Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2020
Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Collins of Highbury
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, this is the sort of order that I am sure will not attract any controversy. The provisions on how surnames appear on ballot papers are a simple matter of equal recognition for different traditions, and of fairness.
On the issue of the non-appearance of a home address on ballot papers, I do not think we can let the measure pass without at least expressing some regret, engaged as we are in the political process, that it has become necessary to remove candidates’ home addresses from ballot papers. For the reasons that the Minister gave, it is now sadly necessary to do that.
For those of us who have been involved in elections over many decades, as some of us clearly have, elections have sometimes revolved largely around the issue of the locality of one candidate versus the lack of locality of another. In my early years in Liverpool elections, the by-election was based largely on the fact that our candidate happened to live in the ward in Liverpool where the election was taking place, while the Labour Party candidate happened to live in Southport. No other issue seemed to be important. It is important that there is still some recognition of how local or otherwise a candidate is. Therefore, I have only one question for the Minister. Could he explain what is meant by “area” in the order? Clearly, something less specific than the road on which the candidate lives, but more specific than “Northern Ireland”, is appropriate. What sort of criteria will be applied in describing the area in which a candidate is based?
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing the order. I agree with him that this is not a controversial issue; I think we can all agree on that. Some of the comments about Liverpool might have prompted me to jump in and be perhaps a little more partisan than I should be, but I will resist the opportunity.
I do not normally cover these issues; I am standing in for my noble friend Lord Kennedy. He and I have worked together on elections over many years. Certainly, when I was general secretary, he was a senior officer supporting me on compliance and some of the legal issues.
One thing that struck me when reading the Explanatory Memorandum was that, as the Minister said, bearing in mind the circumstances in Northern Ireland, removing the requirement to disclose a candidate’s address is not a controversial step. In fact, there is a growing threat to elected representatives, not just in Northern Ireland but everywhere in the UK. Paragraph 7.4 of the Explanatory Memorandum refers to the 2017 report from the Committee on Standards in Public Life which recommended the change. From 2017 to 2020 seems an extremely long time for us to get our act together to address this, particularly as Northern Ireland has been a sensitive area in which security has been a fundamental issue. I can understand that, in the context of Brexit, there may have been other things to deal with, but surely that does not explain the amount of time this has taken. I hope the Minister can reassure us on that.
I totally agree with the measures regarding the use of capital letters and ensuring that everyone can meet the requirements of their own name and language; it a sensible move. However, it would be helpful to understand exactly how many people the Government think will be affected by this change, bearing in mind that the purpose of the original legislation was to ensure that everyone’s name appears in exactly the same format, so that there was no discriminatory impact in the way a name was presented.
The other thing that was mentioned is the question of district, borough and city councils. Again, the Explanatory Memorandum did not quite address this. How many councils are affected by this? It is non-controversial but, again, bearing in mind that the changes to the names of local authorities have been around for some time, it seems that it has taken a long time to address this issue.
I echo some of the comments that have already been made, but that is all I have to say at this moment.
Representation of the People (Electronic Communications and Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020
Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Collins of Highbury
Lord Rennard (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister and all those involved for a very thorough and helpful briefing about these regulations, which I think should not attract any great controversy. It has often been said in the Chamber by the noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, that we run our elections in an analogue fashion in a digital era, so these regulations are catching up. The changes being made are environmentally friendly, a sensible modernisation and a more efficient and cheaper way of conducting the democratic processes, but I have a number of questions for the Minister.
First, if we are running something that is cheaper and more efficient and that saves resources, will at least some of those resources in Northern Ireland be engaged in a process of encouraging registration, particularly among the groups which tend to be under-registered? It seems to me that where you make a saving in the registration process, you should invest at least some of it—I suggest a high proportion of it—in trying to make sure that everybody who should legally be on the register is included on the register.
Secondly, digital registration numbers are new to our electoral registration system but I assume that, as they are in the regulations, the Government have no fundamental objection to the principle of digital registration numbers. I would be grateful for confirmation of that, because extending the principle of having digital registration numbers could benefit the system very greatly in a number of ways.
