Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, has just referred to improving the integrity of the ballot. That is precisely what was behind the debates we had some years ago on electoral registration, which I opposed most vigorously, as indeed did some of my noble and honourable friends. The reason was quite simple. We are wasting millions of pounds on electoral registration when in fact we should be doing what the noble Baroness herself said. We should be concentrating our efforts on where the real fraud lies, and that is in selected areas. I remember moving an amendment to do something precisely to that effect in this place. We had a Labour Government at the time but they rejected it. We should not have been wasting money on a national scheme; we should have concentrated our efforts on those areas with a real problem. We knew that where there was a problem, local authorities themselves would ask for additional resources to sort out the issues. Of course that is why we still have some fraud in the system.
I want to go a little wider on this. The noble Baroness referred, I think, to polling cards. Again, there is an inconsistency because she wants to enforce some kind of system to make sure that ID works. Well, why not go the whole hog and have ID cards, which would sort out the whole problem? In those circumstances we could do away with electoral registration. We would go down exactly the same route as I did the other day with the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Young, at the Dispatch Box, because he knows that the ID card is the way to sort this problem out.
I want to turn to something else regarding the nomination form because there has been some discussion about nomination papers. I have always believed that when a candidate stands for public office, there should be a declaration of interest. Why should there not be a full declaration of interest on the nomination form which is published by the local authority, whether it be a candidate for a parish council, Parliament or whatever? The public would then know the interests of the person standing. The problems with these people standing for public office often arise out of the fact that they have an interest which subsequently turns out to have compromised the positions that they are taking within their respective authorities. I put that to the Minister—I do not expect an answer today. However, let us now consider the whole question of declaration of interests by candidates being published at elections where everyone can see them.
Lastly, I raise the whole question of the voting system. One of the great—I suppose it was minor—contributions I have made in my modest political career was to devise the supplementary vote system. I named it in my house, brought it here, and in the end it was adopted by the Labour Government and is still in operation in mayoral elections. I would like to see an audit on how effective it has been, because there is still some criticism of the supplementary vote. My view is that it works. When you check through the election results over the year in the various authorities, whether that is in police authorities or whatever, and you look at where it has worked, it has worked in some interesting areas. Have the Government done an audit of how it operates, and how effectively?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I will make only a few brief remarks on the order and the regulations. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, I refer the House to my interests as a councillor—in the London Borough of Lewisham—and as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
In general I am supportive of the order and the regulations—I have no problem with them as such. However, there are some issues. As we have heard, one of the themes in the review is fraud. Issues of fraud have been reported far and wide over a number of years in the media and there have been a number of court cases in which people have, quite rightly, been prosecuted and some sent to prison, deservedly so. I think we all agree that we want to make sure that fraud is driven out of our electoral system, and if these go some way towards helping to do that, that is well and good and I support it.
We have had a number of pilots in this area of policy over a number of years—I certainly remember that the Labour Government, and particularly Jack Straw, loved pilots. I just hope that if we have these pilots, we will make a decision on them and move them along a little. I am all for pilots but I want a conclusion as well. If they are seen to improve the electoral system, we should go ahead with them.
On the nomination papers, obviously that is fine. I am surprised that we need to do that, but I am happy that we agree those nomination papers.
I may have heard the Minister say that we consult the people we normally consult, which is the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators—two fine bodies. I have certainly made the point—if not to the Minister then to other Ministers sitting in that position on behalf of the Government—that the one group that is always missed out is the political parties. We have some experts in these areas. I was a member of the Parliamentary Parties Panel, which is the statutory body that the commission consults, and I then became an electoral commissioner, so I sat on the Electoral Commission. I can tell your Lordships that at no point did these bodies consult on these issues with the political parties. They do not. They might say that they do, but they do not, and it is a shame. They might say that we do not need to on this one, because these are purely technical matters. There are people from all parties—we all know some of them very well— who are expert in these areas and can give valuable information, insight and experience. It is a shame; the Government should as a matter of course add in the political parties and formally consult them as well. It would not be a great problem for the Government to do that. We should certainly not rely on the Electoral Commission. As I said, it is a good body and great people—and great commissioners—work there, but I do not want it to consult, because it will not. It does not; it will talk to the administrators, and as this is a technical issue and not a campaign it will not involve the parties. Maybe we should think about that.
My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours makes a valid point about ID cards and fraud. That certainly would have dealt with the issue. The issue is of course that some people do not have ID or what is acceptable ID when you go along to the polling station—what would be acceptable? Everyone has a passport or a driving licence, so what will not be acceptable? That is an issue to deal with. Also, Northern Ireland has a little electoral card, which is very popular, especially among young people, because they say, “It gets us into pubs and clubs because it proves we’re 18”. It is not an ID card but an electoral card provided by the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland.
My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours mentioned the supplementary vote. All these systems are interesting and useful. I prefer the alternative vote, because it spreads the vote around more evenly than the supplementary vote, but other systems are definitely worth looking at.
Having said that, I support these measures as far as they go. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.
Lord Young of Cookham
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this short debate, all of whom have indicated their broad support for the measures before the Committee but have raised a number of other issues. A number of those who have spoken are vice-presidents of the Local Government Association. I am not, but I was a vice-president of a predecessor body called the AMA. I was expelled either for rate-capping or for abolishing the GLC, which may well be spent convictions.
I will deal with some of the issues raised. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is quite right that there are a range of recommendations in the Pickles report. We are dealing with some of them, such as those on harvesting votes by political parties and behaviour at polling stations. They are being dealt with on a separate track.
Tower Hamlets is piloting postal vote ID, to pick up the point the noble Baroness made, so we will have more information on what the options are for dealing with the issue of potential fraud with postal votes, which she raised. In principle, postal votes are a good thing because they help drive up participation in the democratic process. They are a very convenient way of voting, so I would not want to move away from the system we have of postal votes on demand, but we will discover more from Tower Hamlets about how one can drive up the integrity of the system.
Turning to some of the other points made, I take the point that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, made about trying to target the pilot schemes on particular areas where there are known to be problems. The approach we have adopted at this stage is to invite local authorities to take part in the pilot schemes, rather than be prescriptive, which is the approach he was in favour of. Tower Hamlets, which is an area where there has been some difficulty, is taking part in one of the pilot schemes on postal votes.
So far as declarations of interest are concerned, my experience is that the interests of candidates are widely advertised during the process of the campaign— quite often by their opponents. Putting them on the ballot paper would make the ballot paper very cumbersome. I think the noble Lord’s suggestion was that they might go on the nomination paper. We will look at that in conjunction with the Electoral Commission.
