Elections Bill

Lord Grocott Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I will make three brief points in support of the amendments of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. The first follows a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, who has just made a forceful speech. As my noble friend Lord Cormack mentioned in an earlier debate, I was my party’s spokesman and I was in the shadow Cabinet of William Hague, now my noble friend Lord Hague, when the Bill establishing the Electoral Commission went through. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, implied, had the Blair Government sought to include these two clauses in that Bill, my party would have strongly opposed that. They conflict with the recommendation of the Neill commission’s report that

“An Election Commission in a democracy like ours could not function properly, or indeed at all, unless it were scrupulously impartial and believed to be so by everyone seriously involved and by the public at large.”


If it was right for my party to oppose those clauses then, it is right to oppose them today.

Secondly, I respectfully disagree with the argument in defence of the Government’s position put forward by my noble friend the Minister on March 10:

“It is entirely appropriate for the Government and Parliament to provide a steer on electoral policy … By increasing policy emphasis on electoral integrity … the Government are seeking to prevent interference in our democracy from fraud, foreign money and hostile state actors.”—[Official Report, 10/3/22; col. 1643.]


It is not the Electoral Commission that requires a steer, for example, on the importance of protecting our democracy from foreign money; it is the Government. The steer that my noble friend described—the statutory requirement to

“have regard to the statement”—

should be in precisely the opposite direction to the one in the Bill.

My third and final reason is related to the first. I have left the Government five times, which is more than anyone else in the Chamber—even the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett. Once was at the request of the electorate in 1997 and three times were, sadly, at the request of the then Prime Minister, but the last was of my own volition, one month after the current Prime Minister took office, when he illegally prorogued Parliament. That was the first of a number of steps that injure out democratic institutions—in that case the House of Commons. It was followed by the failure to defend the judiciary from the “Enemies of the People” attack by the Daily Mail, the attempted interference with the verdict on Owen Paterson, the resignation of the Prime Minister’s independent adviser Alex Allan—instead of the Home Secretary—and the evident disregard, shown from time to time, for the role of your Lordships’ House and the Ministerial Code. These clauses are another step in the same direction; they are disrespectful of the ground rules of our constitution, and they should not be in the Bill.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard three splendid speeches, and I intend to be very brief. I will pick up on a comment made by my noble friend Lord Blunkett, who is of course quite right that the public will not be interested or involved in the details of this legislation. But I have no doubt whatever that they have an acute sense of fairness. In Committee, I suggested that, for the Government to give instructions to the Electoral Commission is akin to a party in a football match—one of the two teams—giving instructions and guidance to the referee prior to the match. I do not think that anyone in Britain would think that that was a fair situation. I do not think that anyone could seriously contend that that is not what would happen if these two clauses become law.

What I find particularly persuasive is that this letter from the Electoral Commission, which many of us have, is, unsurprisingly, signed by every single member bar the Conservative nominee—I make no criticism of the fact that he did not sign it, but it was signed by everyone else. It argues against these two clauses. As they say,

“It is our firm and shared view that the introduction of a Strategy and Policy Statement – enabling the Government to guide the work of the Commission – is inconsistent with the role”


of an “independent electoral commission”. If anyone is wavering on this, just substitute the words “Conservative Party” for “Government”. It is nothing to be ashamed of, and I strongly support political parties; I have been in one all my life and I would go as far as to say that they are the lifeblood of our democracy. I do not regard as superior human beings those people who have not joined political parties. If we substitute the word “Government” with “Conservative Party”—because of course Governments consist, in the main, of one political party—it reads as follows: “It is our firm and shared view that the introduction of a Strategy and Policy Statement – enabling the Conservative Party to guide the work of the Commission – is inconsistent with the role of an independent electoral commission.” Is there anyone here who could possibly dispute that statement? Forgetting about the Government for a moment, for one political party in a contested situation—which is precisely what elections are, which is why they can get fraught and need adjudicators—to give an instruction to the referee, or the Electoral Commission in this case, is clearly inconsistent and unacceptable as part of our electoral procedures. I urge everyone to see the fairness of that argument and to support the amendment from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge.

[Viscount Hailsham (Con)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly to support the amendment put forward by the noble and learned Lord, which has, if I may say so, attracted very wide support on all Benches of this House.

