Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, in his contribution the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, took the view that the Electoral Commission should exercise discretion. There was a meeting here two months ago in Committee Room 4, and Members from across the House attended that meeting with representatives from the Electoral Commission. During the course of the meeting it became very clear that they will do everything possible to avoid being involved in the actual debate that takes place. With that in mind, some of us are very worried about whether at some stage the public are going to be given factual information as to what the referendum is all about. That is a genuine worry. I am in favour of the referendum and I am in favour of electoral reform, but I am concerned because the debate will become very heated and, to put it bluntly, lots of lies will be told. Millions of leaflets will be sent out that, on both sides, will not reveal the truth. Someone, somewhere, has to set out the basis on which the referendum is taking place, the truth about the question, and its implications.

There is an additional problem, and that is that not every household in the country will receive yes and no leaflets. There will be large tracts of the United Kingdom where no leaflets at all will be dropped because the organisers of the campaigns will simply not have the resources to do that. In those circumstances—I understand that the Electoral Commission has already agreed that a leaflet will be going out—a leaflet has to be sent. My question is this: what will be in that leaflet?

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I thank my noble friend for giving way. Does he not accept that it will not be just one leaflet because there need to be leaflets to explain this in Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Mandarin Chinese and a whole range of languages, and particularly that there will need to be one in Welsh? He will remember that the noble Lord, Elystan-Morgan, said that the translation of the question came out as something like, “Do you believe in God or would you prefer a daffodil?”. Somebody has got to explain it.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I understand that my noble friend will be part of the no campaign and I am sure that he will be impressing on his friends the need to send out leaflets in all those languages. But I would not wish to impose that responsibility on the Electoral Commission. However, I am sure that my noble friend and I can debate these matters on Report.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I made a joke at the end of my remarks, but there is a serious point to be made about the leaflet being available in other languages. I was talking the other day to the Member of Parliament for Dewsbury about the large number of people in the constituency he represents who do not speak a word of English but who will have a vote in this referendum. How are they going to understand what they should be doing?

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

If my noble friend feels that strongly about the matter, he can table an amendment, put the proposition to the House and we can vote on it, if that is the way he wishes to go.

I go further than most Members who have intervened in the debate in terms of the information that I believe should be included in the leaflet. First, it should be set out by the Electoral Commission where it is used. My noble friend Lord Grocott intervened to pose the important question of where AV is used, and the public need to know. Secondly, the public need to be informed that it is not a proportional representation system. There will be a great deal of misrepresentation during the course of the campaign about whether or not this is PR. It is not proportional representation and the Electoral Commission should make that clear. Thirdly, there will be a great deal of misrepresentation over the proportion of the electorate that a candidate is required to have to secure election—in other words, the argument about 50 per cent. Leaflets which refer to the 50 per cent are already being distributed and politicians are going on television stating that there is a 50 per cent requirement. Indeed, Jane Kennedy, a former Member of the other House, has recently written to a number of people in the no campaign drawing attention to inaccurate information which has been put out by the yes campaign. This is only the start; how much more difficult will it get?

There is a need to draw a distinction between the different AV systems because, with the media targeting the debate during the course of the campaign—as they inevitably will—they will draw on the distinctions between the three systems of AV, to which I have referred in previous debates. The Electoral Commission should make it clear exactly which one is being adopted but refer to the other two—one of which is the system used for the election of mayors in the United Kingdom.

The Electoral Commission should also point in its leaflet to the relevance of the need to use all preferences during the course of the ballot that takes place under AV—again I refer to the distinction between the Australian Queensland system and the conventional system used in Australia in federal elections—and that can be done in fairly simple language.

It also needs to be pointed out—this is far more argumentative—that AV does not necessarily lead to coalitions. Factually, it does not necessarily lead to coalitions, and yet the no campaign is arguing that coalitions are the inevitable consequence of the introduction of the alternative vote. That is not the case. It does lead to coalitions in certain circumstances but not in others. There are many issues which my noble friend Lord Davies would argue indicate an element of bias but which I believe should be factually placed before the electorate to enable them to take a proper decision.

