Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 8th September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Shutt of Greetland (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 24, which is in the same territory as that which has just been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lennie, but this is not tickling the Boundary Commission’s fancy; it would require government action. It is particularly influenced by my serving as chairman of the Select Committee on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, on which a dozen Peers served and toiled over several months to produce its report. As an interesting point, I looked up today that between us we had contested at least 47 parliamentary elections and I do not know how many local government elections.

The decision to introduce individual electoral registration in place of head-of-household registration was the major feature of the Act that we were looking at. This is not the time to have a fulsome debate on that report: that is for another day. The report was published on 8 July and the Government have got until today to respond; they have less than six hours. Bearing in mind what we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, there is a chance that we might get something at 9 o’clock tonight—is there not—depending on who is responsible for this. We look forward to that, and that debate on another occasion.

The concern of the Committee on the state of the accuracy and completeness of electoral registers was our number one item of our six key recommendations. The polling district and ward registers affect constituency electoral boundaries: they are the building blocks. Our recommendations include: piloting automatic registration for attainers—that is young people over 16; introducing assisted voter registration—we heard a little about that in the earlier amendment; greater use of data matching; civic engagement and public engagement, particularly in respect of young people and under-represented groups. The UK looks closely at international experience, where other countries have a far greater percentage of the population registered to vote. It was good to hear the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, speak earlier today commending overseas experience. We should not be frightened of it.

We were surprised to learn that the completeness of registers is no better under IER than under the old system. It cannot be right that only 85% of the eligible population is registered, while in Canada it is 96%. In Northern Ireland, where IER was introduced much earlier, back in 2002, completeness was reported to us as being only 74% in a 2018 survey. You would think that having had the experience of that for 16 years, we would be getting a more complete register there. It is evident that IER has not enhanced completeness.

The IER system has led to much event-led registration. On the cusp of an election we heard that 3.85 million people applied to register to vote between the MPs voting for an election on 29 October 2019 and the last date when it was possible to register, 26 November. Only half were subsequently added to the register, as half of them were already registered. Nevertheless, 2 million people were added to the register in that brief period. It cannot be right that our hard-working electoral officers—we met several of them—have to cope with all these registration events alongside the plethora of activity in organising an election and the increasing multitude of postal votes.

This late registration has meant that the registers immediately after the December 2019 election are perhaps as good as it gets under the old registration that we now have. It is in line with the committee’s view that the Government have agreed that it is the register of 2 March 2020 that is to be used for the electorate for the 2023 review. This amendment is to make certain that, as well as endeavouring to maximise the register so that everyone entitled is able to vote, henceforth the constituency boundaries will be based as near as possible to 100% of the eligible population rather than the 85% or so that it is at present.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I have refrained from speaking on other amendments so as to concentrate my remarks on Amendment 24. I was a member of the ad hoc electoral registration Select Committee, brilliantly chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Shutt of Greetland. I express my gratitude to Professor Maria Sobolewska and Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg, who were the brilliant advisers to our committee. Equally, it was a pleasure to work with members of that committee from different political persuasions without rancour. Our only real division was, and remains, over ID cards and their use in polling booths. As I keep repeating, their day will come but we kept that division under wraps.

Parliamentary Constituencies Bill

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab) [V]]

Having attended a number of boundary inquiries where issues of political advantage were quickly exposed, I want today to flag up the need to keep such issues in mind as we seek to amend existing legislation. Participants in these inquiries have a dilemma—political advantage or public interest. These can be difficult issues as there are pressures. Recommendations that offend the public interest may please some party activists but they undermine confidence in our electoral system.

This all came into focus when I retired after 22 years as a Member of Parliament. I will give an example. In 2007 the Boundary Commission came forward with its Cumbria recommendations. The commission’s original draft proposed a reorganisation of Copeland, my noble friend Lord Cunningham of Felling’s former seat. The seat had been under quota for a number of years and therefore faced inevitable reorganisation. The commission’s response was to propose a seat, the Copeland-Windermere constituency, which stretched from the west Cumberland coast all the way to Windermere, the other side of the Lake District—an extraordinary proposal. However, there was a problem: the drive from Whitehaven in the west to Windermere in the east meant journeying over the highest mountain pass in the United Kingdom, the Hardknott Pass at the heart of the Lake District, which can close in the inclement weather of winter. The proposal was ludicrous. The problem was that the parties had to take it all seriously and hassle over it.

There have been times in history when irregular boundary changes were acceptable as MPs had a very different relationship with constituencies in former times, but that has all changed. They are now closer, reflecting local loyalties and ties with more personal representation. The monthly visit staying in the local smart hotel is no longer acceptable. That is the new reality that the commission needs to consider. The Member for Copeland surely cannot represent the people of Windermere: the geography is wrong and one part of the constituency will lose out. MPs no longer just represent constituents in Parliament; they now offer a service.

