Overseas Electors Bill (Third sitting)

Debate between Alex Norris and Chloe Smith

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Norris]

Now I am being a smartypants, so I will stop.

I always reflect on what Government Members say to ensure that I understand things the way that I thought I did, or that the point I was trying to get over was the right one. In particular, I reflected on two things from last week. First, I reflected on what the hon. Member for Kingswood said about electoral Jenga and whether there was an unintended consequence of pulling that lever and extending that polling day minus 12 to polling day minus 19. I am still not persuaded that that would have a knock-on impact. The only thing I found was that there is a chance, which the hon. Gentleman raised, that individuals would not know the candidates at that point. That would be important at the time of casting a ballot—

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

It is an important consideration.

[Alex Norris]

It is a very important consideration when choosing whether to cast a ballot, but I do not think it is a material consideration when choosing whether to register to vote. We certainly would not tolerate that at home. There are significant penalties attached to not registering, so we would not be persuaded if a person had a knock on the door and their answer for why they had not registered was, “I don’t fancy the candidates very much.” The Minister has made the important assertion multiple times that she sees no difference between an overseas and a domestic elector, so I am not persuaded of that point.

Secondly, I reflected on the point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham that an extra seven working days, with a weekend in there too, was maybe too long. Again, the review would get to the bottom of that. Electoral administrators will know for how many days after an election they are still getting votes by post—I bet they hate that, but it must happen, and I bet there are some hilarious stories about votes coming in six months after too. In general, they will get votes coming in the day after polling day, and I am sure they look at them in great frustration. How many days is that true for? It probably has a half-life and diminishes by whatever the inverse of exponential is.

Overseas Electors Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Alex Norris and Chloe Smith

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Chloe Smith]

It brings to an end the current or first declaration, as I say. I will be happy to confirm more precisely what that looks like from the position of the registration officer, which may be what the hon. Gentleman is asking for. The legal mechanism there is certainly that the first validity is brought to an end.

I come now to the absent voting arrangements proposed in amendments 12 and 27. I am not persuaded by what I see in those amendments that it is necessary to ask an elector whether they intend to make absent voting arrangements or to vote in person, because, like any other elector, they can change their mind. I am not in the business of trying to make arbitrary distinctions between overseas and domestic electors. Any elector is permitted to change their mind on that, so I am not persuaded of the purpose that would be served by those amendments.

Turning to renewal, there is no renewal process for electors with an overseas elector’s declaration. The declaration itself lasts for 12 months, so if somebody wishes to remain an overseas elector, they must make a fresh declaration every year. A renewal process is being introduced in the Bill, requiring less information, not more, from electors at the point of renewal. An applicant’s identity will have been established as part of their original registration, so there is no need for an elector to provide all the same information when doing it again.

We are allowing EROs to pre-populate forms with the relevant details, and the gov.uk site will allow electors to confirm that the information pre-populated in the reminder that has been sent to them remains true. We will introduce an online method of doing that, which is a provision that does not currently exist but that we think will make re-registrations easier for voters. The Bill includes a power to make detailed provision on renewal declarations in secondary legislation; as with existing electoral legislation, I think that is the right place for the procedural details of applications.

The requirement for overseas electors to renew their registration annually is in close analogy to how we treat domestic electors, who have to reconfirm their details every year in order to appear on the electoral register. It helps to ensure that electoral registers remain accurate. As we all know, accuracy is one of the core measurements of the integrity of an election and of our democracy. As is currently the case, in the three months before a registration is due to expire, EROs will send two reminders to an elector that they need to re-register. The sending of those reminders will be made mandatory, and it will be possible to send them electronically.

Finally, I come back to attestations, which the hon. Member for Nottingham North began with. The amendments would require all declarations from overseas electors to provide two attestations—one from abroad and one from home. As I said at the outset, that is not the right approach, because it would create a fundamental difference between domestic and overseas electors. Currently, an attestation is needed only as a fall-back. The same may be the case for domestic voters, and comparisons could also be drawn with some of the more specialised processes that we use, for example for those who make anonymous registrations.

The key point is that to suggest that the fall-back position should be changed to a requirement of not only one attestation but two is quite unjust to an overseas voter. I return to my core point: these are voters and citizens like any other, and we should not seek to make that difference. It could be potentially fatally burdensome for a voter to have to find a person back at home to provide an attestation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham said.

