Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I will make a couple of comments on the amendment. I am a bit wary of it. I rather shared the view of the Electoral Commission in their evidence to us:

“The Commission is clear, however, that any change should only be made if there is firm evidence that it would be of significant benefit to electors. At present, the evidence on weekend voting provides an insufficient basis on which to reach a definitive conclusion”.

Therefore we would need a far stronger evidence base before proceeding. Moving to this for the next election would be rather an experiment, on a bit too grand a scale. We need much better evidence before proceeding.

I raise a more general point that I have variously developed before. I am always concerned that discussing such proposals can amount to a form of displacement activity by politicians. Voter dissatisfaction and apathy have little to do with the process of voting. If people are motivated to vote, they will vote. To motivate people to vote we need to address policies and political behaviour. Politicians cannot say, “It is not us, it is the system”. I fear it is us. We need to be addressing that and doing so in a sustained manner. With amendments of this sort, however well intentioned—clearly they are, and there is a case for discussing it—my worry is that it actually risks masking a much more important debate that we need to have. We need to open it up on a much wider scale. There is the obvious point that if we make a change of the sort proposed by my noble friend this is perhaps not the appropriate time or Bill to do it. We have already messed around this afternoon with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I do not think that we need to be messing about now with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this is always an interesting one; it feels so natural that it must be easier to vote over two days than over one, and at a weekend. On the face of it, the proposal seems very attractive. However, following on from the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in all the doorstep work I have done—and I have done a fair amount—it has never been a complaint that I have heard. Although it sounds quite attractive, I have never heard people saying, “Why don’t we vote at the weekend?”. However, perhaps we should look to France. When we were discussing the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, I think noble Lords were saying that we should follow France, which votes on a Sunday. Much more importantly, of course, they voted socialist on a Sunday, so we should definitely follow what France does.

It sounds attractive but we are perhaps in a closer place to the Government in that we await some evidence about whether this merely sounds attractive and easy, or whether it would do what I think all of us want and increase public engagement and accessibility for voters, which we are going to come on to in an important amendment shortly. What we need is evidence and some more thought on this, and we will then happily look at it. If evidence is brought to us that this would increase both turnout and engagement, we would respond quite positively. However, at the moment, we are slightly lacking that evidence.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, first, I thank my noble friend for moving this amendment, because it has given us an opportunity to consider the points on weekend voting. This amendment would amend the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, to change the current position, whereby the date of the parliamentary general election is on a fixed day, to a position whereby the Prime Minister would specify by order that polling for the next general election could take place on any day, or on two consecutive days, between 2 May and 10 May 2015. The provision would then apply for subsequent general elections every five years over the course of one day, or two consecutive days, and within the first 10 days of May. I understand that this is to allow the Government to consider the case for weekend voting and to implement it at the next UK parliamentary general election in 2015 and at subsequent general elections. This is clearly an important issue.

As noble Lords will be aware, there are arguments both for and against moving polling day from the traditional Thursday to another day or days, perhaps at the weekend. Similarly, there are arguments for and against holding elections over more than one day. We know that moving to weekend voting would raise particular issues and concerns for certain faith groups. However, it is not obvious that moving polling day from the traditional Thursday to a Saturday or Sunday, or both, would make it easier for electors to vote.

The most recent assessment of opinion on this issue was a consultation exercise undertaken in 2008 by the previous Government, which made the findings public. The overall response was against a move to weekend voting, with some 53% of respondents taking that view. Additionally, where weekend voting has been tested in a small number of electoral voting pilots, the total take-up was generally around 2% to 3% of the overall total number of votes cast, and there is no evidence to suggest that it encouraged voters to vote who would not have otherwise done so.

For these reasons, I do not believe that this is the appropriate legislative vehicle to make such a change, or even to open up the possibility for the Prime Minister to make the change later without, as the amendment is drafted, the consent of either House. Moreover, alongside concerns about practicability, moving to weekend voting would also raise resource and cost issues. Importantly, an impact assessment undertaken by the Ministry of Justice in February 2010 under the previous Government concluded that moving from Thursday to weekend voting would increase costs significantly. Staff, polling station and counting costs would all rise with weekend voting, as would the costs of storing and securing ballot papers over two days at the weekend. The impact assessment estimated that, in total, costs would increase by around £58 million per general election. This clearly is not the primary factor, but it is one that we should consider in discussing this amendment.

