Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between Lord Wills and Lord Baker of Dorking

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

My Lords, it is entirely appropriate that this unelected second Chamber should be debating, probing, examining and questioning the electoral system in our country. As none of us is elected, we can approach this with a degree of objectivity and dispassion, which was how the noble and learned Lord began his remarks. I welcome that; it is a sort of oblique argument in favour of not having an elected element to this House, but I leave that debate for another day.

The independence of this House in electoral matters was very much evidenced in 2004 when postal voting by demand, introduced by the Labour Government in an Act in 2001, was eventually implemented that year by another Act. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Wills, was involved at the time, as was one of his colleagues. This House insisted that there should be proof of identity in postal voting. That was resisted by the House of Commons again and again, and there was an episode of ping pong. Eventually a proof of identity was put on to the statute book, which I think is entirely appropriate. Anyone who has fought in an election, as have seven or eight speakers in the debate, knows how important the register is. They will also recognise how out of date and inaccurate it is, and how frustrating it is to be met by your supporters during an election campaign who say, “I’m afraid I am not registered”. We have all had that experience. There might be a case for late registration, which should be looked at by the Electoral Commission and possibly by the Government.

The purpose of the Bill is to try to suppress fraud. Fraud in election comes in many shapes and sizes. The old traditional one was a straightforward impersonation in the ballot room—you turned up and said that you were somebody you were not. I think it was derived from the old Irish custom of polling the dead, but wherever it came from that was the most likely method. If you look at the recent fraudulent cases, you will see that that rarely happens now. Fraud in elections has become much more sophisticated, and the real fraud now in elections takes place as a result of having a postal vote by demand. There is a good case for that in trying to increase the number of people who are going to vote in our country, but there is absolutely no doubt that after it was introduced there was a flood of fraudulent activities. I will give noble Lords some idea of its extent. Recorded proceedings were taken and charges were laid in the following places: Birmingham, twice; Coventry; Burnley, twice; Halifax; Middlesbrough; Rochdale; Leicester; Pendle; Hyndburn; Blackburn; Woking; Slough; Peterborough; Reading; Oldham; Bradford; and Tower Hamlets, which has become the centre of this activity and where there is an ongoing criminal investigation.

The original cases in 2005-06 were principally between the Labour and Liberal Parties in the northern cities. The Conservative Party was no slouch in this. It quickly got in on the act and there was really no difference between the various parties in this matter: all parties have engaged in that sort of fraud.

[Lord Wills]

I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Perhaps he could help the House by saying two things. First, what percentage of total votes cast were represented by those challenges in that long list that he outlined? Secondly, is he familiar with the 2008 Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust study on postal voting? If he is not, I suggest he familiarises himself with it. I am going to quote extensively from it later in my speech. I will not tire the House with it now, but I hope that the noble Lord will stay around to hear exactly what it said about the extent of postal vote fraud.

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I am familiar with the Rowntree report and I intend to quote something from it which rather refutes it, so we will have an exchange of quotations later. On percentages, the point about the list I have read out is that this particular fraud has certain characteristics. It is urban and it is in marginal seats. In many seats where there is a clear majority, either for the Labour Party or the Conservative Party, there is no fraud because it is unnecessary: it will not affect the result. It will affect the result only in marginal seats where a small balance of a small number of votes can determine who is going to win at a local election or at a general election. That is the comparison that one must make.

This fraud takes place in high-density communities with crowded premises in towns and cities. There is a high turnover because people are moving all the time from flat to flat and from residence to residence. There is often a floating population which can generate what has been described by some electoral pundits as clan loyalty whereby people want to see their immediate friends and colleagues elected. Many of these cases have landed up in court and there has been the imprisonment and bankruptcy of some of the people involved. Mayors and councillors have been involved, and reputations have been destroyed. It has been a very sad episode. It is in the interests of all our parties to try to eliminate this as much as we can.

