(1 year, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberThe procedure we are going to follow is to engage the committees, as I explained, because they can do a good job in bringing together the views of parliamentarians on the Cabinet Manual. Obviously, in due course the revised manual will become available, but the first step will be to consult the committees. The noble Baroness, Lady Drake —I am not sure whether she is in her place—led a very good debate in the autumn on this matter. We will also consult key academics. As the noble Baroness said, it is a great pity that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, is not in his place. However, I make the point that the Cabinet Manual records rules and practices; it is not intended to be the source of new rules.
My Lords, will the noble Baroness confirm that the duty on Ministers to adhere to the constitutional principles of the Cabinet Manual will be included in its foreword when it is next produced?
I will check to see whether that is intended, but I will certainly look very positively at the point the noble Lord has made, and, indeed, at the Seven Principles of Public Life. Having now had to study the Cabinet Manual, I think it provides a very important landscape that references various bits of guidance such as the Ministerial Code and the Civil Service Code, which are also important in their own right. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, explained, these tend to be amended a little more frequently.
I share the noble Lord’s concerns about delays to answering Parliamentary Questions, which we all try to do our best to answer in time. When departments get behind, we are rightly chided, and I will certainly look at the point. The Cabinet Manual is perhaps a little broader and more strategic, but that is not a reason not to make sure that we are respecting Parliament through the speed with which we answer Questions, which we all find so useful in keeping us up to date on many matters.
My Lords, that is a very interesting point. I have tabled Written Questions, asked Oral Questions and received Answers which I am sure were given in good faith, only for someone else then to make an FoI request and for different information to come back, which was then sent to me. The Minister acted perfectly properly, but it cannot be right for an FoI request to give different information from that in the response to a Written Question or Oral Question. Can the Minister look at that?
If the noble Lord would be kind enough to share the example with me, as I look after FoI requests and many Parliamentary Questions, I will see what happened.
(2 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, first, as other noble Lords have done, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, and her committee for the work they have done to produce the report for debate here. I also pay tribute to Lord Shutt. I knew him well; I used to enjoy our conversations in the House; he was liked and respected by everybody in the House and we all miss him. We are all poorer for him not being with us and the tributes we have heard today from across the House, and the tributes to the work he did on this report, just show the affection in which he was held by all of us and the good work he did. I want to record that tribute to him.
There are many excellent points raised in the report that I think the Government should reflect upon, not only in their response to the report in 2020 but on the back of this debate. It is ironic that we are putting the economic crime Bill through the House at this very moment—it will be law next week—in which we are seeking to deal with all sorts of issues, including dirty money coming into the UK and so forth, and then we have what was formerly called the electoral integrity Bill, now the Elections Bill, which makes it legal for people to donate money to political parties even when they departed our shores 20, 25 or 30 or even 35 years ago. I think there is some irony in that.
In my previous roles as a full-time official for the Labour Party and as an Electoral Commissioner, I have dealt with government departments, Ministers in the coalition and Ministers in the Labour Government and commission officials. My overarching intent always has been that we have clean and fair elections in this country—I want to win elections, but I am happy to lose an election if it is clean and it is fair. The electoral register has to be as complete and as accurate as possible, so that the people of the United Kingdom can go out and vote for the party that they want to form the next Government. When changes are made to electoral processes and procedures, there must be as much buy-in from all the political parties as possible. The state should be doing everything that it can to facilitate well-run elections and complete and accurate registers.
I like the noble Lord, Lord True, very much and he is a very good man—a man of integrity and a man of principle—and I always enjoy our conversations outside of the House. But today, I make a plea to the Minister, with the opportunities that the Elections Bill offers and the issues there, to get around the table to discuss the serious concerns that I and people in other parties have about aspects of that Bill and to work with us. It is totally wrong that we end up passing legislation that whole sections of this House think is totally wrong. We must, where we can, have changes to electoral law with as much buy-in as possible from everybody. So I hope the Minister will do that when we get on to the Bill again next week—I am sure he will.
As others have mentioned, the Government introduced the Electoral Registration and Administration Act to reduce opportunities to commit electoral fraud through the registration system. In June 2020, the committee published the report that we are debating today: An Electoral System Fit for Today? More to be Done. The committee’s view is that the new electoral system introduced by the 2013 Act has worked well, but it has also brought challenges: particularly the administrative burdens of managing the system at election times and maintaining accurate and complete registers. The committee also set out further steps that should be taken to prevent electoral fraud as a matter of urgency and made some key recommendations.
