Voter Registration: Students
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, we have, of course, evaluated the Northern Ireland experience. We were dealing with paper transactions then and we are now moving to online transactions. Since the beginning of February, there have been nearly 500,000 online registrations, so we are very much achieving what we want, and we look forward to seeing more coming. The Northern Ireland experience was useful at the time. However, it was not a great success in maintaining registration: that there was a very substantial drop-off after the first year of registration for 17 year-olds to the level of registration of 18 to 19 year-olds.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, first, I declare an interest as the chair of the All-Party Group on Voter Registration. When I asked the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, last week what the Government were doing to deal with the scandalous situation whereby, according to the Electoral Commission, 30% of 18 to 24 year-olds are not registered, he avoided answering the question, so I will give him another chance to do so today. What are the Government doing to deal with this serious matter, because from here it seems that they are doing very little to get these young people registered by 20 April to vote in the general election?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government are doing a great deal. We have provided an additional £14 million over the last 18 months precisely to deal with help in those areas. Most of that has gone to EROs in local authorities, with the largest proportion going to those in areas with a substantial number of students. We have also just funded a number of groups, many of which work with young people and disadvantaged groups, to assist in this process.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, Amendments 13 and 14 are in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. I moved similar amendments in Committee. Amendment 13 removes the petition wording from the Bill, and Amendment 14 makes provision for the wording to be agreed following consultation with both the Electoral Commission and the Welsh Language Commissioner.
At present we have words in the Bill that have not been user-tested. The Electoral Commission has given some advice, but unlike the referendums in Wales and Scotland, it will not be involved in the user-testing. According to its briefing, it seems quite content with that, which in itself is a bit odd. In Committee I asked the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, which organisation would be undertaking the user-testing of the wording. He was not able to answer me then but agreed to write to me, which he has done and I am most grateful to him for that.
I would like to understand why the Cabinet Office launched a tender exercise on user-testing rather than asking the Electoral Commission to do the work. What was the discussion in government that came up with that decision? The Government have not been clear on that so far and it is not referred to in the briefing note from the Electoral Commission either, but discussion on this issue must have taken place. This is all very rushed and not a good way to undertake an important exercise. Putting untested petition words in the Bill, although they can be amended by regulation, is not the most satisfactory way to go about this.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, as I hope he will confirm the involvement of the Welsh Language Commissioner in the process but, as I said, it should be done in a much better way. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, should reconsider the position he took in Committee. This is not a very encouraging way to move forward and I think it is a bad case of putting the cart before the horse. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, it seems to me that the horse is actually before the cart. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, suggested—I thought rather unkindly—that there was a lot of cut and paste in the Bill. Actually, we have followed wherever possible agreed and established rules in comparable cases of electoral law. That seems to be an entirely appropriate way to do it.
Our decision to include the specified wording in the Bill mirrors the position for UK parliamentary elections where the form of the ballot paper appears in primary legislation but may be amended through regulations. As I said in Committee, a modest but worthwhile advantage of the appearance of the signing sheet’s wording in the Bill is that any future changes made to it will then be reflected in the text of the parent Act, which helps to make the law as clear as possible for petition administrators, parties and campaigners.
I agree that it is important to check that the wording is fit for purpose. That is why we have committed to user-test it with input from the Electoral Commission on the user-testing specification. If changes are identified, these can be made through regulations which require the approval of both Houses. We currently have a tender out for a supplier to undertake this work in consultation with the Electoral Commission.
On the question of consultation with the Welsh Language Commissioner, I can reaffirm that the Government will prepare a Welsh translation of the wording in secondary legislation, as is the practice at other statutory polls, using a power and following a principle established in the Welsh Language Act 1993. This translation will be subject to user-testing in the same way as the English version, and we will consult the Electoral Commission’s Welsh language experts to ensure that the translation is accurate and user- friendly.
The Welsh Language Commissioner has no formal statutory role in assessing electoral forms and notices. I am in favour of those with an interest in the process being involved in and aware of user-testing, although it would be unusual to provide a statutory role for the commissioner here and not in respect of other polls. In summary, I believe it is important that the wording of the petition appears in the Bill, and that it is user-tested and commented on to ensure that any improvements which are identified can be made. With those reassurances that we are following established practice in both respects, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Lord for his response. I still think it is an odd way to be moving forward. I am not sure that the Government have thought this through particularly well. We are trying to help the Government with these matters, but at this stage I am prepared to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) The petition officer must not make public a running total of signatories to the recall petition during the signing period.”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, the two amendments in this group are in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. Amendment 16 mirrors an amendment tabled in Committee by my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside.
I disagree with both the Government and the Electoral Commission on whether, when the recall provisions have been triggered, it will be a local event with a local feel. It would be a grave error for a running total to be published throughout the eight-week signing period. It will be a national event and a potential media circus, with different outlets reporting daily on the number of people who have signed the petition. If the noble Lord is not minded to accept my amendment, I hope that he will confirm very clearly to your Lordships’ House that this will not be allowed to happen and that in the regulations that will be issued it will be explicit that the number of people who have signed the petition cannot be released under any circumstances during the signing period.
Amendment 18 requires the petition officer to make public the number of people on the electoral register at the cut-off period before the petition process opens. This will enable everyone to be clear on the number of signatures needed to trigger the recall process. It is very important that everyone involved in the process is clear on the number of signatures needed to have a Member of Parliament recalled, and for there to be no doubt about what that figure is.
Again, if the Minister is not minded to accept my amendment, I hope that in responding he will give a clear assurance to the House that this will be explicit in the regulations he issues. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am very happy to confirm that the Government’s intention is that the regulations will require the petition officer to make public the number of eligible electors in the constituency—as has been suggested—and that the regulations would not sanction the issuing of a running total during the petition process itself.
As I said in Committee, the Bill does not specify whether a running total should be published, but further detail would be a matter for the conduct regulations. It would not be consistent with the level of detail in the Bill to specify these matters here but I can assure the noble Lord that we have heard and understood his arguments, that we agree with them and that they will be adequately covered in the regulations. On that basis I again hope that he is sufficiently reassured to be able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the Minister for his response. I am reassured and am happy to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) Any persons wishing to apply to vote by post, who are not interested to do so before the Speaker’s notice is given or on the cut-off day, must do so no later than the end of the fifth week of the signing period.”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, Amendments 17, 19 and 20 again are in my name and the name of my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town.
Amendment 17 would bring in a deadline of the end of the fifth week to be able to apply to sign the petition by post. At both Committee stage and in the memorandum which outlines the draft regulation, the only information provided by the Government on the limitations on signing the petition by post was that the procedures for elections and referendums would not be appropriate for the recall process. However, a letter to my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside stated that the Government intended to maintain the same time limits. So can the Minister tell the House why 11 days is deemed appropriate? Who has been consulted on this?
Even with the Government’s commitment to increase the number of signing places from four to 10—which is welcome—it is reasonable to believe that there will be a greater demand to sign the petition by post. Given all that, does the Minister think that 11 working days will be long enough to check—and double-check—all the applications that may be received? Our amendment allows for a longer period to check that everything is okay. It enhances security and enables greater vigilance to be deployed by petition officers, as they will have more time to undertake their work.
Amendments 19 and 20 are the same as those I moved in Committee. They raise the penalty for double signing from an illegal practice to a corrupt one. I was disappointed that the Minister did not accept those amendments then. I have had some discussions with him outside the Chamber and I would be interested to hear careful words from him that clearly state that the reasons for double signing will not necessarily be the same and that therefore on some occasions prosecutions in the corrupt band would be necessary, while in others they would be in the illegal band.
As I said in Committee, a corrupt practice at an election includes things such as impersonating another individual to use their vote, signing and submitting a false election expense return or attempting to bribe, treat or use undue influence on a voter, whereas an illegal practice includes not putting an imprint on your leaflet. The noble Lord must surely accept that the former offences are more in keeping with the double signing offence than are the latter. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response to this and other points I have raised. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for again raising these issues, which we have discussed in Committee. As I stated in Committee, the detail of how postal and proxy signing will operate will be dealt with in the regulations made under Clause 18. This again mirrors the approach made at UK parliamentary elections, where the rules for absent voting appear in secondary legislation.
Therefore, the Bill itself does not set a deadline by which postal signature sheet applications must be received. At an election this is usually the 11th working day before the poll, which allows applications received in the days just before and up to the deadline to be processed and postal ballot packs issued to electors for them to complete and return in time for the close of poll.
As I previously stated, for a petition it is possible to set a deadline during the petition signing period itself. The last day of the period is, in effect, analogous to polling day at an election, so there needs to be a cut-off point. I therefore have some sympathy with the policy suggestion made by this amendment, and can confirm our intention that the regulations will set a deadline. However, the amendment is not necessary, as the regulation powers in the Bill are sufficient to enable a deadline for applications to be set.
It would be prudent to ensure that the rules about postal and proxy signing are set out clearly in a single place for the benefit of practitioners and campaigners, and in this sense it is not helpful to specify the deadline for only postal signature sheet applications in the Bill. So the regulations will set out regulations for both postal and proxy voting.
Amendments 19 and 20 would modify the nature of the offence in the Bill for signing the petition twice, making it a corrupt rather than an illegal practice. It does this by amending provisions in the Representation of the People Act 1983 that apply to the offence of double voting. These amendments were originally tabled in Committee.
Clause 12 makes it an offence for two or more signatures to be added to the petition by or on behalf of any individual elector, just as in elections it is an offence for two or more votes to be cast by or on behalf of an individual elector. As was noted in Committee, Clause 12 mirrors the offence of double voting in electoral law in terms of the maximum penalties that apply upon conviction. First, a person guilty of the offence is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, which is up to £5,000—a not inconsiderable sum. Secondly, a person convicted of the offence is incapable for a period of three years of being registered as an elector or voting in parliamentary elections and local government elections in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, being an MP or holding a local government elective office in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. The sentencing court has the option partially or wholly to waive these incapacities.
The amendments proposed would modify the first of these two aspects, with the result that a person convicted of double signing would be liable on conviction to a prison sentence of up to two years. In this respect, the amendments treat the offence like an even more seriously corrupt practice in electoral law such as personation, either by impersonation or via an absent vote.
