Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2014
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, I say amen to nearly everything that has been said here today. An opinion poll over the weekend asked voters how many of them knew the names of their MEPs, Members of Parliament or local councillors. It is amazing that fewer than half were able to name some of those people. That might even go for us in this Chamber. Democracy itself seems to be endangered at the present time. When people feel remote, when they feel that their votes and voices do not count, that is a very dangerous situation. We are talking not only about registering people to vote. We are talking about ensuring that they know something about the democratic process and that they know something about the policies, needs and opportunities of the society in which we live. Their hands must be on that pencil not just to say, “Ah, another voter”, but as somebody who has thought things through, because if we do not have this re-igniting of democracy, then we are in very great danger in elections this year, next year and after that.
It is an immediate and urgent situation to try to get young people in particular to vote. My noble friend Lord Tyler has mentioned how few—25% and then half that 25%—feel that they count at all in our society and in our democracy. Therefore, we have somehow to re-inspire people. What often gets young people to vote is the inspiration of a teacher, a lecturer or a friend—someone who tells them, “Look, your vote could count. Your vote is necessary”. When I was starting with Bite the Ballot, of which I am delighted to be the honorary president—or the honorary grandfather or great-grandfather by now—a small team of young people said, “We are going to do something to engage young people particularly in the democratic process” and they did. They had debates in Parliament and they were crowded. Young people who previously knew nothing at all about certain policies were inspired and became part of that movement.
The high spot we had recently was National Voter Registration Day on 5 February this year. On that one day a small team managed to register 52,000 people to vote. They were young people who were not interested before, but in schools, youth clubs, colleges and supermarkets there were 400 volunteers organising on that day. Some of them were not even old enough to be registered themselves; they were just so keen. Somehow, we have to see this re-igniting. Sometimes, the goings-on in Parliament as televised just turn people off. They think, “Is that what it is all about? Is that what it means? Why should we bother?” We have a responsibility here and in the other place to make people feel that they have confidence in the people they have elected and that they want to play a part in that process.
I must not speak for too long—I am a Methodist minister so I am allowed to do that sometimes—but I should like to refer to Northern Ireland which has automatic registration. It is dead simple. Somebody will go into a school, and the names, addresses and birthdays of the pupils will have already been collected. There is now a link between schools and the electoral offices. Attainers and those who are already 18 years old can register automatically. There are in England—my figures are as up-to-date as possible—3.2 million pupils in state-funded secondary schools. There are at least 216,000 in Wales and a further 290,000 in Scotland. That works out at some 800,000 new people eligible to be on the electoral register every year. If only they could be automatically registered. There could be an opt-out because some might have religious convictions and say “We don’t want to vote”. There would be an opt-out if they wanted one but otherwise they would be on the register. I hope that someone with a wee bit of inspiration and imagination would go to their schools or colleges and explain the procedure to them.
Bite the Ballot went into so many hundreds of schools and colleges. I did not think anybody could do all that but a small team managed to register 52,000 people. How many more could be registered if there was automatic registration? We have modern technology, digital channels, YouTube and ordinary television channels that could be used by the Government to share this inspiration in what is really a desperate situation. We want young people and others to exercise their vote and say “We have influence”. If people feel that they have influence and that their votes and voices count, there could be a great revival of democratic accountability and feeling here in the United Kingdom.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, I am not a Methodist minister and shall be very brief. I support very strongly the comments made by noble Lords about the importance of action in schools. Like them, I have been greatly impressed by the results of the initiative in Northern Ireland. Speaking as a strong unionist, particularly where Northern Ireland is concerned, I would regard it as an absolute tragedy if lessons that could be usefully drawn from that part of our country went by the wayside and here in Great Britain we failed to profit as we might. I hope that my noble friend will consider very carefully that which Northern Ireland might have to teach us in this matter. He is noted for his open-mindedness and there is perhaps merit in a little further consideration of what has happened in Northern Ireland.
