Political Donations: Cap

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord makes a number of points. I reassure him that we want to ensure that the Government’s focus is on our manifesto commitment to strengthen integrity in our democratic process. Democracy is precious, and we want to make sure that no malign actors can contribute to it and that any foreign interference is stopped. However, it is for political parties themselves, under law, to ensure the nature of the donation and the background of the company or individual making it.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister is aware of my long-standing concern about the use of anonymous opinion polls and other forms of campaigning, either in a general election or prior to one. Will the Minister please ensure that he talks to the excellent new chief executive of the Electoral Commission to establish that it uses all the powers it currently has available to check on the issues I have identified, and, if it does not have the necessary powers, that it is given them through changes in legislation where necessary?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord and I met the new chief executive of the Electoral Commission, and we will continue to have those conversations—together, if need be, given the noble Lord’s expertise in this area. The noble Lord is quite right: the Electoral Commission plays an important part in the UK’s democratic system, promoting public confidence in democratic processes and ensuring their integrity. On his question about anonymous donations, I will take it away and ensure that we come back to him with some more facts and information.

Voter Identification (Amendment of List of Specified Documents) Regulations 2024

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Mott (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the amendment that we are discussing today, particularly in reference to the Armed Forces veteran card. It was disappointing that it was not in place for the general election earlier this year, and I very much support what the Minister had to say today.

I also highlight and welcome the Electoral Commission’s report on the high awareness levels of voter ID when people went to the ballot box this year. There were a lot of concerns in the run-up to the election, but it is good to see that survey report high voter awareness.

The other incredibly welcome thing today, speaking as somebody who spent 32 years at the front line of politics working for a political party, is that these changes are being made well ahead of those elections in May next year. There is nothing more frustrating for a political party or political organisation than to have changes come into force at the last minute. There are implications for all political parties, not just for professionals but for the thousands of volunteers who keep our democracy vibrant in this country. Again, I thank the Government for making sure that we are making this change well in advance.

What else are the Government thinking now about participation, and how do we open up the democratic process to more people? The turnouts in the elections in July were disappointing, to say the least, and we need to make sure that everyone is completely engaged in the political process. Also, do the Government have any thoughts at this stage on further items of identification that may be added to the list?

I appreciate that my final point is a little cheeky. Having been in the Minister’s position, where I often used to say “next year” or “at some point”, could I push him a little further? He said next year; is there any date when the Government may have finished their review and he will be able to come back to us with some of those proposals? It could be quarter 1 or 2—that would be good. If we could have a little more detail around that, it would be incredibly helpful to us. As I sit down, I welcome these changes and thank him for the timely fashion in which the Government have introduced them.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I follow my noble friend in welcoming the proposals that the Minister outlined in his opening comments. I have two or three points to raise. The first is that, when this SI was discussed in the Commons, the Minister identified that research was being undertaken by IFF Research on voter ID. Could this Minister clarify the terms identified for this work and why it is necessary, given that the Electoral Commission has in fact already undertaken its report, to which the Minister referred? It does not seem necessary to have two organisations doing the same thing.

In passing, I add my welcome to the Minister’s comments on Zimbabwe. As a former resident of that country, I am conscious that there are some 200,000 people of Zimbabwean nationality in this country; it would be helpful to that community.

I am concerned by a phraseology that the Minister used—that there might be further changes to ID that are not done as a group. If we are to make further changes to requirements for the opportunity to use certain forms of ID at polling stations, they must be introduced en bloc. We do not want a series of changes, one after another, and to have to sit in this Committee to consider them individually. It makes much more sense, whether they are because of the Electoral Commission’s work, IFF Research’s work or a combination, to bring them together as a single block. That reduces the workload on the Minister for a start, let alone for anybody else.

Although this is not quite within the field of the SI, it follows on from my noble friend Lord Mott’s question on the local elections taking place next May. Is the Minister in any position to indicate whether, in fact, those elections will be as those currently scheduled or are there likely to be any changes?

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, accepting the use of the veteran card as ID for voting is a welcome improvement, but to a very poor, expensive and quite unnecessary scheme. When the previous Government introduced the requirements for photo ID at polling stations their impact assessment said that it could cost £180 million over a decade, so I hope that the new Government have other spending priorities and recognise that scrapping or changing this scheme will not endanger the fundamental security of the ballot process.