I read through all this with great fascination. My wife votes twice, and has voted twice for some time, holding a proxy as she does for our son, who has been working in the United States for some time. One of the greatest delights in the past week is that he has just accepted a post at Edinburgh University—so her second proxy vote will be removed as he returns to this country.
The amendments do not amend the second aspect: the duration of the incapacity to vote or stand in an election. The three-year bar is retained, and replaced by a five-year bar for corrupt practices such as personation.
The Government’s view is that the penalties for illegal practices are adequate for the offence of double signing, and that the penalties for corrupt practice are more appropriate for these even more severe offences. Our consideration is—again given the existing law covering electoral offences—that it would be inappropriate to arrange for a different set of standards for petition elections than holds for other forms of election. I hope that that is clear. We are attempting to be consistent here and I hope that on that basis I have again reassured the noble Lord. His knowledge of electoral law is—I am well aware—deeper than mine, but I hope that he will be able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the Minister for his response. I hope that outside the Chamber we may be able to have some discussions about the question of the signing period for applying for a petition vote. There is some issue about the 11 days and the sheer amount of pressure on returning officers to deal with that, so I hope that we can do that. The offence of double signing, if proven in a court of law, would sit more comfortably with corrupt rather than illegal practice. However, at this stage, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, Amendment 24, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, would ensure that all returns by campaigners are subject to being checked by the Electoral Commission. Our amendment deletes the phrase “on request” from paragraph 8 of Schedule 5 and thereby requires a petition officer to deliver a copy of all the recall petition returns they have received.
This is a small but significant amendment and will require the Electoral Commission to take a greater role in the process than it currently seems prepared to do. I understand why it appears reluctant to do more. We hope that recall will never have to be used but if it is, it will be infrequent. Therefore, we do not believe there will be an overburdening of the Electoral Commission with vast amounts of additional work. As a former member of the Electoral Commission, I am confident that it has both the staff and financial resources to undertake this work, which will be required extremely infrequently. As I said in Committee, the Commission has recently looked at the returns and produced valuable advice, and I see no reason why it could do not it in this process as well.
At present there is no obligation on anybody to check the returns of campaigners. This is surely a ridiculous situation to be in. The petition officer has to record the receipt of returns but is not responsible for scrutiny of the financial dealings of campaigners. The returns of campaigners need to be checked to ensure confidence in the process for many of the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, mentioned in the previous discussion. I do not think many noble Lords will disagree with that and the Electoral Commission should be the organisation to do it, as it has the financial and staffing capacity and the expertise to do the work. I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government are keen to encourage participation in recall petitions, but in allowing this freedom of participation it is vital that the rules governing campaigning are appropriate and are complied with. In what will, we hope—as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, suggested—be the very rare event of a recall petition being initiated, spending and donation returns will be subject to high levels of scrutiny. This is made possible by the transparency that the Bill affords. Recall petition returns are to be made publicly available for a period of two years. Any member of the public can review these and report any evidence of wrongdoing to the police, who will investigate the matter. If it is thought that there is substance to the allegations, the police can refer the matter to the CPS, which may launch a prosecution.
A person could also lodge a petition with the electoral court if they thought that the alleged breach of electoral law had affected the outcome of the petition. As the Bill stands, the Electoral Commission is also able to produce a report on a recall petition. This report would look at the administration of the campaign, how the rules on spending and donations actually worked and whether the limits set in the Bill are appropriate. The decision to produce this report lies with the Electoral Commission. The Government consider that providing the Electoral Commission with this reporting power is vital to ensuring confidence in the process and outcome of a recall petition.
To support this, the commission has been given the power to request recall petition returns from the petition officer. This amendment, which would require petition officers automatically to forward recall petition returns to the Electoral Commission, could further add confidence in the approach to regulation taken for recall petitions. So the Government recognise the merits behind this amendment and will consider this issue further before Third Reading. At this point, and with that assurance, I hope that the noble Lord will be willing to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Lord for that. I am very pleased with the response of noble Lords and, on that basis, I am very happy to withdraw the amendment. I look forward to having a discussion between now and Third Reading.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, the proposed amendment would alter Clause 21 to remove the power for the Act to be amended through regulations relating to the conduct of the recall petition process. Noble Lords will recall that this recommendation was made by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee in its report on the Bill, and an amendment to that effect was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in Committee.
The power to amend the Act relates only to making regulations about the conduct of the recall petition process. It was originally included to allow for changes in other areas of electoral legislation, in particular the introduction of individual electoral registration. Now that such reforms have been made, we do not believe such a power is justified in this case.
The Government have since responded to the report of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, agreeing that such powers should be taken with care and that, in this instance, the power is no longer necessary. The Government have therefore tabled this amendment to remove the power to amend the Act through conduct regulations. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, Amendment 25 removes the words “including this Act” from the Bill. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee thought that these words would permit the infiltration of substantial and significant provisions into the Bill, and we agree. This is the amendment that my noble friend Lady Hayter moved in Committee, and I am delighted that the Government have listened to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Opposition in this respect. We agree with them that this was a step too far. I support the amendment.
European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2015
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, I shall speak also to the draft Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 and the draft Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2015.
The first draft instrument before the Committee today, the European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2015, amends the rules for the conduct of elections to the European Parliament to make two consequential changes concerning electoral registration and proxy voting that arise from the move to individual electoral registration—IER.
The instrument also provides for notices containing information about the completion of postal ballot papers to be sent, ahead of the general election in May, to postal voters whose postal voting statement was rejected at the European Parliament election in May 2014 due to an error made by the voter. I will set out the two consequential changes arising from the move to IER which was successfully introduced last year and which, for the first time, enables people in Great Britain to apply online to register to vote. More than 5 million people have now applied under IER, and two-thirds of them have applied online.
The instrument includes provisions which relate to the date relevant to assessing certain grounds for excluding electors from voting at European Parliament elections, including removing references to “15 October” as a relevant date for registration purposes. The instrument also requires proxies at a European Parliament election in Great Britain to be already registered to vote under IER at that election. This is intended to enhance the security of the voting process. These changes mirror provisions that have been applied already for other polls.
Electoral registration officers—EROs—are already required to inform electors after a poll where their postal vote has been rejected because the signature or date of birth used as a “postal vote identifier” that they have supplied on the postal voting statement failed to match that held on record—or because it had simply been left blank. This is to help ensure that these electors can participate effectively in future elections and not have their ballot papers rejected at successive polls because of a signature degradation or because they are making an inadvertent error.
These postal vote provisions applied for the first time at the European Parliament election in May 2014. Although over time we would expect the number of rejected postal votes to fall, because the provision has only recently been introduced we considered that it would be beneficial for those postal voters whose postal voting statement was rejected in May 2014 to be sent information about the completion of postal ballot papers ahead of the general election. EROs will be required to send this during a 10-day period beginning on 19 March 2015. This period has been set as an appropriate time for notices to go out ahead of the general election, and before postal votes could first be received at that poll.
The notice will set out information on the requirements for completion of postal voting statements to help ensure postal voters correctly complete them at future polls. I think that I am right in saying that roughly one in 40 postal votes was rejected at the European Parliament elections—and, clearly, that is a proportion that we very much want to reduce as far as we can. The notice will be for information only, and follow-up action will not be required from the voter, though it will be possible for voters to contact the ERO to resolve the issue that caused the postal vote to be rejected: for example, to correct the date of birth record for the elector held by the ERO.
I am aware that the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators have raised concerns about the proposal on the grounds that there is potential for voters to get confused if they have already made changes to their postal vote provisions following the initial notification, or if they have successfully voted by post in an intervening poll. We have listened carefully to these concerns, but we consider that the second notification will add value. For example, it will be helpful to postal voters who may have forgotten that they received the earlier communication or did not take action at the time they received it to update their personal identifiers. That is part of our answer to the communication from the Electoral Commission issued at lunchtime today.
Our objective is to enhance understanding among postal voters of the postal voting process, which will be timely ahead of the general election. It is simply telling those who have made an error in the past how to get it right, helping to ensure their future participation. I emphasise yet again that the Government’s intention for the forthcoming general election is to maximise the number of people registered, and then to maximise the number of those registered voters who vote successfully.
I turn to the other instruments before the Committee today: the draft Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 and the draft Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2015. These instruments will make refinements designed to improve the processes for making and verifying IER applications: first, by amending requirements as to the documentary evidence to be provided to the ERO when applying for the alteration of an elector’s name on the register; and, secondly, by making it possible for annual canvass returns to be made in a range of formats.
Under the existing regulations, an elector wishing to change their name on the electoral register has to submit a form to their ERO along with a marriage or civil partnership certificate, an overseas marriage or civil partnership certificate deposited with the General Register Office—the GRO—or a deed poll or amended birth certificate. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office discontinued its service of depositing overseas marriage or civil partnership documents with the GRO last year. The draft regulations remove the references to the specific documents and replace them with a reference to “documentary evidence”. It will be up to EROs to decide what evidence they deem to be acceptable in supporting a change. However, ministerial guidance will be available when the regulations come into force, which will set out examples of acceptable documents.
Under the draft regulations, information as to name, date of birth and national insurance number relating to all applications for registration or change of name made otherwise than directly through the IER digital service must also be sent by the ERO for verification against DWP records. The instruments slightly amend the statement in the HEF annual canvass form that the information given in response to the form will be processed in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 to replace an incorrect reference to the application form with a reference to the annual canvass form. The existing regulations require returned HEFs to include a “signed declaration of truth” to confirm the validity of the information provided. This requirement for a signature effectively limits HEF returns to being a paper-only transaction. Under the draft regulations, the person completing an HEF is required to make a declaration of truth and give their name, but that declaration does not need to be signed. This will allow for the information in HEFs to be provided online or over the phone.
The draft instruments also delete the regulation which allows for register entries to be carried forward from one year to another, which will no longer apply under IER, and make a consequential amendment in relation to notices of alteration to the register relating to removals from the register when people have died.
In the Scottish regulations, in addition to the provisions set out above, there is a technical provision to amend a regulation on cancelling postal ballot papers by omitting a reference to local government elections in Scotland. This is not needed as the Scottish Government have regulations which cover absent voting matters.
The Electoral Commission has been consulted on these two instruments and was satisfied overall, but raised a number of comments to which the Government have responded to the satisfaction of the commission. The Information Commissioner’s Office has also been consulted but did not consider that the instruments raised any new or significant data protection or privacy issues.
