EU Referendum: Voter Registration

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 9th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I was going to come to that later but will deal with it now. With individual registration, it is imperative that every new registration is cross-checked with national insurance data and, if necessary, Border Agency data. There is no post-registration audit of electoral registers, so anybody who is mis-registered stays on them. This needs to be looked at, because we have no idea how many non-UK EU nationals not from Malta, Cyprus or Ireland are recorded as eligible to vote and have been sent ballot papers, not because of a software glitch but simply because they were mis-registered, either on purpose or inadvertently. Indeed, one electoral returning officer told a member of the House of Commons Library—off the record—that if somebody lies on their registration form and it cannot be checked, nothing can be done about it. The person still has to be registered. There is no way of cross-checking to find out whether someone has lied.

[Mr Hollobone]

I am listening to my hon. Friend’s remarks with great care. This is an issue for my constituents, who are really concerned about it. If an EU citizen in the borough of Kettering applies to be on the register but ticks the wrong box—either inadvertently or deliberately—and declares that they are a UK citizen, can that be picked up and the application rejected? I have not yet heard that there is a mechanism for doing that, and certainly not if there are to be 100,000 or hundreds of thousands in just a few hours.

[Mr Jenkin]

My hon. Friend raises a legitimate question, and we should inquire further into it. There should be a fail-safe way of ensuring that someone is who they say they are when they register their vote. At the moment, there is not. If people on the register now who are registered incorrectly are being sent ballot papers, and if it is not due to a software glitch, there is no way of picking it up.

I have urged the Electoral Commission to make more public statements, because the system now has different franchises for different purposes. Why will there not be notices in polling stations? The electoral officer is bound to offer a ballot paper to someone who is on the register, but a “Read this” notice could make it clear that people who are not eligible to vote but who knowingly do so commit a criminal offence.

Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Philip Hollobone

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I think the danger is not that those things will happen, but that people will say that they may seem to be happening. Curiously, it might make it harder for the Government to put a friend or supporter into a public appointment job if the Minister is more directly involved. The current arrangements were created to protect Ministers.

If Ministers are frustrated that the wrong people are being interviewed, that people are being appointed according to the wrong job specifications or that people with the right skills are not being given an interview, it is up to them to make sure that the job specification for a job is as they think it should be before the recruitment process starts.

I will not defend the public appointments process in total. The Grimstone review has started a much-needed debate about public appointments, but before my Committee and I give a definitive view of Sir Gerry Grimstone’s proposals, we want to consider all the arguments and all the evidence.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend and his Committee on their excellent publication and the robustness of their recommendations, and I congratulate him on his statement to the House. What was Mr Riddell’s response when the Committee put the points that my hon. Friend has made to him? Does my hon. Friend foresee Mr Riddell being invited back before the Committee before the end of 12 months?

[Mr Jenkin]

On the latter point, we certainly intend to give Mr Riddell an opportunity to appear before the Committee before too long to see how he is settling into his new role. We would not have agreed to his appointment unless we were convinced that he was determined to be independent, but with so many of his powers being questioned and with Ministers substantively proposing to take back control of the appointments process, how he carries out the role will be crucial. How he maintains the importance of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments will be very interesting to observe.

We would like whatever changes are made to be made on the basis of consensus. We have picked up a certain amount of—how shall I say it?—tension between civil servants and Ministers about these appointments. There may be an opportunity to build a better understanding of both parties, so that these changes are not necessary.

SELECT COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 11th February 2016 Commons Chamber

Mr Jenkin

- Hansard -

The proposals only become an issue in Scotland if they are misrepresented—but they are capable of being misrepresented, and that is why they are unsatisfactory.

I cannot vote on matters devolved to the Scottish Parliament in relation to the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, and all this is trying to do is to make sure that there is a measure of restraint on how he votes on the same matters in relation to my constituency. That is perfectly logical. The problem is that what is resolved for Scotland in the form of the Scottish Parliament is resolved for England in a completely different and almost incomprehensible way. The lack of consensus on that leaves us in a very difficult situation.

However, I urge the hon. Gentleman not to go around stirring up a false grievance in his constituency, which would be quite difficult, on the basis that he should somehow be able to vote about schools, hospitals or even tax rates in Harwich, when he cannot vote on those matters in respect of his own constituents. The Scottish Parliament will vary the rate of Scottish income tax; that is not something on which he can vote in this House. These matters are very complicated.

This is my advice to the House. Let us approach this in a different way. Let us have a more frank and open conversation. Perhaps we should have more conversations in private so that we can befriend and learn to trust each other and make progress on that basis.

Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

I commend my hon. Friend for his statement, and he and his Committee for their excellent report. Pages 25 to 27 are packed with juicy soundbites. One is:

“It is highly regrettable that the 1997 Parliament voted to proceed with devolution…without proper consideration being given to the well-rehearsed West Lothian Question.”

I say, “Hear, hear” to that. The report goes on to say that

“we have significant doubts that the current Standing Orders are the right answer or that they represent a sustainable solution.”

It also states that it is up to the Government to be

“working towards a new and durable constitutional settlement for the United Kingdom”.

He has entitled his report “part one” and I understand that further parts are to follow. How many volumes does he think his Committee will produce? In which volume will he come up with the answer to this thorny question?

Mr Jenkin

- Hansard -

I cannot answer either of the last two questions, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks and for reading out to the House some of the report. This may be a long journey, but I think we must approach it with an open mind. We must be prepared to think what we thought we would never think. We must be prepared to sit down with people we have implacably opposed in the past. I hope, in that spirit, that the House will accept the report and that it will support the Committee’s work on future inquiries and reports.

Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs committee

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 4th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his remarks. Yes, this is an opening salvo—both reports are opening salvos—about governance. The question of governance extends beyond charities to how the whole of Whitehall is governed—all the public bodies and the civil service, and how we govern the contractual exchanges between the public and the private sectors from Whitehall. Governance is not just about compliance and box-ticking. Governance is about the exercise of judgment by the people who are accountable for what occurs, and I hope that fellow Select Committee Chairs and I will pursue the matter of governance across the whole of the public sector and the parts of the private sector that are funded by the public sector.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend and his Committee for his report and for his statement to the House today. On pages 47 to 49 of his excellent report he is excoriating in his criticism of the two Ministers who signed off the direction in June 2015 to give Kids Company £3 million, against the advice of the permanent secretary to the Cabinet Office. One of those Ministers, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, was good enough to give evidence to the Committee and has shown courtesy to the House by being here today. The other, the Paymaster General, does not appear to have given evidence to my hon. Friend’s Committee and is not in the House today. In his report, the Chairman writes:

“In neither his letter of direction nor his oral evidence has Mr Letwin provided convincing justification for his and Mr Hancock’s decision to ignore the comprehensive advice of senior officials . . . This grant should not have been authorised contrary to advice.”

In the Government’s response to his Committee’s report, can we expect a ministerial apology from both Ministers involved and a clear explanation of how the £2 million which is still missing will be found?

[Mr Jenkin]

I have heard everything that my hon. Friend has said. The report speaks for itself. I hope very much that the Government will give a full and clear explanation in response to the report. I am sure that they will. I have never doubted the integrity of the two Ministers who signed the letter of direction at all. We must wait for the Government’s response. In the end, I am not responsible for the Government’s response.

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: UK Delegation

Debate between Bernard Jenkin and Philip Hollobone

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jenkin]

Without straying too much into Greek terminology, I think that what Prime Ministers have they tend to want to keep and not give up. There was perhaps a failure of imagination about the effect of what people wanted to do, but that has provided this House with an opportunity to review, to debate, and, I hope, in due course to decide on how to make sure that we bring our procedures into the democratic age.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on his statement and the way he made it, and thank him and his Committee for producing this report in a most timely fashion since the controversy arose. He has lifted the stone from the rather murky, grubby world of the use and abuse of Government patronage. I congratulate him on doing that and support his recommendations.

With the Select Committee example, we have a perfect opportunity to elect all our delegations to international bodies on a full, free and fair basis. As a member of the Backbench Business Committee, may I invite him to present to us his case for his recommendations to form part of a motion that could be voted on by this House? Now that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) has said that we have the support of Opposition Front Benchers, and given the importance that the Council of Europe attaches to motions of this House, but not necessarily to the views of Her Majesty’s Government, it would be a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate that this House is fully behind his recommendations.

[Mr Jenkin]

I am very grateful for, and flattered by, my hon. Friend’s invitation. It is important to say that were I to undertake to do this, I would want some assurances from those who say they support these proposals that they will make strenuous efforts to make sure that people turn up and vote for them, because we often have debates in this House where very few turn up, and then the Government decide to take no notice. The Member for Great Grimsby (Melanie Onn) is nodding and saying that that may well be the case, so it will be a very worthwhile thing for me to do. I will consider it and hope to bring forward a motion proposed by every member of my Committee.