Tributes to Nelson Mandela
Chris Ruane Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
This is one of those occasions when everyone starts by saying that they are speaking on behalf of their constituents. It is something we often claim, but it is undoubtedly true on both sides of the House today. Many Members have begun their remarks by suggesting that everything has already been said, but each and every Member has found something genuinely new to share with the House. I hope that I can follow in that sprit.
I remember the first day I arrived in South Africa. I was 12 years old and had rarely been outside Glasgow, let alone travelled abroad. Unemployment at home had led my family to emigrate, to swap our Glasgow housing estate for the sunshine of Cape Town. The truth is that I had not properly prepared, or been properly prepared, for what would confront me in the shape of apartheid. Back then, to the extent that Nelson Mandela could be said to have mainland neighbours, I was one of them, because my family lived in what was probably the third closest building to Robben Island.
I remember the little things that would give me and others a sense of the bigger picture of apartheid. In the first week after we arrived, our family tried to form a friendship with the taxi driver who picked us up from Jan Smuts airport and his family. We suggested what was natural in a city surrounded by two oceans: a game of football on the beach. But for all the dramatic sandy beaches along the city’s two coastlines, we ended up on a dangerous, rocky, uneven pebble beach—all because, of course, the family with whom we were trying to forge a friendship were designated Cape coloureds. Apartheid granted to the black majority only the minority of beaches that were deemed too dangerous for white people to swim off.
As I stood on those mornings at my whites-only bus stop in my whites-only housing area to travel to a whites-only school, I could see Robben Island each and every day. Of course, Nelson Mandela was banned; people could not utter his name and it was a criminal offence to carry his picture. But there it was—his island prison, in full and clear view in Table bay for the city and the whole world to see and to know what was going on.
Occasionally we would see the violence ourselves in the city streets, and the protests and the actions of the authorities, but we would never hear about it on the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s TV or radio news; we would need to listen to the BBC World Service on a small wireless in our house before we knew what was actually happening almost on our own doorstep. I was entitled to South African citizenship but I did not take it up, nor did I serve in the South African army. I left the country, and left my family there, when South Africa invited me, as it did every white teenage boy at the age of 17, to be conscripted into the apartheid army.
Ours was an ANC-supporting family. There are lovely pictures of my mother and the rest of the family standing in the long queue on election day with their ANC flags, in what was meant to be a secret ballot. It was not as though the ANC had not on occasion tested our family’s patience or loyalty, including way back in 1982 when it blew up the power station that my father had gone to build when we went there as immigrants.
Mr Murphy
Okay—more work.
Of course, Umkhonto we Sizwe took care to make sure that it happened on a Saturday when no one was working on the building site, and no one was injured.
What was striking was the demonisation of Nelson Mandela, which was every bit as passionate as today’s speeches in this House in praise of him. We were told he was the reason there could not be a democracy, because he would take charge and turn the country to bloodshed. To understand Mandela’s achievement, we have fully to grasp the enormity of the fear that the white minority were encouraged to feel.
The state was structured to sustain apartheid in every possible way. Among many things, I was taught at school that apartheid was the natural order and was encouraged by the established Church to believe that it was the will of God—I remember being told that by a church minister. It was compulsory to learn Afrikaans. It would have been entirely understandable—regrettable, of course, but understandable—if the majority had sought revenge, because, after all, many of the black South Africans were treated worse than dogs by the white minority.
The Mandela of the state’s fabrication and the supremacists’ imagination was the rallying point against majority rule. When the time came for Mandela to cast his first vote at the age of 75, he was the bridge that most South Africans tentatively—initially—stepped across into liberation and, for them, the enormous perceived uncertainty of that democracy.
I say gently, in keeping with the tone of today’s contributions, that I do not believe that the British Government’s record on South Africa in that era will be judged with any sense of generosity. Apartheid South Africa was a cancer on a continent, but it was dealt with through the prism of the power politics of strategic cold war interests. It was allowed to destabilise not only its own country but Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, South-West Africa, as it was called, and many others besides. That is why I am so proud that my home city of Glasgow was the first city in the world to grant its freedom to the man imprisoned off the shore of my then adopted city.
Like others, I want to thank the many people involved in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. Long before the rock concerts and the well-intentioned celebrity endorsements, they stood unglamorously on street corners asking people to sign a petition in honour of someone they had probably never heard of. That movement taught us that the simple act of not buying South African apples is a statement in itself, and that, in the right circumstances, politics and sport could and should mix. Anyone who says that sport and politics should never mix does not fully understand what happened in South Africa.
