Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2013
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, the whole Committee will be grateful to the Minister for that explanation of what these orders contain. He gave it, understandably, in a pretty low-key way. I think it is worth the Committee reminding itself just how much is at stake on the path we are going down. We must do so because this is a milestone today, along a path that has had many milestones; but it is right that Parliament should check that we are still on the right road before approving the orders.
Perhaps I could illustrate that importance by saying this: let us suppose that the exercise comes up with 80% of eligible voters registering to vote, which is below what we would hope for, but not implausible. Let us suppose at the same time that we get another dullish election where the turnout is only 60%. It would follow from those figures that fewer than half of those eligible to vote had participated in the election. When you start getting to a figure like that, there is no question but that this reflects on the legitimacy of the return.
It is terribly important that we get the maximum turnout at the election, but, in the mean time, that we have a register that is as near complete as possible. Of course, we understand and support the move to individual electoral registration: that is also terribly important to our democracy in order to prevent forged votes being cast. We must make sure, however, that this is being done thoroughly, as well as it possibly can, and that it is not impeded by an insufficiency of resources or rushed through for whatever reason.
It might seem strange to mention my next point straight after warning against “rushing through”, but just last week, one expected deadline for electoral registration was missed. The Commons Library note, dated only a couple of months ago, said that the Government expected to make a firm decision by the end of November on whether to proceed with individual registration for the 2015 election. When Greg Clark was answering a Question on 26 November in another place, he did not say that the Government had decided to proceed; he said simply that they were on track for individual electoral registration to come in in 2014. I do not think there has been a critical slippage yet; but the more the Minister can say to persuade the Committee that they will be giving the go-ahead and that there is still time to have registration fully in place by the summer of 2014—even if it falls short of an absolute pledge; I will come back to that in a minute—the more helpful it would be.
When we say it is “on track”, it is worth reviewing one or two issues that have come up on that track. One about which all Members of the House should be very pleased is the decision to retain the civic penalty. I have no doubt whatever that it was the threat of a civic penalty—even though it is not much used—that prevented a serious slump in registration, particularly among younger people, which would have been damaging. I give the Government absolute credit for that: they listened, they thought about it and they decided to retain the civic penalty. That is greatly to be welcomed.
Another matter that has been resolved, but where I personally regret the resolution—as indeed does the Electoral Commission—is the question of the open register. Here, there is a straight conflict. This should be a register for voting purposes only; that is to say, it should not be sent out to anybody who wants to use it for marketing or any other purposes. Frankly, the ability of a voter to contract out is not a sufficient protection, because most of them have better things to do than to think about whether they want to contract out of the electoral register.
We understand that the marketing industry has brought huge pressure on the Government to continue to make the register available for its purposes. We hear that some local authorities that were going to give priority to putting in a box that could be ticked to say, “I want to contract out”—the tick could then be removed—have been threatened with judicial review by the marketing industry. I must say that in my guts I find it very distasteful when our electoral process is taking second place to the lowest commercial considerations, but I am sure that the marketers have their case; it just has not persuaded me. I ask the Minister to agree, though, that after the first use of IER the Government will review this provision and any evidence there may be as to whether it has damaged the integrity of the register so that, if we have made a mistake this time around—and we all make mistakes—it can be resolved next time.
Another issue that has been largely resolved, I think, is that EROs themselves were very worried about the resources that were being devoted to this. We have had progress in two regards here. The Government have told them what resources they are going to get, and have also said that they are prepared to consider a request for more resources in cases where there are particular difficulties in given areas. Nobody is dancing on the rooftops about this, but it is clearly good progress, and EROs are less unhappy than they were.
However, there is a particular problem, which we need to go on worrying about, with the universities. I will cite one case. There is a ward in Lancaster, I am told, which is nearly always all student-inhabited and where registration is around the 10% mark at the moment. In Sheffield, which has several universities, the universities themselves are putting resources into campaigning to get a fuller register. That is not really what university money is for: it should come from the budget provided for IER. I would welcome any reassurances that are forthcoming on those issues—particularly the university point, which is a chilling worry. Whether the Lib Dems worry about it in quite the way they used to, I do not know. They used to rely considerably on the student vote, but of course that may not be so certain at the next election. The Minister, is, of course, perfectly placed to give both a party as well as a ministerial opinion.
