Elections (Fresh Signatures for Absent Voters) Regulations 2013

Lord Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. His speech provided dignity, if not poetry, to the bureaucratic vocabulary and procedure. Refreshing signatures means that we wish to avoid fraud. I would say to the Minister that if we put Wales into a statutory instrument, would we not expect, for the sake of accountability, to be given the full details concerning Wales in the debate in this Committee? The Minister attempted to gain an alibi of the best kind in what he said. I picked that up and I make my protest as gently, honourably and courteously as I can, knowing that he always brings nobility and dignity to our procedures.

I want to raise a point of detail concerning the refreshment and checking of signatures. What is the process here? Does an employee of a local authority literally match the signatures, or is it done by mechanical means? Is it possible for us to be given an explanation of how the signatures are handled? After all, that is the basis of what the Minister has brought before the Committee. I am sure that his department will have spotted such a question coming from noble Lords, and I think it is a reasonable request. In order to make progress, I shall sit down.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the indulgence of the Committee in order to congratulate the Minister not only on having sung at the Queen’s Coronation 60 years ago, but on his role in the Abbey today to commemorate that occasion. I am sorry that we are not seeing him in all his glory this afternoon. When I was a student, we used to move that the minister “do now sing”; maybe I should not do that.

On the two statutory instruments, including the one for Wales, one of the questions is quite similar to one raised by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves: how many absent votes does the Minister estimate are covered by each of these two SIs? In other words, how many that would normally be written out in Wales and England are covered by this?

Related to that, what is the Government’s assessment of the number of likely renewals, particularly given that these are going out in the August holiday period? That has been a worry for the Electoral Commission, and is a worry as, not only is your Lordships’ House on holiday during the first two weeks of August, but so are many other people.

Although the word “stakeholders” was used by the Minister, what is the view of the political parties of this proposal? As I mentioned before in Committee, they are rather expert on all of this, as has been evidenced by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, this afternoon.

In the form that will go out on the mere matter of the refreshment of the signatures, will there be any advance notice about the move to individual electoral registration? In other words, is it part of the preparation that is being made? I know that the Electoral Commission still has some concerns over the October 2013 annual canvass date and what impact it might have on absent voters. We would be interested to know what the Government’s response to the issue raised by the Electoral Commission has been. In general, however, we support the regulations and the order.

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The noble Lord, Lord Jones, asked about the process. It is IT-based. The original postal voter identifiers from the applications are scanned into a system designed for this. When a postal vote is sent in, the postal vote statement with it has space for a signature and a date of birth. It is scanned and the signature and date of birth are electronically matched or not matched. If they are not matched, a person then checks them manually to confirm whether there is a mismatch, and by “manually” I do not mean, as Peter Sellers once said, once a year.

[Lord Jones]

The noble Lord’s speech is coming to a conclusion, but I mentioned Wales to him. Has he had any consultation with the Government in Cardiff about how they would respond to this debate?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have regular consultation with the authorities in Cardiff, and I am sure that we will continue to interact with them and, indeed, with the Scottish authorities in a rather different capacity. I discovered over the course of dealing with the Bill, and now the Act, that there is a very tight sub-community of electoral administrators who love talking to each other, who love talking to visitors at some length about the work they do and who work extremely hard, which means that interaction with them is very easy because they are very willing to help and explain.

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[Lord Jones]

The Minister now speaks poetry.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord. There were a number of questions and some of the answers are coming at me from the Box faster than I can absorb them. I was asked whether it would be inconvenient for the signature refresh to be run during August. We recognise that it is not ideal, but it is essential that absent voter signatures are refreshed before the earliest time that EROs may start the 2013 annual canvass, which we have previously agreed will be from 1 October. For reasons that I have explained, the Electoral Commission has indicated that it is content with the policy objective and the drafting of the signature refresh regulations. We will, of course, monitor very carefully how this goes through, and if there is too much difficulty or too much failure to respond, we may have to adapt and try again. I rehearsed previously the reasons why we wish to start the household canvass earlier.

We are managing this transition very carefully and actively. I stress again that we see this as an all-party concern. We all want to achieve a new register that is as accurate and complete as possible in England, Scotland and Wales.