Many have spoken about the engaging nature of President Mandela. I can only turn to a story from my own mother. My right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) spoke about his mother’s fantastic relationship and friendship with Nelson Mandela. I cannot boast anything of that order. However, my mother never tires of telling me the story of one day when she was in Cape Town; I was not living there at the time. She was, as many people do, walking with her head down through the city streets during her lunch break, and she bumped into someone she only knew was a tall man. She looked up, and it was not just a tall man—it was Nelson Mandela. They spoke, and he inquired as to who she was, what she did, what she believed in, and what she thought. She said, “I apologise, Mr Mandela”—I do not know what was going on his mind; perhaps he was thinking, “She’s not going to vote for me”, which of course she did—“I do hope you don’t mind, but I have to get back to work, so we have to stop our conversation.” I do not know whether my mother is the only person who has done this.
When Mandela came to the UK and went to the grand receptions, the truth is that I, like others, was probably a little intimidated by him. I did not seek a photograph with him, because I had the sense, looking at his life, that one of the things that was not missing from it was the need to have a photograph taken with me.
We sometimes think of Mandela in different phases. We remember Mandela the freedom fighter of Umkhonto we Sizwe, and the old black and white photographs. We refer to Mandela the global statesman in this, the internet age. But in my opinion not enough is made of Mandela the President. He introduced radical social reforms, including free health care, and gave many children the chance to go to school. As others have said, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did so much for the country.
One of Mandela’s greatest achievements was to defeat the phenomenon of our granting hero status only to those who die young, when those who are lost are missed not because of their achievements but for their unfulfilled and uncompromised promise. It is so rare for anyone to enjoy simultaneously a long life and near-universal love and respect, but Mandela captured and kept the sense of Camelot usually gifted only to those who are denied a life beyond middle age. A man born before the end of the first world war was to become the premier global cause of a digital age.
Even after Mandela left prison, the transition was painful—we have not focused on this enough today, understandably—with the provocation by state forces trying to create a civil war and the involvement of organisations such as Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging trying to incite tribal division.
This is ultimately a story of how the most powerful military force on a continent was defeated by an idea, and defeated by a group of undernourished prisoners on a barren rock in an Atlantic bay. The reconciliation after apartheid was a man-made miracle where millions of women and men played their part, but Mandela was undoubtedly the chemistry. In a troubled world, observers anguish that if only we had more Mandelas, so many of the problems facing us could be resolved. That is a pessimist’s view. I look at it in a different way, which is that at least we had one Mandela, and for that we should all be eternally grateful.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
I want to thank you, Mr Speaker, for clearing the parliamentary decks today to allow us to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela. I offer condolences to his family and to the people of South Africa from the people of the Vale of Clwyd, whom I represent. I did not meet Nelson Mandela. I have no photograph of Nelson Mandela. I have not even been in the same room as Nelson Mandela. The one connection I have with him is that we shared the same birthday—18 July—although I was born a lot later than he was. That birthday is also shared by Fiona Owen, the daughter of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen).
Tributes have been paid across all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. I want to emphasise the role that Wales, and particularly my area of Wales, played in the struggle against apartheid. The Welsh trade unions and the mining and steel communities played a great role, linking up with COSATU—the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Glenys and Neil Kinnock also played a big part, as did that adopted son of Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain), along with Hanif Bhamjee, the organiser of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Wales, and the Welsh Churches.
My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones) has pointed out that it was not only in the great cities of Cardiff, Glasgow and London that the struggle took place. It took place in the small towns of my constituency, including the market town of Denbigh. The Anti-Apartheid Movement there was set up by Pat Bowker, Barbara Manley, Norman and Lynda Roberts, Dai Cuba and Dai Jones. In 1986, the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Rhyl was set up by a dynamic, principled and dedicated young woman called Gill Roberts. She did such a good job that I married her seven years later.
There were others, including Jeff Blythin, a local folk singer who helped to raise funds for the Anti-Apartheid Movement, his wife, Janet Blythin, who was our banner maker, Jane Thomas and many others. We were involved in activities such as trolley bashes and boycotts, we invited ANC speakers down and we organised petitions and leaflets and press releases, as well as raising much-needed funds for the ANC.
Nelson Mandela has taught us many lessons, and the principal one is that of reconciliation. I believe that, if enough attention were paid to the matter, what he did for blacks and whites in South Africa could also be done for Shi’as and Sunnis, for Christians and Muslims, for Jews and Palestinians and, in our own country, for Protestants and Catholics.
Nelson Mandela has also taught us excellent lessons in leadership. Many of us in this House have inflated egos—[Hon. Members: “Never”!] I do not count myself among them, of course. We can all learn from his self-deprecation, his accessibility, his humour and his capacity for forgiveness. He combated bigotry not only in fighting apartheid but in standing up for gay rights and for people with AIDS.