The one thing that is not resolved is an IT issue. The Government are quite frank about this in the memoranda: we do not yet know whether the IT to do the verification matching will work. We do not expect to know that until February or March, when it has been properly trialled. If it does not work, it will cause serious difficulties at least for the scheme—and maybe more than that. The probability is that it will work, by the way, but we ought to think about contingency planning if it does not. There is a particular problem—which came out in the Minister’s remark—about postal voters, because unless they are individually registered, they cannot vote at all. There is no way around that, so postal voters could lose their vote if this does not work—and even those moving shortly before the election might find it difficult, if this does not work, to exercise their vote. This is of concern to the Electoral Commission, as I am sure it is to the Government.
I do not want or expect the Government to delay making the announcement that they intend to go ahead until they are certain that these things work. If you do not take any risks in life, you tend not to make much progress. However, my father used to say to me when I was a young man, “David, always leave room for the big back-out”. I think he had girls in mind, rather than electoral registration at the time—but I think that, on this, Ministers ought to leave room for the big back-out. That is to say, if it turns out that this IT simply does not work—and my expectation is that it will—they will have to be in a position where they can find the words that they have used to show that they were concerned about this issue. If that means that fundamental decisions have to be reviewed, and I do not expect that to happen, they should stand ready to do that.
The Government have taken a pragmatic approach to electoral registration—with the full support of my party and, indeed, politicians of all parties—because individual electoral registration is clearly something that we should have in this country, as most other countries with genuine democratic systems have it. These questions are in no way designed to show any opposition to it, but simply to say that we must double bank and make sure that we have every step along the way working, so that it will go smoothly, with a high number of people on the register.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, I am sorry that those who usually lead on these issues for the Liberal Democrats—my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard—are not with us this afternoon. I will step in where angels fear to tread.
First, as Liberal Democrats, we are glad that registration is now compulsory, not voluntary, as was suggested in the beginning. That would have led to very different registration levels in various constituencies. Secondly, we have waited a long time for this: the Electoral Commission recommended the change to individual registration in 2003. A decade later, we are bringing this regulation into being.
Thirdly, we need to look again at the format of the registration forms. I declare an interest as president of Bite the Ballot, the youth movement to encourage young people to take part in the electoral process and influence manifesto commitments. Perhaps the Government will look at the form. We are replacing the 400 different forms that were used in various constituencies and electoral areas with one form. It will be a national form, which is used in every constituency. Of course, in Wales it will be bilingual. Even in Scotland we will have the element of the language up there.
The civil penalty for not registering comes in an accompanying letter. I get lots of correspondence—we all do—and we might look at the report we are sent, but we put the accompanying letter to one side. Can we not have the penalty note on the form itself, saying that if people do not register there is the possibility of a penalty? In addition, can the second and third forms be distinguishable, so that they look different—perhaps printed in a different colour—so that people know that this is not the original form but the second or third form?
On postal voting, what do the Government believe is the ideal moment to send out postal votes in the UK? Over the years, with the late Lord Garden, who of course was a distinguished military person, I tried to ensure that those who were on military service in places such as Afghanistan—this has been mentioned already—were able to receive their postal vote forms in sufficient time to enable those votes to be completed, returned and included in the count. It is difficult. I remember we had quite a debate on it when the Labour Government were in post. Is there some way we can ensure that those who are ready to sacrifice their lives for us will at least have the opportunity of casting a vote, wherever they are? That is very important.
The regulations are acceptable, I am sure, but other initiatives are not here—of course, we would say that—such as engaging young people to register and take part in political debate. I go back to the Bite the Ballot proposals for a national registration day—5 February 2014—in every area; I think the superstores and the large shops are going to have tables where people can register, and young people in particular will be able to register. Will the Government support this Bite the Ballot initiative? What steps are being taken at a local, constituency level to ensure that every support possible is provided to make National Voter Registration Day a success? We dream of half a million new, young voters on that day. Support will be essential to ensure that that happens.