Finally, I return to the timing of the referendum, an issue we debated last night. One of my fears is what will happen to the leaflets during the course of the referendum. If the referendum was held on a separate date, referendum leaflets would go through letter boxes all over the country. As it is, because the referendum is to take place on the same day as elections in various parts of the United Kingdom, referendum leaflets will be mixed with election leaflets and many will go in the bin. I am very sorry, but that is the case. Again I say to the Liberal Democrats that they have chosen the wrong date and, even at this late stage, they should revisit the decisions they have taken on these matters and which they have forced upon the coalition.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government take very seriously the recommendations of the Electoral Commission and we support the commission’s decision to provide a booklet to every household if it decides that this is necessary to ensure that the public are able to make a fully informed choice in the referendum. The Government welcome and support the commission’s approach to publishing the information booklet—in particular its public assurance that the final booklets will be available in alternative formats such as large print, easy read and Braille and the fact that the commission’s advertising and media campaigns will encourage people to look out for the booklet and point them to the website, which I urge all noble Lords to look at.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Can the Minister confirm whether the booklets will available in languages other than English?

[Lord Strathclyde]

I do not know, but I know that in Wales it will be available in Welsh and English.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

The answer to that, as the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, pointed out, is that it takes a bit longer and more pages to describe the alternative vote than it does to describe the first-past-the-post system. Although that is an innovative and ingenious way to try to overcome the problem, I think that a practical issue is associated with it.

As my noble friend the Leader of the House said, the Electoral Commission has already published the proposed content of its information leaflets on its website. It is keen to have comments on the draft. If noble Lords wish to make representations about that information, they can of course send their comments to the Electoral Commission before the leaflets are published.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Can the Minister help me on one issue? He knows as well as I do that before elections, party election broadcasts replace party political broadcasts. Will there be referendum broadcasts for the yes and no campaigns? Will that be part of the arrangements for the referendum?

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Off the top of my head—I think I know the answer but I cannot be certain—I think that the answer is yes. I know that parties cannot use their election broadcasts for the referendum campaign. I think that that was decided in a case prior to the Scottish referendum in 1979. I think that there will be broadcasts, but perhaps I can confirm that in the course of my remarks.

I am mindful that all public bodies need to be held properly accountable for what they do, but we need to strike a sensible balance. It seems to me that there are dangers in introducing a role for a parliamentary committee in approving the operational work of the commission, as is envisaged under the amendment, rather than monitoring and commenting on its performance, as is the case established under the PPERA. It must also be remembered that the Speaker's Committee, however august, comprises politicians. Irrespective of how carefully we might think that the committee would use its power—I have no reason to think that it would do other than that—perception can be important in these matters. There might be concern if the Electoral Commission—which, I think, everyone agrees, has a reputation for its impartiality—had in this crucial area to have its work vetted or approved by a body comprising politicians.

Furthermore, building in an extra procedural hurdle before the commission could issue the clarifying information to help voters could be difficult if confusion about the systems was allowed to take root and hares were allowed to run which could not be corrected promptly because of the need to refer. We must also bear in mind that the commission already issues a lot of useful guidance to voters, parties, candidates and electoral administrators about the working of our system. That has worked well. I am not aware of any significant concerns about it.

I confirm that my instinctive answer was right: there will be referendum broadcasts for the designated campaigns.

It is the commission's responsibility to decide how, and whether, to provide that information. As I said, I think it is widely accepted across the Committee that the commission is well established as a neutral, independent body. I am confident that it does not need the extra provision which the amendment would impose. There is a further opportunity for noble Lords to comment on the draft. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, as someone who takes an interest in the field of IT and new technologies, I have to say that the idea that we still vote by putting a cross on a piece of paper, having had to travel somewhere to actually put that paper into a box, appals me. I would not dream of booking a holiday or anything else in any way other than online through my computer and paying with a bank card. There is some security risk, maybe, but not very much, yet we still have this absurd system for voting. But, of course, almost the first thing this Government did was to abolish the one way we could have had electronic voting by getting rid of the rather small system of ID cards that we were introducing. If we had ID cards, we would not have any of this bother.

