Elections Bill

Lord Khan of Burnley Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, these amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, the bulk of which are new clauses to be inserted after Clause 2, relate to the administration of elections.

Amendment 88 deals with the nomination of candidates. At present, the Representation of the People Act states that the nomination papers must include the candidate’s full name. The effect of the noble Lord’s amendment would be that a candidate must provide a birth certificate to evidence this. Although I understand the noble Lord’s concerns that the process currently lacks this kind of specific identity check, there is currently a safeguard in the sense that candidates must be registered to vote, and identity checks can take place during the process of registering to vote. None the less, the noble Lord raises valid points on what checks take place on candidates, and I hope the Minister can provide assurances.

Amendment 89 also deals with nomination papers but focuses on the number of electors who must assent to the nomination. The noble Lord has the full support of these Benches for that amendment. Under the current system, regulated by the Local Elections (Principal Areas) (England and Wales) Rules 2006, a candidate must collect the names of a proposer, a seconder and eight other electors. In total, this means that 10 electors must be found.

Amendment 91 also relates to nominations but instead would have the effect that a candidate might select their commonly used name. This seems an entirely sensible step, but I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether this is already possible under current regulations. The Committee will no doubt appreciate that many candidates do not use their full name. For example, in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, ballot papers do not list the Prime Minister as Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

Amendment 90 has a different focus and relates to the declaration of a result. Under this amendment, where a result is incorrectly declared in local elections and there is agreement between all candidates, a revised declaration may be made. I would be interested to hear what recent examples there have been of an incorrect declaration. Although it seems entirely right that there should be a means of challenging this, we should also consider whether there is a role for the returning officer in the process.

Finally, with Amendment 208 the noble Lord draws attention to the variation in criteria used for excluding candidates for certain elections. In its guidance to prospective candidates, the Electoral Commission warns that the full range of disqualifications is complex. There would certainly be merit in increasing the understanding of those exact disqualifications. As always, I look forward to the Minister’s response to see whether he can give any assurances in this area.

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Moved by

[Lord Khan of Burnley]

97: Clause 7, page 9, line 13, after “communicate” insert “, or attempt to communicate”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment expands the offence to include attempting to communicate the number or other unique identifying mark on the back of a ballot paper sent to a person for voting by post at a relevant election.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the amendments in this group all relate to the secrecy of the ballot. Amendment 97 from my noble friend Lady Hayman would expand the offence to include attempting to communicate the number or other unique identifying mark on the back of a ballot paper sent to a person for voting by post at a relevant election. Amendment 100, meanwhile, expands the offence to include those who obtain or attempt to obtain information or communicate at any time to any other person any information as to whether a person voting by post at a relevant election has spoilt their ballot.

The purpose of these amendments is to draw attention to the various ways that an individual could circumvent the secrecy of the ballot for nefarious purposes. I am sure the Minister would agree that legislation must cover each of the possible intrusions. Given that this is not the only legislation that deals with voting in private, I hope the Minister can assure the House that this amendment is not necessary and that this is already an offence.

Government Amendments 83, 99, 101 and 102, meanwhile, each make minor changes to inserted Section 66(3A) of the Representation of the People Act 1983. These all appear to be technical amendments which I have no intention of opposing, but I look forward to the Minister explaining their purpose in more detail.

Government Amendment 103 ensures that no criminal liability arises where information is sought from, or given by, a postal voter at an election for the purposes of an opinion poll or exit poll. Again, this amendment seems to be a technical clarification which has been rightly introduced.

Finally, Amendment 109 from the noble lord, Lord Hayward, allows for a more general debate on the secrecy of the ballot. It would mean that the Secretary of State could issue guidance on steps that presiding officers or clerks should take to ensure the secrecy of the ballot in polling stations, including debarring anyone accompanying the elector into the polling booth, unless on grounds of infirmity. This raises issues similar to those raised in earlier amendments from my noble friend Lady Hayman regarding how we can ensure that votes remain private. The noble Lord is right to table this amendment and to draw attention to further ways that this principle could be compromised. I hope the Minister can allay the House’s concerns ahead of Report. I beg to move.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, earlier this evening the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made reference to the original secret ballot of the 19th century. To a large extent, what we have seen over the last 150 years is what should happen: a ballot should be secret, in that one person goes into the polling booth alone, marks their vote and then casts it in the ballot box. Unfortunately, because of a series of interventions, with the Electoral Commission and others denying who is interpreting the legislation in whichever way, this issue has been called into question. I am going to cite Tower Hamlets again, but I know that this problem is broader than that. Too regularly, presiding officers in polling stations are faced with a problem whereby people attempt to accompany somebody else into the polling booth, effectively to influence the casting of that ballot.