Nelson Mandela was also a role model as a father. Tributes have been paid to his roles as a freedom fighter, a statesman and a politician, but he also played a great role as a father, a grandfather and a great-grandfather. He was also a father to his nation and to many of us around the world. He said:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
I was a teacher for 15 years before becoming an MP, and I think that if his political philosophy of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness and equality can be matched with his educational and parenting philosophy of the uniqueness, individuality and brilliance of each and every one of us, there is a much greater chance of our providing the future Nelson Mandelas that this world so desperately needs.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Ruane Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
7. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of people in Wales who earn a living wage.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
11. What steps the Government are taking to increase the number of people in Wales who earn a living wage.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)
We support strong minimum wage legislation and rigorous enforcement as a way of protecting people on the lowest incomes. Decisions on wage rates above the minimum wage are for employers and employees to agree together.
Stephen Crabb
I gently point out to the right hon. Gentleman that the vast majority of the decline in real wage values in his constituency and throughout Wales occurred in the last three years of the Labour Government. We are working incredibly hard to bring new jobs and investment to constituencies such as the right hon. Gentleman’s. If he is saying that those jobs are not welcome unless they pay more than £7.60 an hour, he needs to make that clear, but it would be a significant barrier to inward investment.
Chris Ruane
Welsh wages have fallen in 40 of the 41 months since the Government came to power in 2010. By the next election, Welsh workers will be £6,000 worse off than they were in 2010. What is the Minister doing to help Welsh workers improve their living standards?
Stephen Crabb
The best way to achieve better living standards for people in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and throughout Wales is to tackle our problems head on, to take the responsible decisions and to do everything we can to encourage businesses to create jobs. That is why unemployment is falling in his constituency when it increased so rapidly under last five years of the Labour Government.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Ruane Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
3. What assessment he has made of wage levels in Wales since 2010.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
11. What steps the Government are taking to tackle low pay in Wales.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)
Since this Government took office, wages and salaries growth have revived, and nominal growth in 2012 of 2.8% was the strongest since 2007.
Stephen Crabb
What I support is creating the right conditions for the private sector to create new jobs in Wales. In the right hon. Gentleman’s area in north Wales we anticipate that 40,000 new jobs will be created in the next five years. He should get out and back the support for balanced recovery that will bring benefits to his constituency and across north Wales.
Chris Ruane
Real wages have gone down in 38 of the 39 months since this Government came to power. Zero-hours contracts, payday loans and flouting of minimum wage law, on top of rising energy, food, and transport bills, have left my constituents feeling vulnerable. Has the Minister any plans to deal with falling living standards?
Stephen Crabb
I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is another Labour Member who does not welcome the fact that unemployment has fallen in his constituency since the general election. We recognise that wage levels are not where we want them to be, but most of the deterioration in wage levels happened in the last three years of the previous Labour Government. We are helping people in Wales on low incomes by taking 130,000 people out of income tax altogether, and by freezing fuel duty. Because we have taken the responsible decision to cut the deficit, we are able to keep interest rates low, which means that low earners in his constituency, and mine, can hang on to their homes.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Ruane Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
Order. There are some very noisy private conversations taking place in the Chamber. Let us hear Mr Chris Ruane.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
The legal aid cuts in my constituency will affect many of my constituents, who will also be affected by the closure of the Rhyl family court, the closure of the Rhyl Army recruitment centre, the closure of the Rhyl tax office and, on top of all that, the closure of the Crown post office. How will that help the regeneration of Rhyl?
Royal Charter on Press Conduct
Chris Ruane Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Cash
In relation to the question of statutory underpinning, will the Deputy Prime Minister explain whether the fact that only two thirds of the Members of each House, rather than the whole of each House, will have to vote on the matter will make a difference to the outcome?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Hallelujah! A question that was not about Europe. I do not think that it will make any difference whatever to the status of the statutory entrenchment governing the circumstances in which the royal charter could be changed.
Electoral Registration
Chris Ruane Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Owen, for chairing this important debate.
Democracy is deep in the DNA of my constituency, Blaenau Gwent. Growing up there, I learned about its rich social history, including how it provided leadership for the Chartist movement, which did so much to secure the vote for working people. From the caves in the village of Trefil, where they are said to have stored pikes before the march on Newport in 1839, to Nantyglo, where Zephaniah Williams, the Newport rising’s leader, lived, Blaenau Gwent has long been at the centre of democracy building in the UK.
Although the battle for the vote has been won by working people, to exercise their vote, people must first be on the electoral register. That leads us to the dry, but crucial topic of how to get the best register possible. Free and fair election machinery is one of the most fundamental services the state can provide for its people. From it, our democracy thrives. The electoral register is, as the Electoral Commission says, the bedrock of our democracy.
As we all know, the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill—the ERA—is in the Lords, following consideration in the House of Commons. We know, too, that Labour legislated to introduce individual electoral registration—IER—so there is no disagreement amongst us about the principle. For background: as of December 2010, the Electoral Commission estimated that the register was 85% to 87% complete, which means that 6 million people were missing from it. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who is responsible for political and constitutional reform, may have more recent figures, and it would be interesting to hear the Government’s latest estimate. I want the effective introduction of IER. I want many more, not fewer, people on the electoral register. I am worried about the Government’s proposals for IER in the future.
