Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Chris Ruane Excerpts

Tuesday 29th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend has the advantage of me, but the ministerial code explicitly states the circumstances in which ministerial collective responsibility can be set aside. That is for the Prime Minister to decide, notwithstanding either the coalition agreement or the ministerial code.

Returning to the review, Members of this House must be aware that not only is the principle of equality and fairness relevant, but the review will have the effect of bringing down the number of Members here from 650 to 600, cutting the cost of politics by £13.5 million a year. As we are cutting back on administration and costs across the whole of the public services, it is only right that we apply the same principles to ourselves.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

On inequality, how equal is it to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 and increase the number of Members of the House of Lords by an extra 125 since 2010? Where is the equity in that?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman and Opposition Members know perfectly well that if they had supported a programme motion on House of Lords reform, we would have been able to reform the House of Lords and reduce the number of Members in the Lords. But no, they did not do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

My hon. Friend is right to remind the House of the lessons we can learn from Northern Ireland. A recent report by the Electoral Commission recorded its concern about the record drop in the number of people on the register.

[Chris Ruane]

A few moments ago, my right hon. Friend said that thousands of people will be missing from the register. The true figure is that there are 6.5 million people missing from it—and these are often among the most marginalised people in the country. I believe that it is wrong to go ahead with the boundary review without having secured these missing millions back on the register.

[Sadiq Khan]

As ever, my hon. Friend makes a very good point.

The Lords amendment has two main principles, the first of which concerns the shift to individual electoral registration. We need time to allow for the switch to the new system to bed down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sadiq Khan]

I have been very generous, as the hon. Lady knows. I will make some progress, and if I have time after that, I will give way.

Labour legislated for individual electoral registration in 2009. The timetable and safeguards that we proposed at the time received cross-party support, but there was a general recognition that risks would be involved in the transition, which is why it was spread over a number of years. However, the Bill in its unamended form has watered down some of the safeguards that we introduced, thus failing to take account of risks that could mean the loss of millions of eligible voters from the register.

The complexities of the move are enormous. It involves the carry-over of existing registered voters for periods of the transition, the simultaneous piloting of data-matching schemes, a drive to show the public how to register, and changes in the way in which local authorities seek to register voters and how they should deal with a refusal to co-operate. As the Government themselves admit,

“Individual Electoral Registration (IER) is the biggest change to our system of electoral registration for almost a century and it is essential we get it right”.

[Chris Ruane]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I want to make some progress first.

I agree wholeheartedly with that statement. “Getting it right” means that we must allow sufficient time to check that the transition does not result in millions of eligible voters dropping off the register, and rectifying that if it does occur.

[Chris Ruane]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I want to make some progress. I have only a short time left.

The second principal purpose of the amendments is to deal with the uncertainty about the boundaries on which the next election will be fought. That uncertainty has left the process of redrawing boundaries on the basis of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 in a state of limbo. The current boundary review is wasting public resources, and risks creating a degree of confusion in the minds of voters about which constituencies they live in and who their MPs are.

I will not rehearse the statements made by the Deputy Prime Minister last August about the proposals for boundary changes, but, needless to say, he has made it clear that his party will not now support the new boundaries, on which both Houses are due to vote in the autumn. Rather than our having to wait until the autumn, however, the amendment gives us an opportunity to bring an end to all remaining elements of uncertainty about this issue, as well as improving the move to individual electoral registration. We do not want voters not to know which constituencies they live in, or to be confused about whether those constituencies will change at the next election.

[Chris Ruane]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sadiq Khan]

I will, for the very last time.

[Chris Ruane]

Currently, 6.5 million people are missing from the register. According to the Electoral Commission, if the IER arrangements had gone ahead as originally proposed by the Government, the number of unregistered voters could have risen to 16 million—16 million of the poorest people. Is that the way to run a democracy?

[Sadiq Khan]

One would think that rather than heckling in a snide and partisan manner, Ministers would be expressing concern about the millions of invisible citizens who are missing from the register.