The government response in September 2020 welcomed the report and outlined other steps that the Government have since taken to improve the registration system, as well as their future priorities such as the introduction of voter ID. The Government responded to each recommendation of the paper except for those that fall within the responsibility of the Electoral Commission or devolved Governments. Despite the recommendation of the committee, the Government refused to bring forward targets to increase the number of people who are registered to vote—which I think is very disappointing.
We know that the Elections Bill is bringing forward voter ID and other measures, but I fear that, as other noble Lords have said, we are seeking to solve a problem that is very limited in its scope. There is not widespread evidence of electoral fraud—there has been one or two; I accept that entirely—but, as I mentioned, there was only one prosecution from the 2019 election. Regarding these plans, I worry about the risk of denying people their right to vote. I accept the point that the Government are going to make available cards for voter ID, but I worry that people—particularly elderly people, those on low incomes, ethnic minority voters and others—are at risk of losing their vote. I look forward to the Minister setting out what the Government are going to do to ensure that I am wrong and that is not the case. Voter impersonation, as I have said, is not the issue that some people have suggested it is in our country: there was one person in 2019. You are more likely to be struck by lightning than to be a victim of electoral fraud.
I cannot think of a single election that we can point to that has been undermined due to mass fraud. So why are the Government spending millions of pounds to fix this problem? Can we also see what the Government are doing to ensure that we have the most complete and accurate electoral register as possible? I look forward to the Minister setting that out for us.
I also want to look carefully at a number of points that other noble Lords have made. I agree with the points that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, made about the pressure burden on electoral registration officers. I think that he is absolutely right: there are huge pressures, as the report mentions, particularly at the time of elections. Maybe it is time for us to have a conversation about how we organise that service—there should be a different way of doing it. It has obviously grown up as something delivered by local authorities, so maybe we should ask if that is right for the future. Should something different be done? We should have a conversation about that.
The noble Lord, Lord Desai, quite rightly drew the attention of the House to how, in many respects, our processes are still quite Victorian and that, with all these fantastic changes we have in technology, very few of them are actually applied to electoral registration. That is something that maybe we need to look at as well. I certainly think we should look at the question of technology.
My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours again made a point about fraud, and I agree with him.
I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Janvrin, who talked about the citizen’s civic duty, which is absolutely right—it is your duty to go out and vote. It is the duty of the state to facilitate you getting on to the register to enable you to do that, so I feel that is a very good point.
The point about the use of data is really important as well. Are we sure that we are doing everything that we possibly can, within legal confines, to make use of the data that local authorities and government agencies hold to get people on the register? Let us be clear: we all accept, I think, that there is an underregistration problem in this country, not an overregistration problem—no one has ever suggested that. There are millions of people who should, and could, be entitled to vote but who are not on the register, so we need to make sure that we get that right.
My noble friend Lord Mann gave the House important ideas on how to get people who want to vote and how they could vote—what about disabled people? Again, I am sure that the Minister will take those points back.
Again, that goes back to the point that I made earlier about resources. How are we going to ensure that the electoral registration service is properly resourced and does not get itself into difficulties with all the other pressure that local government is under?
I said earlier that I was a member of the Electoral Commission—I was for four years—but I am going to be a bit critical of the Electoral Commission now, because I do not think the commission has done enough to stand up for the registration process. It could have done more, and it should do more. I was always a bit frustrated that the commission would often send out these forms to the EROs, which was a tick-box thing. It should do more, and I hope it will do more to add its voice to the defence of the electoral registration system and ensure that we get more people to vote—it has not done that, but I hope that it will do more in the future. I think that is the right thing to do.
I have made this plea from the Dispatch Box before—and I know other noble Lords have as well—but reform of electoral law is long overdue. We are going to pass another Bill in the next few weeks that will bolt another piece of legislation on, but the whole system is desperately in need of reform, review and consolidation. I live in hope that we will see that in the next Queen’s Speech. Certainly, the Government need to get a grip on this because bolting other bits on all the time is not the way to do it. We are desperately in need of a review there, as we are for the simplification of the electoral process—the committee talked about options such as an online checking tool—and the inefficiencies we have heard about in the debate today. I certainly read the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and others about what we need to do there.
