
On the question of private Members’ Bills and Friday sittings, I acknowledge entirely the frustration and sense of futility felt by some hon. Members who are trying to introduce Bills with a significant level of public interest, which are talked out because the Bill at the top of the queue has taken all the time available. The challenges in moving our consideration of private Members’ Bills to one of the evenings in the week, however, are substantial and are outlined in the report. The report rightly asks the House to take a view. It is right that Members should make up their own minds on this important issue if my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) seeks a decision on motion 9.
The report is also helpful in making clear the importance of our work here, that it has not diminished and that there is no room for any reduction in either the days or weeks that we sit during the year. We know that the House engages in a range of important activities in the passage of legislation. On occasion, it works as a Committee of the whole House, which depends on whether the appropriate committal and programme motions have been agreed. The House also scrutinises the Government at oral question and on statements, and urgent questions can be tabled. It guarantees opportunities for the Opposition to hold the Government to account and it enjoys the successful new innovation of the Backbench Business Committee. Overall, the work of the House is crucial in holding the Executive to account. That is why we support the report’s recommendation that September sittings should be maintained. That will guarantee that the House is not in recess for too long, incapacitating its ability to fulfil its task in scrutinising Government and holding Ministers to account.
I come now to sitting hours on Monday to Thursday. Our response is based on two principles: first, that we need decisions on hours that minimise the harm to families as much as possible, and, secondly, that we will always favour sensible reform. In other words, we need reform that works in how it fits the demands of the work load placed on the House and the role of individual Members in discharging their responsibilities here. That is why we favour the retention of the current sitting hours for Monday.
That is primarily because the current sitting hours allow a reasonable amount of time for Members who live in the constituencies that they represent to get to Westminster for the week’s business. In addition, many London Members find Monday mornings useful for constituency business. I hope that a majority of Members in the House today will concur with our view and vote to retain the current sitting hours for Monday.
On Tuesdays, we understand the argument put by both sides of the debate. It is true that an earlier start and an earlier finish, as recommended in motion 4, will create more opportunities for Members to have people time and to spend valuable time with their families.
Angela Smith
I want to give others a chance to speak.
The latter is not the case for those of us who are separated from our families during the week by virtue of distance, but that should not blind us to the fact that we should, if it is practical and sensible to do so, create opportunities for those Members who do have family with them in London to enjoy more opportunities to spend time with them. That would be the equivalent of saying that because I cannot have something, others cannot have it either. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said, there is a precedent for this new arrangement. However, it was not made permanent and it was defeated in a motion in 2005. I remember that occasion almost to the day, as my predecessor, Helen Jackson, resigned in the wake of that decision.
The main reason for the reversal was the perceived clash between the new hours and the work of Public Bill Committees and Select Committees, and access to the House for members of the public. There are genuine concerns about any change in hours and we should not underestimate the importance of allowing our constituents access to the House. The arguments in relation to Tuesday hours are finely balanced and Members will have to make up their own minds. But in doing so they should be careful to balance the needs of Members to discharge their responsibilities effectively with the importance of allowing Members reasonable access to decent quality time and time to spend with their families.
The same arguments apply to Wednesday and Thursday sittings in terms of balancing family life and the work of the House. However, the tensions here are even stronger than in relation to Tuesday sittings, because of the difficulties of Public Bill Committees, particularly on a Thursday morning, and the access to the House of members of the public on a Wednesday morning. Members should be careful in making their decision and should balance the need for quality time and their responsibilities in the House.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Nigel Evans)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. I have been given no indication that any Treasury Minister intends to come to the House to make a statement, but I am sure that his point has been heard by those on the Treasury Bench.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. It is also a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). She is a doughty campaigner and defender of the values of the British constitution that she holds so dear, and it is incumbent on the Committee to listen carefully to what she has to say on these matters.
The hon. Lady outlined the purpose of new clause 4 in great detail and stated that it has the support of the Electoral Commission and the House of Lords Constitution Committee. The reason for the new clause relates to the problems on 6 May 2010, when 27 polling stations in 16 constituencies experienced problems with queuing in the period leading up to 10 o’clock and beyond. The constituencies included Birmingham, Ladywood; Hackney South and Shoreditch; Hackney North and Stoke Newington; Liverpool, Wavertree; Milton Keynes North; Sheffield, Hallam; and my constituency of Penistone and Stocksbridge. In total, more than 40,000 polling stations were in use during the 2010 elections. As well as the 650 parliamentary elections, there were local elections and mayoral elections.
Just over 1,200 voters were affected by the problems, leading to just over 500 complaints to the Electoral Commission within a fortnight of the elections. The strength of feeling was high. For example, 100 or more students at Sheffield, Hallam staged a protest after 10 o’clock, having been denied a vote. If that protest had carried on, perhaps the mechanisms to which the hon. Lady referred would have been activated. We are glad that they were not.
Given all that we have heard and read in recent years about voter disengagement, it is heartening that people cared so much about exercising their right to vote that they were prepared to queue. In Sheffield, Hallam and in my constituency, they did so in the rain. That defied all the pundits, who said repeatedly in the years before the 2010 election that people were disengaged from politics, that they were not bothered and that turnouts were going down. In fact, the 2010 election saw an increase in turnout. For that, we should be grateful. This House should feel an obligation to ensure that arrangements are in place to avoid any citizen ever again being denied the right to vote in any election.
The Electoral Commission report on the May 2010 problems identified two key problems. First, in the constituencies where problems were reported, there were common factors in the failure of returning officers to make sufficient arrangements for the elections. Despite their being issued with numerous publications detailing guidance, checklists and guidebooks, the planning processes adopted were inadequate. In particular, the plans were unrealistic and inappropriate, and in some cases were based on unreliable assumptions. On top of that, there was inadequate risk management and inadequate contingency plans were put in place in the constituencies that were affected. For example, voters experienced problems with the space in some polling stations, because they were small, cramped and unsuited to dealing with a steady stream of voters. That was not the primary cause of the problems, but where those conditions existed they impeded the throughput of voters and limited attempts to deal with the building queues.
Secondly, in several of the areas where there were problems, the allocation of voters per polling station exceeded the ratio recommended by the Electoral Commission. The recommended ratio was one polling station per 2,500 voters. In some instances, the latter figure was as high as 4,500. Staffing levels also varied considerably across the piece, with some returning officers providing only one presiding officer and one polling clerk, despite having voter ratios that demanded a much more generous staffing allocation. The commission lays down guidelines on the numbers of clerks and voters allocated to each station.
The combination of elections also made things difficult.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
I thank the hon. Lady for giving way on that point. I have argued strongly that we should never have two elections on the same day when that includes a general election. It is not so much of a problem to have local elections and another election on the same day because the turnout is naturally much lower than for a general election. A general election should be a stand-alone election. We should never have local elections and a general election on the same day.
Angela Smith
Like me, the hon. Gentleman represents a constituency that experienced problems. The commission makes the point that the combination of a general election and other elections might have created problems. In some London constituencies, there were local and parliamentary elections, and mayoral elections. That was given as an explanation for the queuing problems, but the commission has pointed out that there were no such problems in some constituencies that had more than one election. I do not believe that having two elections on the same day is the root cause, although it can make things more difficult. Having two elections on the same day certainly made the count more difficult—I did not get my result until 7 o’clock in the morning.
Angela Smith
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point—I believe he is referring to European nationals. We would have to rely on the commission for evidence of large concentrations of European voters in any one constituency or polling district in order to make that case.