As many Members on the Government’s side said in the debate in the House of Commons, this can be only the first of many steps in helping to make sure that everyone legally entitled to vote is able to. Issues with voter ID may not affect large numbers of voters, but many elections are determined by small margins. Etched in my own memory is being the election agent for a parliamentary by-election in which just 100 votes, or 0.1% of the vote share, separated my candidate from the successful Conservative candidate—now the noble Lord, Lord McLoughlin. In the recent general election, seven seats were determined by margins between 15 and 98 votes. Many council elections are also determined by very small margins—sometimes there are even ties—so changes in the election rules really matter.

We are advised by the Electoral Commission that, on 4 July, slightly less than 0.1% of people were turned away from polling stations, never to return, because of the photo ID requirements, but that could have been the margin of victory in several seats. With the lowest turnout in a general election for 23 years, it is probably more significant that 4% of the non-voters said that their decision not to vote was related to the voter ID requirement. That is perhaps 800,000 people or 2% of the electorate.

There is no need today to repeat arguments about the motivation for introducing the photo ID rules and the complete lack of evidence ever presented to justify them. However, Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Leader of the House of Commons at the time, made it clear what the intention was. Moving forward, the Electoral Commission has suggested that we would need a much wider review of what may be acceptable if we have any form of voter ID at polling stations—more than we are considering today. It suggests, for example, that the Jobcentre Plus travel discount card and the 18-plus student Oyster photocard should be acceptable in addition to the veteran card.

Let us look back to the commission’s consistent advice of some years ago and to the last Conservative Government’s report, conducted for them by the former chair of the Conservative Party, the noble Lord, Lord Pickles. There was no suggestion from either of a photo being required on any form of ID at polling stations. In debates during the passage of the Elections Act 2022, Ministers suggested that the process for obtaining a ballot paper should be akin to that for obtaining a parcel at a post office, but they could never explain to me why the Post Office’s ID requirements —including a bank card or a credit card—could not be acceptable at a polling station.

In the review of these regulations that the Government are now undertaking, will the Minister undertake to look at the costs of the photo ID scheme, admitted by the previous Government to be more than £100 million during those debates? Ideally, he would consider scrapping it while taking steps to ensure that voters know that their vote cannot be stolen. Even Ministers in the previous Government did not seem to know that, if you go to a polling station and someone appears to have already used your name and address to get a ballot paper, you can have a replacement issued. The fact is that hardly ever happens. In the 2019 general election, it happened in just 0.00004% of cases—an average of two cases per constituency. This was mostly down to clerical error and crossing off the wrong name rather than fraud, thereby showing that the expensive scheme is quite unnecessary.

Will the Minister undertake to review in particular the costs and the value of voter authority certificates, which can be issued on request by local authorities as a form of ID? The take-up of these certificates was minimal in the general election, with many people, particularly young people, remaining unaware of them, but the costs and time involved for election officials must have been considerable.

If the Government conclude that there must still be a form of voter ID at polling stations, can the Minister confirm that the review will look at alternatives to the current scheme using the official polling card issued to every voter by electoral registration officers? When I moved an amendment to the then Elections Bill in 2022 proposing just this, I was pleased to have the support of every Labour Peer present for the vote, with none of them voting against. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, who led for the Opposition at the time, said

“we believe, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said in introducing his amendment, that the Government have simply got it wrong on requiring voter ID to be presented at polling stations”.—[Official Report, 27/4/22; col. 337.]

She and her colleagues then voted for my amendment, calling for the official polling card to be acceptable as ID—as did the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, and the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy of Southwark and Lord Khan of Burnley. I am pleased to see the latter as the Minister today; I look forward to his response as to whether he and his colleagues, now in government, remain supportive of this cost-saving and effective measure if any form of ID requirement is to be maintained.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I am sorry for any miscommunication, but what we are saying is that we want to get everything ready for the May 2025 elections. The focus is on getting the review and I am sorry if I confused noble Lords on that point. It depends what comes out of the review: depending on what it tells us, we can act on that. That is our focus.