In conclusion, the three instruments before the Committee today will play a part in refining the processes underpinning applications to register to vote as we continue successfully to implement individual electoral registration across Great Britain, and help support effective participation by postal voters. I commend them to the Committee.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, explained to the Grand Committee, we have three orders before us today which are being debated together.
The first, which is the European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2015, will enable and require EROs to write to everyone who had a postal vote at the European election last year and had that vote rejected due to discrepancies between the identifiers held by the ERO and what was completed and returned with the ballot paper.
All voters who had their postal vote rejected at that election will have been written to before, and this, in effect, is a reminder of the problem that led to their vote being discounted and gives them another period to correct the situation. I broadly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that that is a good thing to do, but I understand the concerns raised by the AEA and SOLACE in respect of voter confusion, if they have made changes following the previous communication from the ERO.
Does the Minister have the number of postal voters who will be written to—I know that he said one in 40, but how many is that? Is it millions or hundreds of thousands of people? Does he have a breakdown of how many postal voters per ERO? What assistance will the Cabinet Office give to EROs who have a particularly high number of people who need to be written to?
I see that the regulation applies only to Great Britain, so what are the provisions in respect of Northern Ireland? I also note that the political parties were not consulted on it. I think that that is very regrettable. There is considerable expertise in all the parties which could be valuable to the Cabinet Office and the Government. I know that the noble Lord will say that it is up to the Electoral Commission whether to consult with the political parties; I can tell him that it does not. It is a shame that the parties are not in some way involved in the process.
I, too, received the briefing from the commission at about 1 pm this afternoon, and I note that it is not very happy with the order. Will the noble Lord take back to the Electoral Commission that we expect to have its notes in a much more timely manner? No one could take them into account; they arrived literally an hour or two before the debate. It is a waste of time looking at them at this point. I do not agree with the point that it is making, but it is a waste of its time sending the briefing round so late.
The next two regulations amend the process for registered electors to change their name on the published register and for how information on the household inquiry form may be returned to electoral registration officers. I have no issues with these regulations, but I note again that no consultation with political parties has taken place, which is most regrettable.
The commission just does not consult parties on such matters, and the Cabinet Office is losing out on valuable feedback from people who can give a different perspective on these matters. Asking an organisation for its views does not mean that you have to agree with those views. It is a real failure that we do not involve parties much more in this stuff.
My only other comments are in respect of IER in general terms. I still worry that we are not quite getting there. I mentioned in the House last week that to have 30% of our 18 to 24 year-olds not registered to vote is a terrible situation for a mature democracy such as ours. I also said in the Chamber last week that if that was true in any other country in the world, the noble Lord himself would be saying that the British Government expect it to get that sorted and get those young people onto the voting roll. The problem is that this is happening here in our country—our own back yard.
What will the noble Lord be saying to the UN or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights—all bodies to which we are signed up and whose initiatives we support—if they decide that what we are doing is not good enough? Is he ready for an inspection to take place by those organisations before or after the general election?
Having said that, I am content to support the orders before us today.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for his comments and I recognise his very considerable expertise in this area. I used to think that I understood something about electoral law but I learnt that there is a great deal more than I do not entirely understand.
My understanding is that we are talking about more than 100,000 postal voters being written to—some 114,000 is the figure that I have in mind—and the cost of this, which is thought to be somewhere above £100,000, will be reimbursed. I do not have to hand the exact figures for which areas will be most affected.
There are all sorts of reasons why people do not complete their postal ballots correctly. I am told that one of the commonest problems is that husbands and wives, completing their forms over the breakfast table, often put them in the wrong envelopes and thus the forms have the wrong signifiers on them. However, there is a range of other reasons, including that if people are ill—if they have had a stroke, for example—their signatures change radically.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Another one is that people put down that day’s date rather than their date of birth. I think that that is the biggest one.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Yes, certainly. The noble Lord regretted the lack of consultation with political parties. The view was taken that these amendments to the regulations were sufficiently technical that they would not be of great interest to the political parties. However, I take his point and we will do our best to keep the Parliamentary Parties Panel informed of planned changes and not just of planned legislative changes.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I get the point that these changes are fairly technical, but the Electoral Commission has a political parties panel, which it was required to set up under PPERA. Having been a member of that panel and a commissioner, I am not really convinced that it is officially involved in these issues. I think that there are other things on which you could go directly to parties and that that would be beneficial to the Government and the Cabinet Office.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I take the noble Lord’s point and I think that it is a good idea in principle for the commission to give too much information rather than too little. I entirely take his point, and it has no doubt been absorbed by the officials concerned. I also take his point about the Electoral Commission’s comments having come in almost so late that there is nothing we can do with them. I am sure that that point will be referred back to the commission.
On the question of name changes on the register, we are very conscious that there are occasions—particularly, for example, with someone who is transgender or whatever—when one does not necessarily want to have one’s previous name out in public. Therefore, there is a whole set of issues concerning the delicacies, in some cases, of including previous names.
The noble Lord also raised the question of IER in general terms. I will say two things on this. First, the initial feedback from the National Voter Registration Day last Thursday is that some 160,000 people registered in one day. That is way above what has previously been the case. That was online. We do not yet know what has come in on paper but that is good news and we are continuing to work on it.
I reinforce that by saying that I addressed more than 200 students at York University on Friday afternoon, together with a panel of people from other political parties. I found that fascinating for a whole set of reasons. First, it was a crowded lecture hall with more students wanting to come than we had expected. Secondly, after it had concluded, one or two students came up to me and said, “Well, I was thinking of not bothering to vote this time, but maybe I will”. That is the problem we all have, and it is why, every time I get up in the Chamber having been asked a question on this, I say that we all have to be out there talking to as many groups of young people as we can to explain, first, how vital it is that they register, and, secondly, how important it is that, having registered, they then vote. That message has not got out to many of them and it is the underlying problem that we all face. The National Union of Students is doing a lot in that respect and we are working also with universities.
As the noble Lord will recall, the Government have just announced a further set of funding for various voluntary organisations to work, in particular, with vulnerable groups. As I said to some of the students at the end of our discussions on Friday, I have no doubt that when we come to the last possible date for registration, we will discover that a large number of young male students in particular—young female students and others are often better organised—will register at the last minute, and I very much hope that that will take us towards the high level of registration that we need.
Electoral Registration
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, first, I declare an interest as the chair of the All-Party Group on Voter Registration. According to Electoral Commission research, 30% of our young people aged 18 to 24 are not on the register of electors. If this was the situation in any other country in the world 93 days before a general election, the British Government would be urging the country to pull its finger out and get people on to the register. The problem is that this is in their own backyard and entirely of their own making. What are the Government going to do to get people on the register before applications close on 20 April?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government have engaged in a range of activities on social media and are using National Voter Registration Day as a means of raising national attention. Two of my ministerial colleagues are speaking in parallel at a barracks tomorrow to deal with the problem of underregistration among defence personnel. The Government will also, through the FCO, be attempting to raise the amazingly low level of overseas registration. We are working on this, but I repeat that the Government cannot do all of it on their own. I put something out on Liberal Democrat Voice, my own party’s site, two weeks ago encouraging all our activists to engage with local schools and other bodies. I am sure that the Labour Party is doing the same, in so far as it can.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, this amendment deletes from the Bill the wording on the petition that will be used when the recall provisions have been triggered. Along with Amendment 44, this amendment enables the wording to be agreed by regulation. The reason for these two amendments is to enable the wording of the petition to be properly tested before it is agreed. Our amendment also ensures that the Electoral Commission is involved in that process. It is the one organisation in the UK that I believe has the experience to test the proposed wording and it has a good track record in this respect.
Noble Lords might be aware that I was an Electoral Commissioner. I served in the group of commissioners appointed by political parties. I saw at first hand how the commission tested the question for the referendum in Wales on additional powers. It then tested the question for the referendum in Scotland. There were concerns that the original question proposed by the Scottish Government was unbalanced and led you in a particular direction. When we did our research and published our report, its recommendations were accepted fully by the Scottish Government and, after that point, the question itself was never an issue during the campaign.
Our Amendment 44 gives a role to the Welsh Language Commissioner. It is important that, in constituencies in Wales, Welsh speakers be given a translation of the question that both they and we are confident about. That shows proper respect for the Welsh language and Welsh speakers. Amendment 43 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, just changes the order of the wording, and we are happy to support it.
In previous debates, the Minister has said that the testing of the question will be undertaken by a professional supplier and completed by the 2015 general election. If they do not plan to use the Electoral Commission for this, will he clearly tell the House why not and whom they are proposing to use? It has the experience and expertise for the job: why would they go elsewhere? If the Government choose to go elsewhere, will there be additional costs to the taxpayer? Why are the Government not following the procedure adopted to test the question in the Scottish referendum, which involved getting the question right, with the result that it never became an issue: people focused on the actual question itself, rather than on the wording of the question? I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn) (Con)
If Amendment 40 is agreed to, I will be unable to call Amendments 41 to 43 because of pre-emption.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Electoral Commission unavoidably has a formal role throughout this process and has been consulted throughout. Informal consultations are part of the formal process. We need not batter about words too much. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes of Woodside, that an election or a petition process that generates such excitement would be a joy to many of us. Part of the pleasure, in a sense, of the Scottish referendum was that it did indeed generate a great deal of excitement.
It is the nature of a petition that a petition is one-sided. The noble Lord, Lord Martin, remarked that petitions are petitions—they are not elections. I hesitate to suggest that some wish to turn the recall petition process itself into the by-election that may or may not follow.
I will speak first to government Amendment 43, which would make a small change to the final sentence of the wording to appear on the petition signing sheet that is set out in Clause 9(4). The signing sheet must include this specified wording, as it explains to the eligible constituent that they are signing the petition for their MP to lose their seat and for a by-election to be held.
During debates in the other place, it was suggested that the wording could be improved in relation to explaining when a by-election would not take place. The Government agree and therefore this amendment responds to the debate in the other place by making it easier for the elector to understand that the MP will not lose his or her seat and a by-election will not be held if less than 10% of the registered electors in the constituency sign the petition.