Given that there is no clear evidence that the electorate would favour such a move to weekend voting, the Government have no current plans to move polling day for either the general or other elections to the weekend. However, they will keep under review ways in which the democratic process can be enhanced. For these reasons, I hope that my noble friend will agree to withdraw his amendment.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

52A: Clause 15, page 9, line 12, at end insert—
“( ) In section 13(4), at end insert “provided that the registration officer shall not make any such changes if an election specified in section 13B(4) is scheduled to take place within 30 days of publication of the revised version of the register.””

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords. This amendment stand in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton and myself. It is quite a small amendment about trying to counter electoral fraud. Luckily, we do not have an enormous history of electoral fraud here, but if anyone did want to do it, the easy way is to add a small number of electors to the register fraudulently over several months. The problem is that the shorter the time between them doing it and when the election takes place, the harder it would be for that attempted fraud to be identified. That is the problem that this amendment tries to meet.

The police commissioner elections took place quickly after the new register, when there would not have been time to do any checks. Probably, that is not good practice, although we understand the reasons. The other issue is that we need the register in good time for an election so those of us sad people who go round door-knocking have time to identify everyone who is on it and give them the opportunity to meet us and hear what we have to say. I know that the Government acknowledge that there is possibly something in this that could be looked at. The Government are not convinced that it would reduce fraud, but would be happy to look at these implications with the electoral administrators. We welcome that.

We have a concern about this potential fraud and would therefore ask if the Government agree that we need to take steps to prevent the sort of events that we saw in the 2007 Slough postal vote frauds occurring again. Perhaps the Government could also explain why they think this amendment risks producing new risks, whereas it is obviously aimed at reducing the potential for fraud. I beg to move.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for bringing forward this amendment. As I understand it, the amendment seeks to provide that those electors who remain on the register following the canvass would retain their existing electoral number if an election were to take place within 30 days of the publication of the register.

The amendment raises a number of practical considerations and could make the process for compiling the register, and the register itself, more complex. It may also result in additional costs for electoral registration officers if their IT systems have to be adjusted to meet these new requirements.

It is not certain that the amendment would necessarily address the concerns that were quite rightly raised by the noble Baroness, especially as implementing the proposed change could take up the time of EROs that could more usefully be spent on other matters arising from their registration duties. Of course, individual electoral registration is being introduced to tackle electoral fraud and to improve the integrity of our electoral system, in particular the electoral register.

The proposed change could lead to confusion in the data being included on the register; for example, it is not clear what would happen when electors are removed from the register following an annual canvass. If it is intended that the numbers for such electors are not to be used on the new register, this would result in gaps in the numbering of electors on the register. It is not clear how electors who are added to the register would be numbered; it may mean that a different numbering system would be used for new electors. This could mean that persons living at the same address are subject to different numbering systems and their names could appear on different parts of the register, which I understand could be an issue for the logistics of producing and distributing poll cards. When a revised register is published, parties will in any event need to update the data they hold to reflect changes to the register; that is, persons removed and added to the register.

On the face of it, this amendment could bring added complexity and cost to the electoral registration process without bringing the obvious benefit that I know the noble Baroness is focused on, which is the reduction of electoral fraud. For those reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I thank the Minister for that. Certainly, we do not want to add complexity. As someone who has gone round knocking on doors, the last thing we want is different numbers within the same households, for reasons that I think we all understand.

I am grateful to the Minister as I think I heard him say that he understands what we are trying to avoid. If the Government or the Electoral Commission can perhaps work with electoral officers and look at that issue of having time to check on fraud, we will leave it to their good offices to do that. On that basis, I withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 52A withdrawn.

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[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I shall make a few comments on the amendment, to which I added my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and other noble Lords have made clear, the need for the change has been questioned on the grounds that at the previous election, problems arose in only a small number of polling stations. As they have said, that surely cannot be a strong argument against the amendment. Everyone who wishes to vote and arrives at a polling station before 10 pm must be accommodated. That is the principle from which we must not deviate. The comparatively few cases of difficulty that occurred in the 2010 election were widely publicised and aroused considerable concern, as they were broadcast on television throughout the country. That does no good for the image and reputation of our electoral system. A repetition simply must be avoided.