Perhaps the most astonishing failure of all is that almost all the returning officers identified by the commission as experiencing problems with queues had underestimated turnout. In some cases, predictions were based on local election turnouts since 2006; in others, the turnout from the 2005 general election was taken into account. That was despite guidance from the commission—given well in advance of the election—that plans for elections should be based on an assumption of a higher turnout in 2010 than in recent elections, including the 2005 general election. I find it astounding that any returning officer could assume that the turnout in a general election would be at local election levels.
Finally, the monitoring of polling station performance on the day and the plans for drawing down additional staffing were not robust, and some staff at stations failed to notify returning officers of problems early enough. By any calculation the commission’s report demonstrates the need to improve planning and processes for elections, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest pointed out. The commission recommended in the report that returning officers should review their approach to planning for adequate polling station and staffing provision at future elections, and made it clear that it would be more prescriptive on those points in its guidance.
The report also made it clear that there had been an unprecedented late surge in voters at some polling stations, to such an extent that extra staffing would probably not have guaranteed that all voters would get their ballot papers. That is the key point—the hon. Lady made it very successfully.
The commission therefore recommended the changes laid out in new clause 4 and pointed out that the restrictive approach of the UK to the close of the poll does not compare well with electoral legislation in many other countries. In New Zealand, for example, all electors who are inside the polling station at the close of the poll are entitled to vote. In Canada, I believe that everyone in the polling station or queuing is entitled to vote. That is the approach that we want to adopt through new clause 4, which is designed to implement the second part of the recommendation in the commission’s report.
I will briefly illustrate the provision’s value by rehearsing the problems experienced in two constituencies on that day two years ago. In Birmingham, Ladywood, 2,678 electors were eligible to vote at the polling station where the problem materialised. Turnout for the election increased to 40%—up from between 12% and 18% in the previous three years—but the station had just one clerk and one presiding officer. Just before 10 o’clock, the presiding officer asked staff to confirm the time on their watches. This is how we run elections in this country! One staff member’s watch was about 5 minutes slower than the others’, but the presiding officer took it as the correct time and issued ballot papers until that particular watch said 10 o’clock. At that point, the presiding officer sealed the ballot boxes and closed the polling station. The police were eventually called to disperse the crowd. Can we wonder!
It is estimated that between 65 and 100 electors, some inside and some outside the polling station, were turned away without having been issued with ballot papers. If we take the time according to the slowest watch in the room as the time at which we close the ballot, surely we are making a nonsense of the 10 o’clock cut-off point. Does it not indicate more than anything else that legislation needs to be more flexible in order to ensure that everyone at the polling station gets the right to vote. That is a really important point.
At Sheffield, Hallam, the problem was quite significant and involved three polling stations, at which many voters were denied the right to vote. St John’s parish church polling station in Ranmoor—a place I know well—was allocated 4,469 electors, excluding postal voters, and had one presiding officer and three clerks, with additional staff deployed in the evening. In the polling stations that had a problem, 480 electors were affected, most of them at St John’s. This was the polling station at which a protest was staged at 10 o’clock, with 100 students refusing to move and the police having to be called in.Despite the best efforts of the Sheffield returning officer to ensure that this polling station, which had a large allocation of voters, had four members of staff, and despite the deployment of extra resources, nothing could be done to get everybody in to vote. That suggests that new clause 4 would be a vital change to our electoral legislation.
It is obvious that we need to change the law in accordance with new clause 4. The constituents of many Members were denied the right to vote. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) has consistently raised this issue in the House and is a co-signatory to the new clause. As I said, I had 70 voters denied the right to vote in Penistone. We all feel strongly that this needs to be addressed. It is not just about students. Penistone is hardly awash with students: it is a little market town, on the edge of the Peak district, with an engineering past. It does not have a big, posh student population.
Sheffield, Hallam, on the other hand, has many student voters, 340 of whom were turned away after 10 o’clock that night. On the day following the election, Friday 7 May, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg), now the Deputy Prime Minister, made a statement in which he said that he shared the “bitter dismay” of voters who had to wait in long queues and that it
“should never, ever happen again in our democracy”.
At a meeting with constituents on 21 May at the King Edward VII school in his constituency, the Deputy Prime Minister was asked about the problem again, and he quite rightly described it as “a fiasco”. Responding to one student in the audience, he said:
“I share your anger. I can’t think of a better illustration of how broken our politics is.”
One thing I think we can say for certain about our Deputy Prime Minister is that understatement is definitely not his style.
Angela Smith
In Sheffield Central, which fortunately did not have a problem even though all the other constituencies around it did experience problems, the majority is only 165. That totally underlines my hon. Friend’s point.
Meg Hillier
I thank my hon. Friend for that. We need to ensure that we tighten this law now to make it fairer for electors. They would be upset that, having gone to the expense of another election and having come out to vote again, the election result and the will of the people could be affected by such a situation. That is indeed a serious concern. Rather than repeat the excellent arguments made, I rest my case there. I hope that the Government will introduce this change in this Bill to ensure that electors in my constituency never have to have this terrible experience again.
Mr Heath
I am sorry that the hon. Lady asks why this happened in such a widespread way given that we have just established that it happened at only 27 polling stations out of 40,000. I do not think we can say it was a widespread problem. It was a significant problem but not a widespread one.
Mr Heath
No, I really do not have time if I am going to do justice to responding to the debate.
The hon. Member for Epping Forest did an excellent job with her Select Committee on the pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. I know that she chaired many of the sessions in the absence, unavoidably, of the Chair and that she took great care to make sure that my hon. Friend the Minister was quizzed by the Committee, when it took evidence and brought forward its responses. That is why I was a little surprised when she said that her Committee backs these changes to the legislation because that suggests that I have completely misread paragraph 98 of her Committee’s report, which was produced under her chairmanship, which states:
“On the issue of close of poll the Minister set out the Government’s position that the issues around close of poll in the 2010 election were ‘largely around poor planning, poor resource management’ and that an attempt to legislate in this area could create more problems than it solved. We agree with the Minister that in this area careful planning and allocation of resources are likely to be more effective in ensuring all those who are eligible can access their vote without resorting to legislation.”
That was the view of the Committee at the time.
Chris Ruane
Absolutely. It was my hon. Friend himself who put me on to relevant websites. There are specific examples across the whole of the United States, and lo and behold they happen in Republican states. They call it voter frustration or voter suppression. There are examples of the poor and the black being kept off the register going back to the 1950s.
There is a feeling of conspiracy on the Opposition Benches because the date has been brought forward by one year. As I said, it might have been happenstance or coincidence, but I think it was a deliberate attempt to gain maximum political advantage first for the 2015 election and secondly for the redrawing of the freeze date for the next Boundary Commission in December 2015. There was particular concern on the Opposition Benches, and, I hope, on the Government Benches as well—I know that some senior Liberal Democrats were concerned—when the Electoral Commission said that the number of current unregistered voters was 6 million, not 3 million. I informed the House that I had told the Electoral Commission that two years previously and that it had said, “No.” Then it did the research and said, “Yes, you are right—it is 6 million but it is a different 6 million” from the figures I got from Experian. When it predicted that that 6 million would go to 16 million unregistered voters, we were at risk of becoming like a banana republic, with 40% of our electorate being off the register.
Angela Smith
To go back to my hon. Friend’s previous point, does he share my surprise—astonishment, actually—that Government Front Benchers have never managed to come up with a decent reason why the carry-over register cannot be used for the boundary review in 2015?
