Coalition Government: Constitution Committee Report

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate, I start by congratulating the Constitution Committee on the production of this excellent report and, in particular, by paying tribute to my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington. She has been an excellent chair of the committee and will be an extremely hard act to follow. This is one of a number of roles that my noble friend has undertaken as a member of your Lordships’ House with the usual calm, efficient and knowledgeable approach that she brings to all the tasks she undertakes. I know that she is highly respected and admired by Members on all Benches. I first got to know and work with my noble friend Lady Jay many years before I joined your Lordships’ House and it is a privilege to call her my noble friend.

As I said in my opening remarks, this is an excellent report and a very timely one. The first coalition in more than 70 years and the first peacetime coalition in 79 years was formed in 2010 between the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. I have always been of the opinion that the coalition would serve out its full term. I never treated with any seriousness the reports that it was about to implode, collapse or disappear, so essentially I agree with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender.

While it may be wrong to say that it was uncharted territory, it was certainly territory that had not been navigated for a very long time. All the players involved in earlier discussions had left the pitch. I have some sympathy for the Liberal Democrats and the position that they found themselves in. They have certainly paid a heavy price at the ballot box in the local elections following the general election of 2010, as voters have shown their displeasure at some of the policies they have pursued with their coalition partners. If we look abroad, it often is the junior partner in a coalition that pays a heavier price in subsequent elections. None of us has crystal balls or can see into the future but, as the report points out, the growth in votes and seats for parties that are neither Labour nor Conservative has increased from 10 seats and 10% of the vote in the 1950s to 86 seats and a third of the vote in 2010. The trend is clear; if it continues further coalitions are possible and perhaps even very likely. Our constitution and the way that government and Parliament react and adapt to change is a matter that needs to be kept under review. This report is an important part of that review. It has been interesting to hear from noble Lords who were involved to differing degrees in the discussions to form the coalition and, in the case of my noble friend Lord McConnell, on the formation of the coalition with the Liberal Democrats in the Scottish Parliament.

I will now address specific parts of the report. My opinion is that there should be no fixed time for agreement to be reached between coalition partners but discussion should be concluded as soon as possible. A rushed agreement that struggles will not produce good government and will set up the Administration to fail from the outset as the realities of government come into play. The noble Lord, Lord O’Donnell, made important points in respect of that as did the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth.

On fixed-term Parliaments, I agree with the evidence given by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton when he suggested that five year fixed-term Parliaments were too long and that four years was more in tune with the natural rhythm of our electoral cycles. I agree also with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell. The contribution on the last year of Parliaments by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was very interesting, as there is concern across the House that all the extra time off we have had recently affects the ability of the House to hold the Government properly to account. The Government need to respond to that point.

When I look back to the time of the formation of the coalition, I recall the press being camped outside Parliament on College Green and outside party headquarters—certainly outside the Conservative and Liberal Democrat headquarters. At that time I was working at the Labour Party headquarters and it was a bit quieter there. It was new for everyone in 2010. If the general election next year results in a hung Parliament I hope that more informed briefings are provided so that the media can report more accurately on what actually is going on rather than endlessly speculating on what might be going on. I accept fully that that is much easier to say than to deliver and that the media like speculation, but it is important to keep citizens informed as far as possible with accurate information and to give them reassurance that things are under control and procedures remain in place to ensure stability.

I very much agreed with the report when it looked at the duty of an incumbent Prime Minister to remain in office until a successor who can command a majority in the House of Commons is identified. That could be described as the final duty of an incumbent Prime Minister: ensuring stability, enabling discussions to take place and facilitating the transfer of power in an orderly fashion, as you would expect in a mature democracy. I very much agreed with the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, in that respect.

The use of the Civil Service is also considered by the report. The previous Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, announced before the general election that in the event of a hung Parliament the Civil Service would be available to support negotiations between the parties. It may be that if coalitions become the norm in the United Kingdom their role in supporting the negotiations will increase over time. That could be very helpful in bringing greater clarity and resolution of issues in a more timely fashion. Perhaps that will occur over time and will be much more like the process described by my noble friend Lord McConnell.

I could not see a situation where an incumbent Prime Minister in the future would not follow what Gordon Brown did in making the announcement about the involvement of the Civil Service. However, for greater clarity, it may be wise for the Government to make an announcement many months in advance of the election about what will happen after a general election under various scenarios, as the report suggested and as my noble friend Lady Jay outlined. The autumn period, after the conference season, seems the ideal time for the Government to make such an announcement. That would be before any real campaigning gets under way and would provide everyone with the clarity they need.

I did not like at all the suggestion of having a prime ministerial investiture vote and am pleased that the committee did not adopt this proposal. That seems at odds with our parliamentary system of government. It may be said that things have become more presidential, with so much focus on our party leaders, but for me this is a step too far. Parliament has mechanisms that enable it to express the confidence or otherwise in the whole Government led by the Prime Minister of the day, starting with the vote on the Queen’s Speech. It is clear, effective and well understood. For that reason I am in agreement with the committee’s opinion that it is not desirable to have a separate vote on any coalition agreements between the parties.

One of the most interesting parts of the report is chapter 4, which looks at the operation of government and Parliament under coalition. The principle of collective ministerial responsibility has served us well in the UK, where decisions are reached collectively and, when made, are binding on all Ministers. The principle largely stands but it may be that, with the evolution of coalition Government, more emphasis on the agreements to differ needs to be allowed to avoid disputes between Ministers and parties in the same Administration. Many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington, and the noble Lords, Lord Crickhowell and Lord Lexden, referred to that very matter.

The breakdown during this Parliament between the coalition partners over House of Lords reform, the ability of the Government to secure a majority for the programme motion in the House of Commons and the subsequent blocking of the boundary reviews highlighted a serious deficiency between the coalition partners that had either not been seen or not worked out sufficiently in advance. As we have seen, this issue came to the surface again today in contributions from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, and the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner.

I again find myself in agreement with the points made by my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton in this part of the report. I am sure that noble Lords will agree that it is important, as the report highlights, to have proper processes in place to govern any setting aside of collective responsibility on individual matters to ensure that collective responsibility remains in place for the vast majority of the Government’s programme.

The creation of what has been called “the quad” is an interesting development. It certainly puts the Liberal Democrats, the junior coalition partner, at the heart of the decision-making process and makes clear that this body deals with and agrees the way forward on the thorniest issues that confront the Government. In fact, as many noble Lords have said, David Laws MP referred to this as “the inner Cabinet”. I am sure that more will be written about the workings of the quad in future. From my observation from outside, it is a very powerful part of the Government that has played its role in keeping the two coalition partners together on a very solid basis, with only one or two exceptions that I have referred to before.