The wording of the petition signing sheet was developed with input from the Electoral Commission before the Bill was introduced, but we have a power to amend the formulation in regulations if that proves necessary after undertaking user testing of the signing sheet and notice of petition with members of the public. In doing this, it will be possible to confirm whether the formulation that we have best serves constituents’ understanding. I repeat that the Electoral Commission was happy with the proposals as set out in the Bill.
Amendments 40 and 44 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, would remove the specified wording of the signing sheet from Clause 9 and replace the power to amend that wording through regulations with a power to set the wording in regulations following further consultation with the Electoral Commission and the Welsh Language Commissioner. The signing sheet must include wording specified in Clause 9, which explains to the eligible constituent that they are signing the petition for their MP to lose their seat and for a by-election thereafter to be held.
There is value in the appearance of the wording in the Bill, as it has allowed MPs to express their views on it. This mirrors the position for UK parliamentary elections, where the form of the ballot paper appears in primary legislation, the Representation of the People Act 1983, but may be amended through regulations that must be approved by a resolution of both Houses. No amendments were tabled in the other place to remove the wording outright, but an amendment was tabled to improve it, so I think we should be mindful of that when considering this issue.
A further modest but worthwhile advantage of the appearance of the signing sheet’s wording in the Bill is that future changes made to it would then be reflected in the text of the parent Act, which helps to make the law as clear as possible for petition administrators, parties and campaigners.
On consultation with the Welsh Language Commissioner, I can assure the Committee that the Government will prepare a Welsh translation of the wording in secondary legislation, as is the practice at other statutory polls, using a power and following a principle established in the Welsh Language Act 1993. This translation will be subject to user testing in the same way as the English version. I hope noble Lords are aware that, throughout this Bill, we are following as closely as possible comparable regulations and comparable legislation in other Acts concerned with our democratic process.
As is usual practice, we will consult the Electoral Commission’s Welsh language experts to ensure that the translation is accurate and will accommodate any changes identified through user testing. One of the amendments suggests that, in addition to consulting the Electoral Commission, the Minister should consult the Welsh Language Commissioner. The Welsh Language Commissioner has an important role in promoting and facilitating the use of the Welsh language, but it has not been standard practice at elections to consult the commissioner directly on Welsh translations of voter-facing forms and notices.
In summary, I believe that it is important that the wording of the petition appears on the Bill but that it is user tested and commented on to ensure that any improvements that are identified can be made. For these reasons, I hope that I have persuaded the noble Baroness not to press her amendments.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I asked the Minister who would do the testing if was not to be the commission. He has not answered that point.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I apologise. I do not have that detailed information at my fingertips, but I will write to the noble Lord as soon as I can.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I am sure that the noble Lord was listening carefully. I apologise if I did not speak clearly enough for him to follow my argument. The process for the ballot form—and now for the petition form—is that it appears in the Bill so that MPs can reflect on it, but that it is open to amendment by regulation. In the Bill, we are following what already exists in the Representation of the People Act.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Lord for his response. I look forward to receiving his letter on the matter that I raised. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Grocott
Yes, it is a very serious offence. But we have been assured by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, that the Bill as it stands is entirely in accordance with existing practice. I just cannot imagine the situation in any other election whereby this kind of running total would be available.
I vote Labour; that is what I do. It is in the DNA; it is inherited; it is passed on to future generations—that is how it works. It is like supporting Stoke City; it is what rational people do. I simply put it to the Minister that, even with that pedigree, if I could see the tally in a particular constituency’s voting after the postal votes had been handed in and could see a very close result coming out between two parties which I disliked intensely, but one of which I disliked marginally more than the other, and, sadly, my dear old party was nowhere, clearly there is a possibility that that might affect my judgment. I do not think that it would, actually, but I am putting a hypothetical case here.
Surely the same is true of any kind of running commentary on the numbers of people who have signed the petition. Surely, as my noble friend Lord Hughes has said, it must really render the process void if the returning officer, or whatever he is called, or anyone else, is telling the press, “Oh, it is up to 8% now, and 9%; we only need a few more and there we go”. If, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has said, this is entirely in line with previous electoral law in the way we hold elections, fine; but if it is not, I do not understand the point.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. I should say straightaway that I am a supporter of voting at 16, and if my party wins the general election in May then it will be introduced. I do not believe, however, that we can have a situation whereby people cannot vote until they are 18 but are able to sign a recall petition at 16. They have to go together, in my opinion, and as soon as legislation is brought forward to give young people the vote, consequential amendments will have to be introduced about such things as the age at which they can sign a recall petition. I hope that my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock will appreciate my position on this issue, though I do agree with the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that the ad hoc, piecemeal approach is not the right way to go about these things.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Will the noble Lord indicate which side of the argument he is on regarding whether the names of the people who sign the petition should be made public or made known to the Member of Parliament?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I think that the Government are going to consult on that and will come back on it. They have not made the position clear at present.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
I should make it clear that my amendment does not say that the names should be published but simply that the numbers should be published. The two issues are not therefore connected.
“( ) Any persons wishing to apply to vote by post, who are not registered to do so before the Speaker’s notice is given or before the cut-off day, must do so no later than the end of the fifth week of the signing period.”
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, this amendment is proposed by myself and my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. It puts a strict time limit in the Bill on when electors can apply to sign a recall petition by post. The amendment gives the right balance between allowing people to decide whether they want to sign a petition by post and ensuring that measures and enough time are in place to check that everything is correct to prevent fraudulent activity regarding the timing of the petition. It is very possible, with so few signing places available, that many more electors will choose to sign by post, rather than travel to an appointed signing point. I remember from our debates last week and earlier today my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock telling your Lordships’ House that, in his former constituency, four signing places to cover a seat of hundreds of square miles is totally inadequate. If the Government are not prepared to move on this it is very likely that many more people will want to sign by post.
We are all aware of the concerns that have been raised about postal voting in recent years. Additional safeguards have been brought in to improve security. The amendment would put a clear cut-off point as part of the tools to manage the risk. The political parties have all signed up to a code of conduct respecting elections and postal votes. However, this is not postal voting as such: it is the signing of a petition. There is no code in place, with lots of different campaigners out and about trying to get people to sign, or not sign, a petition. This whole area is very loose and the potential for fraud is very widespread.
I hope that when the Minister responds to the debate he can tell the Committee what role he sees for the Electoral Commission in all of this. As I am sure he will be aware, the commission proposed, and got the agreement of the political parties to sign, the postal vote code of conduct. If he is not minded to accept the amendment, can he tell the Committee how he sees the security of postal vote signing of the recall petition being ensured if there is not a clear cut-off period for the application to sign by post? I beg to move.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
On the question of the deadline for the applications for postal votes, it is normal in an election for the numbers of postal votes cast to be announced after polls have closed.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
In my contribution I talked about the code of conduct regarding postal voting that the Electoral Commission brokered to all the political parties. Of course, when it is a petition it is not postal voting; other campaigners can be involved. What does the Minister envision for a code of conduct for the campaigners?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That is a very good and detailed question on which I need to take some advice. I will ensure that I do so and I will write to the noble Lord. On that basis, I hope that he is able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Lord and at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot support the noble Lord’s amendment because it would be almost impossible to enforce, even if it was desirable in the age of blogs, the internet and everything else. I understand where he is coming from and, at the risk of repeating myself, I think that any Member of Parliament who finds himself subject to a petition is already dead in the water.
I was rather intrigued by our earlier discussion. If someone was present at the count of postal votes in any election and then inadvertently told someone else what the position was, they could very well find themselves facing a prison sentence and a recall petition of this kind. That is a good example of something which might be regarded as a matter where one could win the argument, but in practice it would be very difficult to stop the kind of comments that are made.
However, the noble Lord has done the Committee a service by underlining the key point in all this: once you get to the point of a petition being launched, it will not be about the issues surrounding the Member of Parliament; it will be about 1,001 grievances, political views or whatever. That is why I think that the Bill is fundamentally ill conceived. The House of Commons may think that where the committee has decided that someone should be sent away from the House for more than 10 days, that should start the procedure. However, it would have been better simply to have gone to the point of creating the by-election that would inevitably follow. It would save a lot of time, bureaucracy and cost, as well as a lot of grief and further damage to the standing of the House of Commons and the status of Parliament.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, the probing amendment proposed by my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside raises the important matter of what is said about an MP in a campaign in connection with a recall petition. Many noble Lords who have spoken in our debates on the Bill have expressed concern that MPs who take up causes that are unpopular and then find themselves subject to a recall petition could find that opponents use campaigns or issues that have nothing to do with the issue in question to try to take advantage of the situation. That raises a very important point for your Lordships’ Committee.
My noble friend Lord Hughes was for many years the chair of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, but not so long ago not everyone was so well disposed towards that organisation and its aims. My noble friend made a point by giving examples of issues in his constituency, and I noted his comments about our reputation in the world with regard to the state of our democracy. He went on to make the particular point that there needs to be fairness in the process so that MPs are not allowed to be judged or abused on the positions they take as part of their job of being an MP and which have nothing to do with the actual issue in question. They should be judged on the subject of the recall petition itself. I hope that the noble Lord will respond carefully to the issues that my noble friend raised.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, for his amendment, which intends that in the event of any material being written, spoken or broadcast that is unrelated to the wrongdoing which initiated the recall petition and which is detrimental to the MP, the petition will become null and void.
The Government believe that there are three significant concerns as to why this amendment presents difficulties. Indeed the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, referred to the first, which is the principle of free speech—an issue which of course all of us in this House prize very strongly. I do not think that we should, in effect, severely restrict what individuals, including MPs, constituents and the media, may say or write for a period of eight weeks.
My second concern is the appearance that this amendment gives of particular and special treatment for a Member of Parliament. The noble Lord’s amendment states that it is only material unrelated to the wrongdoing and which is detrimental to the MP that will cause the petition to become null and void. That leaves the clear interpretation that there will be no such consequences to publishing material unrelated to the wrongdoing that is beneficial to the Member of Parliament facing recall. Indeed, while I realise the view of my noble friend Lord Forsyth on the Bill, here he is absolutely right. The third concern is that the proposals would make recall unworkable. Indeed, who would determine whether something is detrimental—and is that even possible?