With all our different sources of identification, the megabytes of data available and the contact channels in use through modern media, a complete and accurate electoral register should be deliverable. Crucially, I want to see the annual canvass maintained. An individual knocking on a potential voter’s door is still probably the most effective way to get people registered. Face-to-face contact is as important as ever in our digital age. The Minister told me that the annual canvass will continue to be used as long as it remains the best way to register voters. That is good.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
When the changes to electoral registration were introduced in Northern Ireland in 2006, under a Labour Government, the need for an annual canvass was removed. Over the past five or six years, registration rates have gone down to 71%. Does my hon. Friend think that the figures from Northern Ireland have a bearing on the debate today?
Nick Smith
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I want to cover later. The decline in registration in Northern Ireland is an important warning for the debate today and for the future of IER.
To return to the annual canvass, I am with the Electoral Commission: it should be a permanent feature. Also, surely the full implementation of IER should wait until the evaluation of all the current data-matching and data-mining pilots is complete. As we know, the first set of pilot schemes took place during the annual canvass in late 2011. The Electoral Commission found that the pilots had been both time-consuming and costly. Councils said that they lacked sufficient skilled staff to carry out the data input and matching. The pilots were funded by the Cabinet Office, so given the squeeze on local government, it must be doubtful whether councils can do the data matching without more money for such important work. Given that, the Electoral Commission says that data matching should be tested further, and I am glad that further pilots are taking place.
Data-matching trials with the Royal Mail and the Student Loans Company are also under way. They will be helpful for groups of people who have historically been difficult to register, which include younger people, people from black and minority ethnic communities, and people who rent from private landlords. I am sure we all want to reach such people.
Until now, we have considered data matching only with publicly held information, but I think it could be helpful to include private sector databases, such as credit reference agencies and tenancy deposit schemes. Privacy concerns must of course be addressed, but home addresses for contracts or purchases of, say, mobile phones, cars and personal finance can identify where voters live and so could be on the electoral register. Having said that, caution is essential.
Last November, the Electoral Commission, published a report, “Continuous electoral registration in Northern Ireland”. Its conclusion is stark: there has been a considerable deterioration in both the accuracy and the completeness of the electoral register in Northern Ireland over the past four years. From a register estimated in 2008 to be 83% complete and 90% accurate, the latest appraisal found one that is only 71% complete and 78% accurate. That is very worrying.
Chris Ruane
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way on that point. He is right about the 71% completeness, as of last year, but does he think that it will have a knock-on effect on the redrawing of boundaries? If the boundary change proposals are successful, they will go through in Northern Ireland with 29% of the population missing from the register.
Nick Smith
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. That is why the Electoral Commission called the electoral register the bedrock of our democracy: it decides how many people are in each constituency and where those constituencies are. It is essential that we get this right.
The management of continuous registration has not been able to cope with two important things: people moving home and people becoming eligible to vote. That is where it needs to be improved. The Electoral Commission has called for urgent action to remedy the situation and a more flexible form of annual canvass, so that households as well as individuals can update the register.
Nick Smith
That is a very powerful point. The churn in London and our cities is much greater than it is outside.
Chris Ruane
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way a third time. Does he agree that churn is great not only in our cities and student towns, but in seaside towns? There are 52 principal seaside towns in the UK that have high levels of transience, and their registers will be down too.
Nick Smith
My hon. Friend has helpfully corrected me. He points to the difficulties of churn in many parts of the UK. I have been to the lovely town of Rhyl, and I know of the difficulties there in getting a complete register.
Last week, the Minister said that
“continuous registration is working for the majority of the population in Northern Ireland.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 142.]
Registration of 51% would be a majority, but surely that is wordplay and shows a lack of ambition; after all, 71% completion is failing nearly a third of the eligible electorate. The Government must up their game. Electoral registration needs to be professionally marketed and administered in all Government contact with the public, and perhaps with private sector data as well. Given concerns about under-registration, there should be a full carry-forward of postal or proxy votes for the 2015 general election. If that does not happen, the Government must ensure that sufficient resources are provided, so that as many postal voters as possible are verified and able to vote.
As a constructive critic, the independent Electoral Commission must have an absolutely central role in the switch to IER. I hope that the Minister will tell us today when online voter registration will be ready for launch. The Government must invest in and develop accessible online registration with greater speed. If the internet is used successfully for banking and payment systems, surely it can be developed for voter registration.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Owen. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on securing this very important and—as has been said before—timely debate.
I was first switched on to the issue of electoral registration by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) some 12 years ago, and I have been passionately campaigning on it ever since; I think that I have tabled something like 300 parliamentary questions to flush out information on this important issue.