Reference was also made in the debate to good international examples, and I think we should always be prepared to look at what goes on abroad and learn from there. Canada was mentioned as a place where good practice is taking place. We should look at the good practices there and be able to take that on board.
I thought my noble friend Lady Blower made a really important point about young people. She is absolutely right: young people, at an early age, should understand the voting system, your duty as a citizen to participate in the electoral system and how to get on to the electoral register, so that when they reach the age to vote, they know exactly what their rights and responsibilities are. Like the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lady Blower, I regret the fact that Bite the Ballot lost its funding. I have sat in this Chamber and heard government Ministers rightly praise Bite the Ballot, but the Government then took its funding away. That is a ridiculous situation to be in, so I hope that that will be looked at and that, in future, we will get to a situation where either it is brought back or another organisation like it is funded to work specifically with young people so that they understand their rights and responsibilities.
I will leave my remarks there. I think this is a very good report. My plea to the noble Lord is sincerely meant; I really am worried about the Elections Bill. I hope we can get around the table and look at those issues, because whenever we make changes to our electoral system or processes, getting the most buy-in from the parties is paramount. Our democracy is precious, and we should insure and protect it.
(2 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I thank your Lordships’ House for its expertise and careful work on the Bill. It has again demonstrated the constitutional, legal and political expertise that makes this House such a remarkable revising Chamber. The Government have valued those exchanges, as have I. I particularly thank the noble Baroness, Lady Smith of Basildon, the noble Lords, Lord Kennedy of Southwark, Lord Wallace of Saltaire and Lord Butler of Brockwell, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, and the Front Benches for their co-operation and discussions.
We disagreed on the question of whether there should be a role for the other place over Dissolution. However, although we do not believe it is good practice for this place to seek to dictate procedure in the other place, we will of course now properly await their further opinion on this point. The Government will oppose your Lordships’ amendment in the other place, for all the reasons that I set out during the passage of the Bill. Our intention was to repeal the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and that remains our intention.
In conclusion, I thank the dedicated Bill team for its hard work over so many months, which I am sure was appreciated by colleagues on all sides. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part for their dedication in scrutinising the Bill and for their courtesy in our many meetings. It has been an honour to assist the Bill’s passage and serve your Lordships, and I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Smith of Basildon, who is unable to be with us this morning as she is having a briefing at the moment, I thank the noble Lord for his usual courtesy in dealing with the House and for taking this Bill through it. I also thank the Bill team for the meetings that took place. As he said, we have had scrutinised the Bill well and made one change. We have sent that back to the other place, and we will wait for it to come back to us, and then we will have further debates on that. I know my noble friend is very grateful for the co-operation we have received on the Bill going through. I sat in on many of the debates, and the other Benches were fascinating to listen to. I think we have done our job well and properly, and we await the decision of the other place. I give our thanks to the noble Lord, other Members, the officials and the team in the Labour Whips’ Office for what they did.
My Lords, I add my thanks. It is important that we conduct legislation in the House, and off the Floor in between the different stages, in the way we did on this Bill and I hope will do also on the Elections Bill—a much longer and more complex Bill. Indeed, we discovered on Second Reading of that Bill yesterday that abolishing the fixed terms for Parliament has knock-on effects for third-party campaigning—a point made in yesterday’s debate. We in this House often deal with the complex interdependence of different aspects of the rules that govern our democracy. There will be a rising tide of opinion inside and outside Parliament that we need to look at some of these things fairly soon together, rather than in one chunk after another. I regret to repeat—the Minister will hear it yet again—that I did agree with the part of the Conservative manifesto that said there should be a constitutional commission. I hope it will be in the next Conservative manifesto, and I hope it will be in the manifestos of other parties and that it will then happen. Having said that, I look forward with interest to how the Commons will respond to the Lords amendment, and perhaps it will return here.
(2 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that it does not have to be agreed by Parliament, but the Cabinet Manual is a really interesting document. I remember when it came out; other noble Lords might remember it as well. I believe it was triggered and inspired by the then Government and the then Cabinet Secretary, who is a Member of this House. It is a pity that he is not here because he could play a big part in the short debate that we are having on this question.
