Elections Bill

Debate between Lord Mackinlay of Richborough and Steve Baker

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that interesting observation. We have all heard this on the doorstep. When people say, “Oh, I’ve lost my card”, we say to them, “Don’t worry, just go!” So yes, perversely the ID card could actually increase turnout, which is the converse of what some people say.

The mischief that clause 1 is intended to address is that of personation. People claim that it is non-existent, and I know that very few cases go to court, but I disagree with those who say it is not taking place. I will not highlight to the House how easy it is and how it has undoubtedly happened in many constituencies. Clause 2, on postal voting, amends paragraph 3 of schedule 4 to the Representation of the People Act 2000, on absent voting in Great Britain. This will restrict the right to a perpetual postal vote to three years, which is good common sense.

Clause 3 brings in a new offence of handling postal votes. Again, a great idea, but in practical terms it is difficult to know how it could really be effective. Let us hope that the threat of prosecution will be enough to bring people away from the appalling activity that, in parts of the country, we would have to call postal vote farming. There have been some convictions for this, which is all to the good. However, I think there is a wider debate to be had on whether postal votes serve the good of the democratic process.

In some local authorities, postal votes arrive two weeks before voting day. I have often wondered how many of those who vote early, who might be floating voters, find themselves thinking in the last few days when the election is getting exciting, “D’you know what? I’ve changed my mind! I wish I’d waited till the end.” That is a problem as we get an increasing number of postal voters. It is almost like that old saying, “For you the war is over”, because they are no longer in the election process.

The increase in postal votes was implemented by the Labour party amid fears that the number of people engaging in elections was going down. I remember, because I am of a certain age, when people had to have a good reason to get a postal vote, such as being on holiday or working away, or being infirm or ill. A debate needs to be had as to whether that was a better process. I value elections and the process of going to a booth, and I am not convinced that the widening of the postal vote mandate that we have seen over the years has not just widened the risk of fraud, harvesting and coercion, away from the reasonable security of the polling station—I have good, robust feelings about the security of the polling station.

On overseas electors, as long as a person is within the net of UK tax they should have the right to vote. Obviously, a person who goes abroad to work for a few years will lose the annual tax charge, but to get rid of their domicile takes a lot longer. A person can be within the net of inheritance tax for a very long time, and it is sometimes difficult to get rid of it completely. I am very comfortable with where this is going.

The change in the Bill that is relevant to me, of course, follows the result of my 11-week trial at Southwark Crown court behind glass, which concluded in acquittal on 9 January 2019. I did not enter the House as the MP for South Thanet to have a lengthy trial based on very abstract and ambiguous legislation. The issue at stake was the construction of section 90ZA of the Representation of the People Act 1983, relating to the meaning of “election expenses,” and section 90C of the same Act, relating to accounting for discounted or free goods and services and the requirement, or not, for a candidate or agent to give assent and proper authorisation for expenditure in order for it to be a valid election expense.

[Mr Steve Baker]

That sounds like a very complex matter, and I am sure my hon. Friend deserves an extra minute to explain it to us properly. I am grateful that he is here to do so.

[Craig Mackinlay]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that assistance.

The matter was tested at the Court of Appeal in front of no less than the Lord Chief Justice, who ruled in summary that authorisation by the candidate or agent is a key feature of an election expense. The Electoral Commission—I make no comment as to its motivation—was dissatisfied with the outcome at the Court of Appeal and took the case to the Supreme Court, which ruled in an entirely contrary way, that spending could be construed as an election expense without receiving formal authorisation or proper deemed authorisation if it is of assistance to that candidate.

Two of the highest courts in the land—one said this and one said that. How on earth is a candidate or agent meant to make any sense of such legislation? I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for listening to my contributions in the House on this matter and for listening to the private Member’s Bill that I introduced some years ago to amend the 1983 Act appropriately so that proper authorisation has to be given. I now see those words in the Bill almost in their entirety. In clause 16, proposed new section 90C(1A) of the 1983 Act requires clear direction, authorisation or encouragement by the candidate or their agent for an election expense to be so. Thank God we have some clarity.