In looking at the end of the Parliament, the committee has made important recommendations as to how contact and discussions with civil servants should take place. They are a development of the present practice and maintain the important principle that parties should have discussions with the Civil Service for the purposes of developing policy and understanding policy issues and that these discussions should be confidential. It is also important that, while few important decisions are taken during the purdah period, the business of government goes on and conventions are respected to ensure that this happens.

The most worrying thing I heard today was from my noble friend Lord McConnell about what is happening in Scotland with regard to the papers of the previous Administration. That is a very unfortunate development and one that I hope can be resisted in future.

In conclusion, I again thank the Constitution Committee and my noble friend Lady Jay for an excellent report and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2014

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

At end to insert “but that this House regrets that the Regulations do not go far enough to address the problem of young people not registering to vote and, in particular, that this statutory instrument is not more closely modelled on the proven and successful Northern Ireland Schools Initiative.”

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving this amendment to the Motion, I first note that as far as it goes, this regulation has my support and that of noble Lords on these Benches. That is why my amendment is carefully worded in regretting the fact that it does not go further. The regulations are a useful addition to the tools that electoral registration officers have at their disposal to improve the accuracy of the electoral register. It is ridiculous that until this point, EROs in two-tier local government areas had no right to inspect records held by county councils that might have helped them to maintain improved accuracy of the register.

We have had many debates, discussions and questions about the electoral register, the registration process and connected matters in this Chamber and in the Moses Room. We have much more work to do in updating and improving the processes that we employ to ensure that they make a difference in getting the millions of our fellow citizens on to the register who, as I have repeatedly raised in this House, are eligible to be on the register but are not currently registered.

Like many noble Lords I have been out and about on the streets for the local and European elections. What I find particularly depressing is when you go down a street or on a council estate and you see gaps in the register—no one at the address is on the register to vote, but clearly somebody is living there. There are now too many of these gaps for it always to be because those people are not eligible to take part in elections. It is very depressing for anyone who believes in democracy and citizenship that people are not registered to vote. We could do much more to find new ways of identifying those people and getting them registered to vote. I have always thought that there must be more scope for looking at the way citizens engage with the state and making that engagement play its part in a process of checking if the person is registered to vote. There must be a presumption that the state has a duty to get its citizens registered to vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their various contributions. I will take all the thoughts back with me. Let me start by saying that we are all concerned about the problems of low registration. The noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, really talked about two different problems: we are mostly concerned here about problems in getting young people on to the register. There is another problem, which is people who actually do not want to be on it. We have all been through some of the estates where a large number of people are not on the register and quite strongly tell you—as they put their bull terrier on to you—that they do not want to be on it. That is of course another part of the problem.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I must say that though I may have had various dogs set on me for all sorts of things, it was never so that people would not go on the register.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

We recognise that we have a number of problems. My noble friend Lord Tyler referred to the recent audit of political engagement, which showed the level of political disengagement in the United Kingdom. I happened to be having my hair cut when Sky News ran its European poll on levels of trust in political elites. I regret to say that the United Kingdom comes alongside France and only just behind Belgium in the high levels of distrust in all our political elites. We share a common interest in reversing that and political parties have to work on it. The media have to make their own contribution and bear some responsibility for the rising levels of mistrust we have seen in recent years.

The majority of comments have been about how we get young people on to the register and, in the case of Lord Lexden, about overseas voters. I remind noble Lords that the Northern Ireland Schools Initiative does not automatically register pupils. The registration rate for attainers in Northern Ireland currently stands at 66%, not 100%. Students must still remember to bring in their national insurance number on the day the registration officers visit the school and then choose to register by signing the form.

As electoral registration officers and others go round secondary schools in England, Wales and Scotland, they will encourage pupils to register online in the borough in which they live. The two schools closest to Saltaire, Titus Salt and Guiseley, have a mixture of pupils from Leeds and Bradford. That is duplicated across West Yorkshire and, even more so, in London. This is part of the problem, but it will become easier with online registration.

I stress to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that we are not in the business of permitting electoral registration officers to go into schools. A lot of registration officers have already been going into schools for a long time and we encourage them to do so. The Government are a little more reluctant to make this compulsory. The Rock Enrol! initiative was founded on the basis of the experience of Northern Ireland. The business case for its development and ensuring that we were targeting attainers effectively came out of that as part of our work to maximise registration. EROs have been encouraged to use the funding provided by government for maximising registration to support the delivery of Rock Enrol! in their area.

We all understand that there is a great deal more to do to reverse the level of disengagement among young people and older people. We have failed over many years to produce effective citizenship education in our schools; that is another area to which we need to return. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, asked whether votes at 16 would help in this regard. Perhaps we need to have that debate. I feel that it would also help if local government were stronger and more local so that people actually knew some of their elected representatives.

At the moment I do not have the recommendations of the Electoral Commission on this; I will write to the noble Lord as soon as I discover what they are. However, we are encouraging EROs to work on this and we are providing funding. Two of the five organisations to which we have provided specific funding—UK Youth and the Scottish Youth Parliament—specifically focus on this area. That will help us as we go forward. However, as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, suggested, making sure that young people know something about the political process is part of a wider problem on which successive Governments have not done enough over the past 25 years.

I turn to the issue, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, of overseas voters and how to encourage them. I have learnt, over the past few months, that the number of overseas voters follows a cyclical pattern. It rises in the run-up to a general election and falls off again immediately afterwards. This is completely understandable. Perhaps we may hope that the fixed date of next year’s general election will encourage a larger rise. It was more than 32,000 at the 2010 election. We are working on this by putting advertisements on a number of websites to encourage those living abroad to think about registering. We have made it easier for them to register by reducing the number of documents they have to provide, and we support the efforts that others are making in this respect.

The Government do not think that we can do this on our own. We are working with Bite the Ballot and other voluntary organisations. We are encouraging political parties to do their bit. The other regulation I mentioned takes us further down the road. I assure noble Lords that although we have not entirely duplicated the Northern Ireland Schools Initiative, the Rock Enrol! initiative draws on it. Electoral registration officers on the mainland are already doing the work that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, would like them to do. The Government will follow that, and we hope that the outcome will be registration at least as high as in Northern Ireland. I repeat that there, sadly, it is only two-thirds. We will do our best to hit that target.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Tyler, Lord Roberts and Lord Lexden, who made excellent points. I agree almost entirely with what they said. I found some of the Minister’s response a bit unconvincing, and I think we will be returning to this many more times.