The noble Lord. Lord Hayward, talked about the IFF research and the point that the Minister in the Commons made on this. The Elections Act 2022 included a requirement for the Secretary of State to publish an evaluation of the implementation and impact of the voter ID policy on the first local and the first two UK general elections after the Act came into force. We have therefore contracted IFF Research, an independent research organisation, to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the July 2024 general election—we would have waited much longer for an evaluation of two general elections. It is essential that we understand how the policy has operated in practice, what has gone well and where there are any areas for improvement in the future. We expect that report summarising the work on the voter ID policy in the spring of 2025.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that clarification. I seek further clarification on that point: will the political parties be consulted as part of the IFF research, so that they as well as other organisations can have input?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

The noble Lord makes an interesting point. The research is independently contracted, so that is something for IFF to consider. I reassure noble Lords that I will consult across the House on any concerns they may have around ongoing work on the report or its publication.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, raised a number of important issues. On the voter ID policy, he reminded me and my colleagues of how we voted when in opposition. I note the concerns about the policy requiring voters to show identification when voting, which is why this Government are conducting a thorough review of the voter identification rules. This will include evaluating their impact on the 2024 general election. I, too, am waiting for that review. A number of noble Lords have raised concerns, and it is right to raise concerns about all new policies to make sure that they are working in practice, promoting democracy and helping people to turn out and vote at elections. I say to all noble Lords: let us wait for that review to take place. We will carefully consider the findings and recommendations contained in both the report we have contracted and the Electoral Commission report and will bring forward a proposal in the future.

The noble Lord talked about the voter authority certificate. There is a big issue in that approximately 210,000 people applied for a voter authority certificate between January 2023, when it was launched, and 26 June 2024, which was the deadline for the UK election, but around 26,000 certificates were used as a form of ID on 4 July. It is not clear why so few electors used the VACs they applied for, so we want to conduct a review on that point of the voter identification rules, which will include the impact in 2024 of the VACs, and any changes or improvements will wait for that review to take place.

If I have not addressed any issues, I am happy to meet noble Lords about them, as we regularly do. An important point to make before I finish—I know the noble Lord will want to come back in—is that the Government are committed to improving electoral registration and addressing lower registration rates among all groups in society. Officials are working with their counterparts in the Welsh Government to learn in particular from automatic registration pilots under way there and to see how they are taking place. We will examine different approaches and use experiences from other countries to inform our decisions. My only point here is that we are waiting for the review. The Government are working on a number of improvements in this area, and that will take a bit of time as we set out our position.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I apologise for intervening again, but I seek quick clarification on a point that I raised at the end of my comments in relation to the county council elections next year. Is the Minister in a position to indicate whether all the county council elections currently scheduled will actually take place?

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

I apologise; that point was also raised by the noble Baroness opposite, and it is very important. I have just been handed a clear answer—it is exactly what I was going to say noble Lords, since I have not been informed of any plans—which is to reassure the Committee that there are no plans at the moment to cancel any elections, but if anything happens I will communicate through the usual channels of government machinery to ensure that noble Lords with a particular interest, expertise and passion in this area, over a number of years, are consulted.

We are all justifiably proud of our long history of democracy, but we should never take it for granted. The addition of the veteran card to the list of documents accepted as identification at the polling station will support this important community in engaging in the elections process and exercising their democratic rights. I hope that noble Lords will agree that these regulations provide for some important changes to our electoral rules, strengthening, widening and securing our democracy into the future. I hope they will join me in supporting the veteran community.

Representation of the People (England and Wales and Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Monday 13th May 2024 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (Baroness Scott of Bybrook) (Con)]

My Lords, in 2022, Parliament passed the Elections Act, which, among many other measures, introduced measures to amend the franchise to reflect the UK’s new relationship with the EU and protect the rights of UK citizens living in EU countries. Last year, two statutory instruments were passed, one for England and Wales and one for Northern Ireland, which flowed from that aspect of the Elections Act. These included new registration requirements for applications from EU citizens in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The majority of these changes came into effect on 7 May.

I bring forward this instrument today to amend a drafting oversight in both regulations. This instrument will correct that oversight by replacing a flawed definition, thereby implementing the original policy intention. The erroneous definition has resulted in certain EU citizens with particular combinations of nationalities being legally required to provide immaterial eligibility information when they register to vote. For example, it will require an individual with French and Commonwealth dual nationality to provide this information despite them having the same voting eligibility as someone with a single Commonwealth nationality. That should not be necessary for a qualifying Commonwealth citizen, as they have voting rights in the United Kingdom. This is because the eligibility of an individual with more than one nationality to participate in elections is established based on whichever of their nationalities grants them the greatest voting rights.

One of the primary intentions of the two current instruments was to allow EU citizens who chose to make the UK their home prior to the end of the implementation period—that is, before the UK left the EU—to continue to have the same right to vote and stand. This group of electors is referred to as “EU citizens with retained rights”. People applying to register to vote under the retained rights criteria, referred to as “relevant EU applicants”, must make a legal declaration that they meet the criteria of an EU citizen with retained rights and that they have been legally resident in the UK since the end of the implementation period.

