Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Maxton]

Yes. Being an elderly gentleman, I have to accept that my experience of campaigning on a personal level precedes most of the changes in the rules as regards postal voting. My noble friend may very well have a point. I accept it is a minor point but I hope it will be considered.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I support the amendment. This election has the potential for some interest among a new group of voters, which is a particular interest of mine, as I have said before. I know this probably was not the rationale behind this situation, and that it was about the accuracy of and confidence in the vote, but there could be a certain jostling for position to be the first elector, which could be quite exciting on an issue like this.

I have, I promise, a very short anecdote to tell. At one time, the Labour Party was doing extremely badly in the polls and in November 1983 a friend of mine took his young son with him to the polling station. I will not name my friend as I am not sure this is legal, but his young son actually made the cross on the ballot paper and put it in the big black box. Thinking of the ballot as a lottery, the lovely little boy, who is now very grown-up, said, “Which one wins, Dad? Is it the first one out?”. In 1983, many Labour Party members would have said, “If only”.

What is interesting about that story, which has kept with me, is the excitement of a young person going to vote and the idea that the first elector would have a role in the endorsement of the process. I am sure that any of us who are involved politically would make sure that it was one of ours who was there, a young person or someone who had just got the voting right because they had become a British citizen. We would make something of that to give the citizen a particular tick to that process. I hope that that may be given serious consideration.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

In the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I will be nitpicking. Surely, if this changes the regulations for the referendum, it will create problems if the old system will be continued for the local government and Scottish Parliament elections. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, raised that point several times in previous debates. It is a valid point and something that my noble friend Lord Bach should address. I am not against that in principle but if we have a different system for checking the ballot box for the referendum from that in the Scottish, Welsh and local government elections, that might create problems.