Elections: Fraud

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

I am not sure that I agree entirely with my noble friend. Most of the inquiries about the conduct of our elections show a good performance in complying with the law. Many colleagues in this House must feel, as I do, that we went through most of the 20th century with the integrity of our voting system unquestioned. We were very confident about it. It is only in the past 10, or perhaps 20, years that we have become concerned about it. We are bringing in various measures to make it more difficult to perpetrate fraud in our elections, as did the previous Government. We have made it clear that, whatever the party, anybody who commits fraud will be prosecuted and may well face jail for that fraud.

[Lord Touhig]

In answer to my noble friend Lady Royall on 5 October, the Minister said:

“The Government do not have information and neither is this the Government’s direct responsibility in these matters”.

Then, in answer to my noble friend Lord Hughes, he said:

“As far as I understand it, specific complaints have been made in a range of constituencies and are being investigated”.—[Official Report, 5/10/10; col. 10.]

At that time, did the Government have information—yes or no? I refer the noble Lord to the Ministerial Code. Part 1.2(d) says:

“Ministers should be as open as possible with Parliament and the public, refusing to provide information only when disclosure would not be in the public interest”.

Why is it not in the public interest to tell Parliament if there is an investigation into fraud?

[Lord McNally]

I think that is straining things a little. What I said was that I am not directly involved: the police and the Electoral Commission are involved. There would be a lot more questions from that side of the House, and probably from this side too, if Ministers were directly involved in investigating electoral fraud.

Noble Lords: Oh!