Chris Ruane
Main Page: Chris Ruane (Labour - Vale of Clwyd)Department Debates - View all Chris Ruane's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Sadiq Khan
As ever, the hon. Gentleman raises a good question. The evidence from the experts is that of the 11% who were taken off the register about 5% should not have been on there. There has been increased integrity in the Northern Irish system but there has also been continued instability. Those who were originally taken off but should not have been have not come back on as quickly as we would have hoped. One reason for that was that there was not the carry forward—but I shall come to later.
To be fair to the Deputy Prime Minister, he has already confirmed one concession—that the Government are minded not to pursue the so-called opt-out, which would have allowed people effectively to exclude themselves permanently from the electoral register. We welcome that and are looking for more movement from the Government. In that spirit, we have called this debate—so that the Government can hear, at a relatively early stage in the process, some of the concerns that experienced colleagues on both sides of the House have about the Bill.
I remind the House that it was the previous Labour Government who legislated to introduce individual voter registration, with cross-party support. The Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 made provision for the phased introduction of a system of voluntary individual registration up to 2015 and compulsory registration thereafter. The full and final move to an individual voter registration system would not take place until after 2015, the intention being to pace the transition, allowing the Electoral Commission to monitor registration levels adequately and guarding against any adverse decline in the size of the roll. There was genuine cause for a cautious, phased introduction. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) has already referred to the Northern Irish experience, but when Northern Ireland shifted to individual voter registration in 2002, there was an 11% drop in the size of the electoral roll. In the aftermath of that dip, lessons were learned from Northern Ireland’s experiences which were built into our phased approach, complete with safeguards.
The 2009 Act received cross-party support. The individual voter registration provisions—in particular, the timetable and the phased introduction—came in for particular praise. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), who now sits on the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, but who was then the Conservative shadow Minister, said:
“I am very pleased to have the opportunity to put it on the record once and for all that we agree with the Government that the accuracy, comprehensiveness and integrity of the register and…the system is paramount. That is one of the reasons why we will not oppose the timetable the Minister has suggested this evening…the Electoral Commission, electoral registration officers and others who will be involved in the implementation of the Government’s current plans are concerned that this should not be rushed, but taken step by step to ensure that the integrity of the system is protected”.
She also made a commitment that
“any future Conservative Government would never take risks with the democratic process. They would take absolutely no risks with the integrity or comprehensiveness of the register or with its accuracy.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 108-109.]
The then Lib Dem spokesperson, the former Member for Cambridge, David Howarth, said:
“I do not think that anybody was suggesting that the timetable be artificially shortened, or that any risk be taken with the comprehensiveness of the register.”—[Official Report, 13 July 2009; Vol. 496, c. 112.]
I am afraid that some of this Government’s proposals renege on the cross-party support for the 2009 legislation, raising suspicions—fairly or unfairly—about the motives behind the shift in policy. Somehow, during that frenzied period of coalition building in 2010, the coalition agreement conjured up a specific commitment on individual voter registration, saying:
“We will reduce electoral fraud by speeding up the implementation of individual voter registration.”
That expediting of the process was new, having been in neither of the coalition parties’ manifestos.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend have any figures showing the number of prosecutions for electoral fraud? Have there been thousands, or tens of thousands, which would warrant such a speeding up of the process?
Sadiq Khan
My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of electoral fraud, which we must all do our best to fight. I think there were five or six prosecutions in the recent period, which is not at the same level as Northern Ireland, for example, before the changes made there.
Sadiq Khan
This is my first chance to welcome my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) to her place in the House. She has had the most recent experience of fighting an election, and will be aware of the dangers of not having an accurate electoral register. She mentioned one of the important civil functions of the electoral register. She will be aware that the disadvantage for people of deciding not to be on the register is that they will not be able to serve on a jury, which can lead to the make-up of juries becoming skewed. Instead of being tried by one’s peers, a person can end up being tried only by those who are on the electoral register, rather than by a jury reflecting all those who are eligible to be on it.
The original justification for the proposals was not to save money, but that has now been put forward as a reason for speeding up the shift to individual electoral registration. This and the partisan nature of some of the Government’s other constitutional proposals, including the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 and the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, make some people suspicious of the motivation behind the Government’s proposals. Adding to the suspicion is the speeded-up timetable in the draft Bill, which is the meat of the motion before us. The draft Bill also proposes the removal of safeguards previously agreed by all the parties.
We are concerned about proposed changes to the civic duty involved in registering to vote. Under the household registration system, failure to comply with the request by an electoral registration officer to complete a registration form could result in a £1,000 fine. Despite few prosecutions, the threat of a fine has itself had a positive impact on registration levels, as has been confirmed by electoral registration officers around the country. The warning, written in a bold large font on the front of the letter from the electoral registration officer, served as a genuine motivation to respond. Our fear, which is shared by others, is that removing the threat of a fine will have a negative impact on registration levels.