He will be unsurprised that I listened with great interest to the comments he made on the implications of these regulations for British subjects living overseas who are eligible to vote here. I gained the strong impression from what he said that the effect of the changes will be to assist the efforts that some of us, including my noble friend Lord Tyler, are encouraging to seek greater registration among British citizens living abroad who are currently eligible to vote. I know my noble friend supports those efforts, too.
Voting: Young People
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The noble Lord thinks he makes a very fair point. I might also point out that one of the reasons for people not being interested in elections is that so many seats are safe seats and they know who is going to be elected anyway so there is no point in voting. The noble Lord will remember that he actively opposed the alternative vote.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, have we applauded the work of Bite the Ballot on its National Voter Registration Day—5 February—when it enrolled 40,000 new voters at a cost of 15p a head, which is far less than the government cost? Will we give our support next year to a countrywide National Voter Registration Day?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government are actively interested in working with as many voluntary organisations as we can in maximising registration. We congratulate Bite the Ballot on its success this year and we very much hope that it has greater success next year.
Electoral Registration: National Voter Registration Day
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support National Voter Registration Day on Wednesday 5 February, which seeks to encourage new, especially young, people to register to vote.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Government are committed to doing all they can to maximise registration, including among young people. The innovation project, which the Cabinet Office announced today that it will support, reinforces the aim of National Voter Registration Day. For example, the funding awarded to the Scottish Youth Parliament will help it to develop peer education training and outreach programmes to increase democratic engagement and registering to vote. The Government also fund UK Youth, which will help to develop online tools for engaging young people in the democratic process, including registering to vote.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
I thank the Minister for his Answer. I am sure that he will acknowledge, as I do, the dedication and the sometimes sacrificial commitment of a handful of youngsters, who are so concerned that only one in four young people votes in this country that they are having a National Voter Registration Day tomorrow, to try to encourage thousands more—hundreds of thousands, if possible—to register and become part of the democratic process here in the UK. Will the Minister consider evaluating whether what happens tomorrow, on the national registration day, could become an annual fixed event with full-scale government support?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, National Voter Registration Day is an independent initiative to which the Government give their full support, but it is not a governmental initiative. We are all aware, as we move towards individual elector registration and deal with the problems of underregistration, particularly among young people, that the Government cannot do it all on their own and do not have all the answers, so we enormously welcome the engagement of as many voluntary groups of this sort as possible.
Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2013
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Lipsey (Lab)
My Lords, the whole Committee will be grateful to the Minister for that explanation of what these orders contain. He gave it, understandably, in a pretty low-key way. I think it is worth the Committee reminding itself just how much is at stake on the path we are going down. We must do so because this is a milestone today, along a path that has had many milestones; but it is right that Parliament should check that we are still on the right road before approving the orders.
Perhaps I could illustrate that importance by saying this: let us suppose that the exercise comes up with 80% of eligible voters registering to vote, which is below what we would hope for, but not implausible. Let us suppose at the same time that we get another dullish election where the turnout is only 60%. It would follow from those figures that fewer than half of those eligible to vote had participated in the election. When you start getting to a figure like that, there is no question but that this reflects on the legitimacy of the return.
It is terribly important that we get the maximum turnout at the election, but, in the mean time, that we have a register that is as near complete as possible. Of course, we understand and support the move to individual electoral registration: that is also terribly important to our democracy in order to prevent forged votes being cast. We must make sure, however, that this is being done thoroughly, as well as it possibly can, and that it is not impeded by an insufficiency of resources or rushed through for whatever reason.
It might seem strange to mention my next point straight after warning against “rushing through”, but just last week, one expected deadline for electoral registration was missed. The Commons Library note, dated only a couple of months ago, said that the Government expected to make a firm decision by the end of November on whether to proceed with individual registration for the 2015 election. When Greg Clark was answering a Question on 26 November in another place, he did not say that the Government had decided to proceed; he said simply that they were on track for individual electoral registration to come in in 2014. I do not think there has been a critical slippage yet; but the more the Minister can say to persuade the Committee that they will be giving the go-ahead and that there is still time to have registration fully in place by the summer of 2014—even if it falls short of an absolute pledge; I will come back to that in a minute—the more helpful it would be.