The point I found most unconvincing was about the one electoral registration officer in Northern Ireland, where, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said, it works fine. The idea that the more than 300 EROs in England and Wales and the Electoral Management Board in Scotland will not know their local college and school and so could not possibly do it right is just nonsense. We hear lots from the Government about localism and all sorts of things.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is not the point. Of course, we all know our local college and school. The problem is that you cannot go into a school with a set of forms and encourage young people to fill them in because they do not all live in the same authority. Particularly in London boroughs, you are very often dealing with pupils from a number of different authorities, so if one were to do it on paper, that would be extremely complicated. That is why I stressed that the move to online registration gives us a much easier way of coping with this diversity of electoral authorities.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I am still not very convinced. Luckily the Electoral Commission now produces standard forms. I think the Minister may need to go back and reflect on that a bit more in government. That is not a credible argument.

I am very tempted to test the opinion of the House on this, but at this time it is probably not worth me doing so. I assure the Minister that I will come back and test it on a future date. I hope he will come back with a few more convincing arguments than those tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Amendment to the Motion withdrawn.

Voting: Young People

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 7th April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tomlinson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they have taken to increase the number of young people registered to vote.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Tomlinson, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have announced that five national organisations and every local authority in Great Britain are sharing £4.2 million in funding to promote voter registration, including among young people. The Cabinet Office has written to electoral registration officers encouraging them to use this funding to support the delivery of Rock Enrol, a learning resource which provides an opportunity for young people to register to vote and enables them to discuss the importance of doing so in schools or colleges.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, only 44% of young people aged 18 to 24 actually voted in the 2010 general election, citizen training is virtually non-existent in our schools and we have the threat of IER, which risks wiping thousands of young people off the register. When are the Government finally going to do something to engage young people and get them on to the register?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are conscious that this is a long-term problem. The number of young people voting in elections has been going down for the past 25 years. When I was drafting my party’s manifesto for the 1997 election, I remember being told by a number of people in my party that we had to recognise that fewer young people voted than older people. That problem has been growing and it is still growing. With schools, students forums, funding a number of organisations, and working with Bite the Ballot and others, we are doing our utmost to mitigate that. From June this year we are also introducing online registration, which we hope will help young people find it easier to register.

Electoral Fraud

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, that was the original intention of the 2006 Act. However, representations from electoral registration officers that that would be difficult led to the Act stating that a minimum of 20% should be checked. In recent elections, we have achieved virtually 100% of postal votes being checked, and we are now confident that with the co-operation of electoral registration officers, it will be 100% in the forthcoming general election.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, there must be zero tolerance for those found breaking the law, but any attempt to prevent millions of law-abiding citizens from being able to cast their vote by post would be hugely disproportionate. Why have the Government done absolutely nothing to get the more than 6 million of our fellow citizens who are presently not registered on to the electoral register? IER, when it is introduced, is not going to solve the problem; it is going to make it worse.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as I have said before at this rostrum, the Government are doing a great deal to maximise the level of registration. We all recognise that we will never reach 100%. The proportion registered had been going down over the previous 15 years and we recognise that there are particular problems, especially with young people. A range of government schemes is currently under way, in co-operation with a range of non-governmental organisations, to raise in particular the number of disadvantaged groups and young people who register to vote. Online registration is but one of the things that we are doing.

European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2014

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 31st March 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I have only a few points to make in this short debate. Generally we support the regulations and the order and have no issues whatever with them. I have a couple of general points to make and one or two questions, but, generally speaking, we are fine with these. I will go through point by point. In terms of consultation, I think the noble Lord mentioned a couple of times consultation with the commission and with the Association of Electoral Administrators and such. Can he tell us about what consultations actually go on with the parties? I do not think much goes on. Maybe it is done through the Electoral Commission now, but I do think there should be more direct contact with the parties than there has been. I know that we have the panel meeting after the Electoral Commission’s political parties panel but I do not know whether there is more than that. There would be a surprising amount of unanimity from the parties on these things, as they have a lot of expertise that the Government could learn from. I know that the Government have some contact, but they could do more on that.

I saw in the note about the regulations on referendums that it refers to the issue about queuing at polling stations. Again, I welcome the fact that people will be issued with a ballot paper if they get there by 10 pm. My only slight worry is that while that all sounds well and good, how will it actually be controlled when it happens? We may not have this situation in the local elections happening next month, and perhaps not in the European elections, but at general election time we certainly need to think about how we will look after that. Yes, someone could arrive at 10 pm, but how is that to be controlled? It is quite hard to control and police it, and so on. The Government can make these regulations, but unless they are very specific about how things actually happen, they will just create another set of problems that cannot be overcome in a draughty church hall somewhere at 9.55 pm. If not now, the Government need to look at that sort of thing and be very specific. Presiding officers certainly need to know exactly how to handle these things; there is an issue there.

The point about police community support officers having the right to enter polling stations is, again, a sensible and welcome move. It certainly lifts a burden from police officers and ensures that there can be a uniformed presence in and around polling stations, which is very welcome. I saw that there is an extension of the proxy emergency provisions on the grounds of doing business or service. I am assuming that they are being extended in the same way as for every other category that can have an extension.

Those are probably the only points that I have. As I said, I do not have a huge issue with anything here; the instruments all seem very sensible. I will make one observation. While we will agree these regulations today, and they will go to the House next week, it is all terribly complicated and I look forward very much to the Law Commission coming forward with its recommendations so that we can get something much more streamlined. This should be a relatively simple process, but we have to have instruments for referendums, police and crime commissioner elections and local authority elections when it is really all the same stuff. The sooner we get this all looked at and repackaged, and put together much more sensibly, the better it will be for everyone concerned.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I share the noble Lord’s feeling on streamlining. There are of course some problems in that, as we have devolved authority to the devolved Assemblies, and as we have introduced a number of different electoral systems—I think there are three or four electoral systems operating now within Scotland, for example—some of this stuff becomes more complicated. We are, as the noble Lord knows, balancing between doing everything we can to make it easier for people to vote and encouraging that, and guarding against fraud. That also requires a delicate balance. However, I agree with him: I hope that it will be possible at some point to simplify the extremely complicated legislation that we now have for these different sets of elections and referendums. Referendums are, after all, still a relatively new dimension of British democracy and perhaps the next Government will take that on, with the assistance of the Law Commission.

On the particular questions that the noble Lord asked, there is no formal process for consultation with the political parties, but I understand that a number of informal conversations are had with them. I will check on that and I promise to write to the noble Lord if there is anything useful that I can say on it, because I take his point about the political parties. Miraculously, I discover that I now have an answer. We meet the Electoral Commission’s political parties panel quarterly and raise the question of new SIs being made. I expect that the noble Lord will be familiar with who attends the political parties electoral panel from the Labour Party. It may indeed have been him—yes, I see that it was.