This real point is this. My noble friend is right at one level to say that in Scotland we are going to have two ballot papers presented to us—but we are not because we are going to have three of them. There will be one using the first past the post system to elect the Member for the constituency, and a second paper giving a list of parties to elect. That, by the way, raises the point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Rooker about where you stand on the ballot paper. In my view, it is almost certain that Alex Salmond is the First Minister of Scotland because he made sure, when using the list system, that he was listed as “Alex Salmond for First Minister” rather than “SNP”. He was at the top of the list and probably got just about enough votes to make sure he won the election.

We are now to have the AV paper to contend with as well, and some people will find it difficult. The referendum is very important, but a problem that may arise is that some people in Scotland will decide that the Scottish elections are considerably more important than the referendum for AV. After all, the Scottish Parliament deals with the education system, housing and all the social issues that affect people’s lives. They may say, “I can’t be bothered with the referendum paper. I will deal with the Scottish Parliament ones”. If the turnout for the AV referendum is smaller than it is for the Scottish Parliament, that will begin to cast doubts on the referendum itself.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Does my noble friend recognise that the position is even more complicated, as I explained in a debate we had before Christmas? There are also two franchises, so although the vast majority of people will get three ballot papers, some will be entitled to only one and others to two. The returning officer has to keep two registers, so it is going to be very complicated, and the likelihood of queues to vote is even greater.

[Lord Maxton]

My noble friend makes a good point because the chance of a reduced turnout is even further increased by that. Moreover, if we have to have this sort of electoral system and way of voting, maybe there is a case for switching the polling day from a Thursday to a Sunday because at least that would give people the whole day to cast their vote, whereas those who are at work on a Thursday have to do it after they get home.

I turn to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips. He is quite right to say that there should be somebody to do this. But whoever is in charge of the election, what he will have to decide—certainly in Scotland—is the order for counting the different sets of votes. I assume that the same people will count both the referendum and the Scottish parliamentary votes. There is already criticism in Scotland that, because the referendum for AV is being held on the same day, the announcement of the results of the Scottish parliamentary election may be put off for several days because they will want to announce both results at the same time. Whoever is in charge of the election will have to make the decision about what to count first. The various ballot papers will have to be sorted out, as my noble friend said, or will it be decided that the Scottish parliamentary election votes will be counted and those results announced first?

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

112: Schedule 1, page 26, line 18, at end insert—
“( ) with the addition at the end of paragraph (b) of—“(c) the petitioner’s interest alone shall be sufficient to enable a petition to be lodged””

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I am pleased to move this amendment. It was suggested to me last year by the Law Society of Scotland and I tabled it last November—it seems like quite a long time ago. The amendment clarifies the basis on which a judicial review of the certification by the chief or regional counting officers of the ballot papers counted or votes cast in the referendum may be taken. As the Minister will know better than anyone present, now that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, has left the Chamber, judicial review is different in Scotland from other parts of the United Kingdom. In Scotland, a petitioner must have both title and interest to sue. In England, only interest is required. We submitted as inequitable in the context of a referendum on United Kingdom voting that the challenges to the count are based on separate legal rights north and south of the border. In order to have title to sue, a person,

“must be a party…to some legal relationship which gives him some right which the person against whom he raises the action either infringes or denies”.

This is from the case of Nicol (D & J) v Trustees of the Harbour of Dundee 1915.

In his Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review, Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, has recommended in paragraph 25 that the current Scots law on standing is too restrictive and that the separate tests of title and interest should be replaced by a single test: whether the petitioner has demonstrated a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the proceedings. This would make the position the same in Scotland as it is in England for anyone who wanted to challenge the result of the referendum, as recommended by Lord Gill. The amendment seeks to give effect to that recommendation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for bringing this amendment forward. He and I well know that the matter has been raised by the Law Society of Scotland. Indeed, I tabled a similar amendment in the previous Parliament.