For those who have never seen it, it was a fascinating document because it encapsulated the conventions that had existed for many years but had never been codified in any way. It was very useful. I feel very sorry, incidentally, that, for a debate such as this, the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, is not here to take part. Our debates would be hugely enriched by having him here; of course, he coined one of the phrases of recent times, the “good chaps theory of government”. Many of the things that we have been discussing have illustrated ways in which people feel that we are departing from that theory and we are discovering that our constitution is capable of being abused. I do not want to go back over history, but we would not have had the discussion that we had about Clause 3 and references to the Miller case without that being an obvious example, and there are others.
Of course, this will not be pressed to a Division tonight, but a great deal more attention should be paid to the Cabinet Manual. I am rather unclear as to how it could be revised and who would be involved in doing it. A noble Lord said earlier that we were talking about where power lies in our constitution. When I visited a school recently, I recommended that the students read the Cabinet Manual, or at least have it to hand, because if they wanted to understand our constitution, that was an essential part of it. The sixth-formers looked at me rather blankly and I do not blame them in the slightest. That does not mean to say that I was wrong, because it still is very important. I am not sure how it could be updated, but it would be a very good thing. It is rather like when Gandhi was asked what he thought of civilisation in Britain and he replied, “Well, I think it would be a very good thing.”
Nevertheless, I support the spirit of the amendment and I would be interested to know whether we are going to come back to this on Report. If so, I hope to play a modest part in the debate at that stage.
I just want to say how much I enjoyed my noble friend’s speech. I very much agree with his points and those of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. The Cabinet Manual is an important document. It is a government document, not a parliamentary one, but we need to ensure that it is used properly and respected. That is a very important point to make.
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Grand CommitteeMy Lords, I support the regulations. As the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the Minister said, they do not need a huge amount of discussion. They are very welcome, as they will enable people to have further opportunities to participate in the elections in May, and I welcome them.
The noble Lord, Lord Naseby, had a valid point when he drew attention to the fact that these regulations have a sunset clause coming up next February. We all want to ensure that the pandemic is long gone when we get to May 2022 but of course we cannot guarantee that—so why do have the sunset clause? I am assuming that, if the pandemic has not gone by next May—if we have a third or fourth wave—the Government will have to introduce something like these regulations again. We do not want that but it may have to happen, and that is a fair point.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, raised Woking Borough Council. I have had involvement with Woking Borough Council before and I know that this is not the first time that this authority has decided to do its own thing, as it were. It is not right for local authorities, EROs or any other official of a council to think that they can act beyond the law as agreed by Parliament. The situation is that nobody needs to provide this information and Woking Borough Council is acting beyond its powers. I hope that the Electoral Commission, and the Government, will make it very clear to the council that it cannot do this and that it has to act strictly within the regulations as approved by Parliament —no more, no less.
As I said, this is not the first time this authority has done this, and I do not think that any other authority behaves like this. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord True, has confirmed to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, what the situation is. I hope the Government can speak to the authority and make it very clear that it should not and cannot do what it is doing. In fact, the authority knows that it cannot do this, because, as the noble Lord said, it is in the small print that people do not need to provide that information. That confirms that the council knows that it should not be doing this. For me, that is poor practice, or sharp practice, and not something that any of us in this Committee would support.
Having said that, I fully support the regulations before the Grand Committee.
(3 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interest on the register as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. As other noble Lords have, I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, on his excellent maiden speech. I wish him well in his time in this House. We will probably not agree on a number of issues, but I look forward to getting to know him and taking part in debates with him on important issues, as we both want to see our United Kingdom prosper in the years ahead. Even if you do not agree with other noble Lords, you can and should have respect for colleagues and the positions they are taking and advancing, and seek to understand those positions. In my nearly 11 years in this House, I have enjoyed the ability to work across the House and parties, and with Cross-Bench and non-aligned Members, to come up with sensible solutions to the problems that the United Kingdom faces, which we need to address.
I was delighted to learn that the noble Lord is a Shakespearean scholar. I have a love of Shakespeare. When I was elected at Southwark Council, my first vote as a councillor was to get Shakespeare’s Globe started and built in Bankside in Southwark, the borough in which I grew up and from which I take my title.