English Premier League Football
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
My Lords, perhaps I could begin with a declaration of interest—or rather, I am afraid, lack of interest: I am not very keen on football. I am a sporting person: I love cricket, I love golf, I love rugby, I have owned legs of jumpers, point-to-pointers, pacers and greyhounds. Athletics is lovely; I am looking forward to attending the para-athletics on Sunday—but I can live without football.
None the less—partly for that reason—I felt that I would like to contribute to the debate. Although I agree with many of the points made by noble Lords about football’s contribution, there is another side to the case, and the House might like the opportunity to hear it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Bates, for securing the debate, and we do have important common ground, because we agree that the Premier League has international economic and cultural significance. I shall not talk about the international aspect, but just on the economic aspect: yes, it is important, but we should not exaggerate. The total revenues of the Premier League amount to precisely one month’s economic growth, even at the present anaemic rate. It is not as if it is a mighty source of economic prosperity.
I had not thought much about the cultural impact—although one cannot help reading about it—until a researcher for the Premier League rang me up the other day to conduct an opinion poll. I was quite comforted by that, because firms and other organisations only conduct opinion polls when they think they are in deep doo-doo and want to do something about it. As the questions flowed, I felt myself more moved by the negative side of the Premier League than by the positive side.
One overriding overwhelming fact about the Premier League lies behind my dissent from the general enthusiasm for it today—the fact that it not only reflects but enormously magnifies one of the disfiguring sins of our present society: excessive greed. I will not go through all the cases that illustrate the greed of the people who buy up clubs on leveraged takeovers in the hope of making money, and then use them as instruments of profit, not of sport.
To give another example, I checked a website before the debate and found that tickets for Arsenal against Spurs were on sale for £285. It would take an adult on the minimum wage 45 hours to earn £285. Football used to be a melting pot, and its rituals were the privilege of every class, from the working people in cloth caps in the stands to the toffs in the boxes. Stanley Matthews got £15 a week, and tickets could be had for shillings and pence. Now, to go to a Premier League football match you need “loadsamoney”—or, of course, a mate or a business contact with a box.
That is reflected—although I do not necessarily blame them for this—by the greed of the players, and perhaps even more so by that of the agents. In economics we have a concept called economic rent, whereby people strip money from an organisation; large economic rents are generally regarded as rather a bad thing. Yet 70% of the revenues of football clubs go out in wages to the players. As a result, the clubs do not make much money, and as soon as they take more revenue, by putting up the cost of entry or by other devices, the agents and the players take the money from them. What sort of example does that set to our society? We are not even surprised when the Sun reports that a Premier League footballer has strayed from his wife, or been caught speeding in his very fast sports car. What example are we giving to young people, when the biggest rewards in society go to individuals characterised only by the gift of sporting skill?
To give another example, I hate it when a club changes its strip each year, putting the parents of young children under intolerable pressure to buy the latest strip for their kids—at the cost, sometimes, of things they really need to keep their homes going. How many Premier League players have gone through the hard work of studying for a degree? How many are out gays?
I do not criticise anyone who loves football; I am sure that it is a great game, even though I fail to appreciate it. But I dare to dream, as quite a lot of people do, and as those who, when Wimbledon Football Club went to Milton Keynes, dreamed of a new Wimbledon rising—AFC Wimbledon—and later realised their dream. I dare to dream of a Premier League stripped of its excesses, and therefore genuinely fit to hold its head high for its contribution to our national culture.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
“(3) Section 66A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (prohibition on publication of exit polls) is amended as follows.
(4) In subsection (1), after “before” insert “a time 30 minutes after”.”
Lord Lipsey
I owe the House an explanation, whichever way things go tonight, for moving an amendment which I believe to be otiose. Perhaps I may briefly explain. The matter at stake is whether there would be a problem in accepting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, because voters queuing at a polling station would be able to hear the result of an exit poll and could change their vote. An exit poll cannot be published before 10 pm but it could be published at 10 pm and the result could become known to those people queuing at polling stations.
That may seem a bizarre hypothesis but it was advanced at some length on 14 January by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, when he replied for the Government to an amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. He must have meant it because he said it with some conviction, although it would be fair to say that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, had not previously had responsibility for the Bill. At the time, the Government had the problem that the Minister who knew about the Bill did not believe in it as it then was. Therefore, they had to find someone to take his place. But let us leave that aside because the noble Lord said it and, therefore, it must have been the policy.