I can do no better than to quote research undertaken in 2018 by Democracy Volunteers, an organisation of lawyers who operate a system of reviewing the processes of elections, within Tower Hamlets and other similar locations. I make no apologies for quoting the research in full:

“QUESTION 9. Was there evidence of ‘family voting’ in the polling station? … In 58% of polling stations our observer teams identified so-called ‘family voting’. OSCE … describes ‘family voting’ as an ‘unacceptable practice’. It occurs where, generally, husband and wife vote together. It can be normalised and women, especially, are unable to choose for themselves who they wish to cast their votes for and/or this is actually done by another individual entirely. It is a breach of the secret ballot. We identified this in 58% of polling stations (74 separate occasions). As family voting, by definition, includes more than one person this means that we observed this 74 times in the 764 voters we observed. This means that over 19% of all the voters who we observed were either engaged in, or affected by, this practice.”


This is the key qualification:

“We would, however, like to add that the vast majority of cases of this were prevented, or attempts were made to prevent it. However, we believe that this constitutes an unacceptably high level of family voting in an advanced democracy and further steps should be taken to discourage and prevent it. However, this activity is generally not the fault of polling staff, in fact we commend the staff for being so active in their attempts to prevent it.”


As one of the observer teams said:

“Family voting is a definite concern in Tower Hamlets. At the best-run polling stations, the Presiding Officers kept an active watch for potential cases and took steps to prevent it happening. They took care to issue ballot papers to family members one at a time, and then direct them to polling booths in different parts of the room. With three members of polling staff, this meant that while two clerks checked the register and issued papers, the”


polling officer

“could remain vigilant for possible family voting or other problems. All the observed cases of family voting took place when the”

polling officer

“was absent or distracted, or their attention was elsewhere.”

There is no criticism here of the polling staff; they try to do their best. But I am afraid, as this report from Democracy Volunteers identifies, that this is a far too pervasive problem, and we need clear guidance. Most people believed that we had clear guidance for a century and a half, but because of varying interpretations, my amendment is an attempt to ensure that we move away from this practice and back to what was originally intended.

As the noble Lord, Lord Khan, identified, I have tried to allow for those people who need accompaniment. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, in a previous debate, there may be other people in similar circumstances who need assistance. Generally, the assistance will come from a polling officer, but there may be special reasons why somebody needs accompaniment from a member of the family. However, these should be virtually unique occasions, not—as the report from Democracy Volunteers identified—a pervasive problem. I therefore believe that my amendment is attempting to tackle a problem which is quite widespread and needs clarification, and that it is in the best interests of conducting elections across the country.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, as has been said, these amendments are to Clause 7, which concerns the important issue of the secrecy of the ballot for postal and proxy voters. The clause extends the requirements currently in place to protect the secrecy of voting for persons voting in polling stations to postal and proxy voting. These sensible change implementations are an important recommendation from the Pickles report.

First, in bringing forward government Amendments 98, 99 and 101 to 103, we have listened to feedback from political parties about the scope and effect of the provisions as drafted. Currently, the clause includes provisions that make it an offence for a person to obtain, attempt to obtain or communicate to anyone information about whether a postal voter has voted or about the candidate for whom they have voted. As drafted, this applies for the whole period that the elector is in possession of their postal ballot paper, which could be up to three weeks.