On the supplementary vote, there is a Private Member’s Bill coming up in the name of my noble friend Lord Balfe looking at alternative methods of electing local councillors. He is in favour of some form of PR for local government, so if the noble Lord is free on a Friday, there will be an opportunity for him further to develop his views. The supplementary vote is of course used at the moment, as the noble Lord said, for local mayors, combined authority mayors, the London mayor and the PCCs, so it is already embedded in part of the process. I do not think we have any plans to use it more widely.
Lord Young of Cookham
Individual voter registration was introduced, I think with the support of the Opposition, by the last coalition Government. It is now there and it is an improvement—
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I think the Minister will find that it was initially introduced by the Labour Government, then of course the coalition Government changed the rules when they brought the Act in at the start of that Government.
Lord Young of Cookham
But I think there was broad all-party support for individual voter registration, which was the point I was making. So we have a lone voice, which I respect, but it is an improvement on the previous system, where it was up to the householder to put people on the voters’ list. Where we are now is a much better system.
On the issue I was talking about a moment ago, we will have a look at declarations of interest but, as I said, putting it all on the ballot paper would make it more difficult for electors to understand. It could lead to errors and confusion in completing the ballot paper. I also mentioned registration. Changing the registration system has ensured that false names cannot be put on the register to allow ghost voters to cast fraudulent ballots, which had been a significant issue in the past.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised postal vote fraud. I am advised that there is no evidence of organised postal vote fraud since personal identifiers were introduced in 2007. Tower Hamlets will pilot changes to postal voting. On the Watford pilot, if a poll card is missing, the elector can cancel it and be issued with a new poll card to enable them to vote. Poll cards are one of the types of photo and non-photo IDs being tested in the 2018 pilots and, as she said, not all of them will involve having photo ID. We are addressing 48 of the recommendations in the Pickles review and will consider measures to improve the integrity of the postal vote process. The 2018 Tower Hamlets pilot will shed some light on how to take this further.
On advising the parliamentary parties—so in response to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy—I used to be on a parliamentary panel set up by the Electoral Commission. We had regular meetings with the Electoral Commission and all three parties were represented on that panel. Of course, the political parties are represented on the Electoral Commission itself, so when we consult it I would hope that it might touch base with the political representatives on the commission. If not, they will have read this exchange and I am sure they will change their procedures to take on board that criticism. The noble Lord is right that the political parties should be consulted—of course, they are consulted right at the end, as we are doing at the moment in dealing with these statutory instruments.
The ID card system in Northern Ireland is voluntary. You can either get an ID card or use your passport, or some other system. It is very much a voluntary process.
If I have not dealt with all the questions raised, I will certainly write to noble Lords but I welcome their contributions and I commend these instruments to the Committee.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I have just a couple of points. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours talked about specific areas. When I was a commissioner, people at the commission would always talk about hotspots but it was never very clear about what was meant and where they are. That is part of the problem; they always went on about hotspots and I remember discussing them, but I could not get much progress at all.
On these instruments, yes, the commission does a good job and consults the political parties through the Parliamentary Parties Panel, which I was a member of as an official for many years. I was one of the first four political commissioners on the commission and when we had our board meeting, we would look at broad-brush things such as policy. We were not sitting and looking in detail at such regulations. Something is missing here. It is not intentional but it is missing and it would be useful to get that on the record and at some point to have it looked at. That is not a criticism but something that has fallen through the cracks.
Democratic Political Activity (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]
Lord Kennedy of Southwark ExcerptsFriday 27th October 2017
(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on securing a Second Reading of his Private Member’s Bill. It raises important matters concerning our democracy and the conduct of elections in the United Kingdom.
Some aspects of the Bill I very much agree with but others I do not. I also think that with the pace of technological change, although some measures outlined in the Bill would be new if they became law, they would not completely have the intended effect—in particular, the clause on the free delivery of candidates’ election addresses and Schedule 3 on election addresses and booklets. Although there is nothing wrong in principle with what is proposed here, I think that the collection and use of data by political parties and third parties is a huge issue that should be addressed by Parliament, and that election addresses and other leaflets are having less and less of an impact. My noble friend Lord Whitty made an important point about data-mining and the worrying trend of the abuse and manipulation of data that we are seeing. The noble Lord, Lord Wrigglesworth, was right when he spoke about the speed of change in technology, which will only get faster, and the fact that our laws are struggling to keep pace with that change.
The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, may tell us shortly that there is a willingness on the part of the Government to initiate constructive discussion with the parties on these and other matters to see whether agreements can be reached but that they cannot impose consensus. If that is the case, it should happen with all haste, as the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, said. All of us in the House are well aware that the Government are drawn from one political party, so they have more interest in this matter than a statement such as that would suggest—they are not an uninterested, independent observer in these matters. As many noble Lords have said, we are at the start of a Parliament which may well run its full term, so this would be the best time to seek to make progress.
To digress slightly, I was delighted that the noble Lord, Lord True, spoke in the debate. I have not had a chance to speak to him of late but I am conscious that he recently stood down from his role as leader of Richmond council. I just want to pay tribute to him for the work that he has done there. He has been an excellent leader and is well respected throughout London and in local government circles. I suppose that, now that he has left those duties, we will see more of him in this House, which can only be of benefit to us all.
Moving back to the Bill, it is a matter of regret that it risks making slow progress, as do many other Private Members’ Bills. As I have repeatedly brought to the attention of the House, that is because the Government will not allow Private Members’ Bills to have their Committee stage in the Moses Room. I do not know why that is so. If some Bills were sent there, we could make more progress overall, and the business would certainly go through more quickly than at the snail’s pace that we often experience on private Members’ legislation in this House. Many of the Bills are sensible and uncontroversial, and would be beneficial if they reached the statute book. I see the Government Deputy Chief Whip in his place. Perhaps he will take my remarks back to his colleagues.
As I said, I do not agree with all the clauses of the Bill but it is enabling a positive discussion to take place. Prior to the election of the Labour Government in 1997, there was in effect very little legislation in respect of donations to political parties, the regulation of political parties and the regulation of campaign expenditure at a national level. The Labour Government then asked the Committee on Standards in Public Life to look at these areas and, largely out of that, we got the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Bill, which became law in 2000, and the birth of the Electoral Commission.
I was one of the first electoral commissioners to be appointed who had been active in a political party. I and my fellow commissioners from political parties brought to the commission and its discussions a different and, I think, welcome insight into how political parties operate. There then followed other legislation to deal with a variety of issues, including loans to political parties, postal voting and individual electoral registration. Seeking agreement among the parties was always a high priority and, for me, that has to be the way to proceed.