On the closing of polls, let me say in passing that this was a very small issue last time. It happened in a total of 27 polling stations in 10 constituencies at the 2010 election, with just over 1,200 people being affected. We do not know whether this will turn out to have been a one-off or whether it will become a wider phenomenon in future. We took this decision because we had come up with this problem in 2010, and we expect that the Electoral Commission will provide additional guidance on how we manage this in the future. The noble Lord is entirely right, of course, to say that a situation in which a large number of people attempted to storm a polling station at 10 pm would be very difficult for anyone to handle. We have to hope that that sort of event will not happen. Guidance will certainly be offered to returning officers on the close-of-poll provisions and the Electoral Commission will assist with that. I hope that I have now covered most of the noble Lord’s questions. I am glad that these regulations have received a general welcome and commend them to the Committee.

Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) (Amendment) Order 2014

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have been asked by others involved in the ERA process how many more electoral statutory instruments there might be to consider. I am pleased to report that in the case of individual electoral registration the preparations for implementation in June are well advanced and it is anticipated that there will only be a handful of additional SIs during the remainder of this year.

The two short instruments before the Committee today will enable some fine-tuning, getting IER off to the very best possible start, which I am sure noble Lords will all welcome. Perhaps I should say, and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, will convey this to his colleagues on the Labour Benches, that some of them still seem to be very sceptical about the transition to IER, but so far this has been a remarkable success story, as the matching has been more complete than we had expected. That is part of the reason why we are continuing to adjust as we take this process along.

The draft order makes a small change to allow the start of confirmation matching to begin nearly a week earlier, from 16 June to 10 June. We hope and expect this to increase, from 64% to 83%, the proportion of unconfirmed electors receiving these invitations to register during July, rather than in the holiday month of August, which we expect to deliver a significantly better response rate. This is surely a common-sense piece of fine-tuning and well worth doing.

The second instrument, the draft regulations, will enable the testing of the IER digital service to continue for as long as may be necessary before it goes live, ensuring that the system will be able to do everything required of it once IER begins.

The Grand Committee will have observed that the order and regulations amend existing instruments, some of which were made only quite recently. Given that these are two more instruments, why do we need to make these now and add to the rather large ensemble that we seem to be creating?

To explain, the changes that we propose build on work carried out over the past year. The regulations now being amended to extend the testing period were made in March 2013 so that we could conduct the dry run of the process for confirming existing electors. In planning this, we had regard to the principle that the use of personal data for testing should be limited to a defined period. Last year’s regulations therefore provided for exchange of data to end around now.

In addition, not having a crystal ball, when those regulations were made we could not have known exactly what the testing schedule for 2014 would be, partly because the contracts with electoral management systems suppliers were yet to be concluded. However, a simple change to the dates in last year’s order will ensure thorough testing before we go live. When the dry run took place across Great Britain last summer, we got much better results than we had expected, indicating that at the transition to IER it should be possible to confirm an average of at least 78% of the electorate.

We were able to discuss with electoral administrators and the Electoral Commission options for making best use of the results of the live confirmation run. The solution emerged to allow the start of the transition to be brought forward a week from 16 to 10 June. The 2013 transitional provisions order was already before Parliament and to have withdrawn it to amend that one date would have caused uncertainty about all the other aspects of IER covered by the order, impacting everyone working on electoral administration across Britain.

In conclusion, these two short statutory instruments before the Grand Committee today will each, in their own way, play a further constructive part in the successful implementation of individual electoral registration in Britain. I hope that all parties will welcome this and I commend them to the Committee.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, it is good to be back here again to discuss these instruments with the noble Lord. To start off, the noble Lord made the point about some of my colleagues having worries about this, some of which I share. I worry about the speed of the transition and about what will happen if things go wrong. The Government have quite rightly put a lot of emphasis on voter fraud and on accuracy, but sometimes I feel that we put less emphasis on completeness.

As I have said many times to the noble Lord here and in the Chamber, on estimate around 6 million people live in our country who are not on the register but are eligible to be on it. I do not see much evidence that much is going on to get them on to the register. The Government should address that, and quickly. It is of equal priority to anything else that we are doing.

In general I support IER. Many noble Lords will be aware that I am a former member of the Electoral Commission, so I know about the work that has gone on in the Government and in the commission to get this right. However, I will keep pressing the noble Lord on the question of completeness, because it is important that all citizens are able to take part in our electoral process.

As the noble Lord says, the two instruments before us today bring forward minor changes, bringing IER into effect. The first order amends a previous order and brings forward the earliest date for the matching of existing electoral registers with data held by the DWP from 16 to 10 June. That is fine as far as it goes and I hope that the process will go smoothly.

I note in the order that publicity is to be undertaken by the Electoral Commission, which is welcome. I have some knowledge of the work that the commission is doing on that. However, I am not convinced that that is going to be enough. The Government will have to look at what else can be done. This is an enormous change that is taking place. I do not know what they can do; maybe the noble Lord can tell the Committee what other plans the Government have, or look at more plans. I certainly think that we should look at things such as specific funding to local authorities to do extra work. Noble Lords will know that EROs employed by local authorities do lots of the extra work, such as going door to door, and it may well be that additional funding is needed beyond what they normally receive. If at the end of this process there are fewer people on the register than there are now, it will be matter of much regret—in fact, we should aim to get many more people on the register. Perhaps the Minister could look at that.

How will the Cabinet Office monitor the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register throughout the process and after transition to IER? The second statutory instrument deals with the IER digital service. We have no issues with that, but I return to the general point that I made at the start of my contribution: with such a major change taking place, are we doing everything possible to ensure that those citizens who are not on the register now will be on the register in future?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for his comments. I was conscious when I answered a question on this matter the other week of how long we have all been involved in this. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Wakefield asked me whether I had thought about the problems in Kirklees and I realised that it was the summer before last that I had been in Holmfirth talking to the Kirklees electoral registration officer. We have been at this, preparing for it, with local electoral registration officers and others for quite some time now.

I shared a lot of the concerns that others had at the outset and I have to say that I am impressed by the thoroughness shown by people at both the local and the national levels in working through to make sure that the transition is a success. We have in some ways the advantage of being able to learn from the Northern Irish experience, where there was a certain drop as one moved from household to individual registration, and we are working on several different fronts to deal with that. As the noble Lord will be aware, the biggest single reason provided by surveys for why people do not register is that they are not interested in politics and do not want to vote. That means that all of us in politics have to be out there arguing that it is in their interests both to register and to vote. National Voter Registration Day the week before last was an autonomous voluntary initiative, with which the Government were very happy to co-operate, to push that issue further up the agenda. We are co-operating with a range of voluntary organisations to get at particularly difficult, vulnerable groups who are less likely to register. We will continue to do that. We expect everyone to keep us up to the mark on this. We have allowed in the legislation for a final parliamentary vote to approve the transition after the next election, but so far, so very good and so much better than I expected, and I do not see it failing.