Progress has been made. I think that the original proposals by the Government—I refer to the Conservative part of the Government—were meant to use the boundary review to get the 2015 election, and to use electoral registration to get probably the four or five elections after that. It has not turned out that way. Some gratitude must be shown to the Liberals for that, because they have seen the light and helped Labour and all other believers in democracy in slowing down the whole process.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and his boss, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), on the fantastic way that they have handled this issue in recent years. I also congratulate the Civic Society—I include in that Operation Black Vote—as well as Unlock Democracy, Scope, the Electoral Reform Society and the Electoral Commission. I have locked horns with the Electoral Commission on a number of occasions, but it has done a good job as far as electoral registration is concerned. And, as I say, the Government have listened and I want to give credit for that.
I wish to raise a few issues here today, and one of them concerns funding. I carried out a survey in Wales, asking all the electoral registration officers how much they spent per elector on registration. Lo and behold, the more they spent on registration, the more people there were on the electoral register. The Government have offered £108 million to help with all these changes, but that money is not ring-fenced, so I ask the Minister, first, to ensure that the £108 million that is being given to local authorities for registration is spent on registration. Secondly, I ask her for full, careful and non-politicised deliberation on data matching and data mining, the details of which will be announced shortly. Thirdly, I ask that she look carefully at the level of fines for non-registration. The Constitutional Affairs Committee recommended a fine of £500 for non-registration, which might be a bit severe, but at the lower end a fine of £35 has been suggested, which would be absolutely—well, having such a fine would be the wrong thing to do. So those are three issues that I ask her to look at carefully.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned voter suppression. If the changes had gone through in their original form, we could have said that they were a form of voter suppression. To have 6 million people—not 3 million, but 6 million—off the register, with the Electoral Commission warning that that figure could go up to 16 million people if the original proposals went through, would mean that we would not have a functioning democracy.
I also ask the Minister to look at some best practice from Wales. The Conservatives are always lambasting Wales and saying that we have got it wrong; here is an example of where we have got it right. I am holding the form from Denbighshire county council to all its electors, and right in the middle there is a threat that if someone does not fill in the form they will be fined £1,000. Those who do not fill in the form receive a letter from the chief executive officer, Dr Mohammed Mehmet, and in the last paragraph it says:
“In order for me to fulfil my legal duty, I am therefore requesting that you complete the enclosed information sheet and return it to me promptly in the envelope provided. If you fail to supply the information requested within 14 days, I will have no option but to pass the matter to the council’s legal department.”
As a result of that, in the poorest ward in Wales—the West ward of Rhyl—registration went up by 34%. That has been achieved in Wales, so I will leave a copy of the form for the Minister to look at.
May I ask the Chair what time wind-ups will start?
Chris Ruane
I have been instructed to carry on by the Chair.
There are a few issues in the excellent document by the Electoral Commission, “Managing electoral registration in Great Britain”, which was published in June 2012. It gives some performance indicators. However, one of the worrying performance indicators is:
“Performance standard 3: House-to-house enquiries.”
“House-to-house enquiries” involves sending canvassers round, from house to house, to find non-responders. In 2008, 16% of electoral registration officers did not perform that role; in 2009, that went down to 5%; in 2010, there were only 2% of officers not carrying out this essential function to get the registration up; and in 2011, the figure increased by 800%, to go back up to 16%.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
This is obviously a very important issue when it comes to voter disengagement. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there is also perhaps a role for political parties? When it comes to MPs doing their constituency work, and interacting with their constituents, perhaps whenever that work has been done the MP can say, “Are you on the electoral list and if you’re not, perhaps you can register?”
Chris Ruane
Absolutely. It is incumbent upon us all as MPs to do that—no vote, no voice. That issue needs to be considered as well.
May I respectfully ask that the statistics that I have given are sent to every MP, every Assembly Member, every Member of the Scottish Parliament and every Member of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland, as well as to every councillor across the land, so that we get some pressure from below? As well as Governments passing laws from above, we will get some pressure from below. If most MPs realised that their electoral registration officer was not fulfilling their duties, they would be on to them, but nobody knows about these facts and figures. So I ask the Minister if she will use her offices to ensure that this vital information is sent out to all MPs.
I realise that I have a colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), who wishes to speak, so I will—
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
I remind Members that the wind-ups will not start until 3.30pm.
Chris Ruane
Okay. In that case, Chair, I shall go on even a little bit longer. [Laughter.]
Some of the issues pertaining to Northern Ireland have been mentioned by a number of Members—
Chris Ruane
I will give way on that issue, because I know that my hon. Friend is from Northern Ireland.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman has made that point about Northern Ireland. Just for the record, Mr Owen, I want to say that many people are not registered and those who vote perhaps give an indication in the wrong ballot box—that is my opinion, of course. However, after the disgraceful decision to remove the Union flag from Belfast city hall, the number of people who registered to make a decision and make a change went up greatly. Of course, by that stage it was too late. So, if people want to make a change, vote early.