In May 2010, the Sunday Times reported that 27 people were registered in a single property in Southall and in February this year the Evening Standard reported that dozens of flats in Tower Hamlets were registered with eight people per bedroom. The quotation that I shall use, which is rather later than the Rowntree report, comes from Judge Richard Mawrey, the expert on electoral fraud in our country. He has dealt with many cases. He said that,

“where a small number of votes will make a considerable difference, then the opportunities for fraud are enormous, the chances of detection very small, and a relatively modest amount of fraud will guarantee you win the election”.

That is the problem we have to face. What can one do about that?

I remember when I first stood in a council election back in the 1950s. In those days, if you wanted a postal vote or a proxy vote—fellow parliamentarians will remember this—you had to justify it and explain that you were elderly, housebound, or bedbound, were going to be abroad or out of town, or worked in a town that was different from the town in which you were registered to vote. There was a variety of reasons. You had to have that application signed by a magistrate, an MP, a doctor or a professional person. I well remember—and I am sure my noble friend Lord Rennard will remember because in these matters I look upon him as a professional expert—that in those days in all constituency fights you had a committee of people who sought out postal votes for your party. I think the Liberal Party was the first to do so, but we followed quite quickly. You identified people who you knew were going to be abroad and got them registered. I would go back to something like that, but that may be a little unrealistic unless the checks and balances that we create are effective.

If this business of postal fraud continues—and I think we are going to try to stop it with this Bill, very imperfectly, if I may say so—what can one do? The basis of the previous system was verification by an outsider. Under postal vote by demand the verification is by the registered person and, as the Minister said and the noble Lord confirmed, there will be three qualifications: a signature, a date of birth and a national insurance number. This is going to be a matter for the Secretary of State to lay down in regulations after the Bill. Perhaps the Minister can confirm that the national insurance number will be added. That would certainly deal with the problem of illegal immigrants because the national insurance number is the closest thing we in this country have to a national number.

Other checks are important. The canvass is important. There is going to be a canvass in 2014. That means that returning officers will have to carry out a canvass. I remember this happening once in Dorking. It surprised everybody. People were visited by people from the council who knocked on doors to see who lived there and who they were, but it happened only once during my 30 years-plus in the House of Commons. I think it is an important step in the verification of electoral registers, and there is a possibility that it could be suspended, postponed or done only partially, and that is quite wrong.

The other check is the verification of postal votes by returning officers. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, answered a Question last year or the year before about the 2010 election. In only two-thirds of the cases had returning officers checked the signatures on the ballot papers. Those of us who have postal votes know that you have to sign them, having previously registered your signature. That was done in only three-quarters of the cases. I would have thought that it would be necessary to make that mandatory for all seats.

One other matter I would draw to the attention of the Government is the spate of fraud from about 2005 to this year, mainly based around postal votes, and only partially on proxy votes. There have been one or two cases of late where the fraud seems to have moved to proxy voting. There was one case where somebody turned up with 50 proxy votes; that is just like the 18th century, when the Duke of Newcastle turned up with a number of votes and said, “That’s it”. I would have thought that there is a case for saying that anybody who has a proxy vote should have a vote for only one other person—not for another 50—to bring to the poll. That is not in the Bill; perhaps the Government might consider that carefully, to see whether such an amendment could be introduced.

I would make only these further points. This Bill also extends the length of the campaign from 17 days to 25. I do not know where this proposal came from; I always thought that 17 days was quite enough for a campaign. One of the great virtues of our system is that we have a short, sharp campaign. In America, it lasts for a year or 18 months, but in Britain, 17 days was absolutely ideal. I do not why we need another eight days for campaigning, when one counted and ticked off the days and the hours and hoped for polling day. That will be a big expense for the parties; they will need quite a bit more money to run the campaign for another week. It seems to be government policy and also I suppose coalition policy, too. It was—good Lord. In that case, I support it, although I do not really see the justification for it.

The other point I shall touch on is the extraordinary civil penalty which has been created: that the returning officer imposes a civil penalty on people who do not register. That reminded me of the Anglican confession:

“We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done”.