Chris Ruane
My right hon. Friend has referred to local authorities that have successfully used the threat of the £1,000 fine to increase registration rates. May I point to the example of Rhyl West, where 2,500 people were registered? The council had a crackdown, which involved placing a warning on the registration form stating that people would be fined £1,000 if they did not fill it in. It explained that failure to fill in the form would result in the chief executive sending a letter to the non-registered person and turning the matter over to his legal department. The level of voter registration went up from 2,500 to 3,500 in one year as a result.
Sadiq Khan
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I have seen evidence for what he mentions, and the local authority has confirmed that it increased registration rates from 2,500 to 3,500 because of the use of that threat and a rigorous approach. As my hon. Friend suggests, the removal of the fine will diminish the ability of electoral registration officers to do their job effectively, risking damaging consequences for our democracy and society. Although the penalty for not fulfilling the current legal duty is not often imposed, it is not without effect, as has been said. It contributes to a general sense that registering to vote is a civic duty—a responsibility—and not merely an individual right or a lifestyle choice.
The Parliamentary Secretary and the Deputy Prime Minister have both declared from the Dispatch Box that the threat of the £1,000 fine is not being removed, since under their new proposals the offence of failing to respond remains for a household canvass. However, the House needs to understand the proposed changes in detail. There will indeed continue to be a form for the head of the household to complete, which is called a “household enquiry form” or HEF, and a £1,000 fine will remain for failing to comply with the request of the electoral registration officer to complete that form. Whereas completing the household registration form as it stands currently leads to those listed being registered to vote by the local authority on the processing of the form, under the new system the HEF is simply a way of capturing data on who might be eligible to vote in a property. That data will then be used by the local authority to follow up each of the named individuals with a personal approach containing a voter registration form. However, there is no legal duty to comply with a local authority request to complete an individual registration form and there is no threat of a £1,000 fine for not responding. We believe that that is a dangerous anomaly in the proposed legislation, which we fear could have a damaging effect on registration levels.
Chris Ruane
I was one of those who did not want the previous Government to introduce the measure, but consensus was gained and it was introduced. That consensus has now been destroyed for the sake of a single year. The Government have shattered that consensus across the country—not just in Parliament but outside, too. Why do so just for one year? Is it anything to do with the 2015 election and the boundary freeze date of 1 December 2015?
Mr Harper
No, it is not. If the hon. Gentleman will listen, we have introduced proposals having learned from the experience of Northern Ireland, for example in the carry-forward, to make sure that we minimise the risk of any drop in the registered electorate before the 2015 election. Between that election and the drawing up of registers for the next boundary review, there will be another full household canvass. There are therefore good safeguards in the system to make sure that the general election and the 2015 boundary review are held on the most accurate and complete registers possible. I shall say a little more about that later.
I do not think that it is correct to say that the Government have eroded the civic duty of registering to vote. It is not an offence—this comes back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) made—not to be registered to vote. It is an offence to refuse to provide information to an electoral registration officer on the household canvass form when required to do so. We do not propose to change that, but I must note that there is some doubt about how effective that is, given that about 15% of electors are not registered to vote. I shall say a little more about that later.
I accept that the way in which we phrased our original proposals, with regard to the opt-out and some of the language that we used—I said this when I gave evidence to the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform—could have led people to think that we wanted to weaken the extent to which we felt citizens had an obligation to register to vote. The Deputy Prime Minister and I have both said that we are minded to change that provision when we introduce our Bill. To be fair, the right hon. Member for Tooting acknowledged that.
Chris Ruane
The evidence that I gave earlier from Rhyl in my constituency was that in the poorest ward in the whole of Wales—there are 1,900 sub-wards in Wales and this is the poorest—registration went up 2,500 to 3,500 in one year because of the threat of the fine. If the Minister does not want to make failure to register a criminal offence, how about a fixed penalty notice of £70 or £80? If people are determined to stay off the register, that is up to them, but they would face a £70 fine. If that happens time and again, perhaps he would consider making it a criminal offence after two or three times. How about that?
Mr Harper
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raised that. He made exactly that point at Deputy Prime Minister’s questions on 15 November and my right hon. Friend said that we would look into it. Indeed, I did. Although the numbers did broadly increase as the hon. Gentleman says, they did not do so over a year. The increase in the electorate in Rhyl West from 2,474 to 3,531 took place over a period of nine years—[Interruption.] I am sorry, I have the number of electors registered in front of me. I will not bore the House by reading them out, but the increase took place over a period of eight years, so I am afraid I do not think he has got his facts quite right.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
The Electoral Commission has said that the current proposals would be the biggest changes in registration since 1832. That reference to the 19th century is apt. In the 19th century, electoral change enfranchised men—much of it was geared around property ownership, but it was nevertheless progress. In the 20th century—I believe it was in 1920—the vote was extended to women. The 20th century will be remembered for that. The 21st century, however, could be remembered as the time when the Liberals and the Conservatives kept or chased 16 million British voters off the electoral register.