The amendment would amend the provisions so that a challenge brought through judicial review in Scotland can be launched if its purposes are on the same basis as proceedings elsewhere. In Scotland, there are two separate tests for bringing judicial review, in that a petitioner has to demonstrate both title and interest, whereas in England, Wales and Northern Ireland there is a single test of interest alone.

The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, also mentioned the recommendation made by Lord Gill, the Lord Justice Clerk, in his Report of the Scottish Civil Courts Review. However, I am concerned that because of the way in which this amendment is drafted, it will not have the desired effect. By stating that,

“the petitioner’s interest alone shall be sufficient to enable a petition to be lodged”,

it has almost gone too far and would effectively disapply the need to establish all other matters when considering a case for judicial review—including, indeed, whether there is sufficient legal grounds for a challenge.

The other, perhaps more practical, point is that it is difficult to see what the practical effect would be, as we think it is likely that the Scottish courts would entertain a judicial review from any elector entitled to vote at the referendum or at parliamentary elections and any permitted participant. By their very nature, they have an interest—they were taking part in the election.

We should be mindful of the fact that this issue goes wider than the referendum alone. It raises important issues about the nature of judicial review in Scotland, not least those flowing from Lord Gill’s report, and the circumstances in which they should be permitted to raise petitions for judicial review. That is an important issue. It is one that undoubtedly is receiving detailed consideration, not least by the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament. It would not be helpful if this Bill somehow tried to pre-empt it on an ad hoc basis, particularly, as I have indicated, we believe that an elector in Scotland would be able to raise a petition.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

On the key point, is the Minister saying that because of the recommendation of Lord Gill, he believes that a petitioner in Scotland could raise it on interest alone, without any title, so it would in effect be the same as in England? I am not quite clear.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, if the noble Lord will bear with me, the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, recommends in his report that the separate test of title and interest be replaced by a single test, that test being where the petitioner has demonstrated a sufficient interest in the subject matter of the proceedings. That is not specific to this referendum. We have a quite important change in the law of judicial review in Scotland anyway and it goes along with numerous other recommendations on civil procedure in the Scottish courts. These matters are, I am aware, under consideration, but it would not be appropriate in this Bill to do it on a one-off basis, particularly in circumstances where we believe that being a participant in the referendum, one would qualify to challenge, if indeed that situation should ever arise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

I am certainly more than happy to write to the noble Lord on that point. I do not think that I need to elaborate on what I said to him before. I want to indicate briefly that Schedule 1 makes provision about the key aspects of the conduct of the referendum and the regulation of the referendum campaign. The approach of the Government in doing this has really been to replicate the provisions that are made for parliamentary elections, where they are appropriate. However, there are some areas where we need to make specific provision to tailor-make the provisions for this referendum. On the campaign spending and funding framework already in place for referendums, what there is under the PPERA will generally apply. I commend this schedule to the Committee inasmuch as it tries to replicate, wherever appropriate, the rules which are now well tried and tested.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am grateful to the Minister and, particularly, to my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer for their exchange, which helped to clarify the situation. I was surprised because this amendment was in fact drafted by our mutual friend Michael Clancy, who has done a lot of these before and understands parliamentary drafting very well. However, I was particularly grateful for the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Neill, on the Cross Benches, and for the Minister’s response: that he will look at this again to see whether there is a way to achieve it so that Scots and English people will have the same rights guaranteed on both sides of the border, without any court having to make a decision and without creating a precedent which might cause any difficulties for other aspects of judicial review. On the basis that the Minister has been very helpful in giving me that assurance, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 112 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

112A: Schedule 2, page 29, line 8, leave out “25th” and insert “30th”