First, when people are not sure whether they are on the electoral registration system, they often apply again, wasting the time of electoral registration officers. They are unsure whether to spend time filling in the form online again. If they had a digital registration number, it would be much easier for them to check online whether they are already registered. It would save them and office staff time in completing the registration process.
Secondly, a digital registration number would be helpful in checking whether there is a problem or an offence in double voting inappropriately in the same election. Many people in this country, quite legitimately, are on the electoral register in two different places. They can vote in different council elections, but should vote once only in a parliamentary election. It is potentially too easy for someone to vote in two places in a general election. Allegations fly around about whether perhaps student or second-home owners are doing this. If there were a national digital registration number, it would be possible for bodies such as the Electoral Commission to check whether double voting were taking place. At the moment, there are just manual systems in which 400 local authorities all maintain their own marked registers. It is not practical to do that, so there would be advantages to rolling out this system.
Thirdly, I ask whether it will be made clear to people, within the digital information sent out, that there is a legal requirement to comply with the registration process. This is probably more important in Great Britain than in Northern Ireland but, since Parliament has continued to approve the principle that it should be a legal requirement to comply with the registration process, subject to fine, if we want high rates of registration, we must make this plain in all documentation, paper or electronic.
Finally, I have another technical question on the recall legislation. In many ways, the recall legislation, passed wholly in 2015, seems flawed. What happened in Northern Ireland in 2018 highlighted some of those flaws. If the chief electoral officer will have access to the marked register in future, will that be in real time during the six-week process? One of the issues of controversy is that people will not know how many signatures have been collected during those six weeks. There have been three recall petitions since that legislation was approved. In two cases, well over 10% of the electorate signed, triggering a recall. But in one case, that in Northern Ireland, the number was just under 10%. I have the strong belief that, if people had known that there were just a few hundred signatures below the 10% level, more people would have signed that recall petition. Will the chief electoral officer have the power to, at some point—perhaps weekly intervals—disclose how many people have signed the recall petition? I would be grateful for the Minister’s help with those issues.
Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)
I too thank the Minister for introducing these regulations so ably. I completely agree with the many comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. On the point the Minister made about how these changes will enable us to focus on under-registered groups, I re-emphasise the point of the noble Lord: will that mean that the resources saved can be put into this vital task? The Minister suggests that this will enable greater time and focus, but will that be backed up by a transfer of resources, as the noble Lord suggested?
I have a couple of minor points. I do not want to be seen as pedantic—certainly not by the people behind the Minister—but the online statutory instrument tracker says that an instrument of the same name was tabled on 20 January, only to be withdrawn on 27 February. It appears to have been re-laid on 3 March. There is no mention of this in the Explanatory Memorandum.
I wonder what caused this. Was it an administrative change or a political one? I hope that the Minister can explain. I am a firm believer in the cock-up theory of history, and it may simply have been down to that. I noticed that, in the Explanatory Memorandum, the footer said it was drafted by the Department for Exiting the European Union. I assume that that is not the case and was just another little error.
Focusing on the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, we are all in favour of making it easier and simpler for people to register. I hear what he said about the electoral officer retaining people on the register for three years and using data matching; that is really important. The noble Lord raised the ability of people simply to check whether they are registered online—that would certainly make life a lot easier. I hope that the Minister will be able to pick up that point.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
My Lords, I thank both noble Lords for their general support for this order. I will try to answer as many questions as I can, although I feel a letter coming their way. I acknowledge the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, in this area. All four of his questions are pretty technical; I have some answers, but the main ones will come in a letter.
The noble Lord also made an extremely good and interesting point about the fact that the process will be cheaper and more efficient, and that the efficiency costs could therefore be used to improve the process, including looking at underrepresentation. The noble Lord, Lord Collins, also picked up on that. I reassure both noble Lords that the CEO has new initiatives for underrepresented groups anyway and intends to focus on working with—to give a few examples—the Department for Education, care homes and the rental sector. I will take the points raised back to the department as interesting ideas.
As I mentioned, the tail end of the process is what I call the knock-up process. It is very important that people do register. If they have not registered online and the paper process also fails, the knock-up process is vital. It is important, legislatively, that people register. I will write to noble Lords to explain what the sanctions are. People should not get away with not registering.