How sensible is this argument? There is no evidence—I repeat, no evidence—that an exit poll has ever affected the vote of any voter. John Curtice, the leading psephologist at the University of Strathclyde, who kindly researched this for me, said:
“I have not uncovered any pieces on exit polls having an impact on voter choice”.
It does not happen.
It is true that exit polls can in certain circumstances affect elections. The effect is on turnout. There is no British evidence on this. There is American evidence, although it dates from the 1980s, referring to a Reagan election. In the event, people on the east coast voted. The exit polls were reported and voters in California who were going to vote for Reagan did not bother to vote because they had heard that on the east coast he was winning easily and so why bother. The turnout could have been affected by between 1% and 5%. If you try to apply this to the hypothesis in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, you have the situation of a person who comes rushing back from work thinking that he can just get his vote in. He rushes to the polling station and finds to his consternation that there is a queue. However, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, he can have a ballot paper anyway. Provided that he is in the polling station by 10 pm, he gets a ballot paper. Then he switches on his telephone and learns that the exit poll is showing that the Tories are going to win. The man then says to himself, “I have rushed back home, rushed to the polling station and been prepared to stand around while they finally produce a ballot paper for me but, having heard what the exit poll is showing, I am going back home without voting”. It really is a most absurd hypothesis. Even if in some extraordinary case it was true, what is the chance of it affecting the election result?
The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, might result in a few hundred extra voters picking up ballot papers, even if we mess up things again as badly as we did last time. They will not be all of one party, of course. Let us suppose that a few of these voters did walk out and went home, most of the seats in places where this occurred would have been safe or quite safe. The chances of those voters not being there and not casting their vote making any difference to the result are practically zero.
When I was in Whitehall, we used to play a game late at night as to who could get a Minister to make the most ludicrous argument in either House of Parliament. It was a fantasy game, of course. This measure would have been a strong qualifier to win the gold medal in that game. However, just in case anybody believes this argument, I have provided a belt-and-braces amendment so that the exit polls cannot be published until 10.30 pm and, as a result, all those watching the 10 o’clock news will not know the result of an election. At least, thank goodness, the danger of the Pannick amendment affecting in any way the result in a single seat will be averted. Is that a price worth paying? Your Lordships will decide.
Lord Lang of Monkton
My Lords, as a member of the Constitution Committee and a signatory to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I rise to support not only what he has said but what I hope the Minister is about to say. Indeed, I have cast my notes aside because their tone was such that, had I proceeded, he might have withdrawn what he was about to say.
I am delighted to hear that common sense seems to have prevailed because a vote is a fundamental right in a parliamentary democracy. That is something of which we should never lose sight. Heaven knows, not enough of the electorate cast the votes that they are entitled to cast. For guidance we need look no further than the procedures in this House where, because of rising population, the increasingly awkward structure and access to where we vote and the time limit that we are up against, the doorkeepers have very sensibly developed their own process whereby, after eight minutes, they move in behind those who are present and waiting to go through the Lobbies, and nobody else can vote. If that can happen here in this rowdy House, I suspect that it can happen in the polling stations up and down the land if proper, sensible legislation is enacted. I will say no more and, in the interests of the cause, I will now resume my seat, supporting what I hope I am going to hear.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, had noted in previous debates on this issue, the sentiment behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on behalf of the Constitution Committee, with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and my noble friends Lord Lexden and Lord Lang, is fully appreciated.
Having heard the view of the House and seen the cross-party support for this change, the Government are content to accept the principle of the amendment. Our resistance to it in its current form has been based on a concern about unexpected and unforeseen consequences flowing from the change, and we still have that concern. We have identified some of those consequences in debate and, in looking at them more closely since, have concluded that they need to be addressed.
The amendment as it stands brings ambiguity and uncertainty to the impact of other legislative provisions upon the broadcasting of exit polls and other matters pertaining to secrecy within electoral law that are subject to criminal penalties of fines or up to six months in prison. There are other impacts on legislation that refers to the close of poll.