The next general election is nearer than the last. We want the public to have more certainty about the constituencies in which they live and about who will be the candidates in the election, but if the amendment is rejected, they will know neither of those things until 2014. If we are to reinforce the connections between MPs, candidates and their constituents, we need to know the facts sooner rather than later. We need an end to the impasse, and that is what voting for the amendment would provide. Ending the impasse would bring clarity and certainty. It would also halt the work of the Boundary Commission, which would save significant amounts of money that might otherwise be wasted on a review that will not be implemented.

Agreeing with the amendment would allow us to monitor, check and rectify any deficiencies that emerge from the transition to individual voter registration. In the event of a dramatic slump in the number of eligible voters on the register, it would allow time for that to be corrected without a severe undermining of the legitimacy of parliamentary boundaries redrawn on the basis of a depleted electoral register. It would allow the next general election to be fought on the current boundaries, and would allow us to engage and register the missing millions in the meantime. It would prevent the wasting of any further money by the Boundary Commission, and it would bring certainty. That is why we will not be supporting the motion to disagree with the Lords amendment, and I hope that Members in all parts of the House will join us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. Indeed, that is at the heart of my argument.

[Chris Ruane]

rose—

[Paul Blomfield]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, because he has done so much work on this issue and I have great respect for his views.

[Chris Ruane]

I thank my hon. Friend for his kind comments. Does he think that the fairest way to redraw the boundaries might be to use the census statistics, as they give a full and accurate figure of everybody who lives in the UK?

[Paul Blomfield]

My hon. Friend has clearly done so much work on the issue that he anticipates one of the points that I was going to make. He is absolutely right.

I want first to illustrate the mismatch by comparing my constituency, Sheffield Central, with the neighbouring constituency, Sheffield, Hallam. I am glad that I shall be walking through the same Lobby later as my political neighbour, but the two constituencies are of a very different nature and they illustrate my argument.

Sheffield Central is inner city and multicultural; we have large council estates, houses in multiple occupation, two universities and very high levels of voter turnover. Already, 17% of households have nobody on the register. Sheffield, Hallam consists of our city’s leafy suburbs; it is largely monocultural with large areas of comfortable owner-occupation, and a very stable population. Only 4% of its households have nobody on the register. There is a huge disparity between the number of people represented by the MPs for those two constituencies.

I have made that point before, but I now have the advantage of supporting it with the latest information available, which is from the 2011 census. If the argument was reduced to a simple question of constituency size based on the number of registered voters, our two constituencies would appear to be pretty similar in size. However, if we compare the population according to the 2011 census with the number of voters registered on 2 January 2013 according to the council’s electoral registration officer, we can see that the picture is completely different. Sheffield Central has 76,596 registered voters whereas Sheffield, Hallam has 71,559—the difference is just 5,037, or 7%. According to the census, Sheffield Central has a population of 115,284 whereas Sheffield, Hallam has a population of 89,356, and so the difference is 25,928, or 20%.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Blomfield]

I do not think that Sheffield is any different from many of our other large urban centres, and I think that the effect I have described in relation to Sheffield would apply to the vast majority of urban areas in this country. There might be some exceptions in Devon.

To respond to an earlier comment, my view is that we should move towards a system of genuinely equal constituencies based on boundaries drawn by population size, not by registered voter numbers, but that is clearly a debate for another time. Whether or not we go down that route, we need now to pause, to ensure that individual electoral registration does not further enhance inequity and does not further disempower our cities. If we do not pause, we risk creating a US-style democracy, with notorious under-registration, that excludes the disadvantaged and the disengaged and that focuses political parties and elections on the needs of the more privileged and in that way poisons our politics.

[Chris Ruane]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way once again. He mentions the American system, where registration has gone down. That was a deliberate political act by the Republican party to organise voter suppression. Does he think that there is an element of deliberate political voter suppression from the Conservative party?

[Paul Blomfield]

I do think indeed that the Conservative party had a plan.

[Chris Ruane]

It wasn’t very cunning.