When we say it is “on track”, it is worth reviewing one or two issues that have come up on that track. One about which all Members of the House should be very pleased is the decision to retain the civic penalty. I have no doubt whatever that it was the threat of a civic penalty—even though it is not much used—that prevented a serious slump in registration, particularly among younger people, which would have been damaging. I give the Government absolute credit for that: they listened, they thought about it and they decided to retain the civic penalty. That is greatly to be welcomed.
Another matter that has been resolved, but where I personally regret the resolution—as indeed does the Electoral Commission—is the question of the open register. Here, there is a straight conflict. This should be a register for voting purposes only; that is to say, it should not be sent out to anybody who wants to use it for marketing or any other purposes. Frankly, the ability of a voter to contract out is not a sufficient protection, because most of them have better things to do than to think about whether they want to contract out of the electoral register.
We understand that the marketing industry has brought huge pressure on the Government to continue to make the register available for its purposes. We hear that some local authorities that were going to give priority to putting in a box that could be ticked to say, “I want to contract out”—the tick could then be removed—have been threatened with judicial review by the marketing industry. I must say that in my guts I find it very distasteful when our electoral process is taking second place to the lowest commercial considerations, but I am sure that the marketers have their case; it just has not persuaded me. I ask the Minister to agree, though, that after the first use of IER the Government will review this provision and any evidence there may be as to whether it has damaged the integrity of the register so that, if we have made a mistake this time around—and we all make mistakes—it can be resolved next time.
Another issue that has been largely resolved, I think, is that EROs themselves were very worried about the resources that were being devoted to this. We have had progress in two regards here. The Government have told them what resources they are going to get, and have also said that they are prepared to consider a request for more resources in cases where there are particular difficulties in given areas. Nobody is dancing on the rooftops about this, but it is clearly good progress, and EROs are less unhappy than they were.
However, there is a particular problem, which we need to go on worrying about, with the universities. I will cite one case. There is a ward in Lancaster, I am told, which is nearly always all student-inhabited and where registration is around the 10% mark at the moment. In Sheffield, which has several universities, the universities themselves are putting resources into campaigning to get a fuller register. That is not really what university money is for: it should come from the budget provided for IER. I would welcome any reassurances that are forthcoming on those issues—particularly the university point, which is a chilling worry. Whether the Lib Dems worry about it in quite the way they used to, I do not know. They used to rely considerably on the student vote, but of course that may not be so certain at the next election. The Minister, is, of course, perfectly placed to give both a party as well as a ministerial opinion.
The one thing that is not resolved is an IT issue. The Government are quite frank about this in the memoranda: we do not yet know whether the IT to do the verification matching will work. We do not expect to know that until February or March, when it has been properly trialled. If it does not work, it will cause serious difficulties at least for the scheme—and maybe more than that. The probability is that it will work, by the way, but we ought to think about contingency planning if it does not. There is a particular problem—which came out in the Minister’s remark—about postal voters, because unless they are individually registered, they cannot vote at all. There is no way around that, so postal voters could lose their vote if this does not work—and even those moving shortly before the election might find it difficult, if this does not work, to exercise their vote. This is of concern to the Electoral Commission, as I am sure it is to the Government.
I do not want or expect the Government to delay making the announcement that they intend to go ahead until they are certain that these things work. If you do not take any risks in life, you tend not to make much progress. However, my father used to say to me when I was a young man, “David, always leave room for the big back-out”. I think he had girls in mind, rather than electoral registration at the time—but I think that, on this, Ministers ought to leave room for the big back-out. That is to say, if it turns out that this IT simply does not work—and my expectation is that it will—they will have to be in a position where they can find the words that they have used to show that they were concerned about this issue. If that means that fundamental decisions have to be reviewed, and I do not expect that to happen, they should stand ready to do that.