Since then, I am afraid that that has not always been the case. You have only to look at the decision to speed up IER, the reduction in the number of parliamentary seats by 50 and the curtailing of the boundary inquiry process while, at the same time, increasing the number of Members in this House. That latter move was made by the previous Prime Minister and people were shocked by it when they compared it to the number of appointments to this House made by his predecessors, whether they were Labour or Conservative Prime Ministers.
Going through the Bill, I have no objection, in principle, to donation caps, but they have to be done in a way that will not undermine a political party’s funding, as legislation cannot be used to damage one party to the advantage of another. The parties in Britain today that are represented in the House of Commons, devolved institutions and, for the time being, the European Parliament, have evolved over time, with unique histories, funding structures and mechanisms. That must be respected.
I am not sure the figures in the Bill, as set out in Clause 3(3) are correct. They will need to be looked at very carefully. There is a strong case for the donation recording and reporting figures to be looked at and uprated in the present legislation, as they have not been changed for many years. There is no mechanism to take account of inflation, which is a failure of the present legislation. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, could address that point in his response.
An affiliation fee, paid by an individual member of a trade union to a political party, is an individual donation. I have been a member of the GMB union for over 28 years. I pay the political levy; it is my money and the donation to the Labour Party is from me. Trade unions are some of the most regulated organisations in the United Kingdom. Not all trade unions have political funds, and even of those that do, not all are affiliated to the Labour Party. I agree with the comments made by my noble friend Lord Whitty in respect of the Trade Union Act. Some of the regulation is a little overbearing, to say the least. We often hear from the Government about red tape and excessive regulation, although that never seems to apply to trade unions. I would want to look carefully at the parts of the Bill that refer to trade unions, namely Clauses 6, 7, 8 and 9. I would also want to look at them in the round, alongside other legislation on political donations, such as political fund ballots. Such legislation should be looked at during this period as well.
Proposals around match funding for registered supporters and amounts-per-vote schemes have been talked about for many years. Again, I am not against such schemes in principle, but they have to be looked at in the overall context of the cost of politics and the financial situation we find ourselves in as a nation. On the other side of the equation, removing large donations from politics in the United Kingdom—and with that, any suggestion that people who make large donations are seeking some sort of advantage or influence—means that money has to be replaced from elsewhere.
The provisions that refer to enabling Gift Aid to apply to parties that meet the eligible represented registered parties test seem a good idea. That might encourage many more people to make donations of a smaller amount to parties, which is a good thing. More small donations attracted by parties are to be welcomed. One of the problems we have in the United Kingdom is that making donations to political parties is not seen by large sections of the media and others as a good thing. People give to charities to support good causes and they seek to do good with the money they can afford to donate. However, they always run the risk of being attacked if that donation is to a political party—but praised if it is to a charity or another good cause. Healthy, functioning political parties are essential to our democracy. Joining a political party, campaigning for it and donating money to it should be welcomed and encouraged. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury is right that my successor as director of finance of the Labour Party has dramatically improved its financial situation: the Labour Party is effectively debt-free these days. At the same time, we have had a few other challenges, which have been widely reported in the media. However, as the right reverend Prelate said, political parties are an important part of our national life. We need them to be healthy and functioning.
I would be very happy to end the policy development grants if other measures in the Bill were enacted. Part 2 concerns the control of expenditure for political parties. I understand the intention behind that, but I am not sure if it is the correct way forward. Like it or not, different parties will be able to raise different amounts of money. I suppose that has some correlation to their support in the country, the wealth of their donors and other factors. Often, the Conservative Party seems able to raise more money than other parties, although not always. I am not sure we should be too prescriptive; if we raise money legally, from permissible sources, outside an election, we should be able to make use of that money within legal means. It is not one party’s fault if it raises more money than another.
We should look at how money on things such as the freepost could be used more effectively. For example, the system of using booklets for election addresses has been in place for mayoral elections for many years. I have no real problem with that. Leaflets generally have less effect in elections, in much the same way as we have declining newspaper circulation. They can no longer claim that they were the ones what won it. The Bill’s focus should be directed much more towards the internet, adverts on various platforms and the use of and the manipulation of data, as many noble Lords referred to, and what is and is not acceptable in that regard.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, for bringing the Bill forward. It is a timely piece of legislation. I do not agree with it all, but as I said, in many respects it enables us to have a positive debate and discuss these issues, which the Government will have to return to sometime in this Parliament.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
My noble friend uses language which I would not dream of using at the Dispatch Box, but it is indeed the case that the coalition agreement, which was ratified by Liberal Democrat MPs and the membership of the Liberal Democrat party, committed them to reducing the number of MPs by 50, and that that legislation was taken through the other place by the Deputy Prime Minister, the leader of the Liberal Democrats. I cannot understand why the Liberal Democrats now seek to distance themselves from a measure which their former leader piloted through Parliament.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, we have four parliamentary Boundary Commissions, one for each of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom. Can the Minister confirm that at the conclusion of the reviews, there will be brought before this House and the other place one Motion to approve all four reports, so there is no risk of, say, three reports being approved and one not, and it will be all or nothing, with no risk of cherry-picking the reports we like, as opposed to those we are not so keen on?
Lord Young of Cookham
I am happy to confirm that the position is exactly as the noble Lord said. The legislation requires the Minister to produce a single order to introduce the reports of all four Boundary Commissions, so there can be no cherry-picking—which would never have occurred to our side, but might conceivably have occurred to others.
Housing: Availability and Affordability
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, first, I join other noble Lords in congratulating my noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh on securing this important debate on the availability and affordability of housing. Secondly, as usual in these debates, I refer the House to my declaration of interests, in particular the fact that I am a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
It is accepted that we are in the midst of a housing crisis, with people being let down on every front. As the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, said, to lower prices we need to increase supply. We have the lowest levels of home ownership for 30 years, and the homelessness crisis on our streets is a scandal. If you walk to this House from any of the nearby mainline stations such as Charing Cross, Waterloo or Victoria, you will be met with people living on the streets. If you arrive at Westminster Tube station and go to the entrance to the Palace, you will usually be greeted by a rough sleeper. In the fifth-richest country in the world, in one of the richest cities in the world, that is truly shameful.
The Government did put the Homelessness Reduction Act on the statute book before the election, but they have provided completely inadequate sums of money for local government to deliver on its obligations. The cap on housing allowance, and the pressures that brings, means that more and more people are becoming homeless. Councils are housing over 75,000 families in temporary accommodation, including over 118,000 children. The situation is scandalous, and damaging to families and children and their development.
The noble Lord, Lord Bourne, who is not in his place today, has on many occasions expressed his determination to sort out the broken housing market, as have his friends the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Prime Minister herself, as did her predecessor. But the actions, no matter how well intentioned, have not delivered on the stated aim of fixing the broken housing market. The Government are clearly under pressure and struggling to find a way forward.