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I am grateful to be able to move Amendment 112A, which is grouped with Amendments 112B and 112C. Amendments 112A and 112B are to some extent probing amendments, while Amendment 112C goes a bit further than that. The first two refer to the publication of the notice of the referendum and the notice of poll. They would change the publication of the notice of the referendum from not later than the 25th day before the day of the referendum to not later than the 30th day and the notice of poll from not later than the 15th day to not later than the 20th day. The idea of this is that in a number of elections recently the elbow room between the publication of the notice and the notice of call and the actual referendum itself has not given enough time for the issue of postal ballots or the return of postal ballots and all the other procedures in between that need to take place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I find that a very helpful reply. The Minister has explained and answered the points raised very well. We could have altered the hours for all the elections as well as the referendum if we had had more time but we are rushed in this and must do everything by 5 May. That is part of the problem. However, given that we cannot change the time for elections, it would be right—

[Lord McAvoy]

I accept what my noble friend says about the Minister’s reply, but is there some way, through the amendment, the schedule or elsewhere, to initiate a pilot project somewhere, or at some point in another election? That would test those hours. I am particularly interested in Amendment 112C. Could we look at the possibility of some kind of pilot in an election in a selected area to see if it made any difference?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

That is a very interesting suggestion. Although we are rushed in this, I hope that, for future elections, the Electoral Commission could look at longer hours and, perhaps, different days. I think the Minister said towards the end of his reply that he wanted this. Pilots have been done. As my noble friend Lord Collins would remind me, we had an all-postal-vote pilot in the north of England, which had a very interesting result. I should perhaps have declared my interest as a postal voter. I accept what the Minister has said but I hope we will look at ways in which we can make it easier for people to vote, such as voting at weekends and longer voting hours. If it can be done with one or two pilots, as my noble friend Lord McAvoy said, that would be very useful. In view of the Minister’s very helpful reply, I will withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 112A withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I support the amendment. This election has the potential for some interest among a new group of voters, which is a particular interest of mine, as I have said before. I know this probably was not the rationale behind this situation, and that it was about the accuracy of and confidence in the vote, but there could be a certain jostling for position to be the first elector, which could be quite exciting on an issue like this.

I have, I promise, a very short anecdote to tell. At one time, the Labour Party was doing extremely badly in the polls and in November 1983 a friend of mine took his young son with him to the polling station. I will not name my friend as I am not sure this is legal, but his young son actually made the cross on the ballot paper and put it in the big black box. Thinking of the ballot as a lottery, the lovely little boy, who is now very grown-up, said, “Which one wins, Dad? Is it the first one out?”. In 1983, many Labour Party members would have said, “If only”.

What is interesting about that story, which has kept with me, is the excitement of a young person going to vote and the idea that the first elector would have a role in the endorsement of the process. I am sure that any of us who are involved politically would make sure that it was one of ours who was there, a young person or someone who had just got the voting right because they had become a British citizen. We would make something of that to give the citizen a particular tick to that process. I hope that that may be given serious consideration.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

In the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I will be nitpicking. Surely, if this changes the regulations for the referendum, it will create problems if the old system will be continued for the local government and Scottish Parliament elections. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, raised that point several times in previous debates. It is a valid point and something that my noble friend Lord Bach should address. I am not against that in principle but if we have a different system for checking the ballot box for the referendum from that in the Scottish, Welsh and local government elections, that might create problems.

[Lord Maxton]

My noble friend raises an interesting point. If in the Scottish election on 5 May, the first person in decides that they do not want to vote in the referendum at all and they only want to vote in the Scottish election, my noble friend’s point would be very apposite.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

It would be even stronger. It is not just a question of whether they do not want to; they may not be eligible because, as I pointed out on a number of occasions, some may be eligible to vote in the Scottish Parliament elections; others will be able to vote in the referendum only; most of us—including, at last, Peers—will be able to vote in all three. That creates some confusion as to who the first elector will be.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

Is not the answer to the Rennard question, on which my noble friend commented, to find out when we can expect further legislation in these areas? We know that a Bill is coming in on the funding of political parties. If the Long Title of that Bill was sufficiently wide, we might introduce a whole series of amendments governing elections and political parties. That might well be the peg, and we should be prevailing on the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, to push his luck with Ministers to secure an early introduction of legislation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My noble friend is right in principle, but because we have this artificial deadline of having to agree everything before the referendum on 5 May, I do not think that there would be the time to do that. Now I know why the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, enjoys being such a nitpicker. It is quite fun challenging the amendments put forward by Labour Peers.

