Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I will assume it is a case of leaving the best till last. I very much agree with the point that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, has just made. I have raised the issue before about people in that very situation.

On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, about the Long Title, the Long Title is that this is a Bill,

“to make provision about the registration of electors and the administration and conduct of elections”.

I would have thought that amendments about the registration of electors fall quite clearly within the subject matter of the Bill—unlike, I think, what is to follow.

I have added my name to Amendment 25, as my noble friend Lord Lexden mentioned, but I also support the amendments that he has brought forward. My noble friend’s amendments raise an important issue of principle. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, was raising matters of practice, but there is a fundamental principle. It is perfectly clear that some British citizens live abroad because they wish to do so. Some live abroad because they consider that they have to do so. Most emigrants from these shores move abroad, as my noble friend said, for work-related purposes. Some will be working for British firms; some will be teaching English; some will be paying taxes in the UK.

The important point is that they are and remain British citizens. So long as they remain British citizens, I see no reason why they should be disenfranchised. If they no longer feel any connection with the United Kingdom then it is open to them to seek the citizenship of the nation in which they reside. The fact that they chose to remain British citizens should not be dismissed but rather regarded as an asset for this country. British citizens are often important ambassadors for the United Kingdom. Just as overseas students in this country return home with British degrees and serve arguably as the most important source of British influence abroad, British expatriates are a notable source of British influence around the globe. Rather than discouraging our own citizens, and indeed overseas students, we should be treating them as an important resource in maintaining our influence on a global scale.

The principle is one that appears to be accepted by other EU member states. We are, as my noble friend has said, in a somewhat anomalous position. The largest number of British citizens who live in a non-English-speaking state reside in Spain, with the second largest number in France. Neither of those states disenfranchises its citizens who live abroad in the way that we disenfranchise ours. The link with constituencies is not particularly relevant in terms of the fundamental principle involved. Other nations, such as the United States, do not disenfranchise their citizens either and I see no reason why we should disenfranchise ours.

Like my noble friend, I have been struck by the number of British citizens presently living abroad who have been in contact to make the case for ending this anomaly. The fact that they feel intensely about the subject reflects their commitment to this country. They are not seeking any material benefit through this route—they are clearly proud to be British citizens and wish to retain the intrinsic feature of citizenship in the form of the franchise. At a time when we are having difficulty persuading many of our citizens at home to vote, it seems inappropriate to prevent citizens who do wish to vote from doing so.

My noble friend’s amendments therefore address an important issue, but they do so in a modest and ingenious manner. They are modest in relation to the principle and ingenious in relation to the practical problems involved. The Minister may claim that we need more time to reflect on the principle and that we should not rush to abolish the 15-year limit. My noble friend’s amendments would not abolish the limit but would rather allow the Secretary of State to introduce an order to extend the time period. There is thus time to reflect and build a consensus in order to extend the period.

There are practical problems, as no doubt the Minister will emphasise, in the process of registering British nationals who live abroad. My noble friend’s amendments seek to address those problems. The Minister may argue that they are not adequate, in which case, if the principle is conceded, the onus rests on the Government to come forward with proposals of their own. It is thus incumbent on the Minister to address the principle and explain why British nationals living abroad are treated less favourably than the citizens of other EU nations living abroad, and why we seem unwilling to acknowledge what constitutes a great British resource. We should not be encouraging EU nationals to desert their commitment to the United Kingdom but should rather be acknowledging that commitment. I hope therefore that the House will support my noble friend’s amendments.

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments. I have lived as an expatriate and, unless you happen to have parents resident where you want to register to vote, it is extremely difficult to get registered, particularly if people are busy with whatever their careers are.

My particular point is this: in most places, you are not entitled to vote in national elections wherever it is that you are living abroad. If such individuals cannot vote in the country of their nationality or in the country where they live, which is indeed the case with this country, then effectively you are denying them any major political vote whatever. No one seems to be concerned about that, but it is an unreasonable thing to do.

I was rather proud that in the most recent French elections London was, I think, the seventh largest-voting French city of the French electorate, as a result of so many French citizens living in London. Clearly there would have to be changes in the way that representation deals with expatriates if we were to adopt permanent voting by passport-retaining British expatriates, and the concept of the local constituency where they might have lived 10 or 20 years before does not work particularly well, but I suggest that for once it is worth while looking at how France runs its affairs because it deals rather more fairly with its expatriates than we do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, this amendment—if it was passed— requires the Government to report to Parliament annually, within two months of the end of the financial year, on what money has been made available to local authorities to meet the costs of the transition to the new register which will be under IER, and what safeguards have been put in place to make sure that the money has been spent on the specified task. I do not think it would be properly regarded as ring-fenced money but it would mean that the Government would be identifying the amounts of money that they expected to be seen spent on the transition and then there would be a report back afterwards to indicate what had happened to that money.

This is important because I think everybody in the House, and certainly in the other place, is aware of the importance of IER being made to work. I think most people would accept that whether IER works properly or is introduced in a way that does not leave too many people off the register will depend to some extent on the resources that are made available by central government to local authorities to ensure that happens. We know local authorities are pressed in a whole variety of ways at the moment because of the current economic position. I think it is sensible to try to protect the position that at least there is a requirement to report on both the money envisaged and then what happened to it. I beg to move.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I have a slight problem with the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord. I may have missed something, but he said that the amendment provides that the Government shall report to Parliament annually, so there is no limit on the number of years—presumably it is in perpetuity—but they would be reporting on something transitional. Presumably there should be some time limit set in the amendment, otherwise there is redundancy built in to what is being asked in terms of providing material that becomes irrelevant once the transition is complete? Or have I missed something?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

One would hope so. I do not know how long the transition is going to take. It is clear from the way that everybody has spoken that probably in the first publication of the register where IER is compulsory—1 December 2015—it will not be complete. I have no idea how long it will go on after that, therefore at the moment I am not minded to put in a terminus date. At this stage, I cannot see any objection to the principle. This may surprise you as I am not intending to push this to a vote, but if the principle were accepted—which I hope it will be—then I think the right thing to do would be to talk to the Government to work out the best way to craft the detail.