I am happy to give my full support to the two orders before us. First on the Welsh forms order, the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, made valid points about the use of the Welsh language and ensuring that it develops and deepens in the community. The order adds to that aim, so I support it. We must always support all languages spoken in our islands. It is right, as the Explanatory Memorandum tells us, that the official forms for the police and crime commissioners are also provided in Welsh.
My noble friend Lord Hain made some valid points about the huge number of elections taking place on the same day across the United Kingdom. Like him, I would have preferred to see more consideration given to the use of all postal votes in some elections, as the Welsh Government suggested, but this has not been able to move forward and we are instead having elections as we are now, but it is important that we ensure that as many people as possible participate. The order seeks to ensure consistency with other elections held in Wales, which has its own discrete elections.
The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, highlighted that the turnout at PCC elections is still too low and I very much agree. The noble Lord, Lord Hannan of Kingsclere, made the point that the name may not be right. I too am not convinced that “police and crime commissioner” is correct. We had many debates on that in this House, but I am also not sure that “sheriff” is right either. Sheriffs have judicial office in Scotland and there are still ceremonial sheriffs appointed throughout England and Wales, the most famous being the sheriff of Nottingham, an official appointed by Nottingham City Council. The noble Lord, Lord True, knows all about that; it is an important civic office there.
The second order before us sensibly reduces the number of subscribing electors who are required to sign a candidate’s nomination paper. Having acted as an election agent for the last 40 years, I am in favour of having as few names on the forms as practically possible. As the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, was saying, the proposal for signatures from 10 people is ideal. I support the order and hope, as he does, that we get to a more sensible number of electors rather than these large numbers.
It is important to recognise that the nomination process for these elections is safe, because it could put people at risk of exposure to and transmission of Covid-19, which we need to manage. Clearly the nomination process is part of that, so I fully endorse those points.
I also endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, about how important it is for people to go out and cast their votes. Because we had no elections last year, we will have enormous numbers of elections of very important bodies and parliaments. We want to ensure that people get out there, cast their votes and give us their verdicts on our parties and how things have been run, and put people in charge of the different institutions for the years ahead. I support the call for people to go out and vote in the elections.
I also very much endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, about combined and mayoral authorities, because there is some confusion there: some mayoral candidates have police powers and others do not. The Government should look at that and be clear. I remember a comment once from the noble Lord, Lord Tebbit, who is not in his place. He made the point that, living in Cambridgeshire, there were elections on everything—the parish council, the city council, the county council, the police and crime commissioner, the combined authority, and there is a new mayoral appointment there now. It was just a plethora of elections. We need to ensure that people understand who is in a position of power and how they relate to them. The Government should look at that carefully, but it is a matter for another day. I am happy to support both these orders and look forward to the Minister’s response.
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberWell, I think I called it something like “ingenious”, although “novel” is a good word. It was a good suggestion. It has been passed on and I am aware that a number of local authorities have chosen various ways to promote postal voting to their electorate, for example through the canvass communications earlier this year. I hope that my noble friend’s suggestion and others will be considered positively; indeed, I always consider his suggestions positively.
My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, in paying tribute to hard-working electoral services staff across the United Kingdom. Can the Minister speak to his officials and satisfy himself that everything possible has been done to ensure that voters who are shielding or ill are fully aware of the options for postal and proxy votes—and emergency postal and proxy votes—so that no one will lose their ability to cast their vote in these important elections and, in the days after the poll, we avoid those embarrassing media stories where citizens who have always voted were denied the opportunity to do so purely because they did not realise what voting options were available to them at the time?
My Lords, I strongly agree with the noble Lord. We have given local authorities additional extra resources, and we will support and encourage them to do everything that the noble Lord so wisely suggests.
(3 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I certainly agree that any consideration of electoral law and, indeed, electoral practice needs to reflect on the position of smaller parties. The Government have been considering that specifically in relation to the May elections.
My Lords, have the Government considered introducing a mechanism to allow for the uprating of local and national spending limits for elections and donation-reporting thresholds at arm’s length from Ministers, which would provide protection for the Government and reassurance to others?
My Lords, we think it important to engage with the political parties, and we do so. Obviously, the reporting of donations has to be and is transparent; I strongly agree with the noble Lord on that. That is the situation that obtains presently. So far as his broader question is concerned, I reiterate that cross-party discussion of these matters is important and we appreciate the input of the Labour Party on them.