It was suggested that we might be more concerned about accuracy than about completeness. We are of course very concerned about completeness, which is why we are so pleased with the success of the data-matching exercise so far. We are providing additional funding to maximise registration; we have just provided an additional £3.6 million to be distributed to every electoral registration officer according to levels of electoral under-registration to help them with the costs of local activities for maximising registration. I remind the noble Lord that the boroughs that come up with the largest amount of under-registration are not those that have the strongest Labour vote or the highest poverty index. Kensington and Chelsea and Westminster come high among them, partly because there is such a rapid turnover in the population and people do not get round to registering while they are there.

We are providing funds to EROs because we understand that they are best placed to determine what local activity is most effective in maximising registration levels. We are not mandating how they make use of this funding; a great deal depends on local circumstances. I was shocked to be told some 15 months ago that in Wandsworth, for example, some 20,000-plus properties are now behind locked access, so that doing a door-to-door canvass has become a great deal more difficult. Those are not just council flats but the new blocks of flats along the Thames that sell for far too much money. So yes, we still face some difficulties but we are working extremely hard and providing extra resources and we are working with voluntary organisations to maximise registration and to make it as complete as possible. We hope to co-operate as actively as we can with all those concerned, including, of course, those within the Labour Party.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

I hope that the noble Lord accepts that we all have a responsibility for getting people on the register, but the Government have a very special responsibility. Secondly, he has made this point before and I am getting a bit irritated: I have never, ever suggested that it is about getting Labour voters on to the register. It is about getting voters on to the register—I do not care who they vote for. The fact is that there are 6 million people in this country not on the register to vote. I want to get them on. That is what I am all about, as a member of the commission and as a Member of this House. I do not care if they are in Kensington and Chelsea and all vote Tory. That is absolutely fine. They should be on the register.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise. I may indeed have been casting that comment at some of the noble Lord’s colleagues who have made that point very strongly to me. We all share an interest in this and we want to get as many people to vote as possible. We have no idea what they will do when they vote—whether they will vote for one party or another or even spoil their ballot papers—but rebuilding public commitment to democratic participation is a wider issue that we all face. I hope that we will all work together to ensure that this transition is entirely a success.

I am reminded to repeat, as I announced in the House during Questions the other week, that we have just awarded five organisations nearly £250,000 of funding to promote registration in their areas. So we are working on this and the transition is not yet over. But the noble Lord will know, as I do, that unfortunately some parts of the British public are not particularly engaged in either local or national politics, which is a problem that we all face.

Social Mobility

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lord McFall for tabling this Question for Short Debate. It has enabled an excellent opportunity for us to discuss this important subject.

The 2013 report of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission is, in part, sombre and depressing reading. Despite being one of the richest countries in the world, and becoming richer, we have struggled to become fairer. As my noble friend Lord McFall pointed out, the UK is now ranked 28th out of 34 countries in the OECD equality table.

In this short debate it will not be possible to make all the points and put all the questions to the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, that I wish to. However, I have a few points to make and a few questions. I do not expect to get all the answers today but I would like a commitment from the Minister to write to me after the debate and place a copy of the letter in the Library of the House.

The figures on child poverty are there for us all to see. By making a real effort to tackle the causes of child poverty, we could create a tangible boost to the economy by as much as twice the cost that we are paying for child poverty today. The achievement of lower child poverty and higher social mobility comes back to universal affordable child care, higher quality jobs, fair access to higher education, work incentives that encourage employment and tackling income inequality. There is plenty of evidence out there that if we were fairer as a nation we would all be better off.

I support initiatives such as breakfast clubs and universal free school meals to help children. They would ensure that children had a hot meal inside them and were able to learn better. I commend the report of the inquiry by the London Assembly, chaired by my friend, Fiona Twycross AM. The report is entitled A Zero Hunger City and has the backing of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. It makes many recommendations, including working with partners to establish sustainable breakfast clubs in London; lobbying the Government to agree with the London Food Board to identify models for providing universal free school meals for all schoolchildren; monitoring risk factors for food poverty, including welfare reform; school plans to identify and address hunger throughout the school day; and support for families in food poverty.

The noble Baroness, Lady Eaton, made some excellent points about resilience and people working to achieve their goals despite what life throws at them. I agree with the points made by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, when he spoke about growing up and being lucky. I am a little younger than the noble Lord but we also did not have a great deal of money and my parents had to have second jobs to pay the bills and make ends meet. They arrived in this country in the 1950s as immigrants from Ireland. However, I lived in a stable family on a safe council estate in Southwark. I was always encouraged and supported and I am lucky to have had that.

I have always been of the opinion that going to work was good for people. We must have in place measures to make work pay and to deal with low pay. It is most regrettable that the UK remains at the wrong end of the international league table on wages, with more than one in five full-time workers classified as low-paid. Those most at risk of being low-paid are young, female, low-skilled workers in temporary or part-time work, often in the hospitality, retail or care sectors. Given this and the imbalance in the growth of the economy, things can be very tough in some parts of the regions and nations of this country. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, also made a point about his visit to Leicester. That reminded me of a conversation that I had with my noble friend Lord Donoughue, who told me that he had gone back to where he had grown up and met people who had not worked in three generations. That is something that we have to address; that cannot be right.

Many times in the Grand Committee and in the Chamber of the House of Lords we have talked about reducing the deficit. There is no arguing about that—we have to reduce it. However, it is unfair for the lowest earning fifth of households to make a larger contribution than any other group than the top 20%, both as a proportion as their incomes and in absolute terms, with low-income families, and especially lone parents, losing out by more than their peers as a proportion of their net income. The fact is that we are a divided country; there are haves and have-nots. Because we are not fairer, we all lose out and, in particular, some people never get the chance to develop, let alone to realise their true potential.

Have the Government looked at the London Assembly report, A Zero Hunger City? What did they think of it—and, if they have not looked at it, will they look at it? In reducing the deficit, as we come to the last part of this Parliament, what are they going to do to make the debt reduction programme fairer for all? It appears likely at present that the Government will not meet their 2020 targets on child poverty. What is the plan to get that back on track? What are we going to do to make work pay in more cases than at present, and what examples are the Government setting on making work pay? Is the living wage the answer? What government departments and agencies pay the living wage, and do the companies that they contract do so? What do they say to business about making work pay for employees? He may not reply to all those points today, but if he could write to me I would appreciate it. I thank my noble friend for this debate.

