Police and Crime Commissioners: Elections

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Two questions were being asked at the same time, but I shall take that of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport. I do not accept that for one moment. By-elections were held the same day and, in one case, the retiring Member of Parliament received very much the same turnout as the winning candidate in the seat that he had vacated. That does not affect the legitimacy of the outcome, nor will it affect the authority with which police and crime commissioners will tackle their task, with a mandate on behalf of the people to make sure that we have effective crime policies in this country.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, does the Minister recollect that when taxed with the question of the low turnout both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary said that it was easily foreseeable that in a situation as novel as this the turnout would be low. Why, then, was no free mail shot considered? I ask him to answer this question with the sweet benefit of hindsight, but is it the case that perhaps the wrong question was asked? Rather than ask whether we could possibly afford it, perhaps we should have asked whether we could possibly afford not to do it.

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

As the noble Lord will know, because I know that he has been interested in this subject and I have talked to him in Questions before about informing voters on this issue, more than 2 million people took advantage of access to the website to inform themselves about their candidates, and more than 200,000 people asked for a printed version of the candidates’ election address on the website and took advantage of that opportunity. There is no free post, and I do not think that the £30 million that postage would have cost would have been justified.