(3 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, first, I draw the attention of the House to my relevant interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank the noble Lord, Lord True, for introducing the regulations and setting out for the House the reasons for their introduction. I support the regulations as they stand; they give EROs two additional months before they must publish the new electoral register for the area they are responsible for. I have a few questions and some observations to make.
One of the problems, referred to by a number of noble Lords, is underregistration in the United Kingdom. One of my concerns is that the pandemic will have made matters worse. There is nothing in this proposal that addresses that situation, other than extending the period by two months. I concur very much with the comments of my noble friend Lord Adonis when he referred to the problem of underregistration, as many other noble Lords have done. The noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, also pointed out that it is often people on the margins of society who find themselves excluded and left off the register.
As many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Mann, said, this particularly affects not only people’s right to express their view and support a party, or whoever, at an election but also their ability to confirm their identity, particularly in terms of their credit rating. If you are not registered to vote, it has huge implications for that and we really need to make sure that people, particularly young people, fully understand the consequences for them on this issue.
The noble Lord, Lord True, is vastly experienced in local government and led a London borough for many years. I am sure he appreciates the difficulties that many local authorities face at present. A vast array of duties and burdens is placed on local government, but there also must be an adequate level of resource to fulfil those obligations. Paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the difficulties caused by the redeployment of staff to other duties in some cases, the inability to carry out some functions at home, and the lack of specialist software and printed correspondence, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. However, other than extending by two months, we have not addressed those issues at all because this is not a normal year—this is not an election year—so what are we going to do beyond that?
It was good to hear from the noble Lord that there has been consultation with the wider electoral community. When I looked through the Explanatory Notes, that was not very clear. There was a reference to the Electoral Commission, but it is good to hear that the Government have consulted it, and I thank them very much for that. The Electoral Commission has a very important role. It expresses a view, collects data from the EROs, publishes data, develops standards and comes up with proposals, but it does not do the work on the ground. It is the EROs who do this and it is very important that they are consulted, so I was pleased to hear that we have done that.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, about the security of the ballot. This is vital and it must be the Government’s most important job to ensure that the elections next year, and in future, are free and fair. We cannot go on with any suggestion that elections are being manipulated. However, it goes beyond the register. The Government have a serious job to look at the activities of foreign states—and what it is alleged that they did or did not do—and the failure of some companies that have their platforms abused by all sorts of people but do nothing about it. It is vital that the Government get a grip on this issue; we have to be confident that our elections are free and fair and that the people elected are legitimate. It is important to ensure that we do this.
However, there is no reference to consultation with political parties in the Explanatory Memorandum, which says, at paragraph 12, that for businesses, voluntary groups and everybody else the impact is minimal. I think political parties are voluntary groups and the Cabinet Office meets with political parties at the political parties panel. They usually meet on the same day that the parties meet the Electoral Commission, but it is an entirely separate meeting. This should have been brought up there because I think that the impact will not be minimal for all parties and this has not been recognised, which is regrettable.
The elections will take place in May 2021. The register will be published two months later and you then have less time to get the data on to the computer systems to run elections. Parties are a vital part of the political process in this country, so they should have been recognised there. If, as a political party, you are working from an incorrect register, you could knock on a door and find that the person behind it is not who you thought they would be. This is an issue; it is annoying and should be corrected.
Many noble Lords have made many other points and I cannot comment on them all, but I am sure the noble Lord will respond to them clearly today or, as has been suggested, we will get a round-robin letter. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
(4 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to his place. I have watched him on the Back Benches over a number of years and wondered when his day would come; it has finally come and I congratulate him.
Article 2(3) of the order
“adds to that list of matters reasonably incurred expenditure by or on behalf of a disabled candidate that is reasonably attributable to the candidate’s disability.”
I understand that, in law, the word “reasonable” is very expensive and can lead to court cases, contests and arguments with officials about what constitutes reasonableness. I wonder whether we can have some explanation. To give an example, who will decide what is reasonable? Could it be that, if a person is in receipt of a benefit relating to disability, that in itself would lead to a qualification? Could it be simply a personal statement, where somebody says, “I am disabled”, or a doctor’s note saying that the person is sufficiently disabled? The word “reasonable” always worries me when I see it in law and I just wonder if we can hear a little more. We have a former Lord Chancellor here who smiles when I suggest that it is an expensive word—perhaps he would like to intervene to tell us what he believes would be the construct in this particular case.