We now recognise that this approach goes beyond what is helpful to protect the voter and strays into unnecessarily criminalising not only legitimate political activity to engage electors in campaigns but important public information, such as opinion polling. The amendments would limit the scope of these provisions by providing for it to be an offence for a person to seek information about for whom a postal voter has voted at the time they are completing their ballot paper, or to communicate such information obtained at that time. Campaigners could therefore seek and communicate information that they obtain outside this period. This is in line with the protection for voters in polling stations, who are protected when they are in that polling station.

The amendments would also remove the restriction on asking whether a postal voter has voted so that campaigners can ask a postal voter whether they have voted, to encourage them to do so. Further, under the amendments, the offence would not apply to opinion-polling activity asking how a postal voter has voted, or intends to vote, to avoid criminalising opinion pollsters. The amendments seek to address the unintended consequences that the provisions, as they stand, would have. They would narrow the scope of the provisions so that they do not prevent legitimate campaigning by political parties and candidates outside the time when a person completes their postal ballot paper or legitimate opinion polling at any time.

I reassure noble Lords that the measures will improve the integrity of the postal vote process by reducing the opportunity for individuals to exploit the process and coerce other voters. They will give greater confidence in the integrity of absent voting; I therefore urge the Committee to accept these amendments.

The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness seek to provide that attempting to communicate information about a person’s postal vote as well as actually communicating the information is covered in the secrecy offence. Also, the amendments seek to include in the offence obtaining or attempting to obtain information or communicating information about whether a person voting by postal vote has spoilt their ballot. The Government consider that these amendments are unnecessary, as I have explained. The amendments that the Government have tabled seek to bring the protection for postal voters into line with that for those voting in polling stations.

The amendments tabled by the noble Baroness would mean that there would be inconsistency in the requirements for voters in polling stations and postal voters, which would not favour them. I note that, currently, it is an offence for a person to obtain or attempt to obtain information or communicate information as to the candidate for whom a voter has voted in a polling station, and we are applying this to postal voters.

Spoilt ballot papers are not included in the existing provisions, which relate to the time when a voter is casting their vote. It is for the returning officer to decide if a vote has been spoilt and cannot be counted. That cannot be done before it is cast. To try to include such a provision could lead to uncertainty about the scope of the offence and the role of the statutory independent returning officer in making any such determination. The Government therefore cannot accept these amendments.

I turn to the amendment from my noble friend Lord Hayward, which would provide the Secretary of State with a power to issue guidance on the steps that presiding officers or clerks should take to ensure the secrecy of the ballot in polling stations. I reassure noble Lords that the Government take this and the concerns that have been raised very seriously. The Government’s view is that the secrecy of the ballot is fundamental to the ability of voters to cast their vote freely, without undue pressure to vote in a certain way. The Government fully endorse the principle that someone’s vote must be personal and secret, and that no elector should ever be subject to intimidation or coercion when voting. There are already provisions in place in electoral law to ensure the secrecy of voting in polling stations. The current legislation requires that voters should not be accompanied by another person at a polling booth except in specific circumstances, such as being a child of a voter, a formal companion or a member of staff.

Returning officers and their staff in polling stations are responsible for making sure that these requirements are upheld. In this way, they are supported by the Electoral Commission, which issues guidance to returning officers and polling station staff to help them to undertake their duties.

I note that the Electoral Commission guidance specifically advises polling station staff that they should make sure that voters go to polling booths individually, so that their right to a secret vote is protected. Therefore, I do not consider that it is the role of government to issue such guidance as provided for in the amendment. However, given the important concerns that have been raised on the secrecy of voting, Minister Badenoch will be writing to the Electoral Commission and the Metropolitan Police to confirm our common understanding of the position set out in legislation—that the only people who should provide assistance at a polling booth are polling station staff and companions who are doing so only for the purpose of supporting an elector with health and/or accessibility issues that need such support. We are confident that the Electoral Commission will be able to respond promptly, and I reassure the noble Lord and the rest of the House that we will report back on this matter.

For these reasons, I hope that the amendments from the noble Baroness and the noble Lord will not be pressed.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response and the noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Scriven, for their contributions. I want to say how impeccable the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was in reading the Ballot Act 1872 in the space of this debate, and I congratulate him on his reading skills. In doing so, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 97 withdrawn.