Just look at where we have got to in recent times. The Housing and Planning Act must rank among the worst, most ill-thought-out legislation promoted by any Government in recent years. Some of the more contentious measures were either formally dropped or lost in the department as the reality of implementation dawned: pay to stay and the forced sale of council housing, to name but two. We come then to the housing White Paper, the build-up to and crescendo of which never quite matched the reality. Then there is the recently announced housing Green Paper. It is fair to say that had we started with the Green Paper, the solution would never have been the Housing and Planning Act. We need more homes built across all tenures.
It is a laudable aim to want people to own their own home, but I wonder if there should be greater focus from the Government on building more homes. We need to consider carefully the serious problems with schemes such as Help to Buy, which overheated the market making homes even more expensive, rather than building more homes for sale.
I recall the debates on the Housing and Planning Act with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Trafford. We could never get a clear idea of the cohort that would benefit from the Starter Home programme. It never appeared to me to benefit the classroom assistant, the nurse, the teacher or the small business person. I agree with many of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham, when he called for the building of more homes.
It is not councillors on planning committees or planning departments holding up development, but the problem of land that could be built on not being built on by the developers. Hundreds of thousands of planning permissions have been granted and not a brick has been put down. That highlights the problem, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, said. But planning departments are underresourced and action needs to be taken, as nationally set planning fees mean that council tax payers are subsidising planning services. That really needs to end, as my noble friend Lady Young of Old Scone said.
I have told your Lordships before that I grew up in council accommodation. I will always be very grateful to Southwark Council for providing my parents with a council flat, and then a council house, that was warm, safe and dry and at a rent my parents could afford. My parents worked until they retired and they paid their taxes. They did not own a car when we were young, but could afford to take us on holiday every summer and pay for us to go on school trips. We were happy and able to take up the opportunities that were available to us. That was the benefit of council housing. It liberated our family and enabled us to get on. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford referenced this in his remarks. I am the eldest of four children and we are now all home owners.
The Government must do more to support real affordable housing in the public sector at social rents. In London and other cities, the affordable rent product promoted by the Government is unaffordable, as my noble friend Lady Donaghy said. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will lift the cap on borrowing for local authorities for social housing. It really is needed to help tackle the broken housing market, not just for young families but for older people who want to downsize to a smaller property. There is a looming problem in sheltered and supported housing that the Government need to get a grip of, as my noble friend also said.
The private rented sector works for many people, and there are some excellent private sector landlords who provide homes that people want to live in. But there are also many problems with the rogue elements of the private rented sector, and much more needs to be done to solve this, as my noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh referred to.
I want to pay tribute to the work being done in Newham by the mayor, Sir Robin Wales, and his team. In 2013, Newham became the first local authority in England to require mandatory licensing of all private sector landlords operating in the borough. The scheme expires at the end of December 2017, and Sir Robin and his team applied to the Government for permission to continue it for a further five years. The figures in the first five years are quite startling. Newham has initiated 1,217 criminal prosecutions against landlords, recovered over £3 million in unpaid council tax and banned from operating 28 of the worst landlords. The police have made 745 arrests for a variety of offences during licensing operations, and £300,000 of housing benefit fraud has been detected and stopped. What Sir Robin and his team are doing is making a real difference: tackling rogue landlords, driving up standards, protecting private sector tenants, recovering unpaid council tax and detecting benefit fraud and other criminal activity, including slavery. The Government should be supportive of the excellent work being done by Sir Robin and Newham Council and look at ways that they can support this forward-thinking authority and encourage other local authorities to develop similar schemes. I am not sure if the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, is aware of this scheme or has been to Newham, but I know he would get a very warm welcome there—perhaps we could go together.
There are two other issues affecting the private rented sector that we need to see some action on. The first is client money protection. Following on from the Housing and Planning Act, a working group was set up, chaired by my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town and the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill. The consultation closed in October 2016 and the report was published on 27 March 2017. The next day, in reply to a Question from my noble friend, the noble Lord, Lord Bourne, announced that the Government were going to go ahead with a mandatory scheme. That was great news, protecting the money of both tenants and landlords from rogue letting agents.
Secondly, we have the ban on letting agent fees, such as inventory fees, tenancy review fees and agent admin fees. For tenants who are often forced to change homes every year, these charges cost hundreds of pounds of money that they do not have. The CAB reported recently that 42% of renters had to borrow money just to pay their fees, and that is on top of rent deposits. The ban was announced in the Autumn Statement in 2016 by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It then appeared as a pledge in the Conservative Party manifesto and was announced in the Queen’s Speech on 19 June. But since then there has been very little. Those two fairly simple measures, despite reviews, announcements, pledges and commitments, have made very little meaningful progress. No one could accuse the Government of acting in haste in bringing these measures into force.
Our housing association sector, whose very ethos is about people living in decent homes that they can afford, is struggling with a lack of investment in homes for social rent, so it has worked to deliver other forms of ownership and then cross-subsidised those with the lowest rents. The mandatory rent cut has taken £3.9 billion out of the sector business plan so far, as the noble Lord, Lord Stoneham of Droxford, mentioned. The sector needs certainty so that it can develop with confidence and play its part in delivering the homes that we need.
I also fear that the Government operate in silos. Housing benefit is now well over £20 billion a year. The Government find themselves in a perfect storm but refuse—for reasons that I hope the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, will explain when he speaks—to tackle this with the urgent action needed. Home ownership is at an all-time low. Social housing is under pressure. The borrowing cap needs to be lifted so that more homes can be built. There is huge pressure in the private rented sector, with rents in certain areas rocketing, and the market is overheating. Housing associations, housing co-ops and other alternative providers are frustrated by the Government’s failure to allow them to deliver what is needed. There has been a failure to deliver even small things that have been announced by the Government, such as client money protection and the ban on letting agents’ fees.
It could all be so different. Lifting the borrowing cap would enable more homes at a social rent to be built. Whenever we have met the challenge of housing before, the public sector has had to play its part. That would help with the housing benefit bill and it would also take some of the heat out of the private rented sector, which would also help with the housing benefit bill. If the Government switched their strategy and looked at how we can shift some of the vast sums of money we spend on and with individuals into actual bricks and mortar, that would also have a positive effect on the housing benefit bill, as well as on family well-being, enabling families to thrive. That would have a positive effect on the home ownership market too. I very much agreed with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Horam, that we need positive action from the Treasury on these matters.
I grew up in a council house and I rented in the private sector when I was younger. Today, I am a home owner. That is quite a normal aspiration for anyone and a positive outcome and something that government policy should enable to happen. But despite everyone seeing that as a reasonable way to proceed, the Government, for ideological reasons, have to date refused to take the big steps needed.