My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord True, to the Dispatch Box today. I congratulate him on his appointment and I wish him well with his new responsibilities. I look forward to the many debates we will have over the coming weeks and months. I also very much agree with his comments about the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, who I enjoyed working with very much and who is always worth listening to.
I have no issue whatever with the order before us today. A number of points have been raised, which I support, and I look forward to the noble Lord’s response. It is right that we ensure that candidates with a disability are able to stand for election so that we can ensure that our elected officials and officers reflect the people that they represent. I am very happy to support the order to ensure that expenditure related to a candidate’s disability does not come out of the election expenditure limit.
I follow on from the point that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made. I have mentioned it many times before and, every time, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, would agree with me. I would say, “Our election law is not fit for purpose,” and he would say, “I agree entirely.” We had a number of meetings—the noble Lords, Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy all came along—and discussed these things. Everyone agrees that our election law is not fit for purpose and we have to sort it out.
One good thing about the election result is that this Government have been in office now for four or five years. They are not worried about what is going on at the other end, so they have plenty of time to look at this properly. We have to sort out election law; it is not fit for purpose. It was created for analogue elections; we now have digital elections, and we really must sort this out. I implore the noble Lord, when he goes back to his officials in the Cabinet Office, to tell his colleagues that they should use the fact that they have a majority in the other place to make sure that we can quickly, but also calmly, get to a situation where we can revise our electoral law to ensure that when people are elected, the law around the elections is fit for purpose and does what it is supposed to do. Having said that, I fully support the order before the House today.
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their kind comments. Having heard the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, say that we may be having some controversial and lively debates in the future, perhaps I should fix those comments in aspic so that I can save them and later bring them out of the fridge. But I respect tremendously each of the noble Lords who spoke, and I am very grateful for their comments.
On the EnAble Fund and its continuation, there is a point that the political parties have to accept their own responsibility to encourage disabled candidates to stand, as parties do. In terms of helping disabled people, every part of society has its contribution to make, and that must include political parties. The EnAble Fund was designed as an interim measure to allow political parties time to put in place support themselves. We are not reiterating the fact that political parties have a place. The Government are considering what support they might provide to succeed the current EnAble Fund, which I acknowledge is running out. The disability unit is currently considering options in connection with the national strategy for disabled people, which is due to be published later this year, so I can give the noble Lord some encouragement on that. But I reiterate that this applies to all political parties, and that they all deserve praise for what they are doing to encourage disabled candidates.
In the general points made by the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Kennedy of Southwark—who was elected a councillor on the same day as I was in 1986; we have tramped our parallel ways while serving our parties since then, and it is very nice to see him opposite—they both asked more broadly about what the Government were going to do to deal with electoral law. On my first outing at the Dispatch Box, I am not going to rise as a trout to those particular flies, but I will take note of what both noble Lords said and will take that back to colleagues.
On the question that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raised about the word “reasonable”, I am not going to tread too far into that area for obvious reasons, having spent some years throwing darts at the person on the Front Bench from behind. With a former Lord Chancellor behind, I am not going to have a long go at it. But it is true that the draft order does not define what a “reasonable” election expense is. There is an argument that trying to provide an exhaustive list of such expenses would potentially narrow the scope of application and could exclude some disability-related expenses that have not been listed.
The order gives some examples of the kind of thing that might be applied, but the Government want to ensure that the order exempts all—I must not use the “r” word that the noble Lord mentioned—disability election expenses that it can. I can give him further details of how the system actually works, but there is, first of all, a process of examination of the case and, secondly, obviously anybody who infringes electoral law in any form faces the risk of penalties thereafter. There is a balance, in that there is a right of confidentiality: some people wish to have some confidence about their disability and that also has to be taken into account. The reason there is no list of particular cases is that if something were inadvertently omitted it would be excluded from scope. I hope that that answers the question of the noble Lord, and if he would like any more information, I am sure we could provide it. If there are no more questions, I will thank noble Lords who have taken part.
The Government appreciate the unity on this matter. The instrument makes an important if small change to the electoral system. It can only be a good thing for local democratic representation and accountability: we all want to see more participation in that. Having made those points and tried to answer the questions, and having acknowledged the kindly comments, I commend the order to the House.