Chris Ruane
I have got the message, and I understand it: the message is about political gain. The Minister is right that his proposals should be judged on the impact they have on registration rates. We will hold him to that and I am glad he said it. He said his proposals would lead to a more accurate and more comprehensive register. We will be watching every step of the way.
I should also point out how the previous Labour Administration operated on crucial constitutional and electoral issues in their 13 years and beyond in office.
Chris Ruane
No, I will not.
The previous Administration operated in a consensual, co-operative, non-partisan way. I shall give three examples. We had a sufficient majority to foist first past the post on the devolved Assemblies and Parliament, but we did not do things the way Labour might have wanted. We were consensual and adopted proportional representation. In around 2000, Labour introduced PR for European elections. That meant Wales went from having five seats to one seat. Labour introduced PR for local government in Scotland. That was against Labour’s electoral best wishes, but we introduced it. We were consensual.
On registration, in 2001 Labour introduced a rule that took thousands if not millions off the register. We said, “If you don’t sign the register two years in a row, you go off it, even if we know you are still in that house.” We did that so that we could have an accurate register.
In 2009, we gained consensus on individual registration. I am in favour of individual registration if we have a comprehensive register to start with. Anything less than that will result in a greater and faster fall in the number of people who are registered. This Parliament has a reputation—it is known around the world as the mother of Parliaments—but if this coalition Government introduce legislation that ends up with 16 million people off the register, we will be laughed at around the world.
In 2009, when Labour introduced individual registration, we learned the lessons from Northern Ireland. We realised that there were 3.5 million off the register. The time scale that we came up with—a five or six-year period up to 2015—was sufficient to increase the number of registered voters. There was consensus and agreement on that. In the meantime, we improved data matches, commissioned more research and had stricter electoral registration officer invigilation. In 2010, we put an extra 400,000 people on the register.
We can compare and contrast that with what the Conservative-Liberal coalition has done. It has brought that date forward from 2015 to 2014, pushed back the date of the next election to 2015, introduced an opt-out, and changed the wording from “civic duty” to “lifestyle choice”. This is not happenstance: the Conservatives have a bigger and bolder vision. They failed with the poll tax in the 1990s to drive millions of poorer people off the register, but they are taking a second bite at the cherry. The Liberal Democrats should watch out. They might think they are doing well out of this, but the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) had one of the lowest registration rates in Wales, with 54% registration rates in Bronglais ward. It is an issue that affects Liberal Democrats as well as Labour, so they should be warned.
The Electoral Commission dropped two bombshells. One was that the number of unregistered people in the UK was not 3.5 million but 6 million, which will rise to 8.5 million. That was no bombshell to me, because I had met Experian 18 months previously and was told it was6 million. I gave that information to the Electoral Commission and people there almost laughed at it. They have commissioned research and they say that my 6 million is not the same 6 million as theirs. That means it could be even more, but the fact remains there were 6 million in December 2010, rising to 8.5 million by April 2011. The profile of those unregistered people is black and ethnic, young people living in houses in multiple occupation, the low paid and the unemployed. There are 6 million missing now, and potentially an additional 10 million if these proposals go ahead.
The proposed legislation will have unintended—or perhaps intended—consequences. I ask the Minister, who is jabbering away, what consultation he has had with the police on these issues, because much of the reduction in registration that will result from his legislation will be in areas with high levels of crime. I know that the Association of Chief Police Officers and the police are not happy with the proposals. What consultations has the Minister had with the judiciary? These proposals will have a direct impact on jury service, as juries are selected from the electoral register. People will not be judged by a jury of their peers, but by a jury of some of their peers—often richer peers. The credit reference agencies use the electoral register, and the changes might push people towards loan sharks. Charities and fund-raising organisations are also concerned.
Chris Ruane
The freeze date for the next Boundary Commission review is December 2015. There will be a carry-over to the general election in May 2015, but there will be no carry-over to the 1 December deadline so we could see a reduction from 90% registration rates to 60%—an extra 10 million of the poorest people not on the register. If we think the boundary review is bad this time, it will be 10 times as bad in December 2015. I warn the Liberal Democrats again: they have bitten off more than they can chew and should think carefully.
I ask the Minister to listen not to me—he probably thinks I am biased—but to the Electoral Commission, and to the Electoral Reform Society which has described these measures as “catastrophic”. I ask him to listen to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and the academics. All those bodies and people have massive reservations about these proposals.
The Minister mentioned developing countries. If we saw a developing country trying to shift a third of its poorest voters off the electoral register, we would send in observers in a heartbeat. We will become the laughing stock of the world if the Minister and his coalition partners introduce the legislation as proposed.