“Relevant EU applicants” were intended to be defined as individuals who are citizens of the 19 EU member states with which the UK does not have a reciprocal voting and candidacy rights treaty, and who are not citizens of Ireland, Cyprus or Malta. These exemptions exist because Irish citizens’ UK voting rights long pre-date the EU, while the voting rights of Cypriot and Maltese citizens derive from their Commonwealth citizenship.

The five countries with which the UK has voting and candidacy rights treaties are Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland and Denmark. Citizens of those countries will not lose their voting rights in the United Kingdom. However, due to an oversight, for which I apologise, the requirement to indicate that they fulfil the retained rights criteria unintentionally applies to particular applicants with dual nationalities. The current legal definition of a “relevant EU applicant” means that citizens of the 19 relevant EU countries who also have another nationality which is British or Commonwealth, excluding Cyprus and Malta, or citizenship of a treaty partner state are legally obliged to indicate that they fulfil retained rights criteria as part of their application to register to vote, even though that answer is irrelevant to determining their eligibility.

While this issue exists in law, if an application to register to vote from a relevant dual national is received by an electoral registration officer and the applicant has not indicated that they fulfil the retained rights criteria, that application would technically be incomplete. As such, the electoral administrator would have to get in touch with the applicant to require this information, even though the answer to the question will make no difference to the outcome of their application.

In practice, this issue creates the potential for confusion among applicants, who could object on the grounds that being asked to indicate that they fulfil retained rights criteria is unreasonable. Worse, this confusion could even result in people abandoning an application to register and disenfranchising themselves. It also creates the potential for an increased administrative burden on electoral registration officers.

This new statutory instrument amends the definition of a “relevant EU applicant” in the England and Wales regulations, as well as the equivalent term used in the Northern Ireland regulations. The new instrument defines a “relevant EU applicant” as someone who is: a citizen of an EU member state; is not a citizen of an EU member state which has a treaty with the UK and/or; is not a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland. This will provide an enduring resolution to the issue, by which the affected dual nationals I referred to earlier will no longer legally be required to provide immaterial information as part of their application to register to vote. Until this instrument comes into force, measures have been put in place to minimise the extent of the issue.

Having set out the background to this statutory instrument, I hope that the Committee will appreciate the need to swiftly make the straightforward legislative amendment. It will remove the legal requirement for certain dual national applicants to provide immaterial information and revert to the original intention of the regulations. I beg to move.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to welcome my noble friend Lady Scott, back to her position. We have missed her through many SIs that we have discussed in this Room at different stages, and we are pleased to see her back. That is particularly so, because a number of people in this Committee, not least my noble friend Lady Scott, as well as the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Khan, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, helped me to pass the Ballot Secrecy Act through the Lords and the Commons. That Act was implemented for the first time at the elections on 2 May. Now that it has completed its course and been fully implemented, I express my appreciation to them for their involvement at one stage or another in achieving that legislation. I merely observe that, unfortunately, in my polling station there was no notice relating to the Ballot Secrecy Act, but I will live with that.

While that legislation was going through, I wrote to my noble friend the Minister, raising the question of comments made in a ministerial write-round. She said that she could not comment; I well understand that, and I do not expect her to do so now. However, in her absence—I am sure it is not because of it—I have since received clarification that the Electoral Commission’s counsel’s opinion was received by officials on 26 August, which was a month and three days before a ministerial write-round said that we had been given some “headline information”. However, I appreciate the clarification at last.

To come back to this SI, the noble Lords, Lord Rennard, Lord Wallace and Lord Khan, and I, met the new chief executive of the Electoral Commission a few weeks ago, and we discussed the sheer quantity of pages of statutory instruments that are being passed in relation to all elections law. This error—the Minister has acknowledged that it was an error, and that this is intended to put it put it right—indicates the sheer quantity of pages that one is dealing with. I make a request of whoever are the next Government: there is a desperate need for the consolidation of all electoral legislation. To be honest, it is a mess at the moment, which I think we all agree on. There may be slightly different interpretations on one or two matters, but there is no question but that elections law needs consolidation. In that meeting, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, identified that we had considered in Grand Committee some 1,100 pages of SIs arising out of the Elections Act. It is impossible to give adequate scrutiny to that sheer quantity of legislation, and much of it arises from the lack of consolidation.