Others have already identified some of the aspects of Clause 15 that are truly objectionable, so I will not go into any great detail, save to say that, on any view, the powers given to the Secretary of State are very extensive. They are, as has been said by a number of your Lordships, designed to make the commission an implementer of government policy. The requirement on the Government to consult is extraordinarily limited, and the obligation on the commission to report compliance will expose the commission to the cry “Enemies of the People”, as happened in 2016 when the judges held that Brexit required the consent of Parliament. I might remember, too, that the Lord Chancellor of the day did not push back on that criticism. I acknowledge that the substantive statement is subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, but I also point out that, in the House of Commons at least, that will be the subject of the most strenuous whipping. In any event, of course, the statutory instrument procedure is not subject to amendment.

I have been in public life for 40 years—not as long as my noble friend Lord Cormack, but perhaps long enough—and I have come to a very settled conclusion: if you give powers to the Executive or to officials, in time they are certain to be abused or misused. That will certainly happen. As my noble friend Lord Young of Cookham—I have known him for over 60 years—rightly pointed out, the present Prime Minister illegally thought to prorogue Parliament. I am told by reading the newspapers that, at this moment, the Government are thinking of simply abrogating the Northern Ireland protocol—a treaty obligation to which the Prime Minister signed up very recently and on which, at the time, he incorrectly stated that it did not create a hard border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.

As has been rightly said, in particular by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, election law is extraordinarily sensitive. I for one am not prepared to give powers to a Government that, if used, misused or abused, will certainly damage yet further the respect for our democratic institutions. It is for that reason that if, as I hope, the noble and learned Lord moves to test the opinion of the House, I shall support him.

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[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, and the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. They have already very clearly outlined Amendment 63, to which I attached my name, so in the interests of time, I will comment just on Amendments 66 and 68 in my name. These are advances, derivations or different approaches that arose from the debate we had on these issues in Committee. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, just said, I would not necessarily suggest that these are the complete answer—although Amendment 68 certainly takes us in the direction that he referred to of reviewing our current situation—but they are an attempt to raise the issues and continue the debate from Committee.

I begin by noting—I owe this to the Forbes website—that a superyacht costs on average about $275 million. I cannot personally attest to that, but we can take it as a ballpark figure to start with; of course, there are probably quite a few going second hand at the moment, which might make them a bit cheaper. This is a demonstration of the fact that, in our current economic system, with the corruption and extractivism, we have people in the world who have access to massive sums of money. Amendment 63 and most of the debate around this have focused very much on foreign influence. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, talked about bringing influence over our democratic politics. But what my Amendments 66 and 68 do is ask: why should any individual, wherever they reside, have that kind of influence over our democratic politics?

If we look at what a typical political party—one of the two largest parties, or perhaps particularly the party that draws the most funds, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said—spends on a general election, it is about 10% of the cost of a superyacht. It is not quite small change down the back of the sofa for the oligarchs, but it is not a really large amount of money. I asked in Committee what would happen if one of our existing political parties or a new political party drew all its funding from one source—one highly questionable source or any source at all. For example, we have just had the French election, and the far-right candidate, Marine Le Pen, who got more than 40% of the vote, got a very large loan from a Hungarian bank linked to President Putin. If noble Lords want to see how this plays out in Australian politics, they might like to look at the role of Clive Palmer in the election going on now, since I raised that issue in Committee.

This amendment developed from the Committee work. Of course, we do not have exact parallels to the two examples I have just cited in the UK, although I note, looking back over the past decade or so, that in the run-up to the 2010 election, Lord Ashcroft donated about 20% of the money that the Conservative Party spent in preparing for and running that election campaign. In 2021, the Conservative mayoral candidate, Shaun Bailey, received about 40% of his funding from the same source. I am not in any way casting aspersions on those cases; I am merely asking what happens to our politics when one person is hugely influential and a party is dependent on that one person.

Amendment 66 is an attempt to say that there should be a limit on how much one person can influence a political party. I came up with the figure of 5%, which I think is a reasonable estimate. This was debated at some length with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who is not in his place today. He said that he would go away and think about whether one person should be able to donate 100% of the cost of an election campaign for a party or major character. I give notice to the Minister that I raise that question again. The noble Earl said he would go away and reflect on what the maximum percentage should be; maybe the Government do not think my 5% figure is right, but do they really believe that 100% of the funding for a political party’s campaign for a general election should be able to come from one source? Maybe they think it should be 50% or 25%. I give the Minister fair warning that if I do not get an answer to that, I will be bouncing back up again. I am sure that, if they engage with Amendment 66, the Government are likely to say that this might be drafted differently. I have attempted to address some of the main issues. I will not push this to a vote. I do not believe that I have necessarily found all the answers here, but there is a really important question that needs to be asked about whether we should limit anyone’s, not just foreign residents’, percentage of influence over our parties.