Local Government Elections
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, for tabling this Question for Short Debate today. He raises an important issue, and the short answer to his Question is of course yes, on both counts: the law on local government elections needs improving and clarifying in many areas.
I agree with almost everything said in the three previous contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Greaves, Lord Rennard and Lord Tyler. They are experts in elections and we should listen to what they say carefully. In his remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, concentrated on the offence of treating. These are serious matters and I agree that the provisions need urgent updating. As he explained to the Committee, the matter that he referred to has been through the due process and the evidential threshold has been determined not to have been met. But that does not mean that important points have not been raised, and action should be taken on the whole issue of treating and whether the law is adequate. Some disturbing comments were made about curries, and other things, which were not at all good.
The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made important points about difficulties and problems in various elections. The Labour Party got itself into terrible difficulties in Birmingham over postal vote fraud, and the individuals there were properly prosecuted. That was a shameful episode and people were properly dealt with there.
I was appointed to my first job in the Labour Party in 1989 by my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton. She then promoted me in 1990 and sent me to Coventry to deal with Militant. I remember her telling me in her office: “Just go and get them, Roy”. Off I went, and I hope that I dealt with them quite effectively. When I came into this House seven years ago, my two sponsors were my noble friend Lady Gould of Potternewton—my first boss in the Labour Party—and my noble friend Lady McDonagh, who was my boss many years later. I very much enjoyed working with both of them.
Many years later, as a senior official of the party, I authorised the prosecution of the Conservative Party candidate who had stood for a council election in Slough. When I first got the phone call from the Labour agent there, I was a bit sceptical. The Labour Party had lost the safest Labour ward in Slough to the Conservative Party and that guy wanted to come and see me. I agreed and he came in with a pile of papers to show me all the applications to register to vote. Then he showed me the houses, and most of them were derelict; nobody lived there at all. Of course we had all the ballot papers checked. It ended up in the courts and we were able to show that it was completely fraudulent activity and the people were sent to prison—quite rightly there, too. Again, we were able to show that it was not right. Picking the safest Labour seat in a borough was probably the daftest thing they did.
Going on to more general remarks, yesterday the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, asked a Question about the Electoral Commission in terms of the Welsh language. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, what the Government were going to do in respect of the Law Commission and the work they are doing looking at the law. I am very much of the opinion, as other noble Lords are, that our law in the round needs improving, clarifying, redrafting and consolidating for elections. The Government really must find some parliamentary time in the next couple of years for this.
In many areas, our electoral law is not fit for purpose. We have to deal with that; our democracy is at stake here. The law is spread over various Acts, statutes and codes. It has been bolted together over many years and is in a complete mess. All the parties in this Room have been in government in recent years and we have all contributed to that. We are all to blame in some measure for where we find ourselves today, and it is not a good place. I have other general remarks to make but, as I said, the Government must find some parliamentary time for that. We need consolidated legislation that covers elections, referendums, donations, registration of parties and electoral registration, all in one place so that we all know exactly what is going on. I have no idea how many Acts or parts of Acts are still in force over elections. Perhaps the Minister does. I expect that it is a great many.
If we look at our experience in recent years and at changes in technology and campaigning, we can see that the law is in need of extensive updating and, ideally, future-proofing. I accept that that is much harder to do that than to say. For example, we need to look at the use and manipulation of data in campaigning, which is a huge issue. More should be done to clarify what returning officers should and should not be doing. The Electoral Commission needs looking at again and reforming. It needs more teeth in some areas. It should focus on clearly defined issues and doing things. It should probably do a bit less commenting and voicing opinions, and take a bit more action in certain areas. We need a much tougher focus on getting the electoral registration process right and on having the powers to make sure that the service provided is fit for purpose everywhere and that the EROs and the commission are using the powers they have.
Electoral registration and the desire to get people on the register needs reinforcing. The Government have not always seemed as enthusiastic about doing so as they should. It could be suggested that they have been quite partisan in the recent past. We may hear from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that they listened to the advice and guidance of the Electoral Commission, which is very good, but they do not always do so. They certainly did not when they removed a number of voters from the electoral register a couple of years ago in looking at the boundary review. Having mentioned the boundary review, perhaps the Minister can update us on that because all the gossip down the other end of the building is that it is dead in the water. Members of all parties down the corridor are all telling me that the Government are desperately trying to find a way to end this review. It may be that that needs legislation. If it does, let us get on with it because it is a complete waste of public money if in fact the Government intend in some way to end the review and go back to having 650 seats.
I have a few other little comments to make before I finish. The nomination process needs clarifying. There are all sorts of issues there. We have to deal with sham nominations. We may have dealt with the Liberal Democrat problem we had a few years ago but there are still issues with sham nominations. When I was an electoral commissioner, I was one of the first political commissioners. We had an issue with a disgruntled Tory candidate attempting to use the old Tory torch logo. We said, “No, it is not your logo”, and got into a discussion. In the end, we stopped him but he believed he could just walk off with a logo that belonged to the Conservative Party and stand as some sort of independent Conservative. That sort of thing goes on all the time and it was good we did that work there. The sham candidates and imposters need to be dealt with. The rule itself is clearly not quite there.
The polling day process is still not what it should be. We need some clear guidance and a single set of polling rules to apply across all elections. There is also the issue of assisting voters to the polls and actually voting. Very elderly people need to have their vote protected, in being able to get to the poll and vote. Equally, they may need assistance. That is a very hard thing to do properly but it also needs dealing with. I would also like to see some standardised rules in respect of counts. It is not always the case in some of the counts we see across the country. I know that we have electronic counting in London and in the Scottish local elections, but it always amazes me that you can normally go to a count for a council or Parliament and they sit there with pens and paper, and get a result really quickly. In the GLA they were sitting there days later. I do not know how you can deal with it, but counting should be looked at.
I just had those few comments to make. I know that the Minister probably cannot respond to all the points raised here today but I am sure he agrees with many of them. I look forward to his comments and if he cannot respond now, maybe he could do so in writing afterwards.
Electoral Spending Limits: Wales
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(8 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Young of Cookham
We hope that between now and then there will be a suitable legislative vehicle to take this reform forward.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, there is a desperate need for the law in its entirety around elections to be reviewed, reformed and consolidated. With the advances in technology, among other things, the law has not kept pace with change. Does the noble Lord agree with that point and, if so, will he impress on others in government that, despite other pressures, this really is something for which the Government should find parliamentary time?
Lord Young of Cookham
There is indeed a broad view that our election law is fragmented, at times unclear and, as the noble Lord said, does not always reflect modern changes in communication. We are working with the Law Commission and other interested bodies, such as the Electoral Commission, to see whether we can streamline and clarify our electoral system, but we need to find the legislative time to take these reforms forward.