Standards in Public Life

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, like other noble Lords I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for initiating this debate. I agree with many if not all of the points made. In three minutes, however, it is difficult to get across all the points that you want to make. I thank the Committee on Standards in Public Life for commissioning the preparation and publication of this report, which is one of a series that it has produced since 2004. Like my noble friend Lady Donaghy and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, I very much regret the withdrawal of funding for this survey in future years.

The report confirmed for me a number of things that I had suspected about public attitudes to standards in public life. While some of these perceptions might not always be fair, as politicians and people in public life we often do not do ourselves any favours. I noted that in 2012 MPs and Ministers were evaluated less favourably than all other categories, with the exception of tabloid journalists. The expenses scandal in 2010 certainly affected in a negative way public attitudes towards politicians, and levels of trust and confidence have not returned to the levels seen before then.

I am of the opinion that people who go into public life and who seek elected office, at whatever level, do so with the best intentions, and that in this House, in the other place, in other parliaments and assemblies, and, as my noble friend Lord Martin of Springburn said, in council chambers, good men and women are seeking to make things better. We can and should debate, discuss and even argue what that should be. That is what a healthy democracy does.

The report also highlighted how we need a strong media to hold people to account and showed that 70% of people believe that the media will generally uncover wrongdoing. It was pleasing to read that people generally felt they would be treated fairly by people providing public services. There are high standards in the public sector and we are well served by people who work there. We also have remedies to deal with issues when things go wrong. Being able to correct things and provide redress is part of the confidence in how you know that you will be treated.

Will the Minister tell the House what action the Government intend to take following the publication of this report? In particular, will he tell the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, highlighted, what the Government intend to do to deal with people’s feeling of disconnection from the political system and political parties? This is one of the most worrying findings of the report and it is incumbent on the Government to ensure that we have conditions in place to allow healthy parties to thrive.

I again thank the noble Lord, Lord Bew, for enabling us to debate this important issue tonight.

Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Commencement No. 4 and Consequential Provision) Order 2013

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, as noble Lords will know, there are a great many consequential orders in introducing individual electoral registration, and in changing some of our voting regulations and arrangements. There was a time when I knew almost nothing about this area; I am learning more and more.

There are three instruments for debate today. The Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Commencement No. 4 and Consequential Provision) Order 2013, brings into force, for parliamentary elections, provisions in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 concerning the ability of voters to cast a vote at close of poll. The two sets of regulations—the Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2014 and the Neighbourhood Planning (Referendums) (Amendment) Regulations 2014—update the rules for the conduct and administration of local mayoral elections in England and Wales and neighbourhood planning referendums in England. They do so by applying or copying provisions, including those on close of poll, in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 and associated secondary legislation, which made a number of changes to the rules for UK parliamentary elections.

In the main, the changes in all three of these instruments are intended to come into effect for polls held on or after 22 May 2014, which is the date of the European parliamentary elections and scheduled local elections in parts of England. The changes are designed to improve the accessibility and security of the voting process and to implement a number of recommendations which have been made by, amongst others, the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators. The regulations concerning neighbourhood planning referendums contain an additional provision on calculating the campaign expenditure limit for campaigners at a neighbourhood planning referendum. We intend that this should come into force on the day after the regulations are made. I will set out this change in more detail shortly. The instruments are part of a comprehensive package of statutory instruments which make various changes to the rules for conducting elections and referendums in the UK. The Government have consulted on the changes with the Electoral Commission and with others such as the Association of Electoral Administrators.

The close of poll order—the first order being considered today—brings into force Section 19 of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. That section provides for voters queuing at a polling station at close of poll to be issued with ballot papers and to vote, despite the time of close of poll having passed. This provision addresses the concern expressed during the passage through Parliament of the ERA Act about the need for a mechanism to deal with any queues which could, in some circumstances, form at polling stations at close of poll, given the isolated but highly publicised instances of queues at polling stations at the 2010 general election. Counting officers and returning officers will of course still be expected to carry out planning for polls, to the same high standards as now, to ensure that there are sufficient polling stations and adequate staffing levels to manage the volumes of electors likely to vote in person and to avoid such queues forming wherever possible. The order also makes provision for persons queuing at a polling station at close of poll in order to return a postal ballot paper or postal voting statement to return it despite the time of the close of poll having passed. This provision has effect in England, Wales and Scotland only.

I turn now to the provisions in the neighbourhood planning referendum regulations and the mayoral elections regulations. I will first discuss the measures that are specific to the neighbourhood planning referendum regulations before turning to the key measures that are common to both these regulations and to the local mayoral elections regulations. The neighbourhood planning referendum regulations change the basis on which the campaign expenditure limit is calculated at these referendums. The limit is currently calculated by reference to the number of electors on the register published after the annual canvass in the year preceding the referendum. However, under the transition to individual electoral registration, a post-canvass register was not produced in 2013. We are therefore providing that in future the limit will be calculated by reference to the register as it exists at the beginning of the referendum period. This period begins at least 28 working days before a residential poll and at least 56 working days before a business and a residential poll that happen together. We intend that this provision would take effect on the day after the regulations are made and affect any referendum where the referendum period begins on or after that date.

I turn to the measures that are common to both the neighbourhood planning referendum regulations and the local mayoral elections regulations. Where any variations exist, I will point these out. Provisions on these matters were included in amendments previously made to the European parliamentary election regulations and debated by Parliament, in order to apply the provisions to the European parliamentary elections this May. Both sets of regulations update the forms used by voters, such as poll cards and postal voting statements, that are intended to make the voting process more accessible. The changes continue the work carried out to modernise the appearance of forms used by voters at newly created polls, such as the police and crime commissioner elections and the 2011 referendum on the parliamentary voting system. The revised material has been produced following a programme of public user testing and consultation with the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators, Scope, SOLACE and territorial offices and following discussion with electoral services suppliers. The regulations also provide for police community support officers to enter polling stations and counting venues under the same conditions as police constables. This will allow police forces additional flexibility in deploying their resources on polling day, and will allow them to provide a greater visible reassurance to the public.

The regulations additionally make the same provisions as those to which the close of poll order relates—that is, they provide that voters waiting in a queue at the close of poll, at 10 pm on polling day, for the purpose of voting may be issued with ballot papers to enable them to vote or may return postal voting statements or postal ballot papers despite the close of poll. Members of the Committee may wish to note that relevant provisions in the Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 apply to mayoral elections and residential neighbourhood planning regulations, so amendments recently made to those regulations will also apply to these polls. These recent amendments include: a requirement for 100% of postal votes indicators to be checked, rather than the current minimum of 20%; the extension of emergency proxy provisions to those absent on grounds of business or military service; and the removal of the restriction on postal votes being despatched earlier than the 11th working day before the day of the poll. Where relevant and appropriate, the neighbourhood planning referendums regulations make similar changes for the purpose of business referendums.