I say by way of example that it would be impossible to conceive of an eight-minute period, let alone an eight-week period, which could pass without even one example of detrimental material being put into the public domain. The noble Lord’s proposals would make it very difficult for any recall petition to reach its conclusion because it would be quite simple for the supporters of a Member of Parliament to put out negative comments just to secure that outcome. I hope that the noble Lord will accept that I entirely understand and accept his good intentions, but, for the reasons I have outlined, I hope he will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, the amendments in the group proposed by myself and my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town concern the work done after the petition process is over and the MP has either been recalled or not. The Electoral Commission in recent years has reported on election returns and highlighted both good practice and areas where things have not gone so well, or highlighted minor infringements or inconsistencies in what has been sent back by election agents. This has been a good, helpful process and has enabled better advice and guidance to be produced that has been helpful to everyone involved.
Whoever the campaigners are in a recall petition, we can definitely say that they will be new to the process and may be new to any sort of campaigning. If people break the rules, there are processes to be followed and action to be taken as appropriate, but I think it is right that the Electoral Commission should look at the returns submitted by campaigners.
We all hope that this Bill when it becomes law will never have to be used. I think we can confidently agree that if it is used it will be very infrequently. Because of that, we have to ensure that asking the Electoral Commission to look at the returns is a sensible and proportionate move. The problem with the wording in the Bill at present is, on page 55, line 41, the words “on request” and, on page 57, line 32, the word “may”. That for me is too loose and leaves an air of doubt. For such an important matter, the Electoral Commission must be sent a copy of all the petition returns and accompanying documentation and should produce a report on the actions taken or not taken in respect of the recall petition. This is far too important a matter to be left to the vagaries of “on request”, “may” and other similar words.
In conclusion, as my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, has said, I am disappointed with some of the responses by the Electoral Commission to this Bill. I say that as a former member of the commission; I was a member only a few months ago. I am getting quite cross now, particularly with the comment that these are local events with a local feel. I live in south London, and in our times of 24-hour news, to suggest that the only people who will be interested in a recall by-election in south London will be the South London Press, published every Tuesday and Friday, is ridiculous. I really think we have to get rid of this idea. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response. However, I do not know whether he is aware that the Electoral Commission has in the past produced reports on every single local election, whether it be for the whole of London or of Derbyshire or Nottinghamshire. That is hundreds and hundreds of returns, while we are probably talking about one or two returns over a number of years—a very small amount in comparison, so it would not be a big or onerous task. He made the point that the commission has no investigatory powers but, if it looked at returns and found wrongdoing, it could refer that matter to the police. That is what it should do but, with that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
My Lords, Amendments 63 and 67 have been drafted by the Law Society of Scotland. They would remove the power of the Minister to question the outcome of the petition. Instead, any suspected irregularities would be subject to judicial review, so they would take it out of the political arena and put it into the legal framework. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, Amendments 63 and 67 relate to issues raised by the Law Society of Scotland as referred to by my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and concern matters raised by the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House. My noble friend makes a powerful point about the questioning of the petition and the powers this Bill gives to Ministers to make regulations.
These are very serious matters and I have some concerns about things not being very clear in the Bill. Can the Minister explain carefully why the Government are not being more specific about their intention? Can he also confirm by what process these regulations will be approved by Parliament? Am I right in saying that if anyone were unhappy they could seek the intervention of the court through the judicial review process anyway and that nothing here proposed would stop that? Amendments 64 and 73 in this group tabled by myself and my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town seek to address concerns expressed by committees of your Lordships’ House in respect of excessive powers being placed in the hands of Ministers. In particular, we have concerns as to why the Government think it necessary to give a Minister powers to create new criminal offences by statutory instrument. There is, for what in effect is quite a small Bill, far too much left in the hands of the Government to make decisions through the use of statutory instruments.
We support the principle of recall, but it is very disappointing that the Government have waited until the last few months of this Parliament to bring forward a Bill that was in the coalition agreement. As noble Lords have said before, a paper was due in 2011 and here we are in 2015. Leaving so much unresolved is not good enough. Will the noble Lord tell the Committee why so little preparatory work has been done in advance of this Bill coming forward? Will the noble Lord give us some indication where or what these new offences might be that he may have to regulate on?
Amendment 73 would remove the words “(including this Act)” from the Bill. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee thought these words could permit the infiltration of quite substantial and significant additional provisions into the Bill, and we agree. Can the noble Lord explain clearly why the Government think it is necessary to take such wide-ranging powers with little or no explanation?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, Clause 18(1)(b), which Amendment 63 would remove from the Bill, allows for regulations to detail the process for questioning the outcome of the petition to be made. It does not say that Ministers shall decide but allows for regulations to detail the process. Amendment 67 would amend subsection (5) to make it a requirement for the judicial review process to be followed.
Judicial review, as noble Lords will be aware, is a type of court proceeding in which a judge reviews the lawfulness of a decision or action made by a public body. In other words, judicial reviews are a challenge to the way in which a decision has been made, rather than the rights and wrongs of the conclusion reached. The process for challenging the result of an election requires an eligible person to lodge a petition with the relevant election court.
The role of the election court is to establish whether procedural irregularities have occurred, whether an election result should be declared void, and whether any individual or individuals are guilty of offences in relation to the election. As the grounds for challenging the result of a recall petition are also likely to concern irregularities of a type that an election court will be familiar with, this body may be the most appropriate to hear such challenges.
The method for questioning a petition will be set out in regulations, as is the case at other polls where legislation has been made in recent years—for example, European parliamentary elections. The Government do not anticipate the method varying substantially from the established process for challenging the outcome of elections and therefore we do not see a special need to specify the process in primary legislation.
The Government will need to consider the details of the regulations further, but our approach will need to have regard to achieving an appropriate degree of consistency with the established process. We would see it as very much being in line with that.
Amendment 64 on the power to create criminal offences would again affect Clause 18(2)(d). Clause 18 provides:
“The Minister may by regulations … make further provision about the conduct of a recall petition”.
Subsection (2)(d) provides that such regulations may,
“make provision creating a criminal offence”.
Such regulations are to be made by statutory instrument —subject, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, to the affirmative resolution procedure.
In its report of 15 December, the Constitution Committee stated:
“The House may wish to scrutinise why the Government consider it necessary to empower Ministers to create new election law offences by statutory instrument”.
The Government have not yet responded to the committee’s report but will do so as soon as possible. However, I say here that the power is in the Bill to enable Ministers to apply the existing electoral law on offences to the recall petition process, with suitable modifications. Again, this is a matter of adapting existing legislation, not extending or creating new offences.
In order to ensure the integrity of the recall petition process, a number of criminal offences will be required. However, the Government do not consider these to be new offences as they will mirror, with appropriate modifications, well established offences that apply at elections and referendums. The intention is to use the power only to replicate or apply criminal offences that already exist in relation to elections, adapted as necessary for the recall petition process. Examples of the kinds of offence that we anticipate are that it is an offence to impersonate another constituent and sign as them, known as “personation” at elections, as set out in Section 60 of the Representation of the People Act 1983; that it is illegal to tamper with signature sheets, which will be based on Section 65 of the 1983 Act; and that the details of the printer and promoter of petition campaign literature must be included on the literature itself or else an offence is committed, based on Section 110 of the same Act. The Government consider that it would be inappropriate to include in the Bill full details of all the criminal offences, as each offence will be attached to a breach of the detailed rules that will themselves be set out in regulations.
The noble Baroness has tabled Amendment 73, which would amend Clause 21(4) of the Bill to remove the power for regulations in relation to the conduct of the petition to be able to amend this Act itself. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, in turn, questioned this. Again, the Government will respond to the committee’s report as soon as possible. Ahead of that, I will provide an answer to that point here. Clause 21(4) enables regulations relating to the conduct of the recall petition process to amend primary legislation, including the recall Bill when it is an Act. This power was included in the original draft Bill that was published for pre-legislative scrutiny in 2011.
The power in question refers only to the conduct of the petition, as it relates solely to regulations made under Clause 18 and can be used only to make amendments that are consequential, supplementary or incidental to the regulations made under that power. It does not, for example, enable the amendment of the three triggers, or conditions, for initiating a recall petition in the first place. The power was originally included to allow for amendments to be made to the Act to allow for amendments made in other areas of electoral legislation, such as the introduction of individual electoral registration. Since the publication of the draft Bill, the legislation for individual electoral registration has now been put in place.
The Government are considering the committee’s recommendation on this point. As a general point, it is important that we take such powers with care, and only when it is reasonable to assume they will be needed. The Government will continue to consider the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and reflect on the views expressed in this House, and I am sure that we will return to this issue on Report. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Maxton
I agree with the most of that, but the commissioner’s report makes a recommendation on sentence as well. In most cases—not all of them—the committee will agree with that report. However, I accept that, given the circumstances that we are now in—which is why I support the amendments—that might change and the commissioner’s report would not necessarily be upheld in the circumstances that the noble Lord outlined. At the moment, the commissioner gives a recommendation as to what sentence should be given. In quite a lot of cases, that recommendation is that the Member should appear before the House of Commons and apologise for their behaviour; it is often no more than that.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, this group of amendments contains amendments for which I am able to offer the support of the Opposition Front Bench and amendments for which I am not.
Although the non-government amendments are, I believe, only probing, enabling us to debate issues around this important Bill and the provisions concerning recall that it contains, the Labour Party manifesto at the last general election gave a commitment to introduce a system of recall of MPs for wrongdoing. We support the Bill on that basis.
Amendment 5, tabled by my noble friends Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Hughes of Woodside, would delete the second condition of recall, as spoken to in detail by my noble friend Lady Taylor of Bolton. The conditions of recall were debated during the Bill’s passage through the other place. It is right to have a condition of recall that responds to the report from the Standards Committee into the behaviour of a Member of Parliament, where the House of Commons on receiving the report suspends the Member for the requisite period. While I have the greatest respect for my noble friends who have spoken in this debate, I am unable to support the amendment today, as I do not think that it would be right, when the other place has taken a view on a matter of such a serious nature as to suspend a Member, for us to change that.