However, I think that the intention behind what my noble friend suggests is absolutely right. In a number of elections overseas, ballot boxes have been stuffed in advance by supporters of one candidate or another and elections have been challenged. That could happen in a referendum. The principle is very important, notwithstanding the technical problem that I have raised in the unavoidable absence of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard.

[Lord Strathclyde]

The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, is right: it would be far better to deal with and debate these issues in another forum or on another Bill. We resist the amendment, which, apart from anything else, we believe to be defective. The amendment requires the presiding officer immediately before the commencement of a poll to show the first elector, rather than anyone present in the polling station, that the ballot box is empty.

However, as the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, pointed out, no elector would be allowed into the polling station prior to the poll commencing at 7 am, which means that the presiding officer would be unable to show the first elector that the ballot box was empty before the start of the poll. In addition to the timing difficulties associated with the amendment, it can be argued that it is not necessary, as referendum agents will be able to appoint polling agents who may observe the presiding officer showing the empty ballot boxes before they are sealed prior to the start of the poll. Therefore, the question does not arise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My Lords, I am completely mystified because last week the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, admonished us for the number of amendments that we tabled. This week he chides us because we have not tabled any amendments. It seems rather strange.

I want to raise one or two points on Schedule 2. I had better raise this point rather than have a long discussion on an amendment. I strongly agree with what my noble friend Lady Liddell said. I think it would be useful, and I hope the Minister will consider this, to get together a group of MPs and Peers from all parties to look at some of these schedules in more detail to identify whether there are any problems that might arise and make some suggestions to the Government. That seems a very good idea.

There is one theme running through the whole series of schedules as far as I am concerned: full account has not been taken of the problems arising from the combination of polls. We can deal with this under later schedules. However, there are specific points that I want to raise in relation to Schedule 2. I agree with what my noble friends have said about minimising the use of schools and trying to find community centres and other public buildings—or, indeed, private buildings if we can find them—that can be used so that we do not disrupt the education of children.

I find paragraph 9(3) of the schedule strange. It refers to “schools within this paragraph” but goes on to exclude private schools. Why are private schools not going to be used? Why does it apply only to local authority schools? Some noble Lords opposite might say, “Local authority schools are paid for with public money”, but private schools also, because of their charitable status, get substantial support from public funds. They all have charitable status. I see the looks on the faces of some lovely ladies opposite. I do not know whether I am allowed to say that. Perhaps it is sexist and I will be thrown out of Sky Sports for saying it. However, if you think that this is envy on my part, or some kind of horrible class snobbery, have a wee look at my curriculum vitae and you will find something of interest about which you can come back to me.

My second point concerns paragraph 14(1). I certainly agree with what is suggested by,

“the officer may not employ a person who has been employed by or on behalf of a permitted participant in or about the referendum”.

People who have been active—there will be a lot of them—in the “Yes to AV” and “No to AV” campaigns should not be appointed as counting officers and should not be at polling stations. Could the Minister tell us how the counting officer will know whether people have been involved in such campaigns? Will there be a form for them to fill in? Will there be an oath to take? Will they have to sign a document saying that they have not been involved? It would be useful to know that.

The last point that I want to raise—there are many more that I could raise but I do not want to take up too much time—concerns agents. We heard earlier about agents from the two campaigns. In Scotland, the local election areas, Wales and Northern Ireland, there will also be election agents for the parties. There will party agents and agents for the “Yes to AV” and “No to AV” campaigns. Presumably the party agents dealing with the election will have no authority to ask questions, or to look at the ballot papers or anything to do with the referendum, and vice versa. Could that be confirmed? People will come in with red, blue, yellow and perhaps tartan—or whatever the SNP decides to use this time—rosettes, as well as ones saying “Yes to AV” and “No to AV”. Presumably polling agents will have responsibility, powers and authority to deal with that and to ask questions, as I have done countless times as a polling agent. I am not as old as my noble friend Lord Maxton, but I have been a polling agent on several occasions. You have some rights to go in and check things, such as the number of voters and so on. How is this dealt with?