Overall, these provisions make sensible and relevant changes for the conduct and administration of mayoral elections and neighbourhood planning referendums, in line with those that have been made already for UK parliamentary elections. They are designed to increase voter participation, further improve the integrity of our electoral system and ensure that the processes underpinning our elections are both more robust and more relevant to the needs of voters. I commend these instruments to the Committee.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, I shall deal with each of these regulations in turn. I intend to be fairly brief. The Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Commencement No. 4 and Consequential Provision) Order 2013 is welcome. It seeks to deal with the, frankly, appalling situation of voters turning up at polling stations and being denied a ballot paper. None of us will forget the scenes at the most recent general election of angry voters being denied their right to vote. That was wrong and reflected badly on us as a nation and as a mature democracy.

I note that the Electoral Commission has raised some concerns. As a former member of the Electoral Commission, though, I say that the Government are absolutely right on this. The concerns are slim and are a near impossible eventuality. It will, however, be important to get the guidance right across the piece. Unfortunately, when you are dealing with hundreds of returning officers, thousands of electoral staff and thousands of presiding officers on polling day, there is a risk of someone getting the application of the regulations wrong. I very much hope that the commission and the Government will seek the expertise to be found at the AEA, SOLACE and the political parties on getting the guidance right. It needs to be crisp, clear, straightforward and useful to implementing these regulations.

We also have to ensure that police officers or PCSOs are available as we get to the close of poll. I do not want to see disputes outside polling stations about who arrived at what time and who did not arrive on time. I am aware that we have already passed a previous SI in respect of the European elections, and these SIs refer to the UK parliamentary and local mayoral polls as well as neighbourhood planning referendums. Can the noble Lord confirm that we will pass SIs in respect of local authority and parish council elections in time for this year’s local election on 22 May? Can he also tell the Grand Committee when the SIs will be laid for the local mayoral referendums, council tax referendums and PCC elections?

It is important that all these rules that relate to elections are kept under review. I was first involved in fighting elections 35 years ago—which I am sure noble Lords will find it hard to believe—and the changes that I have seen in that time have been enormous. The Government have a duty to ensure that the law keeps pace with the changes we see all around us. I have responded to a number of these statutory instruments in this House, during my time as a member of the Electoral Commission and as an official of the Labour Party for over 20 years. If there was ever an area of the law that needed consolidating and bringing together under one Act of Parliament, it surely must be the law in respect of elections and electoral registration. There are so many different aspects of the law in force in numerous Acts of Parliament, going back to who knows when, frankly, that it is confusing for everyone involved, in particular for members of the public, let alone practitioners.

I noticed in the amendment regulations that there are no numbers for the people standing in mayoral elections. I understand that that has been in force for some time—it is not new—but it had completely passed me by. Can the noble Lord tell the Grand Committee how taking away the numbers from the candidates helps people understand which candidate they are voting for? Normally you would vote for Gardiner number 1, Kennedy number 2, or Wallace number 3, but you now cannot do that because the numbers are not there. I hope that that will not be a trend in further SIs for other elections, particularly in local elections and where there are multiple candidates, as it would cause complete confusion.

I also note that the noble Lord made no mention of political parties. In parties, you have to have practitioners to understand elections—that is how processes work. The Government should consult all parties on these issues, not just leave it to the Electoral Commission, the AEA and SOLACE, great bodies though they are. There are also important views to be had from practitioners on the other side of the fence. I hope that the noble Lord can respond to those points in his reply.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord for those helpful comments. As he was talking about his long experience in local elections, I calculated that my first election campaign was a mere 52 years ago. I say that with particular enthusiasm because, when I said during Questions this afternoon that I recalled debating the question of an English Parliament in 1968, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, was kind enough to turn to me and say, “You couldn’t have been old enough”. However, I was. The second election campaign I took part in was the Orpington by-election, which returned Eric Lubbock, now the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, to the British Parliament, which was a short while ago. So we have all struggled with election regulations and their proper consideration for some time.

I can recall as a young man talking to someone who had stood in a by-election during the Second World War, who told me just how many regulations had not been observed under those conditions and the efforts which some locals took to ensure that some votes were not counted. Nowadays we have some highly effective and dedicated EROs and others at local level with whom we have to co-operate in close partnership. The noble Lord is quite correct to say that perfection is not possible in every single polling station throughout Great Britain, but efforts are taken to make sure that, as far as is humanly possible, the same regulations are obeyed in the same way throughout the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

The Minister may be correct about the effect of removing the numbers from the mayoral election ballot papers, but one of the big problems that such ballot papers cause is that many people go to vote and put a cross or mark by the second column and not the first, and are then disqualified. A huge number of people do that. It may make the ballot papers clearer to remove the numbers—I am not sure by how much—but the amount of votes discarded is a real problem. Can the Minister confirm that there is no intention to remove the numbers from ballot papers for local elections? As he will know, in the local elections in May, particularly in London but also elsewhere, there will be a number of candidates.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

On that, I must write to the noble Lord. I am conscious that some extensive research has been done on the best design of all the papers used. What is coming back to us is information on what is felt to be most friendly and easy to understand for the local voter.

I can now tell the noble Lord, through the miraculous device of having officials behind me, that the Government recognise the concerns that have been raised by parties and electoral administrators about the proposal to remove numbers on ballot papers at local and parish elections and the impact that it would have in contests in multimember wards where the voter is electing more than one candidate. We will carefully consider the concerns that have been raised before we finalise the form of the ballot paper at these elections. I therefore look forward to further conversations off and on the Floor with the noble Lord and others on this question.

Legislative Reform (Overseas Registration of Births and Deaths) Order 2014

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Tuesday 4th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this legislative reform order concerns a minor amendment to legislation that would allow the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to centralise and modernise one of the consular functions it offers to British nationals overseas. It would allow a minor change to Section 41 of the British Nationality Act 1981, which would in turn allow the FCO to amend its own regulations in order to centralise in the UK the registration of births and deaths of British nationals which occur abroad.

Consular birth and death registration is not a legal requirement. It is an optional service available to those born overseas who could have an entitlement to British nationality at birth and to British nationals who die overseas. There is no UK legal requirement for a consular birth or death registration. Consular birth or death registration does not confer British nationality.