Amendment 7, which was also supported in addition by my noble friends Lord Campbell-Savours and Lady Taylor of Bolton, increases the period of suspension before the recall provisions are triggered from 10 to 20 sitting days. Amendment 8, again in the names of my noble friends Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Hughes of Woodside, is consequential and takes the period in any other case up to 28 days. These amendments, in effect, reverse the positions agreed in the Commons on an amendment proposed by the Opposition Front Bench. When these issues were debated in the Commons my honourable friend Mr Thomas Docherty made clear from the Dispatch Box the reasoning for the amendment: that, despite concerns raised inside and outside Parliament and the reputation of Parliament being damaged with Members doing wrong that resulted in a suspension, with this threshold in place over the past 20 years on only two occasions would it have been met, as my noble friend Lord Grocott said. Those Members who were suspended in the 1990s for taking cash for questions, which was hugely damaging to Parliament, would have escaped the recall provisions. My colleagues in the other place thought that was unacceptable and brought forward the amendment that was agreed to reduce this trigger to 10 days’ suspension.
Amendments 12 and 36 in the name of my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock remove the words “or otherwise” in both cases from the Bill. Looking at these amendments I am not sure whether they will have unintended consequences and that is why I am unable to support them. I can see a situation, as my noble friend Lord Grocott said in a previous debate tonight, where an MP finds that they have triggered the recall provisions, maybe by serving a term of imprisonment for one day for demonstrating in support of or with some of their constituents, as other noble Lords have referred to. Rather than waiting for the recall to be triggered, the MP may in fact just resign their seat and fight a by-election immediately. They would certainly in those circumstances have avoided lots of campaigns against them, all spending money to have them recalled, and the by-election would be held with strict election expense limits. It seems to me that by deleting these words in the two amendments we could be denying the Member of the other place that option, and that would be regrettable.
Government Amendments 6, 9 and 10, which have the full support of the Opposition Front Bench and have also been signed by my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, in effect seek to future-proof these provisions as far as possible. We are aware that the Commons is or will be looking at these issues in respect of the processes to deal with Members who have done wrong, and these amendments seek to ensure that, whatever the process, the provisions of this recall Bill apply.
The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said—and I agree with him—that the House of Commons is an honourable institution. Members of Parliament from all sides act honourably, work hard on behalf of their constituents and serve people well. Dishonourable Members are very rare and we are all very well served by Members of Parliament. I also agree with the comments of my noble friend Lord Maxton about the denigration of democracy. I also regret that my noble friend—
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, before the noble Lord finishes his remarks, I take him back to the justification which he gave for the 10-day issue, which was that two colleagues who had committed serious offences in the past would not have been caught. Does he really think in the current climate, whatever the number is—whether it was 10 days or 20 days—that they would not have found themselves subject to recall? Therefore surely the logic of his position is incorrect. By setting it at 10 days, we limit the spectrum of penalties that can be put forward. To argue that because in the past a view would have been taken that was less than 20 days does not actually fit in with the spirit of the age. If this Bill is passed and becomes law, it is inconceivable, I would have thought, that the Standards Committee would not look beyond 20 days. This is a self-fulfilling argument that has narrowed the scope for the House to show that it has taken a tough line.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I do not agree with the noble Lord. The amendment was tabled by the Opposition Front Bench because these are serious matters. Members who committed serious wrongdoing would have got away with not being recalled. By tabling the amendment, we wanted to reflect that their punishment was not enough; they should have been recalled. We wanted to give a clear signal to Parliament and to the country that, in future, 10 days is the right length after which that should be dealt with.
In conclusion, I regret that my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours is not here tonight, as many other noble Lords have said. I wish him a speedy recovery.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, let me speak briefly to the government amendments, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, remarked, are consequential to amendments tabled by the Opposition Front Bench and passed in the Commons by a significant majority. We have also tabled three amendments, Amendments 6, 9 and 10, to future-proof the second edition by ensuring that the reference to the Standards Committee captures any other committee that in future exercises the relevant functions. Perhaps I should mention that the Standards Committee is at present reviewing its arrangements, including the role of lay members—although I suspect that it is more likely to expand the role of lay members rather than to do what the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, would like, and dismiss them.
The amendments therefore make it clear that any other committee doing that function, whatever it is called, will continue to be given that function. They also make it clear that it is the report of the Standards Committee from which suspension follows and has to relate to the conduct of a particular MP, rather than, for example, a report about conduct or suspensions more generally.
The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, has tabled several amendments. Amendment 5 is a wrecking amendment, which would render the Bill unworkable by making the first condition ineffective and by removing the second condition. Amendments 7 and 8 would overturn the will of the other place, which voted on Report by 204 to 125 to support an amendment tabled by the Opposition Front Bench to set the threshold at 10 sitting days, as has been remarked on. I suspect that those who were absent were doing other things elsewhere, rather than sitting outside determined to abstain but frightened that the Daily Mail might see what they were doing, which is what I think some noble Lords were suggesting.
Amendments 12 and 36 would amend how the seat might otherwise be vacated by deleting the phrase “or otherwise” from the Bill. Another way of future-proofing the Bill is to emphasise that the seat may be vacated for a number of other reasons—disqualification, death or other causes which the Commons may in future decide for itself. That would of course mean that no recall process was necessary. If the MP’s seat becomes vacant for whatever reason, the MP will not need to face a petition. Those words are therefore needed to stop unnecessary recall petitions being started where the seat has already been vacated.
Perhaps I may say a few wider words on the tone of our Committee so far, because what I hear is a number of noble Lords saying that we have to save the Commons from itself—we know better than the other place. I wish that when we had been debating House of Lords reform, we had the same sense that the other place knows better about us, but I did not hear that sentiment from noble Lords—particularly those here at the time. We have to be very careful not to have nostalgia for British politics of the 1960s as a golden age in which we had two-party politics, mass parties, respect for MPs and Parliament and deference.
Lord Grocott
That is absolutely right, but of course we know why the five-year provision was enacted in the first place. We owe it to David Laws, who gave us an explanation in his book, which I would recommend noble Lords read, if they have not done so already: 22 Days in May. In it he states that in the course of the negotiations between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives:
“We mentioned that our own policy was for four-year, fixed-term parliaments. George Osborne made the point that five-year parliaments were better, as they allowed governments to get into implementing their plans before having to start worrying about the timing of the electoral cycle. We—
that is, the Liberal Democrats—
“made no objection to this, and Britain was on its way to five-year, fixed-term parliaments”.
So, as described by David Laws, the five years were introduced so as not worry about the timing of the electoral cycle, which I think is a polite way of saying “without having to worry about the electorate”. Will the Minister at least acknowledge that the best way of dealing with this business of accountability may be to have rather more frequent general elections?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, the amendments and clause stand part in this group look specifically at the role of the Speaker in the recall process; how the Fixed-term Parliaments Act relates to the provisions of the Bill; at what point on approaching the general election do these provisions no longer come into effect; what do we do if the MP who is under threat of recall happens to be the Speaker of the House of Commons; and is there a role for your Lordships’ House and the Lord Speaker in matters relating to the other place?
During my contribution at Second Reading, I raised the point that there appeared to be an omission in the Bill. What happens if the MP subject to the recall provision also happens to be the Speaker of the House of Commons? I am pleased that the Government have tabled Amendments 68, 69 and 70 to deal with this and put provisions in place to deal with this event if we find ourselves in a position where the Speaker has triggered the recall provision. The Chairman of Ways and Means is the principal Deputy Speaker and quite rightly the person who should undertake these functions if the circumstance arises.
Amendments 54 and 59, put forward by my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, require the Lord Speaker to lay before your Lordships’ House any notices required by Clauses 13 or 14 that it is proposed are laid before the House of Commons. Each House of Parliament has procedures that enable it to conduct its business, regulate its affairs and deal with issues and problems. With the passing of legislation, for example, there is co-operation and agreed procedures to get a Bill on to the statute book.
However, the Bill concerns how we deal with MPs who have done wrong and have met the conditions of recall. The procedures for notifying the Commons are clear in the Bill, whether it be notification of the termination of the process or notification that the petition was successful. In those circumstances, I do not see any role for either your Lordships’ House or the Lord Speaker—although I agree with my noble friend Lord Foulkes’s comment in the previous debate that there are other roles for the Lord Speaker to take, and we should look at that another time.
It would be confusing for one House to notify another House about matters that concern one of its Members. I think that we should also remember that this Bill, when it gets on to the statute book, will, I hope, be rarely used. When it used it will receive considerable media attention. This is no local event and it will not have a local feel. I have no doubt that Members of your Lordships’ House will be fully aware of what is going on.
My noble friends Lord Foulkes of Cumnock and Lord Hughes of Woodside have also tabled Amendment 35, the effect of which is to reduce from six to three months the period before a general election when the provisions do not apply, the Member is already subject to a recall petition and the seat has been vacated. I can see that this reduces the time that the Member is exempt from the provisions, but I think that the reduction to three months makes things very difficult in practical terms.
It is proposed that the petition is available for signing for eight weeks and if successful a by-election is held, which can easily take four weeks—we are at three months. For these and similar reasons, the six months on the face of the Bill is the correct length of time, because it deals with the practicalities of this process and allows a reasonable period of time which is in no way excessive to deal with the practicalities we face.
I hope that my noble friend Lord Foulkes of Cumnock understands why I am unable to support this and his other amendments—although I have a feeling that they will be coming back in amended form on Report.
Recall of MPs Bill
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the Second Reading debate today. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Temple-Morris could not speak in the debate as he was not here at the start. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Cooper of Windrush, on his excellent maiden speech. Like other noble Lords, I look forward to future contributions from the noble Lord in your Lordships’ House. I saw in his list of achievements that he is a former official of his party. As a former official of my party, I am delighted to welcome him here.
We have heard a number of powerful speeches from Members of this noble House who, before serving in this House, were honourable and right honourable Members of the other place and gave equally distinguished service there. That is where I want to start my remarks today. I agree entirely with the comments of my noble friends Lady Corston and Lord Dubs. Members of Parliament are people who have put themselves forward for election and have been elected over the years since elections were first held. In all but the tiniest minority of cases, they are very honourable people who serve their constituents tirelessly. They work long hours, they represent their constituents and they speak up for people. They take up causes—sometimes unpopular causes—they campaign, they challenge conventional wisdoms, they win public support, they change the views of Governments, they change laws and they make our country better. Being a Member of Parliament is an honourable thing and we are very lucky in the United Kingdom that we have people of honour, calibre and ability who are prepared to put themselves forward from all parties and sometimes no party.