The question of district registration numbers cropped up from both noble Lords. More work could—and, I am sure, will—be done to improve efficiency and to use the system more broadly and to better effect. I will find out whether the DRN can be used for individuals to go online and find out whether they are already registered, because time goes by and they may not remember.
Dealing with offences of double voting is an issue around the United Kingdom. I am sure this will be looked at but I will feed the comments to officials and see whether I can write with some more definitive views.
As I have said, it is a legal requirement to register and to comply, so the question of fines does crop up and I shall come back to that.
On recall, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, the legislation is clear that it is an offence to reveal the details of signature numbers and I am not aware of any proposal to change that. The noble Lord also raised a number of further points on recall relating in particular to the 2018 issue. Again, I will write with more detail on those.
Localism Bill
Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord Collins of Highbury(13 years, 4 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Greaves
I will speak to Amendments 129B and 129C, which are in this group. They refer to Clause 54, which refers to regulations about voting in, and the conduct of, referendums. Clause 54(6) states clearly:
“Regulations under this section may not include provision … about the limitation of expenditure in connection with a referendum … for the questioning of the result of a referendum by a court or tribunal”,
or,
“creating criminal offences”.
The question here is: does that mean that established and understood election law, in these areas and in others, will not apply in the case of a local referendum? Will normal election law not apply? What redress does anyone have if it is believed that someone is rigging the referendum if there is a considerable degree of personation taking place—despite the complacency that there still is in many quarters, quite a bit of old-fashioned personation goes on at polling stations in some parts of the country—or the rigging of postal votes, which takes place on a frequent basis in some parts of the country and in any case is perfectly easy to do? If the system is that there is no criminal or other redress against this happening, the odds are that where some people think that the question behind the referendum is very important that this sort of thing will continue.
If there are freestanding referendums, that may simply be a matter for the referendum. However, it is quite clear that, for reasons of cost, where referendums are taking place councils will do their best to make sure that they do so at the same time as elections—probably on the first Thursday in May, whenever the local elections are taking place or European elections in June and so on. Under those circumstances, if I read the provisions of Clause 54 correctly, rules will apply to the election campaigns but some of them will not apply to the referendum campaigns taking place alongside them. Given what we all believe will happen— that in some cases referendums will be organised to assist election campaigning—the distinction between the two may not be all that obvious.
If I were campaigning in a local election and there was a referendum going on at the same time, I might well include reference to the referendum and what I thought people should do—both for and against it—in my election literature. Indeed, this happened on a large scale among all the parties during the AV campaign, but less so with the Labour Party because it could not make up its mind whether it was in favour or against. It happened on a large scale with the Conservative Party and to some extent among the Liberal Democrats. Leaflets were put out saying, “Vote for Joe Bloggs and, by the way, vote”—yes or no—“in the referendum campaign”. Or it was the other way around: leaflets went out which were 90 per cent “vote no” in the referendum campaign, and also “Vote for your local Conservative candidate”. I compliment their skill in doing that; it won them a lot of seats.
It is going to happen, certainly at local level. So what about rules like election law, such as the need for imprints on leaflets? Will that apply to referendum material? What about the rules about payment of canvassers? My noble friend Lord Rennard referred to the possible payment of canvassers for collecting petition signatures, but what about paying canvassers to go around and persuade people to vote one way or the other in a referendum, which is illegal in elections? What about offences relating to what you can and cannot do at the counting of the votes? What about offences relating to intimidation of voters? Particularly where there are joint elections, common sense suggests that there should be common rules. The provision in Clause 54 suggests that there should not. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain what it means and whether it needs some amendment before the Bill completes its passage through this House.
Lord Collins of Highbury
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, made a point in moving the amendment about the payment to individuals collecting signatures. I would be slightly concerned that he, as an able organiser in the Liberal Democrats, may fall foul of such an amendment if he was paying employees of the party to undertake political activity that may include support for a referendum. I would hate to think that he may end up in jail as a consequence, so perhaps he could clarify the position.
Lord Rennard
Briefly, no problem seems to occur in elections. The paid staff of parties, as the noble Lord will well know, take part in elections, but it has never been considered an activity of paid canvassing. The activity of a large organisation like a big business deciding it wants to get something through and employing people specifically to sign the petition would be of a rather different order.