Elections: Registration

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Monday 31st October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I would be extremely concerned if that was the outcome. Let us remember that the party opposite, when it was in government, started to raise the issue of individual registration—and even passed legislation—because, for the first time certainly in my lifetime, the integrity of the voting system was starting to be called into question. That is the origin of the exercise that we are undertaking, on which I hope we will have all-party support.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that it really is necessary to carry out a thorough, door-to-door, face-to-face canvass in order to ensure both the accuracy and the completeness of the electoral register? Does he accept that failure to do so not only threatens the integrity of the democratic process but could also cause problems for people trying to obtain credit? Credit agencies check that people are on the electoral register to ensure that they can have credit, and failure to maintain the register in this way could mean that people are denied credit and businesses are unable to supply goods and services. That would be damaging to the economy and to social mobility.

[Lord McNally]

That is an interesting point. If I may return to the central point of the question, yes, doorstep canvassing plays a vital role in ensuring that registers are complete and accurate. That is why in both 2014 and 2015 door-to-door canvassers will be used by electoral registration officers to ask people to register to vote.

Electoral System: Alternative Vote Referendum

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My goodness. What is that saying—in victory magnanimity? The decision to engage that company was the decision of Glasgow council. The chief counting officer, Jenny Watson, said:

“We have put in place detailed and comprehensive arrangements for monitoring the performance of Counting Officers and their suppliers, and I have no reason to believe that there is any risk to the integrity of the administration of the postal voting process”.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that issues such as the supply of envelopes for postal vote mailings should be made on an entirely commercial basis, based on value for money and reliability of service, and that if there were ever any issues of either impropriety in the ballot or failure to deliver, it would be a matter for the Electoral Commission to report which, as he said, will happen shortly?

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I can well understand the reason for this Question. It was probably to do with the inquest that went on in the Glasgow Labour Party about the reason that Glasgow Kelvin voted so overwhelmingly yes. As we know, what Kelvin does today, the world does tomorrow. My noble friend’s point is absolutely right.

Elections: Armed Forces

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Monday 4th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, we continue to build on the work initiated by the noble Lord. However, as he recognised, there are no simple solutions to the difficulty of servicemen voting in remote areas in battlefield conditions, et cetera, which is why we continue to advise servicemen to use proxy votes where possible as the most efficient way of being able to vote.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that what we really need is a slightly longer timetable for conducting our elections in this country, one that would allow a slightly greater time for people to register to vote, to apply for a postal vote and for postal votes to be dispatched and received? That would significantly benefit members of our Armed Forces serving overseas and enable them to participate to a greater degree in our elections.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, there is a lot of common sense in what my noble friend says. My honourable friend Mark Harper is considering these issues and the Government will put forward proposals when he has reached conclusions with colleagues. However, as I say, I think there is a lot of sense in allowing more time for elections to be processed.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Wednesday 15th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, could I invite the Minister and other noble Lords to confine their arguments more to Amendment 39B, which deals with civil sanctions, and perhaps make other arguments when we are dealing with other relevant parts of the Bill?

[Lord McNally]

I am only glad that my noble and learned friend Lord Wallace was not here to hear of that dreadful omission from the 1975 leaflet.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

No, my Lords, I cannot make that commitment. The legislation is specific to this referendum. When the Government have a Statement to make on prisoner voting, there will be time to discuss this and many other matters.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the Minister whether the Electoral Commission has been able to confirm that such an amendment would be practical if it were approved. It seems that it would involve a change to the franchise and a change to the electoral register process, as well as consideration about how campaigning could take place and how voting mechanisms could be established. I am in favour of such changes being made in future, where appropriate, but it seems that it would be very difficult to do this in time for a vote on 5 May next year.

[Lord McNally]

I suspect that my noble friend is right.

Elections: Fraud

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Monday 1st November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I would not want to verify or otherwise many of the claims that are made by “Newsnight”. I can say that the police are investigating and that, as the noble Baroness rightly says, the Electoral Commission will report in January. We have to be patient. It may be difficult for the individuals concerned in the constituencies where complaints have been made, but the due process has to be gone through and we just have to be patient.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that as only around one in 20 of the crimes committed in this country is thought to be reported to the police, there is probably far greater prevalence of electoral fraud than we are generally aware of? Does he further agree that if many more people were aware of how easy it is to commit fraud under the present system, it would be even more prevalent? Could he indicate what steps the Government may be taking with the parties and the Electoral Commission to reduce the possibility of such fraud?

Elections: Costs

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Thursday 15th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

It has been decided in the coalition agreement that this is the clearest and simplest alternative to offer to the electorate. I would have thought that it would be extremely welcome to the Benches opposite, because that was their preferred option, too.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, has the Minister had the opportunity to look at the costings in the recent Labour Party manifesto, which pledged the party opposite to hold a referendum on the alternative vote, as those costings may have guided him in his Answer to the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott? In relation to the Boundary Commission processes and the saving of costs, will the Minister consider allowing the Boundary Commissions to conduct some of their consultation using online methodologies, which may be rather more effective and rather cheaper in terms of consulting people about their deliberations?