The Copeland proposal was rightly rejected. However, I use it only as an example; I wonder whether that bad experience is replicated elsewhere. The Boundary Commission needs to be more sensitive to the local links and loyalties that stand at the heart of effective parliamentary representation. I hope the commission is listening, particularly to the speech of my noble friend Lady Gale, who talked of problems in the Welsh valleys. If not, I have wasted my time engaging in this debate. I really hope that the commission is listening today.

Ministerial Code

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall speak on the code of conduct for special advisers and the treatment of Sonia Khan. Paragraph 5 of the code says:

“But special advisers must not … exercise any power in relation to the management of any part of the Civil Service, except in relation to another special adviser”.


I suggest that we delete the final words of that quote from the Code and insert the words “and in relation to the employment security of a special adviser”. If that were to happen, Miss Khan would not have found herself in difficulty.

Police and Crime Commissioner Elections (Amendment) Order

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord True, to his position as Minister. I am sure we will have some humorous debates. I am sure they will be lively and I fear that some of them will be very controversial, but this evening’s debate is not really a controversial one, because I am sure that nobody in this House will think that anyone who is disadvantaged by disability should have to bear the additional costs of personal expenses arising from their disability counting against any limit on campaign expenditure.

I am not sure it is really enough to say that, if they have these additional costs, they should not count against the limit if they have the funds. The question really is: how could they be helped to have the funds to make sure that they can compete on a level playing field? My first question to the Minister in his new position is: what is the Government’s current attitude towards helping disabled candidates stand for election? We have experience of the Access to Elected Office Fund and the EnAble Fund, but I understand that, after 31 March, there will be no funding from a government source to help disabled people to stand in these or any future elections.

Overall, as the Minister outlined, the changes proposed to election regulations are really common sense, but the need to make these minor changes highlights the way that we need to codify and modernise all our election laws, as recommended by the Law Commissions some years ago. What can he tell us about the Government’s current attitude towards codifying and modernising the whole range of election laws? The Law Commissions have done much of the work on this; they say that there are so many different pieces of legislation and there have been so many new elections since that legislation was drafted that we need to look at this issue as a whole, instead of, as I fear we will, looking at each individual bit of legislation. The danger will be that, as we look at each individual bit of legislation and potential reforms, the accusation may be made in this House that legislation is brought forward for particular parts of election law that favour a particular party that is in government and not parties that are not in government. Surely it would be better to follow the advice of the Law Commissions and look at all our election law in the round, codify it properly, modernise it and make sure we proceed on a fair basis.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to his place. I have watched him on the Back Benches over a number of years and wondered when his day would come; it has finally come and I congratulate him.

Article 2(3) of the order

“adds to that list of matters reasonably incurred expenditure by or on behalf of a disabled candidate that is reasonably attributable to the candidate’s disability.”

I understand that, in law, the word “reasonable” is very expensive and can lead to court cases, contests and arguments with officials about what constitutes reasonableness. I wonder whether we can have some explanation. To give an example, who will decide what is reasonable? Could it be that, if a person is in receipt of a benefit relating to disability, that in itself would lead to a qualification? Could it be simply a personal statement, where somebody says, “I am disabled”, or a doctor’s note saying that the person is sufficiently disabled? The word “reasonable” always worries me when I see it in law and I just wonder if we can hear a little more. We have a former Lord Chancellor here who smiles when I suggest that it is an expensive word—perhaps he would like to intervene to tell us what he believes would be the construct in this particular case.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord True, to the Dispatch Box today. I congratulate him on his appointment and I wish him well with his new responsibilities. I look forward to the many debates we will have over the coming weeks and months. I also very much agree with his comments about the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who I enjoyed working with very much and who is always worth listening to.

I have no issue whatever with the order before us today. A number of points have been raised, which I support, and I look forward to the noble Lord’s response. It is right that we ensure that candidates with a disability are able to stand for election so that we can ensure that our elected officials and officers reflect the people that they represent. I am very happy to support the order to ensure that expenditure related to a candidate’s disability does not come out of the election expenditure limit.

I follow on from the point that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made. I have mentioned it many times before and, every time, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, would agree with me. I would say, “Our election law is not fit for purpose,” and he would say, “I agree entirely.” We had a number of meetings—the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy all came along—and discussed these things. Everyone agrees that our election law is not fit for purpose and we have to sort it out.

One good thing about the election result is that this Government have been in office now for four or five years. They are not worried about what is going on at the other end, so they have plenty of time to look at this properly. We have to sort out election law; it is not fit for purpose. It was created for analogue elections; we now have digital elections, and we really must sort this out. I implore the noble Lord, when he goes back to his officials in the Cabinet Office, to tell his colleagues that they should use the fact that they have a majority in the other place to make sure that we can quickly, but also calmly, get to a situation where we can revise our electoral law to ensure that when people are elected, the law around the elections is fit for purpose and does what it is supposed to do. Having said that, I fully support the order before the House today.