Chris Ruane
Hopefully early, but not often. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
In the case of Northern Ireland, when the changes were introduced in 2006—I admit that they were introduced by a Labour Administration, and that the requirement to have that annual canvass and get out there “on the knocker” was not in place and there was continual registration—registration rates went down in the five or six years afterwards, to 71%, meaning that 29% of people were not registered. If the analysis is made, we will find out that those people, in the main, will be people who live in council houses, or tenants of social landlords, unemployed people or low-paid people, and quite often they will be black or minority ethnic. So quite often these are the people on the margins of society, and as I say there are currently 6 million of them missing from across the UK and the figure for Northern Ireland is proportionally higher than for anywhere else in the UK. So we need to learn the lessons from Northern Ireland if we are rolling out this Bill.
It has been claimed by the Electoral Commission, and I think by the leader of the Liberal Democrats as well, that these changes will be the biggest changes since the introduction of universal suffrage. If they are that big, we need consensus, and if there is not consensus I can promise the Government this—if Labour gets in at the next election, there will be a massive push from Back Benchers and Ministers to undo what has been done.
Labour did not politicise the issue of electoral registration for the 13 years that it was in government. I wish that it had. I was taking the message back to Ministers—Labour Ministers—and saying, “This is a big issue. We have 3.5 million people unregistered.” We could have politicised that issue. If those 3.5 million people ever voted, they would have been our voters. And in fact it was not 3.5 million people; it was 6 million people. If those 6 million people are added to the register, there would be no need for the equalisation of parliamentary seats, because the vast majority of those 6 million people would be in Labour seats. So this issue of registration has massive implications and I urge the Minister, and her team and the Prime Minister, to listen carefully and not to go about this process in a party political way but in a fair, balanced and consensual way.
When Labour came to power in 1997, after we had been out of power for 18 years, the first thing we did was to give away power. We did that by introducing proportional representation for European elections. In Wales, we went from four Labour MEPs to one. That was not in our party political interest. We had a majority of 180 Members of Parliament, and we could have established the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly without PR, but we did not. We could have dominated those institutions, certainly in Wales and Scotland, but we did not— we did things in a balanced way. Again, that worked against us.
What did we do with quangos? They were stuffed with Tories. The quango king of the country lived in my constituency. He was on £86,000 a year in 1996—more than the Prime Minister. What did Labour do? There was no more of that. We took out big, full-page adverts, usually in The Daily Telegraph, asking for good, decent people. We said that things would be non-party political. We gave away power in local government in Scotland. Everything was balanced.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
Order. I am sure hon. Members want to get back to electoral registration.
Chris Ruane
In conclusion, I ask the Minister and her team to look at this issue in a non-party political way.
Siobhain McDonagh
I know how important my hon. Friend thinks the canvass is for electoral registration. Does he share my concern that the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill suggests that a Minister can abolish the canvass? Does he also share my concern that the canvass will consist of knocking on a door and exhorting people to fill in the form? If they have refused to fill in two previous forms, why would they fill in the third? At the moment, the canvasser stands there with a member of the household and completes the form with them.
Chris Ruane
That is an eminently sensible point, which I support.
In conclusion, partisanship should not be shown on this issue. The Minister should look at the lessons from Northern Ireland and from the data matching and data mining. She should also look carefully at the level of fines and at best practice from around the UK, including my constituency. If she does all those things, she will be supported by both sides of the House and all parts of the country.
Wayne David
That is an important point, because it is entirely complementary to the broader point about maintaining the annual canvass. An annual canvass is successful because it is about face-to-face contact; it is about electoral registration officers having a relationship with people and providing information about how they individually can complete their forms. The two points go well together. I would therefore like a cast-iron commitment from the Government that they have no intention whatsoever of putting a question mark over the future of the annual canvass.
That leads on to my second point, which is about the role of electoral registration officers. The ERA Bill proposes in sub-paragraph 6(2) of schedule 4 that the words “so far as is reasonably practicable” are introduced in relation to the role of electoral registration officers. I do not think that that the provision was modified in the Lords. Some people have suggested that that weakens the role of EROs and means that they cannot do their job as effectively, and although that is not necessarily the case, it introduces the potential to further allow EROs to limit the scope of their intervention. The important flexibility that currently exists is in danger of being weakened, and I would like reassurance from the Minister regarding EROs’ essential role in ensuring that individual electoral registration is implemented fairly and effectively.