The Government have taken a pragmatic approach to electoral registration—with the full support of my party and, indeed, politicians of all parties—because individual electoral registration is clearly something that we should have in this country, as most other countries with genuine democratic systems have it. These questions are in no way designed to show any opposition to it, but simply to say that we must double bank and make sure that we have every step along the way working, so that it will go smoothly, with a high number of people on the register.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, I am sorry that those who usually lead on these issues for the Liberal Democrats—my noble friends Lord Tyler and Lord Rennard—are not with us this afternoon. I will step in where angels fear to tread.
First, as Liberal Democrats, we are glad that registration is now compulsory, not voluntary, as was suggested in the beginning. That would have led to very different registration levels in various constituencies. Secondly, we have waited a long time for this: the Electoral Commission recommended the change to individual registration in 2003. A decade later, we are bringing this regulation into being.
Thirdly, we need to look again at the format of the registration forms. I declare an interest as president of Bite the Ballot, the youth movement to encourage young people to take part in the electoral process and influence manifesto commitments. Perhaps the Government will look at the form. We are replacing the 400 different forms that were used in various constituencies and electoral areas with one form. It will be a national form, which is used in every constituency. Of course, in Wales it will be bilingual. Even in Scotland we will have the element of the language up there.
The civil penalty for not registering comes in an accompanying letter. I get lots of correspondence—we all do—and we might look at the report we are sent, but we put the accompanying letter to one side. Can we not have the penalty note on the form itself, saying that if people do not register there is the possibility of a penalty? In addition, can the second and third forms be distinguishable, so that they look different—perhaps printed in a different colour—so that people know that this is not the original form but the second or third form?
On postal voting, what do the Government believe is the ideal moment to send out postal votes in the UK? Over the years, with the late Lord Garden, who of course was a distinguished military person, I tried to ensure that those who were on military service in places such as Afghanistan—this has been mentioned already—were able to receive their postal vote forms in sufficient time to enable those votes to be completed, returned and included in the count. It is difficult. I remember we had quite a debate on it when the Labour Government were in post. Is there some way we can ensure that those who are ready to sacrifice their lives for us will at least have the opportunity of casting a vote, wherever they are? That is very important.
The regulations are acceptable, I am sure, but other initiatives are not here—of course, we would say that—such as engaging young people to register and take part in political debate. I go back to the Bite the Ballot proposals for a national registration day—5 February 2014—in every area; I think the superstores and the large shops are going to have tables where people can register, and young people in particular will be able to register. Will the Government support this Bite the Ballot initiative? What steps are being taken at a local, constituency level to ensure that every support possible is provided to make National Voter Registration Day a success? We dream of half a million new, young voters on that day. Support will be essential to ensure that that happens.
Freedom of Religion and Conscience
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, I appreciate the opportunity of saying a word in the gap to draw our attention to just two events. These events prompt me to regard them as milestones in the move for greater liberty and conscience, and understanding between religions.
One was the inauguration once again yesterday of President Obama, whose breakthrough four years ago as the American president was hailed as a great move forward among people who wanted to dispel all discrimination. Even yesterday, he reminded us of the great march on Washington led 50 years ago by Martin Luther King. Things have moved and changed, often for the better.
As a Liberal I also acknowledge the birth, 150 years ago, of David Lloyd George. He was elected as the Member of Parliament for Carmarthen Burrows in 1890, at a time when Wales was open to new ventures in education and in looking at the vulnerable with compassion and understanding. Again, that was a move in the right direction. Education holds the key to so much as we can stretch the minds and have people who, because they are thinking and free to think, can resist all tyranny. While acknowledging that there are unfavourable situations today, we should say that we are grateful for what has happened over the years.
Electoral Register: Young People
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what specific measures they are taking to ensure that the maximum number of young people are enrolled on the electoral register.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, on this historic day, when we celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of David Lloyd George, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I have to add that my father met Lloyd George. We have a photograph somewhere of my father with him—there are about 3,000 people in the picture, but never mind, it is still historic.