Chris Ruane
I will come on to that point when I conclude my speech, but I share my hon. Friend’s concern.
There was a lack of co-operation at the start of this process. The Government were sure that they were absolutely right and that the independent Electoral Commission’s figures were nonsense. They initially dismissed the concerns of civic society, including Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society and Age Concern.
We can compare the Government’s approach with Labour’s attitude on the constitutional changes that we made during our 13 years in government. People may say that we did not do enough to get those who were unregistered back on the register. I would agree with them entirely, because I was knocking on Ministers’ doors—and Prime Ministers’ doors—to say that there was a problem, but it was not properly addressed. However, Labour cannot be accused of using those changes for party political advantage.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 22, page 5, leave out line 27.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 24, page 5, line 27, at end insert—
‘(2A) If the Minister considers it appropriate to proceed with the making of an order under subsection (2), the Minister must lay before Parliament—
(a) a draft of the order, and
(b) an explanatory document explaining the proposals.
(2B) Sections 15 to 19 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006 (choosing between negative, affirmative and super-affirmative parliamentary procedure) are to apply in relation to an explanatory document and draft order laid under subsection (2) but as if references to section 14 of that Act were references to subsection (2).’.
Amendment 23, page 5, leave out lines 28 and 29.
Amendment 25, page 5, line 32, after ‘section’, insert
‘with the exception of an order made under subsection (2)’.
Amendment 27, in clause 7, page 6, line 7, leave out ‘give a copy of the report to the Minister’ and insert
‘lay a copy of the report before Parliament’.
Amendment 28, page 6, line 9, leave out subsection (4) and insert—
‘(4) The report must be laid before Parliament no sooner than three months beginning with the day on which the Commission is consulted, and no later than five months beginning with that same day.’.
Amendment 29, in clause 8, page 6, line 28, at end insert—
‘(3A) The Minister may only make a pilot scheme once written approval from the Electoral Commission has been received.
(3B) Any such written approval must be published by the Minister.’.
Amendment 26, in clause 10, page 7, line 34, at end insert
‘, with the exception of an order made under section 6(2)’.
Angela Smith
Clause 6 and the amendments to it deal with the possibility of amending or abolishing the annual canvass, and with the arrangements for the accountability relating to any such decision.
It is worth going through, once again, the principles of the annual canvass, which were, to some extent, rehearsed last week in relation to clause 4 when we talked of the importance of proactive methods for encouraging registration, and of the exercise by individuals of the business of re-registering their presence on the electoral register. More often than not, the business of registering to vote is seen as an exercise in democratic participation, and as a right, enshrined in law and hard won over the centuries by many who made huge sacrifices to secure it, but the House should remember that it is also a duty and a responsibility.
We live in a society in which the relationship between the individual and the state is governed by democracy. We have, of course, government by consent, but implied in the concept of democracy and government by consent is the view that vital to the process is majority participation in the most important decision of all—who should govern our nation. That is why Labour Members were so appalled by the Government’s initial proposal that citizens should have the right to opt out of the democratic process, and it is why in turn it is right that there should be a civic penalty for refusing to acknowledge the responsibilities inherent within the concept of government by consent.
Registering to vote, therefore, is an important part of the democratic culture of our country, and I repeat what I said last week: we should always bear in mind the importance of perspective when considering the process of electoral registration. If we consider it important that citizens of this country see registration as an important right and duty, we should ensure that our approach to registration encourages the regular exercise of such a duty and the active involvement of the citizen in the process by way of the regular renewal of that right. That is why we have tabled amendment 22, which, along with amendment 23, would remove the Minister’s right to abolish the annual canvass.
At this point it is interesting to consider what the Minister said about the arrangements for 2014 before he conceded that an annual canvass was required. He said:
“Effectively, what we are going to do is a modified canvass, which focuses the resources exactly where you need to work harder. We will write to everybody individually who is on the 2013 register and ask them to register individually. Where we have any households where there is nobody on the register, they will receive the household form in the usual way. They will send it back. You will then approach each of the people on that form individually to register. Where electoral registration offices have information that people have moved, so for example from the day-to-day, already-used council tax records, housing benefit records, they will write to people directly to see who is at the household and then chase them up.”
It is clear that the Minister was planning what he refers to as a “modified canvass” in 2014 based on the 2013 register—compiled, of course, from a full annual canvass in October of the latter year.
The Minister needs to answer these key questions. Is what I have just mentioned the kind of arrangement that he envisages for the future under clause 6(1) and which he plans to introduce via the provisions in clause 6? If that is the case, the Committee would appreciate some detail about when he thinks the arrangement might be introduced. Are we talking about 2015 or 2016? Does he have plans to mix and match the approaches so that there are modified canvasses, with a full canvass perhaps every five years? The Committee would like to know before making its mind up about clause 6, given that it gives the Minister the right to make those changes.
If the Minister is considering a mixed approach, it stands to reason that he would be conceding the Opposition argument that the abolition of the annual canvass was likely to lead to a long-term drop-off in the numbers registered. Moreover, it is also likely to lead to distortions in the accuracy of the register. An annual canvass is a good way of spot-checking that the assumed stability of a given majority on any register is based on sound continuing evidence.
Finally, I draw attention to the views of the Electoral Commission. It is urging the Minister to confirm the commencement date for the new individual registration provisions, and it is recommending that the date be 1 July 2014. That begs a few questions. If we commence individual registration on 1 July 2014 with the modified canvass arrangements outlined by the Minister, which I cited earlier, when will the full canvass, which most Members have assumed will take place, commence? Are we looking at February that year? If not, when exactly are we going to move into the transition phase? What period will elapse before the Government move to the first phase of individual electoral registration in transition and the use of the carry-over provisions? All those questions are worthy of answers and underline how crucial it is for the Government to get on with the job of publishing an implementation plan.
The Opposition believe that commencement should take place only when the Electoral Commission indicates that completeness is at such a level that we can feel secure about participation at the ballot box. It is therefore doubly important that we get that information on the Floor of the House sooner rather than later. To go back to the main point of the discussion, are we going to get a full canvass, as we understand it under the old system, at all in 2014, or is the Minister intending to proceed only on the basis of a modified canvass? I look forward to his response on those points.
The annual canvass has an important role to play in our democracy, and Labour Members believe that it is crucial that registration should be brought regularly to the attention of the people. However, we are not the only ones who believe that. Take the comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister himself, alongside the right hon. Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), in “Liberal Democrat Voice” in November 2010, when they said to Lib Dem members:
“In the light of today’s news that 3.5 million voters are missing from the electoral register, and in view of the forthcoming boundary changes based on the number of voters on the electoral roll as it stands next month, a timely e-mail reminder today to Liberal Democrat members from Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes:
I’m sure you will agree that we as Liberal Democrats need to play our part in helping to ensure that everybody who should have the right to vote is in a position to exercise that right come next May.”
They went on to say:
“Once you have made sure your form is safely completed please take a moment to check family and friends have filled out theirs too. Getting half a dozen of your friends signed up to vote could make the difference in a tight election next May.
Making democracy work is something all politicians should be committed to, and we are proud to encourage Liberal Democrats to play our part.”
It is therefore absolutely apparent that Liberal Democrat Members do place faith in the annual canvass and see that it has an important role to play in maximising completeness of the register.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I was about to make the following observation: if we want to clamp down on fraud, we must ensure that the register is as accurate as possible. The only way of doing that is by knocking on doors and actually talking to people in the communities concerned. If we have a more accurate register, that will lead to less electoral fraud.