The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has brought forward a further amendment to seek to address the issue of exit polls. Unfortunately, while deferring their publication until 30 minutes after close of play might deal with some potential instances of delay, it would not catch all such instances—for example, if there were a very considerable queue. In that sense, it would defer the problem to a later time.
It is also necessary to make some drafting changes to the amendment to ensure that it applies consistently. The amendment, as a consequence of the intricacies of the current law, does not apply to Northern Ireland. It would be most regrettable if we were to accept it and have a position where voters in a queue at 10 pm could receive ballot papers and vote after that time in Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland.
On that basis, and recognising the will of the House and the laudable principle behind the proposed change, the Government propose to bring forward at Third Reading an amendment that makes the change being sought in terms of electors voting at close of poll but which also contains a provision, through a proportionately limited power, to make further amendments on commencement to deal with all the potential consequences that it has on other elements of electoral legislation.
On the basis of the Government’s commitment to bring forward a clause at Third Reading that achieves the aim of the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, on behalf of the Constitution Committee and which deals with these further issues, I trust that the noble Lords will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Parliamentary Boundary Commission: Electoral Administration
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
My Lords, the House is greatly indebted to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for bring this matter before it today. I shall talk about only some of it. That is to say, I am not going to talk about individual registration because my noble friend Lord Wills has said clearly everything that needs to be said about that. I am not going to talk about the still undealt with disaster whereby people who went to the polls in 2010 were not able to cast their vote because of failures in electoral law. I will instead confine myself to the matters included in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act which occupied your Lordships’ House for a few hours in 2010-11. Those few hours were criticised on some sides and they have been criticised again today. Now, as the car crash that legislation is presenting us with becomes clearer, my regret is that we did not spend longer and were not more successful in persuading the Government that what they planned was bad for Parliament, bad for democracy and bad for our country. We told you so, o Government, but you did not listen.
As Members of another place are slowly coming to realise, the Government’s Act and the boundary review it has set off are having consequences more serious than it is easy to imagine. They come about as a result of three features of the Government’s scheme, each in themselves damaging but, taken together, representing a perfect storm which undermines the very basis of our democracy. The three are: equal-sized constituencies within a very tight 5% margin either way; a reduction of 50 in the size of the House of Commons; and the decision that reviews of boundaries should take place every five years.
Each of these proposals, taken individually and pushed less far, can be defended. Yes, of course, we want more or less equal constituencies; yes, of course, if we can manage with fewer MPs, great; yes, of course, we do not want ossified constituencies, but those were not the reasons the Bill was introduced. It was introduced for one main purpose: to reduce the bias in the electoral system towards Labour. As it happens, although I am a Labour Peer, I applaud that purpose. I do not think electoral systems should be biased and I do not think my party should need bias in the electoral system to help it win elections, but the Bill was frightfully ill designed for the purpose. According to most psephologists, having constituencies all the same size deals with only a third or less of the bias. If you really want to deal with bias, you have to do something quite different.
Anyway, that is what was done, and the Boundary Commissions are now seeking to work to these new, absurd rules under the truncated consultation procedures also introduced by the Act. They have not helped themselves, in England at any rate, by the self-imposed constraint of respecting all ward boundaries. The results are, in many cases, absurd. My noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours dealt with individuals, and I will deal with some individual cases. Gloucester Cathedral is no longer part of that proud city but has been mysteriously relocated to the Forest of Dean. My God, not since Birnam Wood marched on Macbeth’s castle has there been such a takeover. Sheffield seats cease to be Sheffield seats—have you noticed, Mr Clegg?—as you get seats which are part Sheffield, part Rotherham and cross the Ml. I will not go on, although I could. If the House did not forbid visual aids—I am not sure whether they are forbidden on electronic aids—I could wave before Members present a sheaf of constituency maps. At least, I am assured that they are constituency maps, but they look more like the shapeless, pointless scribblings of a one year-old or a Rorschach ink blot test. The existing constituency map of our country is a map of recognisable communities; the new map represents no recognisable communities whatever.
