Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord can answer a few questions on Schedule 5, which refers to combined polls and states:

“The cost of taking the combined polls (excluding any cost solely attributable to the referendum or to a particular relevant election), and any cost attributable to their combination, is to be apportioned equally among them”.

I presume that means among the authorities concerned, but perhaps the noble and learned Lord can tell us exactly what it means in these circumstances. If it is a question of apportionment and different sources of money are to pick up bills, I presume that there is an apportionment procedure. Can he explain what that procedure is and could it lead to dispute? If local authorities are contributing to the pot, disputes may well be possible. The 1983 Act may well make provision for that, but I have not been able to find specific reference to apportionment in this context.

In Schedule 5, on page 141, there is reference to ballot boxes under paragraph 18, which states:

“If the counting officer thinks fit, the same ballot box may be used at the polls for the referendum and the relevant elections”.

In other words, we will have a combined ballot box in certain polling stations receiving both referendum votes and other votes. There may well be circumstances in the local authority where some might argue, for whatever reason, that they want that because of its implications for the arrangements in the counting stations.

One would have thought that it is better to have two boxes separated in advance as against placing the responsibility on the counters in the counting stations to divide the ballot papers themselves. Are the Government prepared to issue guidance on whether they would prefer that a particular approach was adopted, as against giving the counting officer responsibility in his or her discretion to decide whether he or she feels that there should be a single box or two boxes to collect the votes?

Finally, on the same page, the title of paragraph 21 states:

“Guidance to be exhibited inside and outside polling stations”.

I raised that issue during our debates last night. The question remains unanswered. Paragraph 21 states:

“A notice in the form set out in Form 5 in Part 3 of this schedule, giving directions for the guidance of voters in voting, must be printed in conspicuous characters and exhibited inside and outside every polling station”.

What I was on about last night, and I repeat my concerns today, is what happens if those who are rather keen on securing a particular result decide to drive a huge 40-footer artic truck with big signs saying, “Vote yes for AV”, or otherwise, and park it right outside the polling station door? In general election campaigns, people plaster candidates’ names on huge hoardings of that nature which are mobile, but I wondered whether on this occasion, because of the highly controversial nature of the question being asked in the referendum, there might be those who decided to conduct their campaign by using those mobile hoardings. Is there not a need to issue some guidance to polling clerks? Clearly, they would have to be subject to the law as to what they should do in such circumstances.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I return briefly to an area that I mentioned last night on which I did not get a response from the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I accept that I raised what was probably a unique set of circumstances and I would not expect the Minister to have an answer at his fingertips. I could go through the detail again, but in the spirit of the understanding that we have, I will say only that it is about the definition of the area of control under the authority of the presiding officer. At page 137, the Bill states:

“A relevant officer is … in the case of proceedings at a polling station, the presiding officer”.

My point is similar but not identical to that made by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours about the definition of the area of control if activity is taking place, such as voters being approached as they head towards the polling station. At one of the polling stations with which I was involved, the presiding officer and the police had genuine uncertainty and doubt about getting involved in that. If there is activity like that, which is not desirable, although I am not sure about whether it is illegal, or if a complaint is made, does the presiding officer have any authority over it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Grocott]

My Lords, it often happens that you can see something in a schedule that raises quite an important more general point. I am referring to the cost of the combined polls, which is on page 137 in Schedule 5. It says quite simply, and I am sure that voters would regard this as common sense, that when two or three elections are taking place in the same area at the same time you divvy up the cost of delivering that election between them. I ask myself whether that is the building block that has resulted in the calculation that the Government have made, a very important calculation, about the cost of the referendum and, more importantly, the saving to national funds from holding the referendum, with all the difficulties that entails, which we acknowledge to be not insurmountable, on the same day as a number of elections in a number of different places.



Unfortunately, I have not brought my precise note, but I am sure that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, has these details engraved on his mind. The Government and the Deputy Prime Minister have repeatedly told us a precise figure—from memory I think that it is £35 million but I stand to be corrected—which will be saved by holding the referendum on the same day as a number of local elections. I have always thought that using the word “saved” there makes about as much sense as saying that you buy a fridge for £150 in a sale, as opposed to paying £200, and that therefore you have saved money. You would save a lot more if you did not buy the fridge and we would certainly save a lot more if we did not hold a referendum. Sadly, that argument has now passed.

Clause 7 sets out the complexity of the way in which the referendum will be counted and the voting areas. I will not list them all, but they range from,

“a district in England … a county in England in which there are no districts with councils … a London borough … the City of London”,

et cetera. I want to ask a straight, factual question. How have the Government calculated what the saving will be to the Exchequer from holding the referendum on the same day as these other elections? As to the “cost of combined polls” under Schedule 5, page 137, the Government have obviously attributed to the referendum the whole cost of those areas where there are no local elections, which I suppose is intelligible enough, and I assume that they have divvied up—I may be making huge assumptions here—the proportionate cost of the referendum in those districts where other elections are taking place.

Most of all, I have always been wary about the glib statistic of how much is being saved by holding the referendum on the same day. If that is the building block of this calculation, which presumably somewhere along the line it must be—that is, the cost of combined polls—I would ask the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, to give us a note on whether the calculation is built on these individual bricks. I rather fear that it might be a construction built on sand. But at least I should like to know the calculations that have led to this alleged saving.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, once again, interventions made by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, seek only to extend the time being spent on this Bill. Time after time, the noble Lord questions the integrity of the scrutiny that we are having here. In the brief time in which I have been in the Chamber, this scrutiny is well within the spirit of the understanding that I believe we have. The questioning of integrity does not help matters. I would ask the noble and learned Lord to bear in mind that, as far as I am aware, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, does not have a clue because he was not present during the Scottish elections of 2007. Any comments he has about that should be discounted.