I hope that my remarks have been helpful to the hon. Members who proposed the amendments. I thank them for their important probing of the Bill’s details, but I hope they have been able to consider my response and will not press the amendments.

[Alex Norris]

I thank those who have contributed to the debate. I start with an apology; it has been brought to my attention that I referred to the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire as the hon. Member for Monmouthshire. He has been far too kind to correct me. As mitigation, I have been listening to the musical “Hamilton” more than is healthy, where the battle of Monmouth features, but I apologise.

I return to what the Minister said; I noted that she said overseas voters are equal to any of us and are citizens like any other. I do not dispute that at all. When we participate on election day we will be indistinguishable—we will all have the chance to contribute one vote. That is quite right and I do not think there was any suggestion of changing that.

However, the idea that they are citizens like any other does not reflect reality: they are not when it comes to verifying their eligibility at an address, because the electoral registration officer cannot go round their house. To be fair, if my electoral registration officer was offered the chance to go to the Bahamas to verify an overseas voter, he might say yes to that. However, he is also the chief executive of our council so he does not have time. I do not think it is unreasonable to say that the challenges, and the potential for fraud, are different. Therefore, we might need to match our verification process to that situation in a different way. That is not unreasonable and I might want to press the amendment to a vote.

I was interested to hear the Minister say that we would not want people to fall out of the process because they do not have a telephone number or an email address. I have some sympathy for that argument. The direction of travel of voter ID pilots means that lots of people in communities such as mine who do not have passports, driving licences or any of the conventional ways to verify their address might be subject to the same rules. I hope that will not be the case.

[Chloe Smith]

indicated dissent.

[Alex Norris]

The Minister shakes her head, which I am pleased to see. She is clearly passionate about equal access. As we follow the voter ID reforms that are being suggested, I will continue to remind her of that.

I will finish on localism. The Minister is not keen for amendment 36 to be in the Bill because she wants to leave the experts in the local community some leeway. I am a big fan of localism, but when it comes to our democracy and to the verification of voters, I do not think there is much of an argument for variation among communities. We ought to set a clear position in this place on the rules of the game, for everyone’s benefit. If the voter ID pilots became standard across the board, would electoral registration officers be told, “We don’t mind whether you want some sort of photo ID at a polling station.”? I do not think they will have to be given leeway in that sense, so I do not see why there would be leeway in this sense. With that in mind, I will not contribute any further but I do intend to press for a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

I will keep this brief. The Government absolutely recognise the time constraints that can arise when dealing with last-minute applications to register to vote, particularly those from overseas electors because, as we have already discussed, there is more toing and froing involved. For example, the Cabinet Office has fully funded the additional costs faced by local authorities for processing overseas electors and, indeed, all new burdens resulting from the introduction of individual electoral registration in 2014.

We have also already amended the timetable for parliamentary elections in order to maximise the time available for postal vote packs to be printed, posted and returned. It is the standing position to encourage electors to register as early as possible ahead of the registration deadline. I briefly mentioned earlier that introducing online re-registration would help somewhat because that will reduce time elsewhere in the process.

Taken together, those measures seek to avoid a peak of last-minute applications. However, in response to the amendments, I return to an argument that I have used elsewhere. I do not think it would be right to create another difference between overseas electors and UK resident ones, which is what would happen if different registration deadlines are set for both groups. Consequent to that, the process would run into the challenges articulated by my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood, which is that there are other parts of the electoral timetable. He called it “electoral Jenga” and I think I might use that phrase myself. It is correct to say that a change in one part of the timetable would affect other important parts of it. That is simply how our democracy has to fit together in those final weeks. I would not want that to be put in peril or for a different approach to overseas and domestic electors to put anybody at a disadvantage.

I will also briefly point out a technical error in the proposed new clause. I never like saying such things to a Back-Bench Member. I know that the hon. Member for Nottingham North will have worked late into the night to pull this together, and I cast no aspersion on him or his efforts, but I think he might have intended to refer to the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008, which revoked those made in 2001. Given that the proposed new clause is technically flawed, I urge the Committee not to support it.

[Alex Norris]

I thank everyone for their contributions. To answer the substantive point from the hon. Member for Beckenham, the amendment relates to working days, because that is the language of the timetable. If 19 working days became 17 because of a weekend, the proposal would still get my support.

With regard to the hon. Member for Kingswood, we are lucky to have two successive Ministers for the constitution who really take this issue seriously, because that is not a given. I can understand that for the vast the majority of people this stuff might seem a bit dry, but it is exceptionally important. It is also exceptionally important that those who lead take it seriously, and that is greatly appreciated.