I seek specific clarification in relation to the one point that I wanted to raise. I referred just now to the elections of 2 May but I think I heard the Minister identify that this did not apply on 2 May. I think I heard her refer to the date of 7 May in terms of implementation, in which case my supplementary question becomes otiose—that is, did it have any implications for 2 May? Can my noble friend confirm that she used that date? I conclude with that question.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, and I commend the enormous amount of work that he does in the whole area of electoral space.

It is customary to thank the Minister for explaining; on this occasion, I say that with particular passion, because this is a very complicated SI, and the circumstances that led to its being necessary were clearly very complicated. As the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, just said, that is a reflection of how difficult it is both for electoral returning officers, but even more so for voters or potential voters—people out there on the street—to understand what is happening.

I assume that this situation came to light when people were affected, so I wonder whether we know how many people were affected by the circumstance that this is correcting. Looking at the list of countries here—Malta, Cyprus, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Luxembourg and Ireland—when I knock on doors and note the view on the street, most people who are not engaged in day-to-day politics have a general view that “since Brexit, European citizens don’t have a vote”. I think that this view is very widely held. What will the Government do, with a general election forthcoming, to ensure that all those who have a right to exercise their vote, as residents of the UK with these various criteria, have a chance to know this as individuals and will encounter the right answers if they ask questions at their local council office or other relevant place?

Councillors: Publication of Addresses

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, we have already enacted one of the recommendations from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, about candidates, but, as I said before, the issue of local councillors is more difficult, as we need primary legislation to change that. We are keeping our eye on when we can do it.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased that my noble friend referred to democracy in general. Although we are here specifically discussing local councillors, is it not worth bearing in mind that, for example, Members of the House of Lords and other people in the public eye have faced threats? When discussing this with other government departments, we need to bear in mind the loneliness of families who are living in identifiable locations—their home addresses and the like—when their relatives or spouses are away in this or other places.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

As far as families are concerned, my noble friend is absolutely right. That is why they are mentioned under the “sensitive interests” provision and protected in the same way as councillors. As far as the House of Lords and Peers are concerned, I will take that back to the relevant House officials.

Electoral Commission Strategy and Policy Statement

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, I shall try to confine my remarks to the policy statement that is the subject of this Motion and not go off-piste into various aspects of election funding, as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, did.

I welcome the Government’s Electoral Commission Strategy and Policy Statement, and I am completely mystified by the fuss about it. For several years, the Government have been issuing strategy and policy statements to public bodies. This is one way of correcting a serious imbalance that unelected quangos have created in our constitution. Over the years, more and more public bodies have taken over functions once carried out by the Government, but the accountability mechanisms that acted as checks and balances on those bodies were often weak.

Where bodies such as the Electoral Commission have operational independence from the Executive, such independence must be accompanied by strong accountability —precisely because the Executive have few powers in relation to such bodies. For example, there is no power of direction over the Electoral Commission, for good reasons. Its independence increases, rather than diminishes, the need for effective accountability. The statement is aimed at this accountability.

I am sure that all noble Lords value the work of the Electoral Commission in ensuring that there is full confidence in the electoral system. It is not, however, a perfect institution—as my noble friend Lord Pickles laid out in his 2016 report on electoral fraud. The Electoral Commission was in denial about its failure to deal with electoral fraud in Tower Hamlets. My noble friend recommended—rightly, in my view—that the commission’s accountability mechanisms should be improved.

Many of us still feel aggrieved that the Electoral Commission appeared to treat organisations which campaigned for Brexit in a manner that can at best be described as high-handed. The Electoral Commission was found to be at fault in the case of Mr Darren Grimes, who won his appeal against an improperly imposed fine.

So let us not pretend that this is a body that does not need to be accountable, or that the system originally set up involving the Speaker’s Committee was perfect. The strategy and policy statement, together with a widening of the role of the Speaker’s Committee, was the Government’s chosen course of action. It was debated extensively, in particular in your Lordships’ House, when the Elections Act 2022 was passed. To a large extent, the negative responses to this statement are rerunning those debates. But the plain fact is that Parliament has already decided to give the Government a wide power to issue the statement. The statement in no way changes the statutory remit and duties of the Electoral Commission. It merely sets out the Government’s priorities for the electoral system, which are in themselves uncontroversial. The Electoral Commission merely must have regard to them and report against them.