It has also been said that all voters should be able to make their way to the polling station well before 10 pm. Who can tell what personal difficulty or domestic problem might arise in the case of particular voters, causing them to arrive at a polling station at the last minute? The country needs the assurance that the official in charge of each polling station will devise clear, practical and sensible arrangements well understood by his or her colleagues running the station to enable all those who arrive before 10 pm to cast their votes. That is why the amendment is to be commended.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, it is very hard to imagine that the Government will say anything but yes to the amendment—no, I do not think that I am quite getting that message back.

I am sorry about that. I hope that between now and Report, the Government will think about the amendment seriously. The numbers here may not be as full as they were earlier, but it is clear that it is pretty widely supported. We on all these Benches fully support it. As we have heard, so does the Electoral Commission. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, suggested that it has been left up to individual assistant returning officers. It is not fair to put it on to their shoulders, particularly if there is a TV camera looking over them at that point, whether they decide to be sensible or not; whether the queue is inside or outside; or whether, if there is more than one ballot paper because we have a multiple election, as we often do, and people have one in their hand but not the other, they are to deny them that vote. It is not fair for the decision to be on the person in charge of that polling station.

I also do not think that it is fair that if you turn up at 10 o’clock in a nice, quiet area you can wander in—as sometimes one does in the Lobby here when there are not many on our side—but if you as an elector happen to turn up in a busy area, you will be discriminated against because other people will also have turned up late.

I had not heard of the government advice to turn up early. That is the reverse of what we had when I was young: it was called drinking-up time. We used to be allowed 10 minutes that way. That suggests that the Government want us all to be there at 10 minutes to the hour. We do risk assessments elsewhere, where we look at likelihood and impact. I think that the Government are right that the likelihood of this is low. Returning officers have realised that there are cameras and that they should not do that again. The likelihood may be low, but the impact will be high both on those going to the polling station—it is serious that they cannot vote—and on those watching on television people who have turned out to vote but who are not allowed to. We do not want that. I hope that the Government will think again about this.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)]

My Lords, I thought that I had had enough excitement for today, but this is an interesting debate. At first sight, everyone was positively affronted by the fact that people intending to vote found themselves in a queue and were unable to do so. At the previous election it was a disgrace. If I remember the press reports right, one of the queues was well over 100 people long. It was clearly a huge error on the part of the people responsible for organising the polling stations. Contrary to what has been implied, these were not people turning up at the last minute. The queues had formed during the day and existed for quite a lot of the evening. Those of us involved in elections will know that the peak time for voting tends to be between 5 pm and about 8 pm. If a queue has formed then—it can happen; I think that most of us will have seen that—one would hope it is not big enough to disadvantage voters who come along later. However, the size of the queues at the previous election—which were reported during the day—clearly impaired the ability of people to vote, and that is not a good thing.

I am going to disappoint noble Lords, particularly those on the Constitution Committee, because I know that my honourable friend Chloe Smith talked to them last Wednesday. The answers she gave them are very similar to the answers I am going to give. I hope that the House will forgive me. It may be that those answers are right. We have to think through a change of this nature and think of the consequences. The Constitution Committee, as the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Lexden, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, said, also supported this aim and obviously has given this matter a great deal of thought. It takes the view that this would give greater clarity. We need to write the discretion of the polling station clerk into law so that they can do that. I appreciate the sentiment behind the amendment, but we are not entirely sure that it would help to clarify the present arrangements.

While it might seem initially like a sensible response to the queueing at 9.40 pm, there is a real danger of creating unintended consequences and reducing the clarity and certainty of the law. As it stands, the law is very clear—a ballot paper cannot be issued after 10 pm. Elections are quite precise affairs. Votes are a matter of quite fine delineation and that is particularly true in local government elections. Although queues in local government elections are relatively rare, they were referred to in the Scottish local government elections. Returning officers, polling station clerks and voters know where they stand because it is enshrined in law. The present certainty around the time of close of poll and what close of poll actually means—no issuing of the ballot paper—also facilitates other aspects, for example, the requirement that exit polls cannot be published until the polls have closed. If the polls have not closed somewhere because there is a queue this makes it much more difficult for those responsible for public exit polls to be sure that anything they say may not influence a potential voter. It may sound pedantic but we are talking about something which requires precision. What would be the impact of this on the timing of results if a significant number of electors queued up? I do not think it is beyond the wit of certain people to have a bit of fun with this and to form a queue. It can be done and it might occur. There is also the risk that some people might use this as an opportunity to make a public statement about elections, particularly in areas where tensions exist.