Government, politicians, political parties, electoral administrators and others in society all have a role to play in encouraging people to register to vote. As we have made clear throughout the ERA Bill’s consideration, the Government are committed to doing all they can to maximise registration, including among young people. They are looking at ways to modernise the system to make it as easy and convenient as possible for everyone to register to vote.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
I thank the Minister for his reply. I declare an interest as president of Bite the Ballot, the youth democracy movement. I am not only president, but I think great-grandfather of that movement. Is there not an opportunity for us to give young people when they reach the age of 16, possibly 17, an electoral registration form in their schools so they can sign up then? We could even give them an electoral registration form when they go to university, say in freshers’ week when they get their pack of information. We might be able to sign up a large number of people in those two possible ways.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
That is an interesting consideration. I will take it back to the Cabinet Office and discuss it with the Department for Education. I talked to several head teachers in Westmorland on Friday afternoon about citizenship education and how we involve young people in politics. Part of the problem we face is churn. Young people move, so even if they are put on the register when they are 17, they may well be off it—or be in the wrong place—by the time they are 20. So there are some real problems with keeping young people on the register as well as getting them on it.
Elections: Registration
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that every eligible United Kingdom citizen between the ages of 18 and 25 registers to vote.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, the Government are committed to doing all that they can to maximise registration, including among 18 to 25 year-olds, and are looking to modernise the system to make it as easy and convenient as possible for people to register to vote. We have commissioned research to explore the registration of groups whom we know are underregistered —which certainly includes those between 18 and 25. We are also closely studying the experience in Northern Ireland, where promising work is being done to get young people registered.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. He knows as well as I do that if people are not encouraged to take part in the democratic process through the ballot box, there are other ways that have horrendous consequences. What plans have the Government for the coming year and elections to encourage people to register to vote? I declare an interest as grandfather of the Bite the Ballot movement, which encourages young people to engage with democratic institutions. Will the Government enable registration forms to be made available in schools, colleges, workplaces and places where young people spend their leisure hours, and also online? Could that be an immediate action?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, there are two problems with registration for 18 to 25 year-olds. One is the question of how far they are motivated to register. The other is simply how good the Government are at catching these people and making sure that they fill in forms. I am informed that the number of young men registered with a doctor is remarkably low. This is the biggest single hole in our registration. The percentage of 18 to 25 year-olds registered to vote is around 56 per cent. The percentage of people over 25 who are registered is well over 90 per cent.
Armed Forces: Redundancies
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(12 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I entirely agree that we need to maintain a balance in the forces. Many people join the Armed Forces in the hope of staying in for 22 years, but others join hoping to stay in for three or six years. In visiting one or two TA units, I have been struck by the number of people in the TA who have spent time with the Regular Forces or, in some cases, who started in the TA, moved into the Regular Forces and then came out and back to the TA. There is not a simple package or career structure in place. It is very good for some young people to spend some time with the Armed Forces and then come back into civilian life.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, further to the Minister’s answer on recruitment, is there to be a freeze or will there continue to be recruitment to the Armed Forces in the future?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, as I have already said, we are continuing to recruit, but at a lower level as we adjust numbers. I am told that levels of applications to join the Armed Forces at the present time are high.
Anti-Semitism
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
My Lords, perhaps I may say how much I appreciate this opportunity that the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, has given us to discuss this situation.
If we each look back at our history, there were massive turning points or milestones. I was a boy of nine at the end of the war in 1945 when I went to the local cinema that was showing a newsreel of Belsen, Mauthausen, Treblinka and Auschwitz. I saw the mounds of skeletons, and those who still existed were shuffling their way to a dream of freedom. I am sure that I was not the only lad who said that this must not happen again; this horror must not be allowed to repeat itself. That is one reason why it is so important that what happened then is not allowed to be forgotten by the current generation in our schools and colleges—the horror of 6 million Jews, as well as many of other ethnic origins, executed in Hitler’s Europe.