Many more electors than usual after a boundary review will find themselves with a new constituency and a new MP. Without getting too techie, psephologists use an index of change to measure the extent of differences, based on what percentage of constituents after a review has changed and what has remained the same. According to the definitive paper by David Rossiter, Ron Johnston and Charles Pattie in Parliamentary Affairs, after this review, 204 English—only English—constituencies will be changed by 50% of voters or more, compared with just 77 in the previous review in 2007. That is to say, there will be three times as many utter upheavals in constituencies and communities. This matters. What keeps our people attached to Parliament? When you ask people what they think of politicians in general, they say they are rubbish, but when they are asked about their MP, who has helped them with their problems and has worked for them day in, day out, they take a very different view. They respect their local Member although they deny respect to Parliament generally.
It gets worse. Originally, there was at least the hope that this would be a one-off. However, another review starts as soon as the next election is over. It will be based on the numbers on the new registers, which will be based, if the Government get their way, on individual registration, as the noble Lord, Lord Wills, pointed out. The numbers are going to be different. We do not know how different, but they will pretty different from the present numbers. What you have to understand is that it takes only a very small shift in the numbers to require a very large upheaval in the constituency. Constituency A goes a little bit under quota because not many people have registered there, so it needs to pinch a ward from constituency B, which needs to pinch a ward from constituency C. In the end, the whole map is up in the air, there is chaos before the next general election and, thanks to this domino effect, new chaos after it.
A study by Mclean and Johnston for the British Academy concludes that in Britain until now, a majority of constituencies remained substantially unchanged, giving continuity of representation, that in future there will be much less of a sense of place with which a constituency’s MP can identify and that that will be disadvantageous—this is academic understatement—to MPs, parties, electoral administrators and the electorate. In other words, the grassroots of democracy are being destroyed by this coalition Government. That is loony.
Fortunately, there is ray of hope, an unconvenanted bonus of the omnishambles which is Lords election, whose end was, I trust, signalled with the Prime Minister’s address to the 1922 Committee last night. It is possible, just possible, that not only has Lords election been prevented but so, too, has this catastrophic boundary reform. It is a double whammy for the coalition, but a frabjous day for all those who care for Britain’s democracy.
Let me explain. For the boundary changes to happen, both Houses of Parliament have to pass the necessary orders. These have to be laid before those Houses. The Act states that the Boundary Commission must submit reports setting out its proposals before 1 October 2013 and that:
“As soon as may be after the submission of a report ... the Secretary of State shall lay the report before Parliament”.
It should be with us in November 2013. Now, as we have heard, we have had threats in the run up to the Commons Second Reading of the House of Lords Reform Bill that the Lib Dems will refuse to vote for those orders, which would be very strongly in their interests. The previous local elections showed one crucial fact about Lib Dem performance, which will have been noted by every member of the party in another place: they did much better in areas where the local MP was a Lib Dem, and much worse where he was not. If the next election is fought on current boundaries and that phenomenon is repeated, Lib Dem MPs could hope to hold even seats that they look sure to lose on present polling. However, if it is fought on the new boundaries, more of those MPs will face voters who are not the same as those who backed them in the past—wipe-out looms. From my long experience in politics, I note that when self-interest beckons and, as in this case, it accords with sensible principles, the results are generally predictable.
We have, thank God, an emerging coalition in another place against the boundary changes. It includes Labour, of course for entirely principled reasons, the Lib Dems, because it will mean the likely decimation of their party, and many Tories who face the prospect of spending the next couple of years squabbling with colleagues over selection for new seats. A no vote to boundary changes now looks more likely than ever before.
Even in the unlikely event that David Cameron revives his dead parrot, the boundary change orders are not safe. I make no threats but this House must also approve the orders and it will by then be doomed. It might decide—no threats, as I say—as a last favour to our democracy to refuse to pass the orders when they are laid before it. Therefore, it is possible—I am a dreamer—that boundary reform will go down the pan. Aside from any connection to Lords reform, a very good thing that would be too.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
I was not saying that, I was simply saying that we would need to discuss it further in that context, because we will be spending a good deal of time on the Bill. However, I was saying that a number of continuing experiments are under way with the government statistics authority and with the Electoral Commission about how best to ensure that, as we move to a new register, we maximise the number of people on it. He will know, as we have rehearsed it before, that the argument in respect of the December 2015 register is that maintaining a carryover from a register made over two years before risks carrying over a large number of additional names, particularly in the inner cities, of highly mobile people and those from multiple-occupation residences. There will be a post-May 2015 canvass of all of those who are in doubt on this. We think that the occurrence of a general election in May 2015 should produce the maximum registration available then, but that the question of accuracy and completeness is not best served by maintaining, even after the election, names that have not responded to several attempts personally to canvass them.