I slightly disagree, however, with the hon. Gentleman’s point, despite his neat reference to “electoral Jenga”. The one thing we know about that tangle of wires, which is how I would characterise it, is that many processes are going on simultaneously. I do not think that the proposed change would impact on the strand relating to the nomination of candidates. The example has been given of an individual whose only reason for seeking registration is their enthusiasm for a candidate whose place on the ballot is not secure, but that is a tiny part of a vaster whole and it would not be good to let it injure the whole process.

All electoral administrators will appreciate the kind words of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire. However, I gently express my fear that, although we have been keen to support them and their hard work, I do not think that the Bill reflects that support. We have looked continually at the reports of 2016 and 2017, and at the survey work done elsewhere, but we have not followed their suggestions.

I am grateful for the Minister’s gentle point about my typo. For that reason, I will not press the new clause to a vote. However, I still think that it would have taken the Bill in the right direction, and I ask Committee members to reflect on it.

The Minister regularly says that she does not want a distinction to be made between overseas electors and those living in the UK. I understand that, but that would not be the case—and nobody has suggested that it should be—when it comes to the substantive issue of their participation in democracy. In practical terms, however, there is an obvious difference between the two groups—some thousands of miles’ worth in some cases. If we stopped people in the square to ask them whether overseas electors should be given more time to make an application and to receive and return a voting pack, I think that most of them would think that a sensible idea.

I will not press the amendment to a vote, because of the very good reason that has been pointed out. However, I hope that colleagues will continue to reflect on it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed: 3, in clause 1, page 3, line 34, after “name” insert “and date of birth”.—(Christian Matheson.)

Question put, That the amendment be made.

Overseas Electors Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Alex Norris and Chloe Smith

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Chloe Smith]

I thank my hon. Friend for the opportunity to add further clarity. Essentially, the answer remains simple: all new burdens that arise from this Bill will be funded. I can also reassure the Committee that I am in close touch with the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission, of course, and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives. They are all part of the wider community of registration officers and their colleagues in the relevant parts of local government who do such hard and important work for our society and whom we as a Government seek to support every step of the way.

On future reform, the UK Government, in partnership with the Governments of Scotland and Wales, are seeking to alleviate some of the pressures that relate to the canvass process in our electoral systems. That is another good modernisation opportunity and it will also relieve the pressures that registration officers can find themselves under from some of the aged processes in our electoral law for registering people. I am absolutely in the business of supporting our registration officers, finding ways to help them in their work and, specifically in the case of this Bill, ensuring that any new burdens are met.

Let me turn to some of the smaller changes proposed in the Bill. They are smaller compared with the big point of principle, but of course they are not small at all to an administrator whose job it is to operate the system. I can confirm that we will reduce the amount of information that an elector needs to supply in a renewal of registration. We are going to give EROs a more streamlined system for processing those renewals and recommend email as a method of communication between the ERO and the elector. There are a number of other ways in which we can help streamline those processes so that the Bill can achieve its really important goal—that big principle—while also creating a system that EROs will find operable and easy to play their part in as we extend the franchise to where it should be extended.

[Alex Norris]

I am grateful to colleagues on both sides of the Committee for contributing to an interesting discussion. We have probably set a good shape for the rest of our consideration of the Bill. We have had a discussion about the pragmatic versus the purist. I am not a daft lad—I hope Members have noticed that—so I can read a room, and I get a clear sense that we want a pure and full implementation. I will make my remarks with that in mind.

I was excited to hear the Minister say that there is no desire for gradual or partial admittance or delay, and that if someone is turned away from a polling station and does not come back, that constitutes a denial. I will hold her to that in future sittings and beyond. I was glad to hear the positive messages about resourcing, but we need to understand that things start from the context of deficit: University of East Anglia research from 2016 says that 43% of EROs have suffered real-terms cuts, and in the EU referendum only one quarter of the 254 local authority electoral authorities felt sufficiently resourced to do their jobs. When those new resources are introduced, it must be understood that the existing resources are not sufficient. We have clearly heard today the Minister’s desire to provide resources to electoral registration officers, and I am excited about that.

I hope there will be clear support for the 33 recommendations in the association’s report, which it produced after the 2017 general election, on how to improve elections. If they receive that support, EROs will be able to do their jobs properly and that would enrich all elections. In that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.