Local Government Finance
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
That this House takes note of local government finance and arrangements beyond 2020.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, in moving this Motion, I bring to the attention of the House my usual declarations of interest—namely, that I am an elected councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association.
I am delighted that a number of Members with expertise in local government and finance are speaking in this debate, as this is an important issue that we need to keep raising and shining a light on.
I have served on two local authorities. Presently, I am a member of Lewisham Borough Council, and many years ago I was a member of Southwark Council, the borough where I grew up.
Throughout my working life, as a full-time official for the Labour Party, I have had dealings with councillors in a variety of local government settings, including larger parish, district, county and unitary authorities, and seen a variety of different methods of governance, both as a controlling majority group, part of a coalition and in the role of an opposition group. Councillors of all parties generally do a difficult job very well, and are supported by dedicated professional staff delivering important services—everything from preschool and nursery provision through to social care towards the end of life, and the more general services such as keeping the streets clean and the street lights working properly.
Local government is ever present in people’s lives. It is the part of the state that they see most frequently, and the council has a leading role in understanding the issues that local people have and in delivering solutions for them. Councils need stability and as much certainty as possible to do their job. I accept that that is not always easy, but where they can, the Government need to help local authorities and not make things more difficult for them. I hope that in responding to the debate the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, can give more certainty. Where he cannot, will he at least agree to take back the concerns raised in the debate and initiate discussions within government, the department and with the Local Government Association to as quickly as possible bring more certainty and stability on the issues raised.
I have a number of general points to make and some specific points in respect of London. Local government is not clear where it is heading beyond 2020. In the last Parliament, discussions and work took place to develop a new system by which local government as a whole would retain 100% of its business rates by the financial year 2019-20. With the calling of the general election, the Local Government Finance Bill was lost, understandably. The Bill set out a framework for local government in England to keep all of the £26 billion it raises locally in business rates, and it is fair to say that there was some surprise that there was no mention of this in the Queen’s Speech that was recently unveiled. Certainly my party had some issues with the scheme, such as how we were going to introduce fairness without making things worse for those councils that do not have the income base to replace the money they received through central government grants. But everyone was surprised that this key piece of legislation does not appear to have made it even to the starting line this time, in a Session of Parliament that is supposed to last two years. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, could shed some light on what has happened to the Bill? Is it is on the back burner, has it been scrapped never to be seen again, or will it resurface at some point in the future? In addition to finding out what has happened, it would be useful if we were given the reasons why that is the case.
Recently, there has been lots of debate and discussion in many forums about austerity, including the Cabinet, which we know from what we see and read in the media. There have been lots of briefings from various Ministers both on and off the record. What cannot be in doubt is that local government has taken a huge hit in the spending decisions made by the Government in recent years, despite delivering some of the services that people rely on the most.
The Local Government Association pointed out recently that funding lost from central government since 2015 and projected further losses will mean that, by 2020, local government will have lost 75p of every £1 it had to spend of core central government grant. That will equate to a £5.8 billion funding gap by the end of the decade, with an estimated additional £1.3 billion required to stabilise adult social care. That gives a total of £7.1 billion as a funding gap—a staggering amount that will result in significant reductions in services that people, sometimes the most vulnerable in our communities, have to rely on.
In addition, the department’s own figures show that funding to local government will have fallen 63% in real terms up to the financial year 2019-20, but overall public spending will have increased by 4% in real terms over the same period. So we have further savings along with increased demand for services, which is particularly stark in London. It would be useful if the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, could update us on the fair funding review which the Government have committed to. If we do move to another system of funding local government, we want to ensure that it is fair and addresses all the needs, as it is often areas with huge social needs that are not going to have the business rate base to replace the funding they lose.
London has unique pressures. It is a growing city with huge challenges that need to be addressed. Adult social care is a problem widely acknowledged but with no sustainable solution identified. In London, the elderly population is expected to rise by 70% between now and 2039. I am in that group of statistics, as are, I suspect, many of your Lordships who are not yet retired and live in London. A long-term solution to adult social care needs to be found, but as the Prime Minister found out during the election, solutions that are not carefully worked out are not going to be accepted and will prove impossible to deliver.
Children’s social care is another pressure point, with the growing requirements of the new Ofsted inspection framework. In London, the overspending is twice that of adult social care, and with London’s young population set to continue to rise, this demand is only going to increase.
We all acknowledge that there is a housing crisis. The Housing White Paper was a missed opportunity and we have seen very little from the Government when measured against all the hype and expectation that was generated beforehand. Government policies leaving people without recourse to public funds add significantly to overspending pressure on local authorities, as does homelessness and the requirements of the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. The Government do not appear ready to provide the level of funding necessary to make this legislation work. The 1% rent reduction on social housing is also making the situation worse.
As I outlined earlier, we need to see stability in local government funding. The Government need to be clear on their plans for 100% business rate retention. If the 2020 plan is no longer on the agenda, what is?
Many in this Chamber and elsewhere have raised the fact that we have not had a revaluation of council tax. Governments of all persuasions have time and again decided to sidestep that issue. The Government need to take a proper look at council tax: is it fit for purpose, is it the right vehicle for local government and does it deliver what is needed? Is the hypothecated precept for social care the right mechanism or just a sticking plaster that is not going to do the job?
The borrowing cap on the housing revenue account should be removed to help address the housing crisis. We need to build more council homes on proper social rents.
On a whole variety of services, local government levies fees and charges for delivering services. The fees are often at rates set by the Government, with no local discretion. If we even got to the point at which there was full cost recovery, it would be progress. I recall our debates in this House on planning fees. Although there was some proposed uplift, local authorities are still not going to be recovering anything like the costs they expend, and that situation is the same across other services.
It is a perfect storm. Local government has no certainty how it is going to be funded post 2019-20. Whatever the funding mechanism, there are huge issues regarding fair funding; there are greater pressures on and more demands for services, especially for those that are vulnerable, in early years and in social care; people are trapped with no recourse to public funds and turning to the local authority as they have nowhere else to turn; there is a housing crisis and a desperate need for more homes to be built at social rents; the housing revenue account is under pressure from enforced rent reductions; and there is no sign that the Government are going to let councils build more homes. I could go on and on. It is shocking: this is a terrible state of affairs that the Government must urgently address.
However, urgency seems to be in short supply at the moment from the Government. No one could suggest that in either House there has been an energetic start from the Government in this Parliament. I know that they have problems, but those are entirely of the Prime Minister’s own making. Local government and the residents it serves need certainty, action and direction. There are big issues to be solved and local government often speaks with one voice on these matters with little to divide the parties. Local government is asking to be allowed to do the job that it is capable of doing through a funding mechanism that is fair. It wants action from the Government to allow it to get on with the job. It is time for the Government to respond positively to the call being made by local government for certainty and stability, and to be given the tools to do the job.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. Listening to it, I was struck by the amount of agreement on all sides.