The joy and passion that members of the Opposition have for the single-Member constituency is striking. I remind them that the single-Member constituency and the electoral system that the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, went for are not necessarily part of the ancient British constitution. The official with whom I travelled to a conference last weekend admitted to me that his grandfather had been one of the two Labour MPs for Blackburn between 1945 and 1950. That was one of the last two-Member constituencies. The noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, is perhaps not quite old enough to remember the three-Member combined Scottish university seat, which was there until 1950. However, I am sure he remembers the electoral system used for that, which was of course the single transferable vote. We now regard the single-Member constituency as the only possible thing for Britain, but other things have been tried before and might be tried again in the future. This Government’s commitment to decentralisation and the revival of local democracy means that we see casework in future more often going to the local councillor, and not always, perhaps, all the way up to the MP.
There have been suggestions of gerrymandering. Looking through my preparatory notes on this, I see that in 1978-79, the then Labour Government postponed the introduction of boundary changes. There were accusations in the right-wing press that this was “jimmymandering” by the then Prime Minister, as a means of ensuring that Labour should not lose those relevant seats. I am conscious, as we all are, that the integrity, accuracy and completeness of the register, for the next election and beyond it, matters to all of us. We are also concerned that some of the underlying causes for the decline in the completeness of the register—political disillusionment and disengagement—need to be addressed, and on an all-party basis.
Lord Lipsey
I do not want the noble Lord to get the records wrong. It was 1968-69 and Jim Callaghan was not Prime Minister at the time, he was Home Secretary. Other than that, the Minister’s point is absolutely right.
Draft House of Lords Reform Bill
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Tyler
The noble Baroness is right, but there is no proposal yet on the table. I am illustrating the cost implications of the Joint Committee’s report. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has generously already cut his cost estimate by £100 million at least. In fact, the year one extra cost might be—
Lord Lipsey
My Lords, my patience is great but has now been exhausted. I prepared the best costing possible of the Government’s proposals. It is perfectly true, as I said in my speech yesterday, that the Joint Committee’s proposals will cost slightly less because they make wholly unrealistic assumptions about what it is possible to do for transitional Members, but I have not cut my costs by £100 million. I stand by my costs. Until the Government or the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, find some better criticism than he puts forward this morning, I shall stand by them to the last.
Lord Tyler
I hope the noble Lord will now read the Joint Committee report, because there are specific recommendations in it that do not concur with his conclusions.
The second issue is the media myth that somehow or other the public are completely opposed to any reform of your Lordships’ House. I draw particular attention to paragraph 17 of the report and the footnote. The 2010 British Social Attitudes Survey shows that 59 per cent are in support of wholly or partly elected Members and 22 per cent are in favour of abolition—completely sweeping the House of Lords away and having a unicameral system. That is the real danger. Only 6 per cent wish to continue as a wholly appointed House. That is endorsed by the January 2012 YouGov poll, where 71 per cent support wholly or partly elected Members and 10 per cent support wholly appointed Members. Last week, two more polls showed insignificant figures for a wholly appointed House. Those who—
Electoral Registration
Lord Lipsey Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey
My Lords, this is a very timely debate that my noble friend Lord Wills has called for today. We were reminded of just how timely by the publication yesterday of the proposal by the Welsh Boundary Commission for the new Welsh seats—a proposal greeted with universal disbelief. There should not have been disbelief because it was an inevitable product of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act. It reminds us of the importance of the rules of the electoral game, which is what we are discussing today. That Act is on the statute book so there is no point in going over it. At least it was subject to a good deal of public examination, not least thanks to the reasonably extensive debate it received in your Lordships’ House. By contrast, the Government’s proposals on electoral registration, though scarcely less important in their potential impact, have received practically no public scrutiny. There was an excellent report by the Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee of the Commons, a useful seminar recently at the British Academy with experts and academics, and a well informed article—the only one I have read in the press—by Martin Kettle in the Guardian, but that is just about it. If you asked 100 electors what was proposed, I doubt you would get one coherent response.
