Higher Education and Research Bill

Debate between Lord Smith of Finsbury and Lord Campbell-Savours

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 16th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

I shall be very brief indeed. The comments of the noble Baroness from the Liberal Democrat Benches hit the nail on the head. We have introduced a scheme that worked in Cambridge prior to its introduction. With the introduction of individual registration, we have complicated the scheme. We need to go back to why it was introduced: there was electoral fraud in a very small number of local authorities in the United Kingdom. To be frank, they were areas of the country with high ethnic-minority populations, where for cultural reasons it was felt acceptable within some of those populations to conduct elections in a way which proved fraudulent under the law of this country.

It was a Labour Government who introduced this scheme and we spent tens of millions of pounds—it must be much more than that now—implementing it out of political correctness to deal with a problem that should have been dealt with in individual communities where a particular problem arose. Now, of course, it is too late and we are left to pick up the damage that was done. This amendment, in its simple way, seeks to remedy at least some of the damage. But the only way of dealing with the damage that has been done through individual registration is to abolish the scheme and do what the Electoral Commission seems to recommend in its most recent report, which refers to taking action in specific areas, particularly those areas of the United Kingdom where there is a problem with electoral fraud.

[Lord Smith of Finsbury]

My Lords, I will reflect very briefly on what actually happened in Cambridge on 23 June last year. That fell at just the end of term. A lot of students were graduating and a lot of them were still in Cambridge. As the head of a college, I had spent rather a lot of time over the preceding two or three months encouraging students to register and explaining to them how they could register individually. For many of them, the decision made on 23 June was about their future. They were very strongly engaged with the issues. But quite a number of them ended up unable to cast a vote on 23 June because they had not got round to registering.

Yes, of course, it was their fault in not registering. They should have done so. None the less, we as a society ought to make it as easy as possible to ensure that every young person is registered and has the ability to vote. The amendment would solve the problem. I support it.