[Lord McNally]

On the last point, I will certainly pass that suggestion to the Deputy Prime Minister, who is working on this legislation. On whether the Labour Party’s proposal had been fully costed, I have some experience of Labour Party manifestos, so I am sure that it was fully costed. If the Labour Party would like to send us the outcome of that costing, I will feed it into the preparations as well.

General Election: Voting Deadline

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

We will learn lessons from this and there are some hard lessons to learn. For example, some local authorities looked at the three previous elections for which they had responsibility, which all had much lower turnouts. As the Electoral Commission said, that was not proper contingency planning. There is no doubt that the photographs and television pictures that went round the world were very bad public relations for British democracy. We will do all in our power to make sure that it never happens again.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the timing of polling days should be based on the convenience of the voters rather than that of returning officers, many of whom are paid large bonuses for their work in general elections? Is he aware of the most recent survey of public opinion on this issue, conducted by ICM earlier this year, which showed by a margin of almost 3:1 that voters would prefer to be able to cast their votes at the weekend rather than on a weekday? Will he therefore begin a proper consultation on shifting polling day from the traditional Thursday to the weekend, when many more people could vote more conveniently?

[Lord McNally]

It is very interesting. When I was first briefed on this, I was told that the consultation showed a very balanced response on the question of weekend voting. Then I probed a little further and found, as my noble friend surmises, that most of the people against polling at weekends were returning officers and most of those wanting voting at weekends were voters. As part of the review that I am talking about, I want us to look again at weekend voting.

Political and Constitutional Reform

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Monday 5th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I have no idea. However, I am sure that, as with previous referenda, we will have people of good will taking honest opinions about voting yes or no and campaigning on them—and may the best side win.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the estimates that have been made of the party-political consequences of this reducing and equalising measure suggest that it may make a difference of only seven or eight, or 12 or 13, seats; and therefore that much heat has been generated needlessly about this proposal?

[Lord McNally]

I am quite sure that the psephologists and slide-rule merchants in all parties and on television will be making calculations. We are putting this forward because it makes our system of elections fairer, and that is what people want.

Parliament: MP Numbers and Constituency Review

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

These are matters of political judgment. The twin objectives of the coalition are to bring greater fairness to our electoral system and equality of weight to each vote. At the same time, we would wish to go with the flow of what we have been doing in recent years, which is to move power to the devolved Parliaments and Assemblies.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that special provision for island communities would need to be made in the guidelines given to the Boundary Commissions? Does he further accept that without special provisions, it would, for example, be very difficult for a single Member of Parliament to represent, say, a part of the Isle of Wight and a part of the mainland, or for a single Member of Parliament to represent the 20 populated islands in the Orkney and Shetland constituency, and the large geographic constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross?

[Lord McNally]

That is a fair point. The integrity of the Boundary Commissions and the way in which they go about their work have never been in doubt, thank goodness. Because this is constitutional legislation, it will be taken on the Floor of the House in the other place and we will have in this place experts such as the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, my noble friend and others who have great experience and will put their input into the deliberations as this legislation goes through.

Elections: Fraudulent Registration

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Monday 14th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, it is quite clear that the noble Lord, Lord Bach, is holding on to his old briefs. Yes, that is exactly why the implementation of the new form of registration has been taken at a measured pace. The experience in Northern Ireland was of a very large drop. However, again, we have got to get into perspective the fact that 91 or 92 per cent of people are on the electoral register. We are trying to balance the need for a clean and credible register against the points of caution the noble Lord has pointed out.

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that it is now time to consider changing polling day from a Thursday to avoid the kind of problems we had in the recent general election, with large queues of voters unable to vote in the middle of the evening? By switching voting to the weekend we would avoid disruption to schools and enable more people to participate in our elections.

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with my noble friend’s argument for weekend voting. However, he may well be aware that the consultation on this matter did not show a great deal of support for the idea. We may come back to this issue, but the problems on 6 May, the day of voting, lay elsewhere.

Queen's Speech

Debate between Lord Rennard and Lord McNally

Thursday 27th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, you see what is wrong with that when you look, for example, at the models of many other European countries, where there are fixed- term parliaments, multi-party coalitions, systems of proportional representation, et cetera. If a Government fall there should always be the provision that it may be possible for another Prime Minister or other parties to form a Government. It is not necessarily logical that if one Prime Minister and one Government fall, you must assume that there will be a new general election. If you have terms of four or five years you must—as in Scotland and Wales, as noble Lords opposite legislated for 12 or 13 years ago—have provision for an alternative Government to be provided. If that is not possible, I accept that you must go to a general election.

My time is almost up and half of it has been taken up by noble Lords in other places. We will return to the very important arguments about the alternative vote referendum and to other points that need to be made in due course.

[Lord McNally]

Noble Lords are clearly getting a second wind but this is not the Second Reading of a Bill; nor will there be a vote on it at the end of the night. So can we still try to stick to eight minutes?