The Government have been clear that the language of the statement, including the word “should”, does not impinge on the Electoral Commission’s operational independence. They have been clear throughout and have added considerable clarification to the final version of the statement to secure that.

The Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee of your Lordships’ House rightly drew the attention of the House to the draft statement on the back of the views expressed by the Speaker’s Committee and the chairman of the Levelling Up Committee in the other place, during the Government’s second consultation. It is important to note that the meeting at which the Speaker’s Committee reached its views was somewhat unbalanced. There are 10 members of the Speaker’s Committee, including Mr Speaker himself. Of the remaining nine members, five are Conservatives, three are Labour and one is SNP. Three of the Conservatives are DLUHC Ministers, and they recused themselves—so the report comes from a body with an unusual political balance. In addition, the chairman of the Levelling Up Committee is a member of the Speaker’s Committee, and so seems to have counted twice in the balance of opinion.

I urge noble Lords to support the statement. The Government have a legitimate role in setting out policy priorities for our electoral system. Opposing the statement would create an accountability void around an important public body.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, first, I apologise to the House because I will speak for longer than I would normally do in such debates. Secondly, if there are any Latin scholars in the Chamber, it would be useful for the latter part of my speech if they could let me know the plural of “Spartacus”. I hope this will become clear.

This is a bittersweet moment, as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said. For those of us who participated in the debate on the Elections Bill, the contribution of Lord Judge was truly—and I can use only one word, a modern phraseology—awesome. Whether you agreed or disagreed, it was a joy to sit and listen to it. I happened to agree with it and found it a fascinating experience. I am so sorry that he is not here now.

I said that this moment is bittersweet because in the speech I made after Lord Judge’s, I balanced the difficulties of airing criticism of the Electoral Commission that pertained at that time. I have never been so publicly critical of any organisation as I was on that occasion. I described it as “institutionally arrogant”. Therefore, I have sympathy with what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, just said—but it applied to a different Electoral Commission. The personnel have changed substantially. I pay credit to its current chair John Pullinger and its previous chief executive Shaun McNally for turning it around to become an organisation it would now be impossible to describe in those words. It is efficient and effective and responds to queries very quickly. I will come to that in a moment.

I listened to the debate on this subject in the other House. On several occasions, the Minister referred to the wording in the document we are debating as “benign”. Everything is benign in the hands of those who are benign, but if you happen to be malign you can use the words that may appear benign to others and dramatically change the whole process—that is what I fear.

However, I will give the body of my speech over to something that is the responsibility of several bodies, including the Electoral Commission: opinion polls which are anonymously funded and set out specifically to influence politics in one form or another.

Democracy in this country is strong. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and I agree on many things, but I wish he would not cite a number of things that relate to other matters in one form or another. However, I am not going to take issue with those matters because I will cover an issue on which I think he and I and a number of Members of this House strongly agree. It is the recent YouGov Telegraph poll. As far as I am concerned, it is antidemocratic. We have a strong democracy. We want to maintain it in one form or another. The noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Khan, and I may view differently certain elements of our electoral law, but I think everybody in this Chamber wants to protect the strong democracy we have in this country, the openness that is available for all of us to express views whatever they may happen to be. We can disagree, but we should disagree courteously, listen to the alternatives and then go forward, but you disagree openly. What you do not do is start funding opinion polls where there is no accountable source of money, because there is a risk in going down that path that the whole basis of our democracy falls into disrepute, and the actions that we have seen in recent weeks could be picked up by many other people.

As I think many Members of this House will know, I wrote to the Electoral Commission and the UK Statistics Authority asking them to look at the issue, but not only should they look at the issue but the other four parties—that is “parties” with a small “p”—involved also need to look at the issues. One of those parties is us as legislators. Are the legislation and the regulation correct so that they give the Electoral Commission and the UK Statistics Authority the ability to comment on opinion polls in one form or another?

The second group I shall comment on is YouGov, as the pollsters. I think it has learned its lesson from its experience. I think it was—to put it politely—unwise to accept the questions it put out to the public. It was certainly unwise to accept that the questions were being asked and paid for by an organisation which had no apparent structure. It beggars belief that it could be in a position whereby an organisation was created overnight, it had no evidence of who was funding it and it then went ahead with a set of opinion polls in the form that it did. I think YouGov has learned the lesson, but one comment I would make to YouGov at this point is that when the bills are paid, it should hand over the details of the sources of that money to the Electoral Commission for investigation. It does not have to be a public investigation, but it should be fully investigated.