I would not want to see anybody in this House, friend or foe, go through what I went through. It was not fair, because we had ambiguous legislation. Finally we have a power in this Bill that means we will protect each other for the right reasons. Whether or not we like someone’s politics, it will apply to everybody.

Public Health

Debate between Lord Mackinlay of Richborough and Steve Baker

Tuesday 6th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

May I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Minister, the other Ministers in the Department and officials? They are obviously working extremely hard, and I completely accept their good faith in extremely difficult circumstances. I particularly want to pay tribute to the drafters of these very complex regulations. I know from my time as a Brexit Minister that when there are a lot of statutory instruments to do it is extremely hard work for them, and they do not get anything like enough thanks, so I want to put all of that on the record.

It remains the case that this is a dangerous disease for people with risk factors, and I certainly see why the Government wish to introduce measures. My friend and constituent, the epidemiologist Dr Raghib Ali, has written in The Telegraph that both the REACT—real-time assessment of community transmission—and Office for National Statistics studies

“showed that the levels of infection have increased in all age groups, including the most vulnerable older age groups, and also in all regions, but with much larger increases in the North, Midlands and London.”

However, he goes on later in the article to state:

“They all show this is not a repeat of the first wave as infections are rising much more slowly, doubling roughly every 11 days now vs. three days then. And crucially, they also show that the rate of increase is slowing down significantly.”

He goes on, it has to be said, to say that the Government are getting it broadly right.

I have real concerns about the very high cost of the measures. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron) gave some examples, and the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) talked about the need for two families to meet, making eight, but what about two parents and three children? They can meet only one grandparent under the rules.

Elsewhere, we have other stories that are out of the scope of the statutory instrument. If I can get away with one anecdote, there was a story on the BBC website of a wife talking about springing her husband in his 80s out of the care home so that they can spend some time together at that late stage. People are bearing an absolutely appalling set of costs, and anecdotes of poor compliance are rising. Indeed, there seems to be a gap between people’s intentions to comply and what they actually do, as was revealed in the King’s College London research that the Government commissioned.

It is not clear now that the benefit of lockdown outweighs the costs. Although the report fell rather flat, The Telegraph covered some Department of Health and Social Care analysis that seemed to show that in quality-adjusted life years, adjusting for co-morbidities, the cost of the first lockdown was greater than the cost of the disease. In a spirit of good will, where we all mean to minimise harm and maximise human flourishing in the fullest sense, we have to ask whether this set of circumstances is really what we want.

Time and again in our own constituencies, and talking to colleagues in the Tea Room, we hear about people who are being destroyed by this lockdown. Strong, confident, outgoing, gregarious people are being destroyed and reduced to repeated episodes of tears on the phone—all around the House, people are agreeing with me about that. The situation is having a devastating social impact on our society. I believe people would make different choices were they able to take responsibility for themselves, so I have really quite deep concerns about this statutory instrument.

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making the powerful point that there are other health issues and other effects of such draconian rules. Does he agree that the Government should now be publishing what those other effects are? Rather than just the bald figures on infection rates, hospital rates and deaths attributed to covid alone, there should be broader figures on mental health, cancer and all the other treatments, and the deaths that we are not seeing yet but are simply stocking up for the future.

[Mr Baker]

I do agree. I call on Ministers to publish robust data about the balance of costs and benefits. I understand that there is no impact assessment to go with this statutory instrument—I was certainly told that when I picked it up. We really should now be looking extremely carefully at the balance of cost and benefit to overall human flourishing. I am certainly not currently persuaded that the benefit is net positive.

I pay tribute to 66 GPs, led by Dr Ellie Cannon, who have written to the Secretary of State to say that it is now time for him

“to consider non-covid harms and deaths with equal standing as the reported deaths from covid”.

They have suggested that there be a GP on SAGE; I suggest that we also have some economists on SAGE and have made some other proposals about competitive scientific advice, devil’s advocates and other measures that could improve things. The letter from GPs is extremely important. It is time to listen to GPs.

