Elections: Voting Arrangements

Lord Patten Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patten]

My Lords, the issue of the voting rights of those living abroad or serving their country abroad seems to me to have a clear constitutional quality or aspect but also presents equally clear and simple logistical challenges to ensure that votes are deliverable on time, in the right place and in an orderly way.

Tonight we must debate the issues raised so eloquently by my noble friend on the run within our present rather ad hoc arrangements for constitutional change and reform. Within that framework I shall concentrate on the rights of service men and women, important though the feelings of, for example, British civilians living abroad are. We should treat the constitutional and logistical issues of the service vote specifically within the framework of the military covenant, which is central to my remarks. The military covenant should embody, with everything else, the clear voting rights of men and women who serve us abroad. I regard it as ever more important as we necessarily ask in these difficult times fewer to do more when they serve us. This is an urgent task.

The absolute right to vote on time and in secret should be enshrined in the military covenant. A proxy vote is no substitute for being able to vote in secret. I remember the late Lord Garden making that point very strongly some years ago. Why should service personnel not be able to vote in exactly the same way as any other British subject wherever they are in the world? The issue begins with the life of service registration which is now five years. I welcome that. I also applaud the MoD’s efforts to get the service vote registered. Its efforts are excellent, as are those of some local councils, such as North Lincolnshire, which only last month publicised the issue in its area. In the end I would prefer to see registration lasting the life of service if that is the only certain way to ensure the continuing right to vote for service men and women wherever they are.

There are then the sheer logistical problems of getting votes back from bases in, say, Germany, which are compounded to the power in getting votes out of in-theatre areas such as Afghanistan. As the noble Lord, Lord Rogan, and my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno, so rightly said, there is no reason why there should not be a longer period. Why cannot procedures for general and local elections be better aligned? At present the printing and posting of general election ballot papers can begin only after the final publication of those nominated—11 days. In local elections it is 16 days. For a start we could align the 11 days with the 16 days as those extra five days could make all the difference in the logistics of ensuring that those who are risking their lives do not also risk recording their vote when all that is required is a little neo-constitutional date alignment. I have heard the argument that someone should have the right to stand for Parliament at the last minute. I have never thought that that was a very good reason. Among the ranks of my new best friends in the Liberal Democrats, Mr Huhne, the Energy Secretary, took about three years before he tilted at the seat I represented, making it quite clear that he was going to stand. We should take the service vote as something that trumps the need for last-minute, monster loony applications to stand in general elections.

In short order, also, why do we not have special ballot box arrangements administered in theatre by forces with priority postal arrangements to get them back, and in the opposite direction, exactly the same expedited arrangements, as the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, said, to get messages of candidates across? What my noble friend Lord Astor and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, said about looking at internet voting is very important but we should not diminish or forget the possibility of cyber attack on internet voting or indeed on any other internet sphere.

I end by recognising the fact that life cannot be perfect. There are a few particularly difficult situations facing those of our excellent submariners on board our deterrent Vanguard class submarines when on patrol on continuous at-sea deterrence for 80 or 100 days submerged, with all the communications involved. It would be pretty difficult, I suspect, to get their votes back. In those cases, proxies by those they trust might be the only answer. They deserve our thanks, as do all our service men and women, which is my reason for stressing that the service vote and its safety is not some little issue for returning officers, constitution freaks and those interested in the wider shores of constitutional reform. It is absolutely central that the military covenant in future should embody the rights of servicemen to vote in exactly the same way as anyone within the kingdom.