I do not understand why this measure has been proposed. I will support any step that helps to ensure the register is up to date, such as data matching, but the annual canvass should be our fall-back position. Whatever system we use—telephone calls, data matching or even door knocking —will we never achieve 100% elector registration, but the canvass will help us spot homes that are being used for electoral fraud.
We sometimes find that there are children as young as five or six on the electoral register, because parents have misunderstood the form and entered their names on it. [Interruption.] Well, I am sure they do vote in some places, but knocking on doors and conducting the annual canvass is a way of preventing that. I therefore do not understand why the annual canvass is not seen as an exercise that should be welcomed. From speaking to the individuals who carry it out, it appears to be difficult to do, however. Indeed, in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras it must at times be near-impossible to keep track, and to gain access to some of the properties.
Angela Smith
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important to maintain the annual canvass because although a local authority might know who the council tax payers are within a household, there might also be lodgers living there? If the annual canvass is abolished, such people may well not get on to the electoral register.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend makes a very good point.
I do not think I have a single high-rise block in my constituency—the highest buildings are about four storeys—but there are such blocks in the part of Newcastle I used to represent, and the turnover of residents was often very high. Finding out who pays the council tax gives an idea of who is living in any given household, however. We must also recognise that modern-day families and lives can be very complicated.
Mr Heath
I am afraid that it is simply incorrect to say that the argument was about anything other than the introduction of individual electoral registration. That was the argument and the reason why the previous Government acted as they did, and they made no attempt to bring the provision back.
Setting aside that argument, we have also had assertions that Ministers intend to remove, by decree, the annual canvass. However, anyone who actually reads the legislation can see clearly that the procedure as set out first requires a report of the Electoral Commission—uniquely—and affirmative resolution. Therefore, it is Parliament, not Ministers, who would decide whether it was appropriate to take such action, an important safeguard that the House really should not ignore.
Angela Smith
There is no need for us to justify anything in this regard. Through our amendment, we are saying that we believe that the super-affirmative and regulatory reform procedures should be deployed if there is any plan to abolish the annual canvass. In the end, there is a provision in clause 6 to abolish the annual canvass. All we are asking for is the strongest possible scrutiny of any such decision—a reasonable thing for any Opposition to ask for—and that any report made by the Electoral Commission be laid before Parliament and not just sent to the Minister.
Mr Heath
I wish that that was what the hon. Lady had put forward in her amendments, but she goes rather further than that. On that specific issue, a super-affirmative procedure is set out in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006—it is rarely used in this jurisdiction—and the reason for it is to make sure that proper consultation takes place on a proposal, so that Parliament is in the best possible position to make up its mind on an issue. That is set out clearly in the Bill, because before any order can be brought forward there has to be a report from the Electoral Commission. So a form of super-affirmative procedure is set out in this proposal. It allows Parliament—both Houses of Parliament—to take a decision, having had the evidence placed before it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) made an important point in supporting what we are proposing when he said that the annual canvass serves a valuable purpose. I believe that too, as do the Government. He accepts that there may be circumstances in which we would want to change, but he wants to know what hurdle the House and the Government would wish there to be. I have to say to him clearly that the only argument for abolishing the annual canvass—this is unlike what happened in Northern Ireland under the previous Government, where it was peremptorily done—is because we believe, with evidence to back this up from the Electoral Commission and from others, that other arrangements, which have been trialled through pilot schemes, are more effective, or certainly no less effective, than the annual canvass in ensuring both the accuracy and the completeness of the register. That is the Government’s intention, as it has been throughout this legislation. We are aiming to ensure both completeness and accuracy. We often do not hear about the second point from the Opposition, although I accept that the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who has a lot of experience in this field, rightly mentioned it. So often we hear a lot about completeness from the Labour Front Benchers, but little about accuracy.
Angela Smith
The Minister is yet to answer the key points we raised in tabling these amendments and speaking to them. First, if the Government are so confident of their arrangements for making a change to individual registration, why do they not publish the implementation plan and put it in the Bill? Secondly, given previous comments made by the Deputy Leader of the House and the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), it would be good to hear exactly what the Government mean by “annual canvass”. Labour Members take that to mean the usual, traditional approach, which involves writing to every household and then, under individual registration, invitations to register on the basis of the members of any household whose details are returned to the electoral registration officer. What exactly will the annual canvass in 2014 consist of?
Mr Heath
I am not exactly clear what the hon. Lady even means by her first question. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but I do not know what an “implementation plan” is in the context of primary legislation. The Bill is clear about what we are proposing. The implementation of that is not a matter that is normally set out in primary legislation—the intent and the outcome is what is there. She mentions the canvass, and I would have thought that it was abundantly clear what we mean: there is the basis of the canvass, with which we are all familiar, but it will have additional purposes and additional mechanisms under what we are proposing—in order to improve its accuracy and its completeness—which we have already set out. So additional data matching will take place—the sort of thing that the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) was talking about. It will inform the canvass and ensure that the right questions are asked to the right people in the right places, to make sure that as many people as possible who are entitled to vote are put on the register.
Angela Smith
The Minister is being generous with his time. May I therefore press the point? Will the annual canvass promised in 2014, on which the general election in 2015 will be based with the carry-over provisions that have been made available, be carried out in the traditional way understood by every Member of this House?
Angela Smith
In drawing the debate to a close, I begin by pointing out that amendment 22 deletes the proposal to give the Minister the power to abolish the annual canvass. Amendment 23 is consequential on amendment 22. That should be clear to everybody. It is therefore duplicitous of the Minister to suggest—
Angela Smith
I withdraw that remark. It is misleading of the Minister to suggest that amendment 23 takes away the power of Parliament—
The Temporary Chairman (Mr Lee Scott)
Order. Will the hon. Lady withdraw that comment, please?
Angela Smith
I withdraw the comment. It is unfair of the Minister to suggest that the Opposition are in any way trying to deny Parliament the power to reinstate an annual canvass, when in fact we are trying, through amendment 22, to ensure that the Minister is not given the power to abolish the annual canvass in the first place.
Mr Heath
Mr Scott, I should have welcomed you to the Chair. I apologise for not having done so.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. We would have understood her amendments more clearly had she produced an explanatory memorandum. Amendment 23 does abolish the power to reinstate. I accept entirely her intention that it should be read along with amendment 22.
Angela Smith
There has been very little by way of explanation from the Minister in his response to the amendments that would give us any confidence in the potential alternatives to the annual canvass that have been repeatedly mentioned from the Government Benches. We have had references to alternatives that may be developed in the future, which may at some point in the future give the House the confidence to agree to a ministerial proposal to abolish the annual canvass. It would have helped the Committee in its deliberations if the Minister had outlined clearly what some of those alternatives might be.
As I indicated in my initial comments on the amendments, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), suggested previously in oral evidence that modified versions of the annual canvass could be available in the future. It would have helped the Committee if we had had more detail from the Minister about what some of those alternatives might be. It is clear that Ministers are thinking through some of these proposals. Nothing in what we have heard today gives us the confidence to believe that the part of clause 6 that gives the Minister the right to abolish the annual canvass is anything other than a threat to the democratic process in this country.
The Committee is being asked to agree something completely in the dark. In his response, the Minister indicated that in early 2014 there would be a full annual canvass, and I thank him for that. He also made it clear that it would be carried out in time for the European elections, which take place in June that year, as we understand it. The local elections in 2014 are likely to take place at the same time. He then indicated that the new individual registration process would commence shortly afterwards.