It seems extraordinary to create a civil penalty and a fine for not doing something. It would face enormous trouble in the courts. I am sure the Minister is aware that there are very strange religious cults in our country, which are not remotely concerned with the electoral system here; they are mainly concerned about the accessibility of the next world. They will certainly tell their supporters on no account to bother to register. Sure enough, there will be a case with some awkward person who will actually go to court and challenge this, and almost certainly end up in a human rights court, challenging whether his human rights have been denied by not registering. He would be hauled up because he had not performed his civic duty. Civic duty is another extraordinary concept of this Bill and I have not come across this previously in legislation. I know it as a concept. When the human rights court gets such a case before it, it will almost certainly find in favour of the litigant. After all, it was prepared to disregard civic duty to the extent of allowing prisoners— who have abandoned their civic duties—to have votes. I think this will be a big problem area for the Government; I do not know where the problem arose.

In conclusion, it is in the interests of all parties to ensure that there are no obvious areas of fraud. I believe that in spite of the checks and balances introduced by this Bill, there will be scope for elaborate and very ingenious fraud through postal and proxy voting. That should be checked. It was checked in the 19th century and the early 20th century; we have made it much looser. That is not in the interests of democracy or fairness.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Wills and Lord Baker of Dorking

Monday 17th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I am coming to more interesting points. I have only just started on my reminiscences of my time as a Member of Parliament. Let me move on to the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who said that we in the United Kingdom are not overrepresented. May I remind the House of the extent of overrepresentation in our lower Houses? We have a population of about 60 million people and 650 or so Members of Parliament. Germany, with a population of 82 million has 600. Japan, with a population of 127 million, twice ours, has only 470. Russia, with a population of 144 million, roughly three times ours, has 450. Can those who are familiar with all the parliamentary activities in these countries say that constituents are any less well served because they have large constituencies? I do not believe that the argument holds up at all.

The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, “Ah, but they have länder in Germany.” He should recall that in three parts of our country we have virtually independent Parliaments. We have, in Scotland, an independent Parliament. In Wales, the Welsh Assembly is a Parliament in all but name and the situation is virtually the same in Northern Ireland, where, in fact, all local matters are dealt with by the representative Members of those Assemblies, in a very similar way to that in the länder. So, international arguments are significant. Therefore, I believe strongly that this is a good measure. I have never put it forward from the view of saving money; I simply believe that the House of Commons can operate very effectively with a smaller number of MPs. I will give way to the noble Lord, because I heard his speech earlier on the computer.

[Lord Wills]

I am grateful to the honourable gentleman—I am sorry, the noble Lord. I do beg his pardon. He was kind enough to refer to my speech, so, before he sits down, as I sense he is about to do, will he answer this question? He has made his case for it being wholly possible to reduce the size of the House of Commons without any adverse consequence for constituents—I accept that there is a strong case for that—but in deciding on the number to which the House of Commons should be reduced, does he think, first, that the new figure should be based on some broad principle, some broad understanding of the role of Member of Parliament? Secondly, does he think that the public should be consulted on what the size should be?

[Lord Baker of Dorking]

On the first question, if you look at the history of the development of the House of Commons, it has never been based on broad principles. I remind the noble Lord that in 1707 there were 513 Members of Parliament for England and Wales and that, as a result of the Act of Union, 45 were added—a figure plucked out of the air with a huge overrepresentation for Scotland in relation to its population in 1707. No principle, just practice. With Pitt’s Act of Union—disastrous, in my view, but I shall not debate that—which abolished Grattan’s Parliament in 1800, 100 Members were added; a huge overrepresentation for the population of Ireland at that time. That overrepresentation was never effectively reduced. In 1922, Northern Ireland received 12 Members, but they did not take away the 88 extra, but only 55.

So there is no principle; it is a matter of pragmatic sense. I agree entirely with what the former Speaker of the House of Commons said. It is a matter for decision, a political decision at the end of the day. My decision is for a smaller House. I respect the views of Members opposite, but I do not think that we would, in any way, impair the workings of democracy in our country by having a smaller House of Commons.