Then we come to the Daily Telegraph, the newspaper that exposed MPs’ expenses. Day after day, it said it was the duty of the paper to identify what the public did not have sight of. If that was the case in 2008-09, one might ask why it is not the same responsibility in 2024 to identify what goes on in private in one form or another.

The British Polling Council has a difficult job— I used to serve as the head of a trade association; you set the rules for members, but there may be recalcitrant members who cannot or choose not to follow the rules—but I think the British Polling Council should look carefully at what has happened in recent weeks. I have already indicated the UK Statistics Authority.

Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Khan of Burnley, following his excellent speech. I have just one additional point to add to this discussion. The argument is that these are British citizens and they should be entitled to vote. The thing about the way the rules will work in practice is that they will tend to be older voters, many of whom may even be past retirement age.

The issue I want to raise is frozen pensions. I am particularly pleased to see in his place the noble Viscount, Lord Younger, who is the relevant Minister. We have discussed these issues before. We have a Government who seem to think it appropriate for these people to have a vote, but who do not think it appropriate for them to have the pension increases they have paid for. It is a total lottery. If they live in the US, they get pension increases; if they live in Canada, they do not. If they live in New Zealand, they get increases; if they live in Australia, they do not.

The whole system is irrational—as rational as if the noble Viscount came to this House and tried to persuade us not to pay pension increases to people who live in Yorkshire. They are all British citizens; that is the basis of this proposal. My question for the Minister is, what logic is there in giving many British citizens who live abroad a vote if you are not going to give them their pension increases?

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, we were, I think, discussing the statutory instruments that relate to overseas voters and their registration, rather than a range of other matters. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, took us down a series of other paths. I will pick up on two or three of them very quickly. On voter ID, a resolution was passed by this House, proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in a previous debate, whereby that process would be reviewed. Equally, the noble Lord made reference to a process that applies in the statutory instrument which is rarely used in this country but is already in law. Therefore, it is not unreasonable that this application should be extended elsewhere.

The noble Lord referred to postal votes in Australia and other parts of the world arriving after the actual polling date. I think I am correct in saying that in many of those domains, such votes have to be date stamped before or on the actual election day, so there is no extension to the election period by that application.

Returning to the SIs themselves, in any process of trying to extend the entitlement to vote, there is a risk that you reduce the level of security of voting. That is inevitable. Whether it is postal votes, an extended period of voting, votes abroad or whatever it may be, there is an increased risk. The question is, how do you find that balance between extension and security of the ballot? These SIs apply the process that was established under the Elections Act a few months ago. Therefore, I do not see a particular issue with them.

On the question of trying to achieve some form of financial largesse, I wish that the noble Lords, Lord Khan and Lord Rennard, had been present—as I think my noble friend Lord Mott and other noble Lords will have been—at meetings of overseas Conservatives, who were certainly not promising vast quantities of money in return for the opportunity to vote. It was just a genuine desire for the opportunity for a vote in a country to which, as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, acknowledged, those people who are most likely to register do still feel committed.

The concentration is naturally on national elections, but we should also be conscious of local elections. As the Pickles report identified, if those have insecure systems, you are far more likely to end up with a corrupt and influenced local authority, many of which have huge budgets, than at a national election, where it would be much more difficult to overturn the result by the levels of registration, which, to be honest, I expect. However, if the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, is taken up—Members of Parliament having constituencies around the world—I am sure that a number of people would be happy to represent Spain, the Canary Islands or France, for example, rather than some of the domains they have in this country. I say that in respect of all sides of the House, not necessarily this side alone.

I will not be supporting the amendment. I approach all these matters with great consideration because they are important, and my reasoning is twofold. First, as I see it, these SIs implement the process that was approved by the Elections Act. They do not result in an undue threat. There are other processes and aspects of election law which are far bigger threats than this. Cyberattacks have been referred to, as has AI in one form or another, along with dubious registration and intimidation.

Two aspects are particularly important. First, as I think Members on all sides of the House agree, electoral law is a complete mess and needs to be consolidated quickly, so that we do not face the problems we do. Secondly, there is the burden imposed on elections administrators, which has also been alluded to. When I was young and an election occurred, you registered and did everything months or years in advance. Now, there is an elections event, which takes place over three weeks, and everything is concentrated into it. We should not underestimate the burden imposed on elections administrators in any number of different ways. If our elections system fails, it will be because our electoral law is inadequately clear—it is a mess—or because the administrators just cannot cope.