May I take it that the Electoral Commission’s recommendation is that the commencement date for the new IR process should be 1 July 2014? We have had no response to that, but from what the Minister said, there is clearly a plan to go ahead with implementation of IR in the late summer of 2014. However, no information has been laid before the Committee today and no commitment has been given that the data-matching pilots which are part of the legislation will be completed and evaluated by the Electoral Commission before commencement of the new provisions.
It is reckless to commit to a new system of electoral registration and to commit to commencement in 2014 when we have no certainty that the pilot schemes designed to test whether the new processes work will have been completed. It is the Opposition’s view that the new scheme for individual registration should be introduced only when the Electoral Commission is satisfied that it will guarantee a high level of completeness and accuracy. Nothing that we heard today gives us confidence that that will be the case.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) made good contributions in which they described in detail the complexity of people’s lives and the impact that an annual canvass may have in reducing levels of completeness precisely because of those complexities. My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham referred in particular to the problem of registering students.
Last week we had a debate about student registration. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) pointed out that there are 31,800 students living in his constituency alone. Without the annual canvass it is entirely possible, for all the reasons outlined in the debate, that registration in a constituency such as Sheffield Central could be substantially reduced. Given that the majority in Sheffield Central stands at only 165, it is obvious that before we make any radical changes to our electoral registration processes we should ensure that we have guarantees that any new system works properly, is based on sound evidence and is guaranteed and given the stamp of approval by the Electoral Commission.
We have heard a lot today about how the new system will work, but we have not heard the detail. We have had superficial reassurances that it will work, but we have heard nothing of the detail. We have had no significant reassurance on whether new systems will eventually be so robust that we will be able to abolish an annual canvass.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I wanted to check this information before I responded to the hon. Lady, but the assessment of the data-matching pilots to test the confirmation process by the Government and the Electoral Commission will be done by June 2013, well in time for us to have a clear picture before we commence the IER process.
Angela Smith
I thank the Minister for that, but can he confirm that all the data-matching pilots and necessary testing will be complete before the Government move ahead with the new scheme?
Mr Harper
The only one that we have to have tested before we move ahead is that to do with confirmation. The pilots that we will be doing, subject to the approval of Parliament, to see whether some of the data matching can help us to identify people not on the register concern things that we would want to know if we proposed to get rid of the canvass. As we do not propose to do that, we do not need to have that information before we move ahead with IER. We will know the results of the confirmation testing pilots by June 2013.
Angela Smith
The key point is that the new register, and the one used for the boundary review in 2015, will not be as complete as it should be, because those people carried over for the general election will not be carried over for December 2015. I therefore do not take a great deal of reassurance from that.
We have had a lengthy debate. The Opposition will not seek to press the amendment to a vote. We believe that the House of Lords will engage in a lengthy and detailed debate on the issues that we have raised today, and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 7 and 8 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Piloting registration provision
Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 32, page 7, line 29, at end add—
‘(7) An order under this section may require registration officers to record at the point of registration—
(a) a voter’s access needs in relation to any document which is required or authorised to be given to voters or displayed in any place for either registration or election, and
(b) a voter’s access requirements to the polling station.’.
This amendment would allow for pilots which could assist disabled people both to register to vote and to cast their vote. It would achieve this by allowing electoral registration officers to establish the level of demand for (a) documents in alternative formats and (b) additional accessibility measures at polling stations. It is estimated that there are approximately 15,000 disabled potential voters per Parliamentary constituency.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Scott.
The issue of disability concerns many hon. Members and, as demonstrated by the Government in bringing forward the legislation, the issue of effectual electoral registration also concerns the majority of hon. Members. Therefore, the amendment seeks to address two concerns for Members. First, it seeks to introduce a better system of individual electoral registration, which identifies every person eligible to vote, and it seeks to identify the needs of disabled voters participating in the electoral process. The Bill introduces an opportunity to achieve that by seeking information at the time of registration.
Recording disabled voters’ access needs at the point of registration can be used to improve the accessibility under the current system during the transition to IER and over the longer term. To put the issue in some context, it is worth establishing how many people it could affect. There are more than 10 million disabled people in the UK, with each parliamentary constituency containing approximately 15,000 disabled voters. That is almost a fifth of the total electoral roll. Polls Apart research has found that despite existing legislation aimed at improving the accessibility of election material, the experience of many disabled people has been that insufficient provision is made to provide information, forms and notices relating to the electoral process in alternative formats. Where this information is not available or is not sufficiently signposted, the election process can be considerably more difficult for these people to access.
The Electoral Commission has responsibility for monitoring the extent to which the electoral registration officers comply with a series of performance standards. One such standard is focused on accessibility, more specifically on the extent to which EROs have taken into account the different needs of voters in their local community. The commission’s first analysis of EROs’ performance against the standards in 2009 highlighted a lack of consideration of the need to provide documents in alternative formats and raised concerns that attention by EROs had been focused primarily on the provision of documents in various languages. I am concerned at the evidence that the provision of accessible formats to voters has not had the same focus, as the lack of it excludes disabled people who require information in a format other than the standard print from the electoral process. The Electoral Commission’s subsequent assessment against the standard has revealed a worrying trend that EROs’ performance on accessibility has remained poorer than for any other standard.
It can be said that we are currently placing the linguistic needs of people whose first language is not English above those for whom English is their first language but who, as a result of an accident or complication at birth, are being disfranchised from the electoral process. Consequently, individual registration has a potential to transform disabled people’s experiences of the electoral process if their access needs are recorded at the point of registration. The amendment seeks to achieve that by introducing a pilot project that can be rolled out on a national basis. The Government would need to ensure that such a pilot would be properly evaluated before any roll-out of the proposal goes nationwide. I am pleased to be able to inform the Minister that the Electoral Commission is prepared to carry out such an evaluation if the amendment is agreed.
Angela Smith
I congratulate the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) on tabling a very important amendment, which we support for all the reasons that he and my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) have outlined.
The measures are supported by Age UK, Mencap, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, Scope and Sense, and by the Electoral Commission, which importantly reminds us, however, that the Government would need to ensure that the pilots were properly evaluated before any wider roll-out of the proposal. The commission has also made it clear that it would be prepared to carry out such an evaluation.
The Bill provides an opportunity to go as far as we possibly can in securing opportunities to improve significantly participation in the democratic process by disabled and older voters, and the amendment would do so in two parts. It outlines proposals for pilots on the format used in the initial registration process, and, on the need for a variety of formats when it comes to registering to vote, the obvious example is that of partially sighted and blind citizens.
There are those beyond the partially sighted and the blind, however, who will not be able to sign registration forms or documents for one reason or another—perhaps because they have a physical disability that makes it hard for them to write or to use a pen. We have to remember also that, beyond the more severe and profound disabilities that unfortunately many citizens have to cope with, there are those who suffer from the more minor disabilities, such as dyslexia or dyscalculia, which mean that in many instances the completion of a form would be a major obstacle to claiming the right to register to vote.
Many people suffering from, for instance, dyslexia find the use of IT incredibly helpful in overcoming their disability. It is surprising, but I saw it when I was the local authority cabinet member for education in Sheffield, where I was lucky enough to witness the introduction of interactive whiteboards in classrooms and the use of IT tablets for participation in classroom learning. It was incredible to see how helpful IT could be in overcoming something that to many of us seems a minor disability, but which to those who suffer from it can be a major obstacle to participation in the right to vote.