[Paul Blomfield]

Indeed; the plan was pretty transparent, and it seems to be falling apart under the scrutiny of another place and with the support of other parties across the House. I am delighted about that because accepting Lords amendments 5 and 23 will provide the pause that we need to ensure that our democracy is not weakened. That would give us the time to get this right, and I look forward to the House supporting those amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. This comes to the heart of the matter. When the Division bell goes today, the 54 Liberals who voted in favour last time must ask themselves why a boundary review is a less valid measure now than it was in 2010 or will be in 2018. They must have a care for their consciences, do what is right for the country and their constituents, and do the honourable thing.

[Chris Ruane]

I have been interested in this issue since 2001, when my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) informed me that there had been a massive drop in voter registration in 100 constituencies, 90 of which, I discovered when I looked at the figures, were Labour constituencies. Some might say that it was our fault for introducing the changes in 2000.

I have sought to get the facts and figures on this for the past 10 years. I have tabled over 400 parliamentary questions on registration, population size and boundary size, and I have spoken in every debate on the matter in this House. I have come to the conclusion that what is, or was, proposed is a political act to deliver, in the case of the boundaries review and legislation, the 2015 general election, and in the case of individual electoral registration, the three or four elections after that. I hope that we will find out very shortly that it has all come to naught.

The reasons why I say this are many. I wish to compare the attitude of this Government with the attitude of the previous Labour Government. I blame the previous Labour Government, and I do so to their face, for not getting what we thought were 3.5 million missing electors on to the register. It was our fault that we did not do that. However, no one can accuse the previous Labour Government of using our political majority, which was huge, for party political advantage on constitutional issues. One of the first things that Labour did was introduce proportional representation in the European elections. In Wales, we went from having four Labour MEPs to one Labour MEP. We had a majority of 180 back in 1997—such a huge majority that we could have delivered devolution to Northern Ireland, to Scotland and to Wales without PR, but in the interests of fair play and playing properly on the constitution, we introduced PR, which did down Labour’s vote.

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

It is good that my hon. Friend has made that thoughtful mention of Wales. Does he agree that this Bill means that the people of Wales will see a reduction of 10 seats, from 40 down to 30? I would be interested if the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) wished to intervene to say whether he agrees with that, and, if not, how he would explain it to his dwindling electorate.

[Chris Ruane]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if he wishes to intervene.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[Chris Ruane]

He does not. I think that he has forgotten about the Act of 1536 which settled these issues.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman has a very selective memory on the actions of the previous Labour Government. The massive extension of postal voting and the resulting lack of trust that is now in the electoral system was brought about with the massive majority to which he referred. That has made an enormous difference to the running of our elections and has led to a huge amount of distrust, particularly in inner-city seats.

[Chris Ruane]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at one of the 400 questions that I have tabled on this issue, he will see that the number of people who have been prosecuted for electoral fraud each year is about one or two. That is bad; any electoral fraud is bad. If he looks at the other side of the scales of justice, he will see that there are not, as we thought, 3.5 million people missing off the register, but 6 million. If individual electoral registration had gone ahead as proposed by the Government, 16 million people would have been missing off the register.

Let us have a look at the pans of justice. With one or two cases a year of electoral fraud, all the resources are made available, but with 6.5 million people off the register, no resources are available. One of my questions, which was answered two weeks ago, asked for some numbers on this subject. If electors do not fill in the extra registration form, the electoral registration officer has to send a canvasser to their house at least twice—that is the law. Labour managed to implement that law, and in 2010 only eight local authorities disobeyed it; I think that they were all Tory authorities. In 2011, when the Tories had got their feet under the table, that figure massively increased, to 30 or 40. Of the 60 constituencies in England that do not send an electoral registration officer to knock on the doors of the non-registered, 55 are Conservative, one is Labour—Telford—and I think that the rest are Lib Dem. There is an element of politicisation in what the Conservative party is proposing.