It is for those reasons that I will be supporting the Government’s Motion and not the amendment.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, appears to accept that this proposal constitutes a threat to our electoral system, but he says that there are far more severe threats and therefore, among other reasons, he will not support the amendment. I congratulate my noble friend on raising this issue; he is right to do so.

As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, has done, I would like to point out the danger that this proposal could lead to a vast amount of work for electoral registration officers, as we have seen already. It is certainly quite a weighty SI. I go back in history to the time in the late 1960s when Roy Hattersley first made a concession in this area. Since that time, this thin end of the wedge has been increased and expanded massively.

I would like to hear from the Government whether there has been evidence of fraud as this overseas franchise has developed over the years, and the extent of that fraud. As has been rightly pointed out, the further away you are from the UK geographically, the more likely it is that it is very difficult to verify statements that you make. You can get a friend, perhaps of long standing when you have been abroad for a long time, to do that.

General Elections: Party-political Spending

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

Perhaps the noble Lord will be reassured that a process of consultation went on in regard to uprating these spending limits. Members of the Parliamentary Parties Panel were first consulted by the Cabinet Office in 2020. Since then, we have uprated the limits for local government elections, which I believe has passed without problem. In September 2022, the Government again wrote to members of the panel. There is a need for change; some of these limits have not changed for over 20 years. We are simply restoring the levels that were previously set out in law by Parliament.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, in relation to the last question, the accusations of providing money in dubious circumstances have applied to all political parties, unfortunately, at one point in recent years or another. I refer my noble friend back to the answer that she gave. She identified that the limits have changed in local government; we are now looking at limits in national elections. Does that not confirm that it is about time that we looked at consolidating all election law so that we do not have to deal with these things in different stages? I am not asking my noble friend to make a commitment to do so, but I ask her to acknowledge and take the message back.

[Baroness Penn (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that the procedure for uprating spending limits has to be done through multiple statutory instruments because different procedures are attached to different limits for different elections. I know that he has been a great advocate for simplifying and consolidating electoral law. I am sure that he will continue to advocate that, and I very much look forward to engaging with him on it.

Recall Petitions: Voter ID

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, there are many reasons why those people did not vote at that time. The Electoral Commission made clear in its interim report that it was satisfied, and it said that it needed further time for further evidence. Let us wait until November, as we said in legislation that we would, when we will get both the qualitative and the quantitative evidence.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I do not agree on this occasion with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, and her comments about recall petitions. As I understand the law, there is a requirement that 10% of the electorate sign the petition, but the petition stays open ad infinitum until the conclusion of the period, despite the fact that the 10% threshold may have been met after five, six or seven days. Is there not a need to review the recall petition legislation in order to avoid unnecessary cost and duration of this process?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

No, my Lords, I think my noble friend is wrong in this case. The Government feel that recall petitions should remain open even when the 10% threshold has been reached, mainly because if somebody gets a letter saying that they have a right to sign a petition, it should not be closed until the time given in that letter, and they should have their right to sign.

Elections: Voter ID

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Tuesday 13th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

We took the good practice from Northern Ireland that has been in place for 20 years and we thought that it was correct and right for the integrity of our democratic system to bring it across the whole of the United Kingdom.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the comment that my noble friend made in relation to the Electoral Commission report, which is due in the next few days, but is she aware of the Democracy Volunteers report, already published, which would appear to indicate deficiencies in terms of communications and publicity, particularly with the ethnic communities, and also, as indicated previously, that certain returning officers did not have adequate information as to what photo ID was acceptable at polling stations?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am certainly well aware of that report and we will take into account any comments made and any evidence in it. We will also be doing quite a lot of talking to people who went into those polling stations and taking their views as we move through the review. What I have to say is that some local authorities were exceptional at reaching out to their communities in many different ways in order to ensure that people had full access to their polling stations We need to use that best practice across the whole of the local government sector.

Voter Authority Certificates

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

It does not sound like normal practice. If the noble Baroness would like to give me some further details, I will look into it. I cannot discuss an individual case.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to thank noble Lords on all sides who supported the passage of the Ballot Secrecy Act, which was given Royal Assent a few moments ago. Further to this particular Question, can I ask my noble friend to re-emphasise the fact that those people who return, having previously been refused the ballot, will be recorded as well, so that there will be a clear record not only of those who are turned away but who return?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Yes, I am happy to repeat that: those who return with voter ID will be recorded.