The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, made an important point about collaborative work and the need for clarity in the patchwork that has been created. We have discussed many times the issue of council tax. The noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, who is not in his place this afternoon, has talked about that issue many times and presented a Private Member’s Bill in the previous Parliament looking at council tax bands.
My noble friend Lord Desai talked about the problems we have caused ourselves by not having a revaluation. As we have heard, council tax was introduced as a fix to get the Government out of the poll tax disaster, and many noble Lords referred to it. I did not realise that the Minister had opposed the introduction of the poll tax. I congratulate him on doing so—well done.
My noble friend Lady Donaghy made a powerful point about the crisis in social care. I know the area to which my noble friend referred, as I went to school in Peckham and Camberwell and lived in Walworth. I was a Southwark councillor for many years. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, mentioned aldermen. I was appointed an honorary alderman by Southwark council many years ago after I left the authority. When I was a councillor there, we had a category of housing called “hard to let”, which included the Pullens Estate in my ward. No such category now exists because there are no more homes that are hard to let—every home is snapped up the moment it becomes available.
The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, commented on austerity and how to move forward. His points in respect of parks were also well made.
The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, has an open invitation to visit Lewisham any time he wants. I would be delighted to show him what a great place it is, particularly if he comes to Crofton Park, which I represent. In issuing that invitation, I hope that I will cause him none of the problems that he had when he went to Pendle, because there have been a few issues there in the past.
My noble friend Lord Smith of Leigh has vast experience of local government as the leader of Wigan Council and as a member of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The spending cuts have had a real effect on people’s lives, and my noble friend highlighted many other issues, such as council tax. He made an important point about the effect of the cuts in different authorities, and that, for me, highlights how important the fair funding review will be.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, raised a number of interesting points, including on VAT, road tax and other taxes. I did not mention it in my opening contribution, but the London Finance Commission has reported under both the previous mayor, Boris Johnson, and the present mayor, Sadiq Khan, and has looked at those very issues. I think I am right in saying that both mayors have been supportive of the commission’s reports, but perhaps further work needs to be done. This may be an issue that needs to be looked at in the future.
I thank everyone who has spoken in this debate. Again, I make the point that on most of the issues raised today local government speaks with one voice, and that is one of the more positive things to have happened in local government in recent years. Things were very different when I was a Southwark councillor in the 1980s. However, things have moved on, which pleases us all. Any disagreements today tend to be much more between central and local government; as I said, local government often speaks with one voice.
The response from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, particularly in respect of local government finance, was interesting. Discussions need to take place urgently on how local government is to be funded in future years, particularly beyond 2019-20. It does not appear that the previous proposals, if implemented, will be achieved in the same timescale—these things always seem to slip.
In conclusion, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, for his detailed response to the debate, which he delivered with his usual courtesy. I appreciate it very much, and I thank all those who have spoken.
Boundary Reviews 2018
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to introduce legislation amending the provisions relating to the 2018 Boundary Reviews.
Lord Young of Cookham (Con)
My Lords, following laws already passed by Parliament, the independent Boundary Commissions are consulting on their proposals to deliver boundary changes. They will submit their final proposals to Parliament in autumn 2018, ensuring fair and equal representation for the voting public across the UK. We have no plans to change this process.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, millions of people have registered to vote who are not taken into account in the present parliamentary boundary review. Will the noble Lord commit the Government to including these people? Would he comment on the general opinion that the present boundary review is dead in the water because the DUP does not want it and that any review approved by Parliament will be on the basis of there being 650 seats in the House of Commons? If that is the Government’s real intention, they should say so quickly and stop wasting any more public money on a review that will not be approved.
Lord Young of Cookham
My Lords, the country has already fought two general elections on out-of-date boundaries for reasons that are familiar to the noble Lord. If we followed the noble Lord’s suggestion and started again with a new register, there is a risk of a third general election on boundaries which were set in place in 2000. That would be an affront to democracy.
General Election: Voting Rights
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests. Can the noble Lord tell the House what additional resources the Government are providing to enable local government to register more citizens to vote? What representations are they making to the Residential Landlords Association and the Association of Residential Letting Agents to encourage them to bring it to the attention of their tenants that they could be eligible to vote—because tenants in the private sector are one of the most underrepresented groups at elections?
Lord Young of Cookham
The noble Lord is quite right that a number of groups are unregistered in the current regime. Over recent years, the Government have devoted resources to trying to increase registration of those groups, particularly students. We have also made it much easier for people to register to vote: you can vote online in about three minutes. A number of initiatives are also being taken by the Electoral Commission, focused on some of the groups that the noble Lord rightly mentioned, to encourage them to vote. Over forthcoming weeks, the Electoral Commission will of course have an additional campaign as part of its responsibility of informing people how and where to register to vote.
Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, first, I make my usual declaration that I am a councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. The four statutory instruments we are debating today are ones that I accept, as far as they go. I broadly welcome the process outlined by the Minister. Certainly, the entitlement to vote and the accuracy and completeness of the register are the most important things we are debating here. That underpins all this. I have some wider comments and one or two questions for the Minister but generally I welcome the orders and regulations and I am very happy that we are exploring new methods of getting people registered to vote.
On matters concerning elections and electoral registration, it is always desirable to get agreement among the interested parties on the way forward. I accept that that is not always possible but it is a desirable aim nevertheless. Changes should be implemented carefully, should be thought about, should seek to improve voters’ engagement in the electoral process and should command wide confidence. In that sense, pilots are a useful tool to see how certain measures will play out in practice, followed by proper evaluation and informed policy decisions. Can the Minister tell the House why the decision was made to extend these pilots for another year? I cannot believe that the Government have made this decision in isolation. But it is not clear from the papers why they have done so.
There is no mention of the political parties being consulted on the regulations. Will the Minister confirm that neither the Electoral Commission nor the Cabinet Office team that meets the political parties on a regular basis have brought these regulations anywhere near them? Of course, the Parliamentary Parties Panel is a statutory panel set up under PPERA. If that is the case, does the Minister agree that that is regrettable and should be rectified quickly? The political parties use the electoral register for their campaigning, they understand the registration process, and they have a legitimate voice that needs to be heard in any discussions on these matters.
I refer the Minister to page 3 of the Explanatory Memorandum to the Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England and Wales) Order 2017; he mentioned it in his introduction. Referring to the annual canvass, paragraph 7.1 in the section headed “Policy background” says:
“In its current form under IER, it is proving to be an unsustainable cost burden for local authorities to administer”.