It has been remarked that controlling and delineating a queue is quite difficult. Where is a queue? What is a queue? Most of us think that we know one when we see one, but not many of us would like to take responsibility for actually harnessing a queue, particularly without the power of a police officer. After all, the police officer is not acting under the instructions of the returning officer. A police officer would not wish to interfere with what constituted a queue, while those administering the election might be better off issuing ballot papers rather than trying to organise a queue. I am suggesting that there are factors of people control and definition that are important.

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The Government take the view that the responsibility for ensuring that there are no queues at polling stations is not the responsibility of the voter but should be the responsibility of the returning officers by providing sufficient staff to deal with predicted levels of turnout. That must be the right way forward, and I think that all noble Lords will know that lessons will have been learnt from the 2010 queues.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

The Minister is spending quite a lot of time on the word “queues”. It would be helpful, not least for those who tabled the amendment, if he could say whether the Government would also have a problem if the amendment said,

“A voter who is in the polling station … at the time specified … shall be entitled to apply for a ballot paper”,

or if it is simply the matter of the queues that they have a problem with.

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Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

60: Clause 25, page 14, line 19, leave out subsection (3)

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this amendment would delete subsection (3) which states that:

“An order under subsection (1) may appoint different dates for different purposes (including different days for different parts of the United Kingdom)”;

that is, to commence the Act, as it will become. This gives the Minister considerable power and we would not willingly see that handed over because it will enable a pick-and-mix approach towards when different parts of the Bill come in.

My particular questions concern the provision, I think for the first time, to commence different parts of the Bill in different parts of the United Kingdom. It is slightly hard to understand what the Government have in mind in writing that into the Bill. This is, after all, an all-UK provision, even if votes take place in different parts of the country. This Bill is about a new system of electoral registration and who will be on the register in the future. We would like to know why the Government feel they need a power to bring in just by ministerial order different parts of the Bill in different parts of the United Kingdom. I beg to move.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, this amendment seeks to remove a technical part of the Bill—namely, Clause 25(3)—which would mean that the order commencing the provisions in the Bill would not be able to state different dates for different purposes. The subsection in question is a standard provision in legislation and the effect of this amendment would be to prevent the commencement of different parts of the Bill at the most appropriate times.

The Bill is set up to make changes over a two-year transition period. It is drafted with that in mind, and some provisions are specifically drafted to commence at different times. It is presumably not the Opposition’s intention that the planned two-year transition would become a big bang switchover with all the preparation work having to be done at the same time that IER was live.

The amendment would also mean that the much-needed improvements to the administration of elections contained in Part 2 could not be commenced until the provisions under Part 1 relating to IER were ready to be commenced. This would result in either delay in the electoral administration provisions being commenced or the Government being required to commence provisions of the Bill well before they intend to use the powers enabled by them.

The amendment would undermine the entire transition to IER, for example, by not allowing the Government to bring forward an order delaying this year’s canvass until IER was in force, thus defeating the purpose of doing so. It would also mean that electoral administration provisions under the Bill could be commenced only all at once and only alongside the IER provisions. For these reasons, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I think the noble Lord did not answer my main question. What is the intention behind allowing it for different parts of the United Kingdom? We are less worried about the staging of the Bill. Why bring it in at different times for different parts of the United Kingdom?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I am not aware in detail of the issue raised by the noble Baroness. I had better write to her about that because there is a point that needs clarification—unless a further message reaches me, which would be extremely timely so that we can tidy this up. My message tells me that this legislation has been designed to be as flexible as possible, and that is why the legislation is drafted such as it is. Perhaps I could consider the matter and come back to the noble Baroness.

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[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

That offer is helpful. The bit that worried us was about it being done in different parts of the country at a different time. With the kind offer to write on that detail, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 60 withdrawn.