As I reflect on this statutory instrument, I have to say that it is also time to start to think about another way. The Government’s strategy is clearly to suppress the virus, through instruments such as the one we are discussing, pending a vaccine. But what if a vaccine does not come? What if a vaccine, when it comes, does not achieve the ends aimed at? What if we still need some kind of measures alongside a vaccine? I have talked to specialists in this area, and it seems to me—with great sadness—to be pretty clear that we might be in those circumstances, in which case the Government will need a plan B.

For that reason, I was very glad to sign the Great Barrington declaration and to encourage parliamentarians of all parties and both Houses to sign it to show that there is political consensus in both Houses and across all parties for another way. This is plan B, authored by Dr Martin Kulldorff, Dr Sunetra Gupta and Dr Jay Bhattacharya and signed by 1,120 medical and public health scientists, 1,241 medical practitioners and more than 19,000 members of the public, including me. I commend it to the Government.

European Union Referendum Bill

Debate between Lord Mackinlay of Richborough and Steve Baker

Monday 7th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Craig Mackinlay (South Thanet) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on using the summer recess very well in bringing back this Bill in a different form. The fact that legislation was put together in haste before the recess can only be put down to the manifesto commitment to the referendum. We now have back, at least so far, section 125 of PPERA in some form.

This afternoon, I am not going to speak about the good or ills of the European Union; that is for a future debate. I can appreciate the concerns that led the Minister to try to alter the usual section 125 terms, given the nature of the tentacles of the EU’s involvement in vast tracts of just about every aspect of UK Government, although he is probably over-concerned about this.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson) put it very well when he said that legitimacy is the most important thing, in that whatever the outcome of the referendum, the losers, no matter which side they are on, must be able to say to themselves and to the world at large, “We did our best; we lost—but it was fair.” That is the position we need to be in with this European referendum, because it may not happen again for the next 40 years. I was interested to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) talk about the problems of the 1975 referendum. I was obviously too young to take part in that, but it was, by all accounts, something of a shambles. For the Welsh referendum in 1997, the Neill Committee came up with the precursor ideas to what became the PPERA that we know today.

In all legislation, simplicity is best. While PPERA is far from simple, the purdah rules in section 125 are rules that we know. They are tried and tested, and they have served us in quite a number of referendums. We do not live just by legislation in this country, but by convention, a degree of case law, decent behaviour and knowing what is right. We have an enlarged Electoral Commission. Some might say that it is a somewhat bloated bureaucracy, but it has earned a high degree of respect. We have the ministerial and civil service codes. Also, the media have changed. It was said earlier that “The Andrew Marr Show” breaks various stories. We now accept that all these are just the new ways of doing things. Purdah has not been broken; we know how things are and know that normal business continues throughout elections and referendums. We know fairness when we see it, hear it and feel it.

As was described earlier, the PPERA legislation was put together in anticipation of a euro referendum, when the same concerns that have been aired by the Minister would have been known by the then Labour Government. Legislation does not always do all that it should, but PPERA served us well through the alternative vote referendum. Had there not been local elections in 2011, many people would not even have known that that referendum was on. No aspect of that was important to the day-to-day basis of normal government, unlike the Scotland referendum. PPERA has served for new forms of election as well, including the police and crime commissioner elections. We have all appreciated that government continues. The EU will continue to go through its machinations whether there is a UK referendum or not.

Conservative Members may not always be in government; I doubt it, much as I hope that we will. Changing now legislation—PPERA—that has served us well for some 15 years would be a dangerous step for the future. I urge the Government to accept that amendment 53 merely muddies the waters of that legislation. I would prefer amendment 4 or, even better, amendment 78 as a far more elegant means of having a free and fair referendum that has legitimacy, and after which the losers will be able to say, “We lost, but it was free and it was fair.”

[Mr Baker]

It might be helpful to return to the origin of this problem: some people, including many Conservative Members, are concerned about tipping the scales using taxpayers’ funds. If this place is for anything, it is about Members choosing to restrain power through the law, and that is what we are seeking to do tonight. Ministers might be tempted to take steps at the last moment to help influence the result, so we want to ensure that they are appropriately restrained in the usual way through normal purdah rules, or as close to them as we can get.