Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, for moving the amendment, as he said, on behalf of the coalition. He described the reasons for it. The Bill as it stood was defective, because, while the noble Lord specified that the referendum had to take place before 31 October, there was no means for identifying when the date had to be set—hence the need for an order.

The amendment also sets an appropriate test for Ministers to satisfy before using any order-making power, whereby,

“it is impossible or impractical for the referendum to be held on 5 May 2011, or that it cannot be conducted properly if held on that day”.

The test is right, because the referendum date can be moved away from 5 May only for practical reasons. It would be wrong, and have very serious implications, if the reason for that was the result of some delay that had not allowed consideration of the Bill to be completed in time.

The associated amendment to Clause 4 is also necessary in this context to ensure that the scheme which the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, envisages is properly workable. It provides a new power to make provision in secondary legislation to take account of a situation in which other polls are due to be held on any other referendum date set by the order.

Clause 4 as it stands will ensure that any poll which that clause already mentions is automatically combined with the referendum if it takes place on a new date set for the referendum. Any polls which Clause 4 does not mention would not be combined with the poll. It is impossible to say at this stage whether it would desirable to combine a referendum with other polls. A decision on that would need to be taken at the time and will depend on the types of polls.

In conclusion, I reassure noble Lords that, given the flexibility that these powers need to provide, any order made using the new powers will necessarily be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. I end on a note of caution, because I cannot speak on this subject without saying how unfortunate it would be if the referendum were not to take place on 5 May.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, can my noble friend comment on the concern expressed north of the border about the coincidence of the referendum and the elections to the Scottish Parliament, and the difficulties that returning officers will have in ensuring that the count is available? The results may not be available on the Friday and be delayed. Will this be a problem, and have the Government any plans to avoid the difficulty whereby Members of the Scottish Parliament will not know for some time whether they have been elected and the position of the Administration in the Scottish Parliament, because of the difficulties of counting both polls at the same time?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords—

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I do not wish to detain my noble friend. I understand what he said in Committee, namely that the counting of votes for the Scottish election will take priority. However, the issue is whether the process of validating the ballot papers will result in the election result being delayed. I have no idea what the results of the election will be, but it is conceivable that one political party will have a majority. It does not follow necessarily that there will be a period of the kind that my noble friend described. Given that the Government have decided to hold the referendum at the same time as the Scottish elections, they have an obligation to make sure that the result of the Scottish elections are delivered on time and are not disrupted.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I will add that they should also be delivered accurately. Therefore, this is a matter for the returning officers and counting officers, who are best placed to judge whether counting should start immediately or the following morning.

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[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I move this revised amendment in substitution for the original Amendment 5F. I thank the Clerks in the Public Bill Office for helping me to revise the amendment and bring it into order. It appears before noble Lords rather late in the day, but that would not have happened if there had been the normal period between Committee and Report stage. I hope that the House will forgive me for moving this revised amendment. I am most grateful to the Clerks for their speedy revision on my behalf.

Last Monday, following a report in the Scotland on Sunday, I said that there was great concern throughout Scotland that—as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said earlier, and as my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke has also said—if the count is not taken immediately after the close of polls in the Scottish parliamentary election, some of the excitement, and a speedy follow-up with the announcement of the result, could be lost as a result. As noble Lords who have participated directly in elections will appreciate, the public’s interest in the election is important. It is an entirely separate issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, pointed out, from the question of whether the count for the parliamentary election is held before the referendum count. We accept the sequence—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, explained it on a previous occasion, although it is the subject of another amendment in this group—and we accept the explanation. The question relates not to the order in which the counts are taken but to their immediacy.

As noble Lords from Scotland will know, I am not one to kowtow to the Scottish media—far from it. There are some people in the Scottish media for whom I have great respect. There are others for whom I do not. Nevertheless, it is an important part of elections that, immediately after the casting of votes, people go to the count with adrenaline coursing wherever adrenaline courses. They take part in the count and see the way things are going, and the result—in particular in Scotland in the 73 first past the post constituencies. As the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, rightly said, after this election there may not be a coalition that will take some time to form; there may be a clear result. The way that the polls are going, with a substantial lead for Labour, a clear result is becoming more likely. People will want to know how things are going in the constituencies.

This would not be an issue, but some—although not all—returning officers have said that it will be difficult to carry out the count immediately because the counters will be too tired. They may have been polling officers in polling stations before moving on to do the count. Of course, that problem can be dealt with if different people are used for the count. Fresh people can be brought in, if necessary, so that we get the result. The candidates, agents and supporters of the parties will stay up late into the night for the results to come through. It is part of the British and Scottish tradition that we see the results come through. The TV will cover it. It will get more people interested in the Scottish elections and make them more likely to take part in future.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Perhaps I have misunderstood this. Obviously the noble Lord has studied it more carefully than I have. Perhaps he can explain why this could not be resolved simply by having two ballot boxes, one for MSPs and one for the referendum. Would that not resolve the problem of tiredness? I do not think that people will be waiting anxiously for the result of the poll on AV.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That question was raised on a previous occasion in Committee. The Minister—I think it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness—said the problem was that some electors might inadvertently put a ballot paper for the election into the ballot box for the referendum. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, sighs and shrugs his shoulders, but that was the explanation given by the Minister. I agree that the first thing that needs to be done is the validation of ballot papers. However, once they have been validated, which should not take very long, the referendum ballot papers can then be put aside for whenever that count will take place, and the count can be started of all the ballot papers for the Scottish Parliament elections. I do not think that opening ballot boxes and verifying ballot papers will cause much delay. It will delay things a bit, but not as much as stopping the count altogether and starting the next day, which is what some returning officers have suggested.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I return to the point about people putting ballot papers in the wrong boxes. Surely it is not beyond the wit of returning officers to organise a polling station in such a way that that is avoided.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I agree with the noble Lord. I was going to say “my noble friend”: that is the way things are going. There are some strange bedfellows already in the coalition, but I am not suggesting that there should be any others. If the amendment is passed, accounting officers and returning officers are more likely to ensure that all the ballot papers go into the appropriate boxes. It will put greater pressure on them if, in the terms of my revised amendment,

“the count for the Scottish parliamentary general election shall not be delayed as a consequence of the combination of polls”.

If that is agreed by this House and by Parliament, that would put pressure on the returning officers to make sure that people cast their votes in the appropriate ballot boxes.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

Perhaps I am mistaken, but did not the Gould report also recommend that we should not combine referenda or other electoral tests with elections to the Scottish Parliament?

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, different bodies have said different things on different occasions. We are entirely happy that we have the confidence of the Electoral Commission and other bodies to do it in this way.

The noble Lord, Lord Kilclooney, asked about later announcements—how they would be made across the United Kingdom and whether they would all be made at one point. I can confirm to the House that there will be one announcement for the whole of the United Kingdom. That is one of the reasons why the Electoral Commission is organising the counts.

Any provision that seeks to add specific provisions to the timing of the count may well be complex and would be apt to confuse administrators at this late stage. It is likely that any amendment would need to be replicated for each election on 5 May. We have a clear statement of government policy and the clear view of the Electoral Commission. I hope that that is sufficient for the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, to withdraw his amendment and for the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, not to move his.