Some will say that we have rules about declaring donations and, providing they are followed—your Lordships’ House did its best earlier to keep an independent Electoral Commission overseeing that—voters can use that information to influence their choice. However, even if it is all open and transparent, voters have many reasons to make the choices that they do. Elections do need to be funded, which is why I have put down Amendment 68, which would require a 12-month consultation on public funding of political parties. This very much draws on the amendment the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, tabled in Committee and on which, unfortunately, due to the hour, we did not have time to have a full debate. None the less, the noble Lord put forward—as he has again in an amended form here—a proposal for how to do this and get state funding of political parties. We could have lots of debates about the nature of that and the way it should be done, so rather than do that, I have put down this amendment for a review.

I will stop there, but I remind the Minister that I will be asking him if he thinks that 100% of the funding for a campaign should be able to come from one source.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment, although I do not think it goes to the source of the problem. The source of the problem is the massive increase in the electorate contained within this Bill. We know from the impact assessment and I know from written replies I have had from the Minister that it increases the electoral roll of people living abroad—many of whom have lived abroad for decades—from around 1 million to 3.3 million, an increase of 2.3 million names. I remind the House that these will overwhelmingly be people who have lived abroad for more than 15 years—for many, 50 or 60 years —and who have no reasonable expectation of ever returning to this country. The Bill makes it easier for this registration to persist as, once on the register, names now remain for three years as opposed to one year previously, and you can get on the electoral roll by the process of attestation—in other words, providing you can get someone to attest that you lived at 22 Station Road 60 years ago, even though 22 Station Road has been demolished and you have not been back since, and that you are a bona fide former resident of the United Kingdom.

To me, that is wrong in principle, but I shall also apply it at a constituency level—the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, raised this and I can give him some of the answer. Under the present system, with the 15-year rule on residence that is allowed, in London and Westminster, 2.43% of voters at the last election were overseas voters. Let us assume that that increases by three, once these 2.3 million are added to the register. You could then have constituencies in the United Kingdom with 6,000 or 7,000 voters in an electorate of 73,000 who have no obvious connection whatsoever with the constituency in which they are voting. That, it seems to me, is wrong.

Whatever your view is, the absolute basis of our electoral system—which I cherish; I have to be controversial here by saying I am a powerful supporter of first past the post and single-member constituencies—is that representation, for a general election, is based on where you live. That is a very good basis for registration and voting, it seems to me. But, no, we are going to add 2.3 million people to the register who never lived in the country—not in recent memory.

In order to do this, the Government are spending some £15 million. I wish that they would show the same anxiety and commitment on making sure that people resident within the United Kingdom and not on the register at present were added instead of spending £15 million on getting people to vote in individual constituencies—possible decisively, affecting the result—who simply do not live in the area.

I am very sorry that this Bill has extended the period of residence from 15 years to life. I hope that the Minister can improve on his answer when I raised this before; he asked what on earth is the basis for objecting to supporting a 15-year rule, which says that—I quote him loosely—if you have been abroad for 15 years, you can vote in an election, but if you have been abroad for 15 years and a day, you cannot vote in an election. That really is a thin argument; he really can do better than that. That applies to any boundary—why do we say people can vote at 18 but not at 17 and 364 days? We can all find numerous examples of how people draw boundaries.

The problem of overseas voting—and here I find myself agreeing with the Green Party, which I do not on every occasion—is that with the possibility of this initial problem, which is that you can vote however long you have been away from the country, you can also now provide funds for parties. It means, as has already been said, that, in theory, a party could be almost entirely financed by people living abroad with no intention of returning to the United Kingdom or of living with the consequences of their vote. That is the other crucial element in our democracy: you live to see the consequences of your vote. People who voted Conservative—I hope a lot of them vote Labour at the next election—bear some responsibility for what is happening in the country at the moment. It is not the same responsibility as the Minister, of course, but they have some responsibility. Of course, if you live abroad, vote from abroad, remain abroad and intend to remain abroad, then you do not live with the consequences of your vote.

I very much regret that, somehow or other, this massive extension of the franchise is in this Bill, without any compensating extension of the franchise for people in this country who are not on the electoral roll. I have seen no sensible, adequate defence of it so far. I am sure that the Minister will do his best, which he is bound to do, but we have made a step in our democracy that violates the principle of representation by place of residence and adds the problem of enabling parties to be massively financed by people living and working permanently abroad.