Those remarks apply equally to noble Lords in this House. Although not elected, they are people of honour and ability right across the House who seek to improve legislation, take up causes and say what needs to be said. My noble friend Lady Hayter was right when she pointed out the honourable campaigning role on a range of issues of Members of the other place, including gay rights, the end of capital punishment, a woman’s right to choose, and, more recently, opposition to fracking. If Members were sentenced to a period of imprisonment for a peaceful protest, they would run the risk of being subject to recall.
At the general election, my party backed the principle of recall and we back legislation that enables the public to have a right of recall over their Member of Parliament. We have to be careful to respect the decisions that the other place has taken. However, at the same time, we must seek to improve the Bill. It concerns how we deal with people who are Members of the other place and have been convicted of an offence and imprisoned and, with the appeal process exhausted, suspended from the service of the House for a period of at least 10 days.
When this Bill becomes an Act, I hope that it never needs to be used. A look back at history suggests that it would have been used fairly infrequently, as my noble friend Lord Grocott pointed out, and I am pleased about that. I am also aware that the Standards Committee in the other place is presently undertaking a review of its procedures and the Bill is drafted to take account of that, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said. I think it is right that how the committee operates is a matter for the House of Commons and not the Government or your Lordships’ House to decide.
The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, referred to the amendment moved by his honourable friend in the other place, Dr Julian Huppert. The other place decided on that issue when the amendment was pressed to a vote and defeated. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that as the other place has decided on that issue these Benches will not support that amendment if it comes before this House.
As other noble Lords have said, far too much of this is left to regulation rather than being specific and clear in the Bill. I do not think that is right. It is worth noting that there is nothing in the Bill that stops the other place expelling a Member if they have done wrong. The other place has had that power for a considerable time but has used it very infrequently, as my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport pointed out. I also agree with my noble friend’s comments about the amendment moved by Zac Goldsmith in the other place. We cannot have MPs hounded by blogs and other electronic forms of communication referred to by my noble friend Lord Snape.
When we consider the Bill in Committee and on Report, we will look very carefully at a number of specific provisions in the Bill. We will look at how they will operate and say what we think needs to be amended to improve on what is proposed. Those issues include what would happen if the MP who was the subject of the recall also happened to be the Speaker. The Bill is fairly silent on that and Clause 19, as it stands, does not satisfy legitimate concerns in this respect.
My noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town explained to the House the concerns we have in respect of where the balance is drawn between what is public and what is private, and of the appropriate protections both for the Member of Parliament who is the subject of the petition, who has the right to be treated fairly, and the constituents who are registered to vote in the constituency, who have to understand clearly their rights and responsibilities and what is public and what is not. My noble friend made a very important point about the marked register being made public. That is the end of the secret ballot in the UK because, if you go to sign the petition, you are voting only one way. The noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, made an important point about the organisation of the petition.
My noble friend Lord Lennie made a number of important points with which I am in total agreement. We have to be much clearer than we are at present about the role of petitions officers and how they discharge their functions. In my opinion, there is a lack of clarity about the status of the petition. Is it public or private? What are the arrangements for inspection and challenge of any of the names on the petition? How can we ensure that people are treated properly?
My noble friend Lady Corston was right to refer to the number of offices where electors can go to sign a petition. I have lived in various constituencies in either cities or boroughs as my work took me around the country. There was the old Southwark-Peckham constituency, the Coventry north-east constituency and Nottingham north. I currently live in the Lewisham-Deptford constituency. Four places for residents to sign in each of those constituencies would not be enough, let alone in a large rural constituency.
It is very disappointing that the Electoral Commission does not have a formal role in ensuring compliance or monitoring of campaign spending and donation rules in respect of recall petitions. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, can tell us why that is the case. I believe that the Electoral Commission should take a leading role here and it is not good enough to leave this to local petitions officers. As my noble friend Lord Lennie said, any suggestion that these events would have a local feel is nonsense. Let us be clear: if a Member of Parliament is the subject of a recall petition, that is not a local event with a local feel. It will be a national news story and a national event that will get intense media scrutiny. What we need is consistency, clarity, definition and certainty. Leaving these matters in the hands of local petitions officers will not give us that, nor will advice and guidance from the Electoral Commission alone.
Along with the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, who is not in her place today, I was one of the first electoral commissioners appointed by a political party and saw first hand the skills and expertise that the Electoral Commission has. When political parties submit their donation reports, they are checked by commission officials. Feedback is given and, if there are problems, they are taken up with the parties concerned. Commission officials also work with parties at times other than when returns are being submitted. To leave it to campaigners and petitions officers to make sure they have got this right is just not good enough.
What testing of the question, as detailed in Clause 9, has taken place? We need to be reassured that the question is fair, balanced and objective. The Electoral Commission has the people with the expertise to do that. It has tested questions before and did excellent work on the question for the recent Scottish referendum. Its report was accepted in its entirety by the Scottish Government and the question was changed to a much more neutral one. Can the noble Lord tell the House whether the Electoral Commission has tested the question, or been asked to test it? If the answer is no, can he please tell the House why not? When will the Government ask the Electoral Commission to carry out this important work?
I am also not happy with where we are in respect of numerous local campaigns working to unseat the sitting Member all apparently being set up with a limit of £10,000. Surely, we should seek to get a more level playing field here, with campaigns to unseat or keep the Member in their seat having similar expenditure limits. Not to seek to do this is clearly unfair. As I and other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside, have said, if the MP has a record of championing unpopular but honourable causes, certain people and organisations may not like that. The MP may take part in a peaceful protest, be arrested and spend a day or two inside. All of a sudden they are at risk of being recalled, following dozens of well funded campaigns, all spending £10,000 to get 10% of the electorate on to a petition. That cannot be right. Such MPs could find that all sorts of people and campaigns are working to unseat them. As I say, that cannot be right. Can the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, give some indication that he is willing to work with the Opposition to try to put in place some sort of protection or scheme to stop that situation arising?
I agree very much with the comments of my noble friend Lord Grocott when he called for the repeal of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act. It is shocking to realise that, had that Act been in force, there would have been only 13—not 18—general elections since the Second World War.
In conclusion, today’s debate has highlighted a number of issues that will need detailed consideration by your Lordships’ House when we return after the Christmas and new year break. I look forward to taking part in that.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
The noble Lord said that the petition wording had been developed in consultation with the Electoral Commission. Has the question actually been tested? That was the point I raised.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Officials are now arranging the use and testing of the wording of the petition and are in contact with the commission about the form that that testing will take. We can discuss that further—if necessary, off the Floor.
Political Parties: Funding
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for introducing this debate. I agree with him that he is a happy and friendly noble Lord. I always enjoy our conversations together, whether they are in the Bishops’ Bar, outside the Table Office when we are waiting to put our Questions down, or anywhere else. I see the points that he makes about politicians and the low feelings in the House of Commons. Unlike the noble Lord and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, I have never served in the other place but Members there and Members of this House are honourable and only a few exceptions cause problems.
The funding of political parties is an extremely important issue, and having healthy parties is crucial to our democracy. Whether locally or nationally, most people elected to public office stand on a party ticket. Those elected to form the Government of the UK, the Opposition or devolved institutions or to form the administration of a local council are drawn from people who, in virtually all cases, are elected from party tickets.
However, before we get to the point of seeking elected office, parties must have structures and procedures in place. They must have built up organisations and developed the skills to undertake campaigns. All this costs money, and everyone in this debate wants the funding of our political parties to be transparent, open and free from suspicion of people buying influence or seeking favours.
Over a number of years there have, as my noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said, been a number of attempts to reform party funding. The present interests or concerns can be traced back to the 1990s and the last years of the Conservative Government led by John Major. The biggest reform followed the report undertaken by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which led to the 2000 Act commonly known as PPERA. It introduced spending limits for national election campaigns, the regulation of donations, the publication of what money had been received in each quarter by the parties and the publication of annual accounts, among other things, including the establishment of the Electoral Commission.
Since then, there have been other problems. After the 2005 election, we saw allegations of cash for peerages, which went on for well over a year. We then had the review by Sir Hayden Phillips, to which other noble Lords have referred, but the interparty talks were suspended in 2007. Then we had the election of the coalition Government, whose agreement said:
“We will also pursue a detailed agreement on limiting donations and reforming party funding in order to remove big money from politics”.
We have had the inquiry by the Committee on Standards in Public Life into party finance, published in November 2011. It is a good report with lots of sensible recommendations on how party funding could be reformed. However, the biggest problem is that the public—the taxpayer—would not accept additional public funds going to parties when we are in such difficult economic times and when efforts to improve the public finances and the economy are set to continue well into the next Parliament, no matter which party or parties are in government after May next year. That is the real issue and one that the parties cannot ignore.
The interparty talks again failed to reach agreement, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said, and the Government moved ahead with their lobbying Bill. There have been other developments. In terms of my own party, my noble friend Lord Collins led a review which fundamentally changed the relationship we have with the trade unions, with individual union members having to opt in, as the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, said. That in itself may bring about other changes regarding the funding of political parties. These are difficult issues to resolve but I am firmly of the opinion that they must be resolved by agreement between the parties and that that agreement must not produce winners or losers. It needs to be a fair funding settlement whereby, in effect, every party has to give up something or make changes but where every party also gains as well. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours made some powerful points about how important it is to look at what impact that might have, particularly on the smaller parties. A deal can be made only on that basis and that is the real challenge for everyone who wants to seek a resolution to this problem.
The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee came to similar conclusions in its report published on 29 January 2012. It said that a solution perceived as partisan would undermine any positive impact on public opinion which would otherwise be achieved by resolving this issue.
I want to move on and look at some of the suggestions that have been made in recent years. Some have considerable merit and others not so much. As I said before, additional state support for parties in our present economic climate is not something that, in my opinion, the public are going to accept, but the proposals put forward by Andrew Tyrie MP, John Denham MP and the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—particularly in connection with making savings on things such as the freepost costs and possibly using that money in a different way—are certainly worth exploring further. I wonder whether the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has any idea of the sums of money that would be involved, which might be used in a different way. Would it be possible for this money to be used to begin to limit the size on donations received by a political party? I do not have any figures but could a start be made? It would be good to get the noble Lord’s views on this.