Three years ago I went to see Experian to discuss the issue of the unregistered. I told its representatives that 3.5 million people were not on the register, but they said that the actual figure was 6.5 million. I took that information to the Electoral Commission, which said, “That can’t be true. We’ll do our own research on the issue.” Lo and behold, 18 months later, the commission came back to me and said, “Mr Ruane, you and Experian are absolutely right, but the 6.5 million people who are off the register are a different 6.5 million people from those noted by Experian.” I therefore asked the Electoral Commission whether 13 million people could be missing from the register; I said it tongue in cheek, but millions of people are missing from the register and the resources have not been made available to get them on to it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Laing]

The hon. Gentleman and I have had various arguments on this issue across the Floor of the House for as many as nine years. Even if what he is saying is correct, he is completely missing the point about the amendment and the importance of the Bill. How can he say that it is fair that Arfon has 41,000 constituents while Somerton and Frome has double the number—82,000? How can he possibly say that that is fair?

[Chris Ruane]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She should think about the figure that I have mentioned: 6.5 million people are missing from the register. The vast majority of them will be in Labour constituencies. The vast majority of the case load for Labour Members and those Members who serve poorer constituencies around the country comes from the unregistered, the people who should legally be on the register but are not. If those people were factored in, the inequality would not be as great.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend think that, if the island of Anglesey is not to have a Member of Parliament, it is fair that the Isle of Wight is to have two under the Government’s proposals?

[Chris Ruane]

I concur with my hon. Friend’s point.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a compelling case. To use the example of the county of Greater Manchester, in the previous Parliament we were entitled to have 28 Members of Parliament. As a result of the 2010 periodic review, that number was cut to 27, and the proposed boundary changes would lead to it being cut to 26, yet the 2011 census shows that the population of Greater Manchester is going up, not down.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane]

I agree with my hon. Friend and think that the census should be the basis for any future redrawing of boundaries.

In conclusion, the reason given by the Conservative party for wanting to introduce the boundary review changes is to decrease the number of MPs from 650 to 600. It says that it is a case of cost and that that is its primary reason, and yet when I tried to table a parliamentary question in the Table Office to find out the cost of an MP and the cost of a Lord, I was told that I was not allowed to do so. Fortunately a Lord in the other place tabled the question and received the response that it costs £130,000 per Lord and £590,000 per MP. The Government have created an extra 125 Lords since they came to power in 2010 and they propose to create another 50 over the next few weeks. Where is the logic in creating an extra 175 unelected Lords while reducing the House of Commons from 650 to 600 Members?

[Miss Chloe Smith]

I beg the hon. Gentleman’s pardon for interrupting him when he was about to conclude. Given that he is in favour of having such hard casework, is he proud of the fact that his electorate is about two thirds the size of mine?

[Chris Ruane]

My electorate was even smaller than that of the hon. Lady’s constituency 10 years ago. The voter population in my constituency went down to as low as 47,000. It was only when I started to put pressure on, and following the professionalisation of the electoral registration officer in Denbighshire county council, that the number went from 47,000 to 57,000. I believe that there are even more unregistered people in the constituency.

The vast majority of the 6.5 million missing voters are in Labour constituencies. This is therefore a political act, and one that has come unstuck.

[Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)]

It has been said that

“political duty must be placed before private feeling.”

That was how James Rankin, the MP for Leominster, advised the House when the boundaries came up for review in 1884. He went on to say that the Prime Minister had

“appealed to the Members who sat for small boroughs not to be selfish”.—[Official Report, 28 April 1884; Vol. 287, c. 799.]

I agree with the then Prime Minister and my predecessor from long ago. Mr Rankin’s concern was for his constituency and the people whom he fought to represent. That is my concern now because, without wishing to get misty-eyed, after nearly 12 years, I am deeply fond of them.

Where we can all agree is on the principle of evening out the size of seats and ensuring that every vote carries equal value. In our last manifesto, we promised to champion a fairer system. It is only right that we try to make good that commitment. I do not think that everyone knows how grotesquely skewed the current state of affairs is. Some constituencies are almost double the size of others, meaning that their inhabitants are under-represented in elections and, subsequently, at Westminster. The overall balance is weighted heavily towards the Labour party. Labour Members know in their hearts that were it the other way around, they would be the first to call for realignment. Their opposition hardly befits a modern democracy.

Ironically, before the last boundary change, my constituency was about the right size numerically. It was close to the UK average of 76,641 voters. Yet that did not save it. That is where my problem lies.