Over and above that, I have also seen how individuals on the autistic spectrum benefit significantly from access to IT, and we in this House need to acknowledge that a wide range of formats could undoubtedly be adapted and used in the registration process.
Polls Apart research has found that many disabled voters experience difficulty in receiving information, forms and notices relating to the electoral process in a format that they can access, so the evidence is not just anecdotal but on the record. The Electoral Commission has recognised its existence and would like Parliament to act on it.
On polling stations, every Member will be more than aware of the problems experienced by a range of people with disabilities when claiming the right physically to register their vote on polling day, and I am sure that we, as politicians involved in election campaigns, have all taken voters to polling stations in our cars to exercise their right to vote. We know what it is like to see voters coping with crutches, wheelchairs and sometimes, because of infirmity due to age or disability, just the sheer effort of walking from the car to the polling station.
The partially sighted and the blind, equally, are presented with problems when physically presenting themselves at the polling station in order to claim the right to vote.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that a surprising number of elderly people, in particular, who become housebound through age or disability do not know about their right to a postal vote? As part of the assessment proposed by the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord), should they not have that explained to them and be given help to apply for a postal vote?
Angela Smith
I completely agree. Back in 2004, south Yorkshire was selected as the pilot area for elections in which every vote was cast by post; we had an all-out postal ballot, as we called it. Not only did participation increase, but the process was particularly beneficial to those voters who, however accessible the polling station was, were never going to be physically able to get to it in the first place.
It is an indictment of our democracy that so many disabled voters should have to rely on lifts from political parties to exercise their democratic right to vote. That is not healthy, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right when he makes the point that we should do whatever is necessary to encourage the disabled to access postal votes and proxy voting so that they secure their right to a say in who their elected representatives are.
One disappointing feature of the Bill and an important part of the debate is that, when it comes to the carry-over provisions for the general election in 2015, postal votes will not be carried over to the register. That is worrying for democratic participation in the next general election, and more concerning is that its impact will probably be felt more deeply and profoundly by the disabled, the partially sighted and all the people whom we have been talking about. Labour Members have constantly made representations in this Committee about the removal of the entitlement to a postal vote for those citizens who are carried over to the register for the 2015 election.
One of the major problems in our democracy is that many polling stations are not accessible to the physically disabled. The obvious thing to do is to use new-build public buildings, such as schools, as they would be totally accessible. However, schools are increasingly resistant to being used as polling stations, partly because it disrupts the school day. There are also concerns about security, given that strangers are allowed to wander on and off the school premises to exercise their right to vote.
There is a major issue about accessibility to polling stations. I do not pretend that the amendment would deal with the whole problem, but it would at least place the onus on the Government. We are talking not about party politics, but about something profoundly important —the onus on the Government to ensure that they do their utmost to deal with problems of physical access to polling stations.
Mr Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that the number of polling stations is important as well? On accessibility, we should not go down the road taken by Newcastle city council when the Liberal Democrats were in charge—to save money, it reduced the number of polling stations. When I went back to my old ward to canvass during elections, I was amazed at how few polling stations there were and at the distances that certain people had to travel to cast their votes.
Angela Smith
Again, my hon. Friend makes a valuable point. I represent the city of Sheffield and the borough of Barnsley in Parliament. As anybody who knows south Yorkshire will be aware, it is probably one of the hilliest areas in the country; Sheffield is probably the hilliest city in Great Britain. As my hon. Friend is well aware, it is built on seven hills; there are constant arguments about who lives in the hilliest part.
The key point is that the arguments about access to polling stations in the city are often entirely about how far away people are from their nearest polling station. The issue is not physical distance, but whether people have to climb up a hill to exercise their right to vote. That is a major issue in my area. Indeed, in this year’s elections, the problem was so acute in one of the polling districts that the local authority agreed to have a new polling station in a funeral parlour, which raised a few eyebrows locally. The local authority was desperate to increase levels of participation and given the difficulties due to the hilliness of the district, it was felt that the funeral parlour was the best solution to enable people to participate in the democratic process.
On the main point, there is a major issue of accessibility to polling stations in terms of distance and terrain. My hon. Friend is right: we need to maximise the number of polling stations in the first place, but we also need to think more carefully about how accessible those polling stations are.
Finally, I want to make a few comments about e-voting. The House has an ambition to move eventually towards a system of e-registering for the right to vote. Online registration has to be the way forward in the long term. I take the point made about broadband and rural areas, but many broadband problems are not to do with rural areas but with where BT has made infrastructure investments. Some of the urban areas in my constituency do not have superfast broadband, whereas some of the rural areas do.
Nevertheless, in the long term, e-registering is the way forward as we move towards the comprehensive electronic age. Equally, if we accept that e-registration is a legitimate way of encouraging the completeness of the electoral register, e-voting also has to be the way forward. My hon. Friend outlined some of the many ways in which we could introduce e-voting on a comprehensive scale. Whichever system people choose to use—voting online via the PC at work or voting by mobile phone or iPad—it must be right for us to begin properly to pilot access to e-voting. E-voting immediately improves accessibility to voting, particularly for disabled people. People with dyslexia and dyscalculia would also benefit from e-voting procedures.
Dr Offord
I am grateful for Members’ contributions and want to make a few comments about them.
The hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) mentioned annual registration of the right to vote. We currently have that. As I am sure he is aware, the Polls Apart survey at the last general election showed that 67% of polling stations presented one or more access barriers to disabled people that might have prevented them from voting and that 47% of postal voters experienced at least one access problem. Even with the current system of annual registration, we are experiencing problems. Any change to that system will not increase the access of disabled and partially sighted people.
The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) represents an area of the world that I know well, as I stood in Barnsley East and Mexborough many years ago and tramped up and down the hills of Sheffield, Hallam as we attempted to win that seat, unsuccessfully, in 2001. She made a good point in asking what disability is. One person’s disability is not another person’s. She mentioned dyslexia, which on face value I would not consider to be a disability. However, if I suffered from it, I would probably view it differently. I can think of at least four Members of this House who have a visible disability and each one of them has very different needs. I will not name names, but I am sure that Members can imagine that people who are partially sighted have different access needs from those who are in a wheelchair.
I met a physical disability group called Disability Action in the Borough of Barnet, which is located in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). One of the issues it raised is the siting of polling stations. One polling station in my constituency is located in a portakabin in a pub car park. There have been occasions when disabled people have been required to vote outside the polling station because they were not able to access the ballot box directly. That is incredible in this day and age. I had hoped that my amendment would address such issues.
I was gratified by the Minister’s response, particularly on the register of visual impairment. Along with the intervention of the hon. Member for North Durham about blue badges, that reminded me that there are opportunities for electoral registration officers to identify people who may need assistance. I believe that we need political will in our local authorities to ensure that those opportunities are taken. I hope that the Bill goes some way towards achieving that.
I believe that the Minister has more than left the door open. I will be watching the passage of the Bill and will be pleased if any concessions can be achieved elsewhere. He used the word “assurance” and I hope to hold him to account on that. I would like to be part of any process to take the proposal forward. On that basis, I say categorically that he has assured me at this stage. I will seek leave to withdraw the amendment, with the provision that he maintains his gaze on this matter. I assure him that I will. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Angela Smith
Clause 9 allows for flexibility and contingency in the way that individual registration is implemented and it allows for the Government to test changes to our system before rolling out individual registration nationwide. However, we have had no concrete details so far on how the changes will be phased in. As I indicated in the debate on clause 6 and the related amendments, many questions about implementation remain outstanding. That is why the Opposition want to take this opportunity to place on the record our agreement with the Electoral Commission, which has made it clear today that it is essential that the Government publish a detailed implementation plan as soon as possible to show what needs to be done to deliver the changes outlined in the Bill.