To go into greater detail, Section 41 of the British Nationality Act limits the regulation-making power in such a way that, in nearly all cases, the registration must be done overseas. Once both the British Nationality Act and the FCO’s regulations have been amended, the FCO will be able to establish a central consular birth and death registration unit in the UK, responsible for registering all consular births and deaths for British nationals overseas.

The draft legislative reform order was laid on 5 December 2013 by the FCO. It is proposed to be made under Sections 1 and 2 of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. This allows a Minister to make provision by order for removing or reducing any burden resulting directly or indirectly from legislation, and for improving the delivery of a service.

The FCO conducted a 12-week public consultation, from July to October 2013, which was sent directly to 18 expatriate organisations around the world and was promoted both on the gov.uk website and on the FCO’s travel advice Twitter account, which has more than 47,000 followers. There were seven responses to the consultation; only three of these completed the survey’s online questionnaire, all responding that they supported the proposed centralisation of the service. Some respondents did ask practical questions about how the new system would operate. The low response rate reflects the fact that this is a relatively low-volume and non-essential service. Following the consultation, the FCO decided to proceed with its plans. It concluded that, although the change may mean that a few expatriates may incur slightly greater costs in the short term because of the need to post original documents to the UK, the majority will benefit from not having to travel to an embassy or a high commission to submit an application.

The FCO intends to reduce fees for this service once the new central unit is up and running. The unit will provide a more consistent customer service, be more effective in determining complicated nationality decisions and provide a more modern online application and payment system, in line with the Government’s digital by default strategy. Another determining factor is that centralisation will free up consular staff in the FCO’s overseas network, allowing them to focus more on their primary purpose of assisting British nationals in distress overseas, particularly the most vulnerable. This is completely in line with the FCO’s new consular strategy, which was launched in April 2013.

Following the laying of the LRO in December, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee confirmed its satisfaction that the order meets the tests set out in the 2006 Act. The committee was satisfied that the legislative reform order procedure is an appropriate way to amend the British Nationality Act 1981 and that the affirmative procedure is appropriate for the change proposed. The LRO is required to amend the British Nationality Act 1981 to allow the FCO to register in the UK births and deaths that occur overseas.

The current method of registration is inconvenient for many customers and inefficient for the FCO. This is partly because FCO staff are losing their nationality decision-making expertise overseas since the overseas passport service was transferred to Her Majesty’s Passport Office and centralised in the UK. The FCO plans to centralise this service into a new single-purpose unit by the end of 2014. Centralisation will allow the FCO to make efficiencies, pass on savings to customers through reducing fees once the service is up and running, reduce the risk of making wrong nationality determinations and give greater focus to its primary consular function of assisting vulnerable British nationals in distress overseas.

Consular birth and death registration is not, I repeat, a legal requirement. It is an optional service taken advantage of by a small number of people, but it is available to those born overseas who could have an entitlement to British nationality at birth and to British nationals who die overseas. Consular birth registration is a separate service from passports and immigration. It does not confer nationality and does not necessarily lead to the issuing of a British passport. It is solely an optional means of recording a local birth overseas with an official English-language document. To manage customer expectations of the value of a consular birth certificate, the FCO will include a disclaimer to explain that the registration is not a UK birth certificate, does not replace the original birth certificate issued by the authorities in the country where the birth took place, is not a certificate of identity and that the holder does not acquire British nationality through the registration.

Moving to an online system, with a common online application and payment procedure, will provide a more efficient and convenient procedure for customers. The IT will be ready and tested ahead of rolling-out centralisation from April. It will be a simple upgrade to the FCO’s existing Compass system, which has been in use for many years. The FCO aims to be fully centralised by the end of 2014. If a customer has no internet access then the application may be made at the appropriate overseas post. As registrations are optional and rarely time sensitive, the FCO anticipates providing this assistance in only a small number of cases. It may help if I remark that in 2012 the UK registered some 6,200 births and some 550 deaths overseas; this is a small number.

In conclusion, I stress once again that the proposed amendment to legislation is a minor one that will help the FCO to modernise and make more efficient the consular service that it offers to British nationals overseas. This will help the FCO to reach its major goal of streamlining non-essential services and helping our most vulnerable citizens in trouble overseas.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)]

My Lords, in respect of the legislative reform order, I have a few brief comments. The present regulations oblige the FCO to register births and deaths overseas of qualifying British nationals when asked. These procedures are different, depending on where the events took place. I accept that it is a complex process which needs trained and qualified staff to undertake this work.

I understand that the passport issuing service has been centralised from around the globe back to the UK some time ago. I can see the merits of setting up a similar procedure back in the UK, with a unit of trained staff which can develop real expertise in this area of work. Can the noble Lord assure me that this is genuinely seen as a sensible efficiency measure and not some sort of back-door reduction in services? Can he tell the Grand Committee that he is confident that, in all cases, this new system will be better and that at no point will a British citizen living abroad be disadvantaged by moving to this new system?

Whether it is the joyous occasion of a new life being brought into the world or the death of a loved one, the official processes that have to be gone through should be done as simply and quickly as possible. In the case of deaths overseas, there will also be conditions from the country in which the death occurred that will need to be complied with. From the points that the noble Lord made, he has assured us that in no case would getting a body back from abroad be more difficult with the adoption of the legislative reform order. In respect of births and death, is this purely an optional process that people and families can use, or not, as they decide? If that is the case, I have no further points to make on this order.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the noble Lord touched on a number of wider issues. On British citizens resident abroad, we are in a different world from 50 or 100 years ago. That is part of why we need to adjust. After all, communications are now infinitely more rapid and easy than they were even 50 years ago. My wife spent five years working in Florence, and we spent some time talking to the British consul-general in Florence, who used to play a large role in the days when a relatively small number of rich British people lived in Italy, out of touch with Britain and needing the help of the local consul. Now that they fly whenever they like from Florence airport to Gatwick, there are instant communications and we are all within the European Union—and long may that last—we do not need consular services of that type.

Part of what has shifted has been that we are therefore operating on a different level. The numbers of British citizens living abroad and, even more, the number of British visitors abroad has mushroomed on an astonishing scale over the past 50 years. I find it quite surprising how small the number of registered births and deaths from abroad has been, given that I have this image—partly from my elderly parents’ stories of holidays in Spain and Portugal—that lots of elderly people go on holiday to those countries and do not quite make it back afterwards. Obviously, this is not a wide-scale activity.

I would argue that this is a sensible efficiency measure, which allows for careful checks of people’s backgrounds and allows the local staff to concentrate on those who are vulnerable—including, of course, those who fall ill while abroad—those who are charged with crimes or indeed imprisoned while abroad and the families of those who die while abroad.