[Lord Maxton]

My noble friend raises a very interesting point. However, in a sense the problem is even greater than he perhaps realises. I cannot see that most of the people who will be campaigning for the yes vote or the no vote will not be political activists anyway.

There are not large numbers of us around, so it may very well be that, at the school, some people will be asked to take on a dual role, both as an agent for a party and an agent for one of the campaigns. The problem with that, of course, is that at one school the Conservative agent may be against AV and at another school the Conservative agent may be acting as agent for the yes vote. It is all going to get very complicated.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

My noble friend has made the point. What I was trying to say and I have been trying to say it in a number of contributions earlier, is that these polls will be far more complicated than we are led to believe by the Government and will cause lots of problems. I have no wish to exacerbate the problems; that is why I strongly support the suggestion of my noble friend Lady Liddell of Coatdyke that an all-party group should be set up to look at these schedules and identify any problems that might arise. That, surely, is us on this side being a wee bit helpful.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, Schedule 2 is important. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right that it reflects experience from other elections. Looking at the 15th Marshalled List, Amendments 112A to 122A are specific amendments to Schedule 2, so I am not sure whether the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was right when he said that there were no amendments to Schedule 2. I am interested in a number of specific issues that relate to the interaction between the referendum and other polls. First, in paragraph 13 (3), it is said that in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,

“the polling station allotted to electors from any parliamentary polling district wholly or partly within a particular voting area must … be in the parliamentary polling place for that district unless the parliamentary polling place is outside the voting area”.

Why is the parliamentary polling area being chosen for a referendum and for the other votes when Parliament is not the district for the count, nor the place for which people are voting? I am surprised that that has been chosen.

Secondly, paragraph 22—this is for the referendum—places upon the presiding officer the,

“duty to keep order at the officer’s polling station”.

That makes the presiding officer the person responsible. Is it envisaged that the same presiding officer will be appointed for the local elections and the parliamentary elections? I assume that it is. If not, who is in charge of the polling station? Issues might arise in relation to the conduct of a polling station of the sort, for example, that arose at the end of the general election as to when to close the doors, or what to do about the queues. There needs to be some degree of certainty as to who is in charge. I assume that that will be achieved by the same person being appointed as the polling officer.

Thirdly, the schedule envisages a polling agent being appointed and a referendum agent being appointed. The purpose, as I understand it, of a referendum agent and a polling agent being appointed is that those two “agents” are responsible for seeking to prevent personation in the polling station. Is it envisaged that this would be two people, or is it envisaged that it would be one person for the same polling station? Do the same rules apply both in relation to electoral law on referendum voting and the polling voting? Can there be a conflict? Again, we would be looking for the same person to be appointed to deal with both.

The thing that I cannot find in the rules, though I am sure that it is here somewhere, is what prohibitions there are on material relating to the referendum within the polling station. For example, will it be permissible to have within the polling station the “neutral documentation” provided by the Electoral Commission describing the two sorts of system, or will that be prohibited? This relates to the question legitimately raised by my noble friend Lord Grocott regarding the extent to which help on the issues will be provided to individual voters. It is obvious that partisan material should not be provided but what, if any, material will be allowed in the polling station which is genuinely intended to assist voters? If the answer is nil, I would accept that and understand it, but equally I would not regard it as objectionable if neutral material prepared by a neutral body were allowed. It would be useful for the Committee to be given answers to those questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Was the noble Lord happy that, although there was a majority in favour of a Parliament for Scotland, it did not meet the threshold required? Is that why he was happy about it?

[Lord Strathclyde]

That is an interesting point. I should be more specific. What was so good about it was that it brought in the vote of confidence and the end of that Labour Government. The noble Lord will remember that well.

The noble Lord, Lord Myners—