Often when people look at party funding reform, it is suggested that there should be some reduction in the national local spending limits to curtail expenditure and stop the development of an arms race. In a previous life I was the director of finance for the Labour Party. A political party is not shielded from the everyday cost pressures that any other organisation faces. I refer to things like mortgage payments, rents, pay claims, IT costs, insurance and other office costs. Many of these limits for campaigning in national elections have not risen for many years. I really do not want to see an arms race, but parties must be able to mount effective campaigns with reasonable expenditure limits.
I have always liked the idea of fixing limits, but then building in a process whereby an annual uprating for inflation is made as a matter of course. That would let you protect the original decision you made and allow for reasonable annual increases which would not become a row after a number of years because no one had actually dealt with the issue. Then you have to deal with rises to cover four or five years in one go.
I did this with the Labour Party membership fee. No one ever wanted to put the fees up and they were withering on the vine. After five or six years we would end up having a big row because the fees had to be put up. There was always trouble at conference about this, so I proposed, and it was agreed by the National Executive Committee, that in future our fees would be put up on 1 January every year using the October figure for RPI, rounded up to the nearest 50p. We had a standard rate membership fee and a reduced rate at half that which was for unemployed and retired people, and then we had a rate for elected people such as Members of the House of Lords. That was to be double the standard rate. It took the heat out of everything. There are no more rows about membership fees at party conferences or anywhere else. The system is simple, fair and reasonable, and everyone accepts it.
I have always been a bit reluctant to entertain schemes that involve tax reliefs, but I wonder if the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, could say a little about what thinking there is in government about them. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours made some valuable points about this area.
The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has kindly written to me this week about the question of the governance of the Electoral Commission. I know that we are not going to look at this issue until after the election, if at all, but I do think that if any of these changes take place, we must also look at how the regulator is held to account and is subject to proper challenge. I do not believe that speeches in the House of Commons present that proper challenge in areas such as the governance of the Electoral Commission. These are major issues that need to be taken on, so we need to make sure that they are done properly. I was for many years an electoral commissioner and my experience tells me that we need to look very carefully at the whole question of the commission’s governance.
In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Dykes, for tabling this short debate. It is important that we have healthy political parties that can function properly and that the political system is free from the suspicion of acting improperly in relation to party funding matters. While we often sit and watch the TV or see in the newspapers an opponent’s party getting caught up in all sorts of funding nonsense, as my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours has said, in the end we all lose because people begin to think that all the parties are at it. They think that the system is corrupt and we all suffer as a result. It is really important that we get this right. There should be no winners or losers, but a fair, functioning system that actually respects everyone.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I have been in the House for almost five years. When I filled in the forms I was in the bizarre position of having to explain that I was actually being paid a salary by the Labour Party. It paid me money.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I wish my party had paid me. The first time I worked for my party, in the 1966 general election, when I took four weeks off from writing my PhD to be the party’s assistant press officer, I worked flat out—probably 14 to 16 hours a day for four weeks. At the end of it, Lord Byers, who was then the party’s chair, presented me with a £50 note, which I had never seen before and which in those days was a substantial sum of money. I and a friend spent a very enjoyable holiday in France on the basis of that £50 note. That is the only occasion on which I have benefited from money flowing the other way.
There is a consensus on the need to limit the impact of money on politics. There is also a particularly negative campaign from the right-wing media that we are all in politics only for the money. All I say on that is that I would encourage the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, who pursues many very effective campaigns in politics, also to campaign to ensure that those right-wing newspapers pay their full taxes in the country which they seek to defend because we all know that they do their utmost to avoid that.
The problem for all of us is that political campaigning costs money and the public, as consumers of politics, expect the parties to put leaflets through their doors, to phone them and to maintain websites, Twitter feeds and so on. When I was out in Hull two or three weeks ago, people told me on the doorstep, “How good to see you. Hardly anyone ever comes round and asks us about our political attitudes”. I was glad that we were doing it there, but in quite a lot of constituencies, no parties really manage to do that actively. We know that it does not come for free and that maintaining a basic constituency organisation requires a level of funding. Voters complain vigorously when parties do not maintain contact with them but show no willingness to help pay for those activities.
That pushes us towards the question of donors. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, and other noble Lords asked whether all the political parties could manage on less money and depend more on volunteers—but we all face similar problems in how many volunteers we can attract. Perish the thought, but if UKIP had three or four really major donors, that might drive the three parties together to an eventual consensus on this issue.
We all know the context for this debate. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 introduced some important changes in the field of party funding. It established the Electoral Commission, about which the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, has rightly raised issues today and on previous occasions. It required political parties to register with the Electoral Commission, set down accounting requirements for parties, introduced controls on donations to parties and their members, and controlled campaign expenditure within certain periods, both for parties and third parties in national election campaigns. I stress “control periods” because I suspect that all three parties have spent a fair amount of money in the last four weeks. We are just about to start the control period for the election; that is part of the problem. The Act set down rules on the donations received and expenses incurred in election campaigns and required companies to obtain approval before making political donations. These provisions are useful and important. Political parties have to keep records of donations over £500, and donations over £7,500 have to be declared to the Electoral Commission, which publishes details every quarter of donations received by political parties. That information is published on its website and is accessible to all—so far, so good. Parties can only receive donations from permissible sources: individuals who are on the electoral register, UK-registered companies—I stress “registered” as that raises a number of questions of definition—trade unions, building societies and other bodies such as unincorporated associations and limited liability partnerships.
The Electoral Administration Act 2006 introduced further provisions on the disclosure of loans to political parties. Since these reforms, there have been continued public and media attacks on large donations and on trade union funding—to which I shall return—which have led to further reports. These include the 2004 review by the Electoral Commission, reports by Sir Hayden Phillips and the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee in 2006 and, most recently, in 2011, a report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which recommended, among other things, a £10,000 annual cap on donations, trade union members having to opt in to fees paid to political parties if donations are to be counted individually—I stress that was a proposal from the Committee on Standards in Public Life; it was not a partisan proposal by other political parties—and an increase in public funding.
The problem is in getting consensus among the political parties on this. We all have different interests and we all have different sources of donations. My party has proudly said on its website that when the Electoral Commission has published the number of donations to political parties, over the past three years we have received on several occasions more individual donations than the Labour Party. The problem is that we have not received half as many large corporate donations or donations from other collectivities known as trade unions, or indeed any other large donations—let alone those received by the Conservative Party. In that sense, it does us good as a democratic principle, but it does not provide us with the money we need to employ staff, work on our website and do all the other things that need to be done.
We had a further round of discussions in the light of the report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life which the Deputy Prime Minister convened in 2012-13. Seven meetings were held and the Deputy Prime Minister made one thing clear in setting out the remit, which was that in the current circumstances of a squeeze on public spending, there was no possibility of increasing state funding for political parties. After those discussions, the group failed to agree, and it is quite clear that between now and the next election we are not going to make any progress. Over the past 25 years we have established a whole set of additional funding for political parties—Short money, Cranborne money and the like—which has been very useful and has helped us to carry out our parliamentary functions and to raise the quality of our political research. However, public support for the expansion of political public funding is clearly absent at the present moment. So those talks broke down and we are stuck. We need to fund political parties and we benefit enormously from not having to pay for radio and television advertising, but politics and political campaigning cost money.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, raised the question of the extent to which the harsh regulation that we all suffer, including under IPSA once you are elected, discourages political recruitment and political retention. I think that that is an enormous problem and we will all need to address it once the election is out of the way and we have seen many good MPs from all parties retire rather than continue. I think that the noble Lord and I would probably agree that some of the best of the new Conservative intake are retiring after one period in Parliament, regrettably, because they really do not want to put up with the situation in which they live. That is a loss to us all in terms of democratic politics as much as those retiring from other parties.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, for many of us, the world in its current form ends on 8 May 2015. If anyone here knows what the shape of the new Government will be, I would love them to tell me so that I can put down a large sum with the bookmakers and donate the winnings to my political party. I have no knowledge of that. What I am saying is that awkward people like the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, should insist, as soon as they come back, that it is put back on the agenda because it is a very important question and we cannot get away from it. I therefore encourage him to continue to stir on all of this.
I am not entirely sure that I agree with the noble Lord that trade unions act as virtuous collectivities, which I think is what he was saying, with benign general secretaries representing the enlightened interests of their diverse memberships. That is not quite how I see all the general secretaries of trade unions, so there are some questions around that.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Will the noble Lord accept that our contributions come from individual members paying in so many pence per week? The contributions come from individual trade union members paying the political levy.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I will accept that. A proportion of the fees that individual members pay is deducted for a political fund which goes to one political party. How conscious or voluntary that is is, of course, part of the dispute.
I have a great deal of personal sympathy for the argument made by several noble Lords in support of gift aid tax relief. That is absolutely part of the way forward and it is one of the issues that quite a few of us, in whatever position we find ourselves after the election, should put straight back on to the agenda. We can then argue about the cap to be set, but again we are facing the problem that so far, the evidence of the number of voters who are sufficiently committed to any political party to want to pay money to it has fallen and we therefore need to increase it yet again. Some of us, and I am one of them, do our best to narrow the gap by entering the EuroMillions lottery each week and promising that we will give a substantial part of our winnings to our political party. Unfortunately only the SNP has benefited from that so far, not the Liberal Democrats or any other party.
I had expected the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, to ask me why the Government have not commenced the part of the last Act which deals with the tax status of donors. The answer I was ready to give to him, and which I cannot resist giving to him, is that the tax status of donors is actually not very easy to establish during a current tax year. For example, whether someone is domiciled in Britain or not is not entirely clear until after the end of the tax year. It is also a matter of confidentiality between the taxpayer and HMRC. If we are to have an information data gateway between HMRC and political parties that political parties can access, which might well be part of what we need to do, it will take us a year or two to establish—my notes say a minimum of two years. That, again, is an issue which we may wish to return to after the election. The question of whether or not a company is registered within Britain and carrying out serious activities in Britain is also a very difficult issue.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I will see what can be done in that respect and, if possible, I will write to the noble Lord.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I also mentioned the whole issue of freepost. I know he does not have figures here, but maybe we could look again at how much we spend on freepost in the UK, and use that money in a slightly different way.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
Again, I will take that back and see whether we can write to the noble Lord.