[Lord Sikka (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lords who have already spoken. I will speak briefly about Amendment 67. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to establish an independent committee to report on the creation of what I call a foundation for democracy, whose sole aim is to prevent the rich and corporations from directly funding political parties and hijacking the political system. Private money in our political system is a cancer, and the issue has not really been adequately addressed by this Bill.

In 1863, US President Abraham Lincoln visualised democracy as a

“government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

Some 160 years later, that remains elusive—we are light years away from it. Yes, people vote, but political power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of those who can fund political parties and get favour in return. Their preferences are prioritised.

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It may be that that the Government are not going to take the question of the mechanics of voting very seriously—I hope that they will, and I know that my noble friend will spell that out very clearly. But, even if they do not take his objections seriously, surely no Conservative Minister can seriously leave unaltered and unexamined a provision that lets convicted prisoners in French jails stand for election to the UK Parliament or that lets absentee councillors remain in office, provided that they remain out of the United Kingdom. Putting that proposition in front of this House makes the Government a laughing stock. But that is what Clause 13 permits, and it is why I urge the Government to accept our amendment to take time, take stock and produce a process that is genuinely fit for purpose. I beg to move.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I simply say that I thought that that was a masterly exposition by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. I would happily second all the questions that he is asking of the Minister on the absurd ramifications. The only thing that I would say by way of regret to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is that we do not need an inquiry or further consideration. The simple solution is invariably the best one, and it is not to extend the ability to vote from overseas beyond the 15 years very wisely and fairly established by the Labour Government. This acknowledged that people might quite legitimately be going abroad for a while, and it would be wrong to disenfranchise them, but, by the end of 15 years, it is pretty well established that someone is unlikely to return and their connection with the United Kingdom diminishes by the day—and they are living with the consequences. I will certainly not repeat the argument, but, when you have a problem, look for the simple solution. Let us all agree that this extension of the franchise for life, virtually irrespective of residence, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, has declared, is absurd.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest. I have two sisters, one of whom left Britain 60 years ago and the other 50 years ago. They would be entitled to vote under this provision. I also have a nephew and a niece who left in infancy. They too would be entitled to vote under this scheme.

I also declare an interest in that my party has been in favour of moving towards overseas voting and has thought some of it through. It has looked at practice in comparable countries such as France and Australia. It is clear that we need to involve embassies and consulates abroad if we are to make sure that votes are returned in time. It is also clear that we should be moving towards overseas constituencies, given the different requirements of those who vote from overseas. This happens in a number of other countries. It could be done here. The Minister seemed astonished when I first mentioned overseas constituencies, as if he had not heard of them before.

I have had hundreds of messages about this, from people in France in particular. First, the local MP where they are still registered tells them it is nothing to do with them and they are not going to take up their case because they do not live in the constituency. Secondly, they would like to have overseas constituencies with particular MPs, or Members of the second Chamber or whatever, who would take their interests into account. France has a small number of overseas constituencies, with a much larger number of voters per constituency, and their interests are taken into account.

I hope the Minister will not mind my saying that, when I first went to discuss with him and his team the way in which this extension might be implemented, I was staggered by the lack of detail and what seemed to me to be a lack of interest in the detail. We have very little information on its implementation. It is not quite as bad as the Government’s proposal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which appears to have had almost no thought as to how it might be implemented or costed.

There are a range of things that we need to consider. We know already that getting ballot papers out to foreign countries and back within the short time period is extremely difficult and very often fails. What do the Government propose to do about this if they are going to implement this expanded scheme? We have not yet heard anything on that. Will it involve embassies and consulates abroad? I asked a Question last summer and was told by the Foreign Office that it had not been consulted on this and did not expect to be involved to any degree. The Australians, the French and others clearly play a large role in managing and assisting with overseas voting. How therefore would this be carried out in practice when it comes? The Government also wish to shorten the campaigning period. At present, that proposal has been put off. If the campaigning period were any shorter, getting ballots out and back would be almost completely impossible.

This amendment says, “Tell us how you will do this. Demonstrate to Parliament that you have actually thought this through and that you have some way of identifying who are British citizens overseas, where they were residing in Britain beforehand and that, if they wish to vote, the means will be provided for them to receive ballot papers and to get them back—and do not implement it until you are able to answer those questions”. I have not yet heard the Minister or his officials be able to answer any of these questions, and therefore we have tabled this amendment.