Last week, the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), said that he was confident that there would be no backlog in voter registration because the IT system to be used for data-matching purposes would be properly tested before widespread implementation.
Chris Ruane
We have had promises from IT companies before that everything will be all right, but the systems have failed at the first hurdle after we have spent billions of pounds on them. We have a political deadline to meet, because the Conservatives want to win the next general election on the back of the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that that must not stand in the way, and that the IT system must be in place properly before we move forward?
Angela Smith
My hon. Friend makes an important point, especially given that the new register will be used for the boundary review in December 2015. It is critical that the data-matching arrangements work. He is right that the IT systems procured by Governments for public sector services often prove to be lacking, inefficient and not fit for purpose. The outcome of such problems is usually a backlog, causing frustration and anger for people up and down the country who do not get the services to which they are entitled.
That is not a problem just with central Government. When I was in local government, we introduced a new IT system to process housing benefit. It was introduced by the former chief executive of the council, who is now the top civil servant in the country and is very competent indeed. Even so, it was impossible to get an IT system that worked in the right way from day one. Sheffield city council ended up with one of the most severe backlogs that I have ever seen in processing the benefits that were due to the people of the city.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) is right that it is crucial to the democratic process that any IT system is tested thoroughly before people use it to register their right to vote. It is crucial that the right to register is given priority over anything else. If the IT system is found wanting, the partial register that results from it should not be used for the boundary review in 2015.
If the House is to have confidence in the Minister’s verbal reassurances, it must have the detail on how the changes are to be introduced. We must have concrete evidence in an implementation plan that every process that is required for the new system, including the data-matching and confirmation processes, will be up and running efficiently and properly before we move on to using the new system. Given that the boundaries in the 2020 general election depend on our getting this right, the House is entitled to a proper response from the Minister and to reassurance that the details will be made available soon.
Mr Heath
This is an area in which the official Opposition are probably world experts: IT systems that go wrong. The Government are grateful for their experience, which was garnered through many years, of the criminal justice IT system that never worked, and the NHS system that never even got off the starting blocks, despite millions of pounds being spent. We know from their example just how poor IT systems can be when they fail to function.
However, to take us into IT systems that go wrong on the basis of clause 9, which introduces the opportunity to trial and pilot to ensure that things are robust before they go live, is odd. It is important that we ensure that we pilot registration provisions; that the verification system is sufficiently robust before we roll out individual electoral registration; and that we test the IER digital service before it goes live in 2014 so that it can cope with the transition. That is exactly the reason for clause 9.
The clause enables the draft orders for the pilots to be introduced for the consideration of the House to ensure that it is satisfied, and so that we can properly evaluate the outcome once the pilots are concluded. Incidentally, the orders can be brought forward only at the proposal of the registration officer responsible for the area. We have learned many lessons from the data-matching pilots carried out last year. They were used to make improvements to the system and to simplify the proposals for the transition process before the Committee. The proposed pilots could have the same impact as the data-matching pilots.
Understanding how such things work and what can go wrong is crucial to any change of such magnitude. Clause 9 is therefore important because it provides the legislative framework that will enable pilots to take place. They will ensure that the system has the confidence not only of those who operate it, but of those who use it. They need confidence that the system is robust and that it has been pressure tested. That is the reason for the proposals.
The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) made an important point on setting out an implementation plan. The Government are still consulting and working closely with the Electoral Commission and taking the advice of the political parties. When we have concluded that process, we will set out an implementation plan for all to see, but that is not the purpose of the measure. The clause will ensure that we properly test and evaluate the proposed system to ensure it works, which has so often not happened in the past. Only when it works satisfactorily and has been seen to do so can we make progress.
I hope that that answers the hon. Lady’s points to the satisfaction of the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Invitations to register
Angela Smith
I beg to move amendment 12, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(1A) A local authority must include a statement about the importance of electoral registration in its annual communication with residents relating to the payment of council tax.’.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Lee Scott)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 13, page 4, line 32, at end insert—
‘(1B) There will be a duty on local authorities to ensure that individuals are invited to register when those individuals move into the area of the local authority and register for council tax purposes.’.
Amendment 16, page 5, line 15, at end insert—
‘(9) Regulations under subsection (2) must require registration officers to include on electoral registration forms a clear explanation that the electoral register is used for other civic purposes.
(10) There should also be a clear explanation that the electoral register is used for assessing an individual’s credit worthiness and ability to sustain mortgage repayments.’.
Amendment 34, page 5, line 15, at end insert—
‘(9) Regulations under subsection (2) must require registration officers to include on invitations given under subsection (1)—
(a) a clear statement to the effect that the edited electoral register is available for general sale and is used by organisations for commercial activities, as well as for other civic purposes; and
(b) clear instructions on how to opt out of the edited electoral register.’.
The amendment is intended to ensure that it is clear to people who are invited to apply for registration that the edited register may be sold, and to ensure that people know how to opt out of the edited register.
Amendment 17, page 5, line 16, at end add—
‘(3) Government departments with responsibility for welfare payments, pensions, driving licences, revenue collection, National Insurance and passport applications must inform all individuals who apply for these benefits or services of their possible entitlement to join the electoral register.’.
Angela Smith
This debate focuses on the arrangements established by clause 5. Clause 5 lays out in principle the arrangements for issuing invitations to register to unregistered persons known to electoral registration officers, via either an annual canvass or any other means. It is important that arrangements are made for the pursuit of such individuals, and the Opposition are pleased that the clause now includes provisions for a civil penalty—there was initially no suggestion of a civil penalty for failing to register to vote. The Government considered opt-outs from the duty to register, but we are pleased that they have changed their view and acknowledge that they have listened.
We have said that the annual canvass should remain as the cornerstone of this country’s approach to electoral registration, but we do not oppose the clause. It gives the green light to the establishment of regulations for hard-to-reach individuals, or for individuals who need to register outside an annual canvass because, for example, they are moving from one borough to another.
Mr Mark Williams
I welcome the tone of the hon. Lady’s remarks. She has talked about good practice by referencing credit agencies. How would she ensure that that good practice is disseminated across the country?
Angela Smith
I would ensure it through the amendment. Local authorities should be under an obligation to draw local residents’ attention to the fact that access to finance and mortgages might depend on whether they are on the electoral register. Some local authorities already do that. Southwark council makes it clear on its website, on the page referring to the annual canvass under the heading, “What do I need to do?”, that
“If you are not on the register you may find it difficult obtaining credit for a loan or mortgage”.
That is a simple, straightforward sentence making it clear that if someone does not register to vote as a resident of the borough, they might be denied access to finance.
To show that I am not being partial, I shall mention a Conservative borough. Basingstoke and Deane council makes it clear on its website that access to finance will depend on registering to vote. Not every local authority does that, but it is a straightforward, lost-cost option. Local authorities would simply have to make it clear when they send out the forms for the annual canvass that registering is important not just for the right to vote but for accessing finance. That can also be put on local authority websites. As far as we are concerned, there is no excuse for local authorities not making that point clear to its residents. It is a simple reference on a form or on a website page; it is a simple request, and I am sure that the Government will want to accede to it. That applies to all our amendments in the group, as not one of them involves extra cost or any significant extra burden on the work of local authorities or electoral registration officers.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady make it clear that it would be equally inappropriate for these agencies to register people when they are not British?
