Electoral Registration

Debate between Lord Beamish and Sadiq Khan

Wednesday 4th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

That is a very important point. In some constituencies the number of people using postal votes is incredibly high. I am sure that the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster was not suggesting that the voters in Tatton are committing electoral fraud.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a complete red herring? The Electoral Commission’s report of 2006, when we had all-postal pilots—in my own constituency, for example—found that fraud was not an issue.

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. To be fair to the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, he was not suggesting that there was huge-scale fraud but pointing out the concerns that exist. He is nodding, so I think he accepts that.

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[Sadiq Khan]

Let us get this right. Academics, experts, the Select Committee, the Electoral Reform Society and everyone else says “Slow down”, but the Government go ahead. We warn them that it will go wrong, but who do they blame when it goes wrong? Somebody else. They are the same old Tories.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I must say that I take great exception to the Minister’s arrogance, because his letter—agreed with the Electoral Commission—missed off attainers, and that has led to the drop in the number of 17-year-olds being registered.

[Mr Jones]

The Minister shakes his head, but he should read that letter. Even the letter he has now sent out does not ask households to include 17-year-olds. He changed the original letter. It’s your fault!

[Sadiq Khan]

Perhaps Ministers do not realise what officials in the Cabinet Office are sending out, but they have accepted that it was their mistake.

To be fair to the Minister, his boss, the Deputy Prime Minister, has finally woken up to the mess that this Government made by speeding up the process. That must be why, last month, the Deputy Prime Minister announced £9.8 million to help with registering voters who are currently under-represented. He accepted that he had messed up. Will the Minister confirm that that money is ring-fenced solely for electoral registration activities?

Another critical factor is the extreme pressure on local authorities because of the cuts imposed by this Government. Local authorities have to write to 48 million individual voters, instead of 20 million households. Unlike the Minister, who criticises them, I take my hat off to local authorities, most of which are doing a remarkable job dealing with this massive change in our democracy, all against a backdrop of enormous pressures on council budgets.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevan Jones]

The Electoral Commission and the Minister have not learned. Even though the issue of attainers has been raised with him, the letter that authorities are sending out, to which he and the Electoral Commission have agreed, does not refer to 17-year-olds being electors. They have not learned the lesson, even though the issue has been pointed out to them by electoral registration officers all over the country and certainly by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane).

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I pay tribute to him and other colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr Byrne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), for working hard with the universities and young people in their constituencies to get young people on the register.

We need special provisions for this group of people. We should allow universities and colleges to block-register those who are in halls of residence, to meet the unique challenge presented by younger people, and students in particular. That could be done very quickly and in time for May. A similar case can be made for care homes and sheltered accommodation: large groups of people who are under the responsibility of an organisation, a local authority or a charity should be allowed to be block-registered.

A scheme in Northern Ireland called the schools initiative has proved to be successful in raising the registration levels of younger people. It places a duty on schools and colleges to provide the ERO with lists of those who are approaching the age of majority. The EROs then go into the schools and colleges with pre-populated registration forms and get the students to complete them. That is even easier now that online registration is allowed.

Probation Service

Debate between Lord Beamish and Sadiq Khan

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I know that a lot of work has gone into the hand-outs, but let me make some progress.

Another concern is that the big multinationals will dominate, just as they did in the Work programme, because they are the only ones that have financial clout. Smaller companies and charities will be used as bid candy to sweeten the less palatable bids of the big corporations. People should not take my word for it; the deputy chief executive of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Ben Kernighan, has said that

“under its most significant public service reform so far, the Work Programme, many charities have found themselves squeezed out by large commercial providers. In the interests of helping ex-offenders who could benefit from charities’ expertise, the government must ensure the mistakes of the Work Programme are not repeated.”

Nothing has persuaded me that those mistakes will not be repeated.

Our concerns do not end there. Another £600,000 a year of the Ministry’s budget will go to companies that have let us down before over electronic tagging, Olympic security, prisoner transport and the Work programme. Those companies will be beyond the scope of freedom of information requests, which will do nothing to lessen the chances of fraud or irregularities.

We are also concerned about the length of the proposed contracts. The Official Journal of the European Union states that the contract lengths will be between seven and 10 years, with an option to extend them to 13 years. The estimated value of each contract is between £5 billion and £20 billion. Imagine what great work the public sector could do if it was awarded similarly long contracts and such stability, rather than having a year-to-year, hand-to-mouth existence.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that local charities in my constituency are doing good work with offenders. However, those charities will not be able to bid for the contracts because of their size and complexity. In the past few weeks, the large companies have tried to sign up the charities as providers. Effectively, the large companies are becoming middlemen in the delivery of the service.

[Sadiq Khan]

What my hon. Friend describes is a repetition of what happened with the Work programme. Small companies, charities and voluntary groups are used by the big boys as bid candy to get the contracts and are then elbowed out. We saw that with the Work programme and we will see it again in probation.

Do Members know who will be able to bid? G4S and Serco. The allegations against both companies are so serious that the Serious Fraud Office is investigating them, and yet the Justice Secretary is refusing to rule them out of the bidding process. By the way, there is no obligation for the staff of those companies to be trained or experienced in this area. Those companies have no track record of providing such services.

We are not confident in the ability of the MOJ to procure the contracts, given its poor track record. Last year, we had the scandal of court translators under this Government’s watch. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) is busy reading her texts, but I will read what the Public Accounts Committee, of which she is a member, said of that debacle. She can correct me at any stage. It stated:

“The Ministry was not an intelligent customer…The Ministry failed to undertake proper due diligence…The result was total chaos…the Ministry has only penalized the supplier a risible £2,200.”

There is no guarantee that the big private companies will not run rings around the MOJ yet again.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Beamish and Sadiq Khan

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Sadiq Khan]

I think that the Electoral Commission, the Boundary Commission and electoral registration officers will be quite offended by the hon. Gentleman’s comments. I am sure that, on reflection, he will want to withdraw those remarks.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this Bill has nothing to do with fairness, saving money or the cost of democracy, but is actually about pure party political advantage for the Conservative party? Is it not straight out of the Karl Rove book of how to rig elections to the advantage of a sitting party?

[Sadiq Khan]

We have seen that the general election co-ordinator for the Conservative party has left the Chamber. The fact that he was in his place earlier speaks volumes about the motives of the Conservative part of the Government.

The move to individual electoral registration risks even greater numbers falling off the register.