Following on logically from that, I think that we all realise that, for electoral registration officers to be effective, they must have the necessary resources to do their job properly. The Bill’s explanatory notes state:
“A total of £108m was allocated at the Spending Review in 2010 to meet the cost of implementing Individual Electoral Registration. This includes £85m resource funding in 2014/15 to fund registration officers to make contact with each potential elector individually and invite them to register in 2014”.
There has also been reference to an extra £13 million per year being provided.
Chris Ruane
I take my hon. Friend back to the statistics for house-to-house contact given by the Electoral Commission in its document, “Managing electoral registration in Great Britain”. If the Government have supplied £108 million, there should be no excuse for that contact—knocking on people’s doors—to go down massively. What does my hon. Friend think is the reason for that? It happened under the Tory watch.
Wayne David
We must be mindful of the tremendous pressure on local government at the moment. Although moneys might be nominally provided for electoral registration, I would like the resources to be ring-fenced, to ensure that they are used for the process for which they are stipulated. We are not blaming local authorities —we can all understand the tremendous pressure that they are under in a cuts climate and that education and social services and so on require resources—but if money is not ring-fenced, it is all too easy for it to be surreptitiously shifted from one budget to another. That is why it is very important that the Government commit to introducing ring-fencing.
Miss Smith
In some ways, the hon. Lady is right. The electoral register, by its nature, is a repository of solid information, but it is important that we put to work other data sets held by different levels of government to maximise numbers. We all want the numbers to be maximised, and we must find the best ways to do so. We are carrying out various schemes to test the usefulness of matching electoral registers against several public authority data sets. A further set of pilots will commence shortly, some of which will address students and recent home moves.
Chris Ruane
Will the Minister explain why the date for introducing IER, which was agreed with all-party consensus under the previous Labour Government, was moved forward one year from 2015 to 2014? Why was that consensus broken?
Miss Smith
I thank the hon. Gentleman, in general terms, for his flashes of bipartisanship both in this debate and, occasionally, in the main Chamber, but I regret that some of his, dare I say, time-filling appeared to descend into slightly more partisan commentary. I will be similarly partisan in response: the version introduced by Labour cost more than our version to the tune of some £100 million, and I think it is worth comparing schemes on that basis. The previous scheme would have caused confusion because, effectively, it sought to run a voluntary version of individual registration alongside another process. I believe that the version before us is somewhat cleaner.
Chris Ruane
I thank the Minister for giving way a second time. Why, specifically, was the date moved from 2015 to 2014? Was it to gain party political advantage for the general election and because the Government foresaw the deadline for the next review of parliamentary boundaries in December 2015?
Miss Smith
In short, no.
Other hon. Members have asked various questions about data matching, which I must address so that I answer everyone in time. In particular, the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent asked about the use of credit reference agencies, which is a point that he has raised capably many times. We considered the possibility of a pilot using credit reference agency data, but I am advised that running such a scheme within the existing legislation would be difficult. As I said in my answer to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), I am interested in finding as many useful sources of data as possible, and I shall continue to look for them. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and I will continue that debate as we continue our research, but I am aware of a number of shortcomings in using data from credit reference agencies.
There will be a move to digital applications from the current paper application form, which will make registration more convenient for a number of people. The move will increase accessibility for many people with disabilities. I will be talking to the Electoral Commission later this week, and I am happy to raise the points raised by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden on the accessibility of the forms. We will be actively encouraging applicants to use the online system, which we intend to be the primary channel for applications. It is important, however, that we retain the option of a paper form to cater for anyone who is not ready for the move.
I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point on absent voters. She generously explained how important that group is in her constituency, and often, those in that group are older voters, whom we will consider carefully. I certainly would not wish to see any such group disadvantaged, and I will watch that carefully.
Miss Smith
It is important that I go on to Northern Ireland before we run out of time. We are absolutely clear that we will be learning and have learned the lessons from Northern Ireland, and we have looked carefully into the Electoral Commission’s report. We are taking steps to prevent a fall in registration levels upon the introduction of individual electoral registration by retaining the annual canvass—as I said, we have no plans to abolish it in Great Britain—by moving the 2013 canvass to early 2014 to allow a more accurate and up-to-date register to be used at the beginning of the transition to IER, and testing and evaluating the benefits of data matching, about which I spoke briefly, by confirming eligible electors through the data match process. That confirmation will give us a substantial baseline level of completeness throughout the transition to individual registration. All those things are vital. We have always recognised that the transition to individual registration poses a risk to completeness rates, so we are putting in place those safeguards.
Chris Ruane
Registration rates in Northern Ireland are down to 71% and could go lower. At what percentage—60% or 55%, for example—does the Minister believe that we will stop having a properly functioning democracy?