The desirability of the change in principle is common ground across politics and across parties, with the main aim being to eliminate potential fraud. It is also common ground that the switch is likely to cause a drop in registration. The completeness of the electoral register has been declining gradually for a number of years, from north of 95 per cent at its best to perhaps 91 per cent or 92 per cent today. There was, however, one big drop, and that was when the Thatcher Government introduced the poll tax. According to estimates by the academics Iain Maclean and Jeremy Smith, this can account for slightly more than one-third of the estimated 1 million person shortfall between the electoral register and OPCS population estimates—in other words roughly 300,000 people stripped of the vote.
Estimates of how far registration will fall as a result of individual registration vary for two reasons. First, it depends on how it is done, and I will come back to this. If the Electoral Commission’s excellent proposals for a household canvass and for compulsion are followed, there will be much less of a drop than if they are not. Secondly, however, we are in the field of the unknowable, and speculation is inevitable.
There are estimates, however, and they vary from the worrying to the simply terrifying. In Northern Ireland, individual registration caused a shortfall of roughly 11 per cent. In evidence to the Commons committee—the noble Lord, Lord Wills, referred to this in his introduction—the Electoral Commission floated an Armageddon scenario in which all those who do not vote in general elections do not bother to register either. On that basis, the fall would be from 92 per cent to perhaps 60 or 65 per cent—in other words roughly one in three of the people who appear on the register at the moment would not appear. That is not quite as bad as it may sound, because a lot of the people who do not register would not have voted anyway. As completion of the register goes down, the turnout figure will go up—no doubt we shall all congratulate ourselves on that—but it is still a worrying thought that a third of the people now able to vote might not be able to do so.
When a proposal about elections comes before Parliament it is the duty of this House to satisfy itself that what is being done is being done not for partisan reasons but for reasons of merit. The fact that individual registration has been the policy of successive Governments shows that nothing too wicked is being done, but I cannot emphasise strongly enough that the effect of the change in the system will be completely different from what it would have been under the previous Government’s proposals, simply because of the parliamentary voting Act.
It is less likely that Labour voters will register than Tories because they are younger, and all the evidence is that younger voters register less. That will not affect the result of the general election much, because most of them would not have voted in any case. However, what it will affect greatly—on the Armageddon scenario —is the partisan distribution of constituencies, because when the Boundary Commission comes to work on the next review of boundaries, it will work on the basis of the register and will be obliged, as we all know, to make sure that constituencies have, plus or minus 5 per cent, the same number of registered electors. Labour constituencies, where registration is likely to be down greatly, will be too small; Tory constituencies, where registration will be reduced by less, will be too big. Labour constituencies will have to be abolished and Tory constituencies increased in number. It is likely that this will help to counter the current anti-Tory bias in the electoral system, which is a very good thing, but it may create a new pro-Tory bias which I am sure the whole House would agree would be as bad a thing as the present pro-Labour bias.
Here, I find myself slightly puzzled, because it sounds from that as if we have to worry greatly about partisanship. But what gives me pause for thought is that this is not an exclusively Tory Government, it is a coalition Government. It is a Tory/Lib Dem coalition. In allowing this change to go forward without the assurances required on compulsory registration and on the household canvass, the Lib Dems are committing electoral suicide. One thing to emerge from the Royal Academy’s survey, with all the greatest experts present, is that it is Lib Dem voters—younger, mobile voters—who are the least likely to register, and therefore it is Lib Dem seats, particularly urban Lib Dem seats, that will be reduced most by the boundary redistribution resulting from this register.
Perhaps I may end on a slightly light-hearted note, though it may not seem so light-hearted to the Lib Dem Benches opposite. There are lots of predictions as to how many seats they will win in 2015. Some people think they may have enough to fill a minibus; others think that a London taxicab will suffice. I express no opinion on this, but when one looks to the election after this, and unless the necessary steps are taken to make sure that registration under the new system is adequate as the Electoral Commission proposes, I think that a Smart fortwo should comfortably suffice.