Angela Smith
Of course, but the system we have now and the one we want to put in place would provide safeguards on that score. Anyone applying for a passport has to prove nationality before being granted one. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but there should be sufficient safeguards in any registration system to ensure that only British nationals with the right to vote are allowed to go on to the electoral register. Indeed, that lies behind many of the issues that we are discussing today.
Many other legislatures across the world use such a method of ensuring that the registration of eligible citizens is maximised—the United States, for example. Once again, Opposition Members can see no reason why the Government would want to resist amendment 17 in any way, as it is perfectly sensible. It is a practical, common-sense way of extending awareness of registration and of the duties and responsibilities that go with being an adult citizen in Great Britain. It provides a perfectly sensible and practical way forward for maximising awareness of those rights and responsibilities. I look forward to hearing the Government’s response, particularly to hearing that they are ready to accept all our amendments in the group.
Mr Mark Williams
It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith). Her amendments specify the steps that local authorities should pursue to register more people. Amendment 16 specifically reminds applicants of their civic duties. This raises the key issue of what information should be included in the communication, and she listed some reasonable mechanisms and steps that should be taken. I guess the substance of the debate will be whether these provisions need to be written directly into the Bill or whether, as clause 5 specifies, they can be made by regulation. That will be the focus of my brief contribution.
I believe it is good that clause 5 allows the Electoral Commission to standardise forms, which is my reading of that particular clause and it applies to some of the issues the hon. Lady mentioned. We heard on Second Reading, as we usually do, from the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), who talked about the excellent experience in the county of Denbighshire. He mentioned the good work that had been undertaken there and the documents that had been created, which led to impressive rates of registration.
I would like to hear more from the Government about the onus they intend to place on the Electoral Commission—in preference to writing provisions directly into the Bill—in respect of the substance of those forms and the prominence in them of various messages, not least the civic duty and the penalty. The Bill as it stands says that the Electoral Commission should provide that information, but will the Minister ensure that it must provide it? We need additional clarity about the penalty and the implications if the application is not complied with. Will he confirm whether the Electoral Commission will be mandated to put information about the civil penalty on the forms? If we are to have good practice, will the usability of those forms be tested? Critically, if we are to rely on regulation rather than place these matters directly on the face of the Bill, when will those regulations be laid out? Critically, too, what detail will they specify? In short, what is the Electoral Commission’s role in these matters; what is its role in disseminating good practice; and what is its role in insisting on that good practice? The hon. Lady cited some good examples of good practice undertaken by local authorities from both political parties—I wish she had said from all political parties—but the reality is that that is not universal. I am interested—I suspect the hon. Lady and the Minister are, too—in ensuring that best practice is pursued.
Angela Smith
In addition, the use of verification procedures when goods are being ordered online is becoming increasingly obvious. The use of postcode and address details is one of the important aspects of the secure procedure when ensuring that the right people get the right goods when ordering online.
Mr Jones
My hon. Friend rightly says that people are increasingly using the internet for things such as ordering goods online. Again, I doubt whether many young people know that being on the electoral register is an important source for those types of thing, so that is another good reason why the amendment is important. The terminology is perhaps a bit loose in terms of civic responsibility—I am not sure that many people see it from that point of view—but we could set out a practical reason for young people to register.
I mentioned driving licences earlier, and new drivers provide an obvious opportunity in this regard. I am not suggesting that everyone applies for their licence when they are 17, but new licences are an obvious way to engage young people and ensure that they are registered to vote and know the importance of that. We should not miss that opportunity.
The penalty has been mentioned, and I welcome the work of the Committee and the Government in ensuring that the penalty is set out. Again, the test will be whether or not it provides an incentive for people to register. My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) has asked a question on this, and it was answered by the hon. Member for South West Devon (Mr Streeter) on behalf of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission. His answer stated that, based on the data that were available in March 2010, only
“67 prosecutions were initiated in relation to a failure to provide information in response to the…annual canvass.”—[Official Report, 26 October 2010; Vol. 517, c. 166.]
The Bill’s penalty for not registering will not be meaningful and effective unless it is enacted and enforced. However, it is important to include it in the Bill as a sanction; again, it can be publicised to ensure that people know that there is a potential sanction for not registering to vote.
The Government have got it right overall on the armoury they will give local returning officers to ensure that the register is as accurate as possible. The proof of the pudding will be in how that is actually used. As I said, the Bill provides a lot of ways in which councils can ensure that people are registered, but councils are not using them. I will be interested to hear how the Minister is going to ensure that the provisions—and his hope that councils and returning officers will use some of these different ways of not only interacting with the public, but using the information they already have—will mean that the register is as accurate as possible. It would be sad to miss this opportunity to ensure not only that more people are registered to vote, but that the registration is accurate as possible.
Angela Smith
May I echo the comments of other Members in the Chamber and say that it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir?
Indeed, it was a pleasure to listen to the contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who chairs the Select Committee. As other Members have said, he did a superb job in the report that the Committee produced. I also appreciated his comments about the importance of the registration process to democracy—a point we have made repeatedly from the Front Bench over the two days in Committee. He mentioned the sacrifices that have been made in the name of democracy by people in the Nottingham area in the past. I would add to that record the campaign waged by the Levellers, no less, many of whom were shot in the churchyard in Burford in Oxfordshire. And to that list we can add the suffragettes. The history is long and it is one that we should be proud of in some ways.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) outlined perfectly the importance of extending the ways in which people can register to vote, particularly online, and talked about the importance of the amendment relating to credit and mortgage facilities.
I put on the record once again the long and arduous campaign that my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) has waged not so much to get this legislation and approach on the statute book, as to get it right. My hon. Friend talked about the rights and responsibilities of elected Members, and I join the Minister in underlining the responsibilities of elected representatives at every level on that score. My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I and my colleagues from the city of Sheffield have done exactly as he has recommended in the past, and it has had an impact on the work carried out by our local electoral registration officer.
I have been quite heartened by the Minister’s response to the four amendments before us in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr David). It has been made absolutely clear that there is a place one way or another—via secondary legislation, guidance issued by the Electoral Commission or its work in designing the necessary forms for the new process—for the points that we have made in our amendments, and that the Government take them seriously and have listened to them, so the Opposition’s response has to be that we will watch very carefully to see how the Minister’s comments play out as the process unrolls, unwinds and is implemented over the next few months and years.
On amendment 17, the signposting principle that the Minister outlined, particularly in relation to new voters and people who move, is important, and the Opposition take his points about young people. The point about electoral registration officers, or their staff in a big authority area such as Sheffield, Leeds or Manchester, going into a school to educate young people and encourage them to participate in the democratic process—perhaps as part of citizenship classes—is a very important one which makes a valuable contribution to the debate, but it will require resources.
Electoral registration officers and their staff will have to feel that they have the time and money to spend on undertaking such work. In a city such as Sheffield, there are almost 180 schools, 27 or 28 of which are secondary, so we are talking about a significant commitment on the part of EROs and their departments to make the process work, but I take the Minister’s point and accept that citizenship classes in schools could benefit enormously from such engagement with the local democratic process. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Sittings of the House (21 June)
Angela Smith Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
We support the motion. It is a simple change in the business to accommodate the important address to both Houses of Parliament by Aung San Suu Kyi, which I think most Members will be looking forward to. I note that there will also be a business statement, which will, of course, give us the opportunity of listening once again to the Leader of the House and the shadow Leader of the House.
Question put and agreed to.