I thought that was an interesting comment. I must say, it is not the biggest issue that comes up when we discuss finance and budgets and unacceptable cost burdens at Lewisham Council. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, may have let the cat out of the bag by telling us that these issues were discussed in the coalition Government in 2013. Of course, members of that coalition wanted to bring forward these proposals then.
I had a look at what the Local Government Association was saying and I could not find any mention at all of the unacceptable cost burdens of the annual canvass—not a thing—in its campaigns, press releases or anything else. I then had a look at London Councils and again there was no mention in any of its campaigns or media releases about these unacceptable cost burdens and the problems being caused for local authorities. Both organisations are well known to Members of this House. They are expert at getting their views across to us when they have issues they want to raise with us. But I have had absolutely nothing—not a letter, not an email, not a text message, not a phone call—from these bodies that represent local government.
Of course, there are many issues that these two bodies are interested in: the housing crisis, the social care crisis, education funding, public health budgets, business rates, pavement parking, homelessness and the lack of funding for that, bus funding, and many other issues—the list goes on and on. Many of these issues are putting local authorities in a difficult situation and putting pressure on budgets, but the Government are not the slightest bit interested in dealing with them. I also had a look at SOLACE and the AEA. Again, they are silent on these issues and do not appear to be campaigning on them at the moment.
It really is a bit rich for the Government to hide behind the suggestion that there are all these concerns from elsewhere in local government. The Government do not have a good record here. They sped up IER, against the advice of the Electoral Commission. They reduced the transition period for IER by one year. They threw out the consensus on that point. They moved ahead with reducing the number of seats in the House of Commons by 50. They removed voters from the electoral roll, against the advice of the commission, and of course that helped them in their redistribution of parliamentary seats and limited the scope of electors to get involved in local inquiries. At the same time, we all know that they made a record number of appointments to your Lordships’ House. Their claims about cutting costs just do not hold water.
Democracy costs money. We should cherish it and pay for it. We need an efficient, well-run, properly resourced electoral registration service in every part of the United Kingdom. In comparison with other services, the costs involved are not huge and the Government should be seeing how they can use every avenue of the state to get and keep people registered to vote. They should be learning from other parts of the United Kingdom. How does the Electoral Management Board in Scotland work in getting people registered to vote, compared with what happens here in England and Wales?
Pilots are good to see how we can efficiently and expertly register people to vote. There is nothing presently in force that stops EROs making any innovation, and many EROs do an excellent job of innovating to get people registered to vote. We should be looking at the incentives to get people on the rolls. What are schools, colleges and universities doing? What can we learn from the schools issue in Northern Ireland? Many noble Lords from all sides of the House have raised that and so far the Government have not been interested at all in bringing it into play in England. We should look also at what we can learn from other parts of the world.
I worry that the real agenda is just to cut the need to send out a prepaid envelope and a form and to avoid knocking on the door, with very little else under that. I am happy that we have new procedures and new ideas. We have to be absolutely sure that we are not making it any harder to get people registered to vote. I am not confident that so far the Government have done that.
My noble friend Lord Blunkett raised some very important points. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, spoke about the two local authorities. I do not know that case but if that is the situation, it is regrettable. All the councils that have been invited to be part of the pilot should be part of it when it takes place next year. He made a very important point about savings. I am happy to make savings but, again, the important point in all this is the accuracy and completeness of the register. That must be paramount for all of us. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made some important points about automatic registration. Again, young people and students are a very important group and we must make sure that we get them registered. I know that many councils and EROs have worked closely with universities and colleges. We need to ensure that that happens as well.
I am happy to agree the orders and regulations before us today, although I worry about the Government’s real intention behind these matters.
Lord Young of Cookham
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and for their broad welcome for the initiatives that are in the orders before the House.
In response to the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, I am grateful for his welcome for what we are doing, but there were some uncharacteristically partisan comments in his speech. On the size of the House of Lords, I just say, as somebody who was Leader of the House of Commons at the time, that if his great party had supported the programme Motion on the House of Lords Reform Bill, the House of Lords would be a lot smaller than it is now. His party bears some responsibility for the failure to get the numbers down to a more manageable level. I will put that on one side because I know the noble Lord did not mean to stimulate an aggressive partisan debate on these non-controversial orders.
I will try to respond to the issues that were raised. The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, raised the issue of privacy. Of course I confirm that the protection of personal data is important. As I think I said, the Cabinet Office carried out a privacy impact assessment which took into account privacy impact assessments commissioned from all the participating local authorities. The provisions before us do not have any significant further impact on an individual’s privacy than the current legislative requirements concerning registration. They simply support the EROs in carrying out their legal duty to take all the necessary steps to maintain registers of electors in their area. As I said, we have consulted the Information Commissioner’s Office on this order and it does not consider that the proposed measures raise any new or significant data protection or privacy issues. The noble Lord also raised some issues about the Digital Economy Bill and I would like to accept his generous offer to pursue those in writing.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
No, I am sorry. I meant the political parties panel in PPERA which is drawn from officials.
Lord Young of Cookham
I will make inquiries and deal with the important questions that the noble Lord has raised about the level of consultation, and of course he is entitled to a reply on that.
I think I have dealt with nearly all the issues that have been raised. If I have not, I will write. We have had direct advice from a range of those in local government—the chief executive of Trafford, the electoral registration officer for Grampian and others—about this initiative. I again thank noble Lords for the time they have spent scrutinising these instruments, which will enable EROs in England, Wales and Scotland to pilot innovative approaches to conducting the annual canvass and also allow EROs in Scotland to make use of email invitations to register and single occupancy provisions. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
Before the noble Lord sits down, the point I was trying to get across is that I am very happy that we have pilots. There is no issue about that. However, when we make changes—and stopping the annual canvass, stopping people knocking on doors and stopping letters going out are very big changes—we cannot assume that everybody is e-enabled. Each change has to be carried out very carefully; otherwise we make mistakes, things go wrong and people lose their right to vote. That cannot be the case. The heart of this is that the Government must take a long period and absolute care when they pilot changes. The decision to reduce the time for confirmation was a mistake. If we had taken a longer time, we might not have needed these measures now. That is the point I am trying to make.
Lord Young of Cookham
I am grateful to the noble Lord. As I said, we are not stopping the annual canvass. The annual canvass remains. I will just end on this. The initiative for this has come not so much from the Government as from the EROs. They take their responsibilities very seriously and want to have the maximum number of people registered. They still retain all the powers they have at the moment, as well as the powers they have in the pilots, to continue to knock on doors and send all the forms. I personally have confidence that the EROs will use the powers they have, and which we are giving them today, not just to maintain the current accuracy of the register: I think we will end up with a better register if we go ahead with these pilots and extend the lessons that we have learned.