Elections Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I happily add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Moore, for a splendid opening speech. I thank him most of all for making us laugh—I think that might be the last laugh we get with this Bill.

I had hoped that any attempt by this Government to make important changes to our constitution would be conducted with extreme caution and with humility. I say this because, during this parliamentary Session, under this Conservative Government, we have spent a good deal of time repairing the constitutional damage inflicted by the Conservative Government that was in power 10 years ago.

I refer, first, to the cynical moves in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, when at a stroke the Government planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 60.

[Noble Lords]

600.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Sorry, to 600. I am sure they would have done the former if they had had the chance. Needless to say, the calculations were that the changes would damage the Labour Party more than the Conservatives. Then, as we know, at the last general election, the Conservatives gained a number of so-called “red wall” seats, and lo and behold the calculations changed: the proposed reduction to 600 would have damaged the Conservatives, and the Government had a Damascus road conversion back to 650 seats.

Then we had the friendless Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the malign effects of which included the shambles at the end of the 2017 Parliament. Thankfully, we are well on the way to getting rid of that Act with the Third Reading of the dissolution Bill tomorrow.

I draw two lessons from this little history lesson. First, major constitutional Bills really must have pre-legislative scrutiny; and, secondly, beware a Government bearing constitutional gifts. The chances are that, whatever the wrapping, the contents will include—somewhere—an electoral bonus for the Government.

So far as the current Bill is concerned, if we had had proper scrutiny, we would have had witnesses being examined such as—as has been mentioned—the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Its extensive research with a representative panel of 6,000 people concluded that the voter ID requirements of the Bill risked disenfranchising around 1.7 million low-income voters.

We know that many people do not have any form of photo identification—a figure of 3.5 million has been estimated. What is known about the demography of this group: their gender, age, social class, income and housing? Given the Government’s form on the politics of constitutional change, what do we know about the likely voting intentions of this section of the population? I say to the Minister: please do not tell me that this has not been considered—that really would be a novelty.

Another hugely controversial part of the Bill, which was dealt with brilliantly by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, concerns the independence of the Electoral Commission. We really should not need to be debating whether or not a body with responsibility for overseeing elections and their integrity is to have its strategy and policy document written by the Government—or, to put it more precisely, written by the winning party at the most recent general election. Elections, by definition, are competitive. To allow the winning party to give instructions to the Electoral Commission is comparable to a game between Arsenal and Manchester United in which, prior to kick-off, the Arsenal manager gives instructions to the referee—although some people may feel that happens already.

That brings me to the evidence, or lack of it, for the change of voting rights for people living overseas. The fundamental principle of the franchise in our country is that your entitlement to vote comes from your residence and registration on the electoral roll of a specific parliamentary constituency. We quite rightly make an exception to this for UK citizens who, for various reasons at various times in their lives, live or work abroad, usually with the intention of coming back to the UK, and many of whom will have kept a house to which they will return. The time limit for this is a sensible 15 years.

Now the Government intend to extend this to a vote for life. This surely raises important issues. First, there is the practical problem that the longer someone is away from the UK the harder it is to verify their former UK address. But is there not also an issue of fairness? People who have not lived here for decades and for whom the clear probability is that they will never return are to have the same right to vote in the constituency in which they last lived as the current residents. There may be a major local issue—a hospital closure, fracking, motorway construction, flooding—which is of crucial importance to people living there, who will have to live with the consequences. But someone who has not lived there for decades, and has no intention of doing so again, has the potential to determine the election’s outcome. I do not think that enhances our democracy.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, asked, “Why don’t they have their own constituency?” Well, the figure I have is that some 2 million people would be enfranchised by this. I am not sure how many parliamentary constituencies that would require.

So let us get some facts from the Minister. Just how many more people are estimated to be eligible to vote under the “votes for life” provision? I have seen, as I said, estimates of up to 2.5 million. So I ask the Minister: how are we going to verify all these overseas people and, when they are added to the electoral roll in individual constituencies, will their numbers be included in calculating the size of constituencies in future parliamentary boundary reviews?

I had better leave out the next bit of my speech as I am out of time. I was just warming up, really.

This Bill about elections and their integrity. No other subject could be more fundamental to our democracy. The Bill is based not on the judgment of neutral, objective observers but on the judgment of a political party that has won an election. That of course is the case with all legislation but, for constitutional Bills, the case for detailed scrutiny, consensus if possible, and as much objectivity as possible, is overwhelming. Sadly, with this Bill, the Government have failed to learn lessons from the serious mistakes they made in the past.