Fairly recently, I was in the Parliament in Warsaw looking at the plaques for those parliamentarians who had died in 1939 and 1940. You could see, one after the other, how they had died in those concentration camps and death camps. I was glad that those plaques were there to keep reminding us of the horror of what had happened. Those sorts of events make me what I am. They guide you in your political direction and your religious conviction—to build a world in which every person is honoured and respected, whatever they are and whatever their background. We have to work together, which is one reason why I am such a strong supporter of Europe. The more that nations are bound together and work together, the less likely we are to experience the hurt and destruction of past generations. That is the most valid reason, among others, for my support for the European project.
Karl Lueger was mayor of Vienna and chair of the Christian Social Union and Anti-Semitic Union of the Diet of Lower Austria. As has already been mentioned, he represented a Christian anti-Semitic element. He saw anti-Semitism as a way of channelling public discontent to his political advantage. Goebbels spoke of the,
“parasites of the Jewish race”.
On the other side, there was Judah Leib Pinsker, who in 1882 said he believed that anti-Semitism was hereditary and, as a disease transmitted for 2,000 years, was incurable and an,
“inherited aberration of the human mind”.
We need time to think that through for ourselves.
We should have learnt the lesson of the Holocaust. I am sorry that the Chief Rabbi is not with us today. He said in 2006 that a “tsunami of anti-Semitism” was spreading globally. The Boston Review in 2009 stated that 25 per cent of non-Jewish Americans blamed Jews for the financial crisis of 2008-09. According to a study in 2004, Germany, France, Britain and Russia have the highest rate of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe.
There were victims, of course, even before Hitler. I believe that the survivors of the camps and those who came out of the pogroms have a fear, a deep-rooted suspicion, “What might happen because I am Jewish? What might happen in the future?” Pogroms have taken place over more than one generation and the parents and grandparents who have survived bear the scars and tattoos of that persecution.
I am a Welshman and a Christian, I hope, and when I see the film footage of those little kids being loaded onto the transport wagons and taken away to the death camps, I think of my own seven grandchildren and I say to my family, “This could have been us”. I was looking at television coverage of it only a couple of days ago, where Jewish toddlers in the camps were lifting their sleeves to show their tattoo numbers.
This is an important debate but I must not go over my time. Ours is an awesome responsibility; we must act and legislate so that no future generation suffers in this way. Our own attitudes and conversation can undermine not only the Jewish people but other vulnerable people in our communities such as asylum seekers and refugees. I wish the newspapers would stop demonising people who come to this country. Their headlines create suspicion and hostility and I hope that, without legislation, we will see an end to this demonising.
So much more could be said. For instance, the curriculums in our schools could cover the history of what has happened so that children can learn. I am grateful to the Holocaust Educational Trust for giving youngsters and others the opportunity to go to Auschwitz and other places. Much has been and must be done. In doing it, I hope that we will create for Jewish and other people a generation the like of which they would never have known in past centuries.
The Big Society
Lord Roberts of Llandudno Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
I am delighted to join in this short debate initiated by my noble friend Lord Greaves. I like to think of the big society as an open society, a generous society and a liberal society—a society in which all people have an opportunity to be involved. Often I wonder, especially perhaps in Wales, but also in England, whether we politicise some of our small community and parish councils. Do we need party politics at that first level of government? Could not we encourage people from various local community organisations such as the Scouts, the churches, the young farmers, the Women’s Institute and so on to themselves seek election to community and parish councils? They are the people who know the needs of their own particular localities. “The Vicar of Dibley” may be an ideal situation; we should let Owen, Letitia and Geraldine be round the table at every local parish council.
Secondly, I was sad that the referendum last week decided that people who voted would still be able—just 30 per cent of them—to elect a Member of Parliament, without having that larger involvement that the alternative vote would have given us, when most of the time they would have needed at least 50 per cent of the vote. But I am not worried too much—no, no, no—because people are saying that the reason they are against AV is because they want a more proportional method of election. They want STV. So I look forward to the time when the single transferable vote is presented to this House and the masses of people who said that AV did not give proportionality will join me in the Lobby for a fairer and more representative electoral system.
Finally, we have always been a country that welcomes people to our shores—the most vulnerable and needy, wherever they are from. I hope that the big society will be big not only within the United Kingdom but big, welcoming and compassionate for all who are in need.