Patrick Finucane Report
Chris Ruane Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
Every organisation—every Government—has to face up to its own history and explain what it did and why. The British Government get all sorts of criticism, but I do not think anyone can criticise us for not being incredibly open about what happened. I would also say that British-Irish relations are better today than probably at any time in the last 25 years. Getting to the truth about the past really matters, of course, but so, too, does trying to secure a peaceful future for Northern Ireland, and those relations are very important for that, and I want to build on them.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
I have met the family of Pat Finucane here in Parliament and I pay tribute to them for the dignity with which they have conducted themselves in their quest for justice. Public inquiries do not have to be over-long and over-expensive, as the Baha Mousa inquiry shows. If after reading the de Silva report the family of Pat Finucane still request a public inquiry, will the Prime Minister listen to their request?
The Prime Minister
I myself met the Finucane family and I will always listen to what they say, but I have to say that I think that what we have done—we have taken a very open approach, putting all the information out there in public—is the right approach and is the best way to get to the truth of what happened.
The hon. Gentleman says that public inquiries do not necessarily take a long time. I refer him to the fact that the other inquiries set up after 2004 ended up costing tens of millions of pounds. The Baha Mousa inquiry was about one individual and a number of hours spent in custody, whereas this is about an issue that has had the biggest police investigation in British history—involving three separate sets of investigations and millions of documents. There would be no concept of a short inquiry for this; it would be multi-year, multi-million pound, with absolutely no guarantee that it would get closer to the truth than this extremely open and truthful document we have in front of us.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Ruane Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I very much enjoyed visiting his constituency with him yesterday, seeing at first hand the appalling damage done by the floods and speaking with local people, the emergency services and the Environment Agency about all the work that is being done to protect more houses in future. We need to address the insurance issue and negotiations are under way. The Minister for Government Policy, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Mr Letwin) is leading for the Government. I want us to get a resolution so that insurance companies provide what they are meant to provide, which is insurance for people living in their homes who want proper protection.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
I thank the Prime Minister for his expressions of sympathy for the family of my elderly constituent who died in the floods. I join him in expressing sympathy to the families of all those—I think four people—who have died in the floods. Will the Prime Minister immediately reverse the 30% cuts he has made to flood defences in the past two years? What part will he play in the issue of flood insurance for those who live in flood risk areas?
The Prime Minister
Let me join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to his constituents, who have had to bear some truly terrible floods. The pictures of floods in St Asaph were of biblical scenes. The emergency services have performed extraordinary feats to rescue people and to help people at what is a very difficult time. On flood defence spending, the Government are planning to spend more than £2 billion in the next four years. That is 6% less than in the previous four years, but we believe that by spending the money better, and by leveraging money from private and other sectors, we can increase the level of flood defence spending. The spending that is already under way will protect an additional 145,000 homes between now and 2015, but if we can go further then of course we should.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Ruane Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
3. What his policy is on individual electoral registration; and if he will make a statement.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
4. What his policy is on individual electoral registration; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
The Government are fully committed to delivering individual electoral registration. In the coalition agreement we promised to speed up its implementation to improve the integrity of the electoral register, and that remains the Government’s policy.
Miss Smith
It has not disappeared, but, as you know, Mr. Speaker, by convention we in this House do not comment on the workings of the other place.
Chris Ruane
Before I ask my question, may I just say that Labour did not do enough to increase electoral registration during our 13 years in power?
May I ask the Minister, in the spirit of cross-party co-operation, what we can do together—as Members of Parliament, as political parties and as democrats—to put the 6 million unregistered voters on to the register and to improve democracy?
Miss Smith
I truly welcome what the hon. Gentleman has said. I think it is of concern to everyone in the House that, for example, 36% of people—according to a recent Electoral Commission survey—believe that electoral fraud is a problem. We are introducing safeguards to ensure that the maximum number of people can be individually registered. That includes the use of techniques such as data-matching, phasing in the transition over two years, a write-out to all electors in 2014, and a programme of work to maximise registration among previously under-represented groups.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
It is now more than a year since the Perth agreement, and I appreciate that the Deputy Prime Minister has put a lot of work into this. It is now in the hands of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, however, so will the Deputy Prime Minister consider visiting New Zealand—
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Ruane Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I will certainly join my hon. Friend in that. This is an important announcement, because the new enterprise allowance gives people who become unemployed the chance to set up their own business and enterprise. Under the current rules, people must wait three months before being able to access that programme, but under our plans, they will be able to access it from day one of becoming unemployed. I want to see many more new businesses started up in our country to build on the record of last year, when more businesses were established in Britain than in any year in our recent history.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Q11. When in opposition, the Prime Minister said:“all too often, when you put the questions to the Minister, the answer is pretty much a ‘not me guv’ shrug of the shoulders…There is a serious accountability problem with our political system.”Which of his Cabinet Ministers will take responsibility for the fiasco of the west coast main line?
The Prime Minister
The Transport Secretary came to the House and made a full statement and gave a full apology for what had happened. I must ask the House this: can we remember a Labour Minister ever apologising for anything? Anyone? None! [Interruption.]