Business of the House
Chris Ruane Excerpts(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Rees-Mogg
The right hon. Lady, quite correctly, corrects me that it was at the end of last week.
We have motions (A) to (H) to debate, and the format of this business of the House motion leaves between 6 o’clock plus a Division, so 6.15 pm, and 8 o’clock for that debate to take place, which seems a very rushed approach to debating these important issues. When the Government were in control of the Order Paper, they allowed more days for debate than this motion allows hours.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
If the hon. Gentleman were to conclude his speech, and if others were to resist having a debate at this point, we could get to the meat of the issue.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman. Had he not decided to intervene, I might have finished my comments, but now he has given me inspiration to carry on against this appalling motion, which is fundamentally against the spirit of our constitution.
I appeal to those who support this type of motion to have the courage of their convictions. If they really have no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government, let them vote that way. Let them go to their constituents and see how far they get standing as independents. Let them see, as socialists, how many votes they get. Let them see, as independents, how many votes they get. They lack the courage of their convictions, and therefore they try to undermine the constitution by subterfuge.
Business of the House
Chris Ruane Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)
I thank the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and the Leader of the House for their comments, which I know will be very much appreciated by James’s family. He was a remarkable, inspiring and very kind young man.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Yesterday, the Labour Towns group sponsored a debate on a town of culture award, and 20 Back-Bench Members spoke in just 40 minutes, which is possibly a record. May we have a debate in Government time on encouraging our national museums and galleries to loan their artefacts and paintings, some of which have never seen the light of day, to pop-up galleries and museums in the poorest towns of the United Kingdom?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent suggestion that I would be pleased to support. We will have Digital, Culture, Media and Sport questions on 31 January, and this would be a good point to raise directly with Ministers.
Business of the House
Chris Ruane Excerpts(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Speaker
I am very sorry that the hon. Member for Livingston (Hannah Bardell) has had to raise this and that the Government Whips Office is blocking progress on this matter, but let us hope that some progress will be made before too long. [Interruption.] Well, that is the situation—that is the reality, and that is the evidence. It is very clear; there is no doubt about it.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Penblwydd hapus, Mr Speaker, as we say in Wales.
In 1991, 9 million prescriptions were written for antidepressants. By 2016, that figure had gone up to 65 million. In 2004, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence recommended and approved the science of mindfulness for the treatment of repeat episodes of depression. Can the Leader of the House guarantee a debate in Government time on why the use of antidepressants has shot up over that period, while mindfulness has just bubbled along?
Andrea Leadsom
The hon. Gentleman raises an incredibly important point. I certainly was not aware of the shocking rise in the use of antidepressants. He will be aware that mindfulness courses are offered in this place. I have tried to attend one, but due to the busyness of this place, I have not managed to get there yet. I certainly agree that we could all do with some mindfulness at this time.
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Government are investing significant sums in improving mental health and making good on the pledge for parity of esteem between physical and mental health. We will see many more people able to access talking therapies and the kind of support he is talking about, but I encourage him to seek a Backbench Business Committee debate, because I am sure that many Members would want to contribute to it.
Today’s Business of the House
Chris Ruane Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Does it bother the right hon. Gentleman that his legacy will not be that of a parliamentary statesman, but of a grubby, cowardly assassin?
Business of the House
Chris Ruane Excerpts(10 years ago)
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Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is quite right: domestic violence and abuse ruin lives. They are completely unacceptable, which is why tackling this crime has been one of the Government’s top priorities since coming to office, and that includes backing the important work of Women’s Aid. He knows that there is no compelling evidence that suggests a causal link between sporting events and domestic violence and abuse. However, an event of the importance of the World cup presents an opportunity for us to target different audiences with our message concerning domestic abuse; he is quite right about that. It will build on the work of Women’s Aid, and the Home Office has launched a campaign for that purpose. Whether we are talking about physical violence, threats or coercive behaviour, they all count as abuse and it is part of our work to stop it.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
It is a statutory responsibility of electoral registration officers and local authorities to do door-to-door canvassing of non-responders to voter registration. In Hansard today, there is a list of 22 local authorities that break the law, some of which have broken the law for four years on the trot and no action has been taken. Will the Leader of the House have a debate in Parliament on this important issue that affects our democracy?
Mr Lansley
I cannot promise an immediate debate but I will talk to the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is responsible for Cities and Constitution and has oversight of such issues. In the first instance though, I will ask the Electoral Commission to respond because it has a responsibility to ensure the integrity of elections, which includes the work of the electoral registration officers and whether or not they meet their responsibilities.
Business of the House
Chris Ruane Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
May we have a debate in Government time on Government procrastination?
Chris Bryant
Yes, we got that joke.
Earlier today, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said that it would take up to 12 months to create the recognising body for the press regulatory organisation. That means that in the next eight to 10 weeks at least one body, and probably two, will be seeking recognition, and there will be no one to recognise them. Should we not get this up and running a little bit faster?
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Chris Ruane Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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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.
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.
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”.
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.
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
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.
Paul Blomfield
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. Indeed, that is at the heart of my argument.
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%.
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
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Chris Ruane Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Wayne David
The hon. Gentleman pre-empts my next point. That is precisely what I want to refer to.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
On the subject of a joint Liberal Democrat and Conservative emblem, could a blue duck—is it a duck or a dove that the Liberal Democrats have?—or a yellow oak tree be an amalgam of the emblems of the two parties?
John Hemming
I did provide that information to the police in 2004, and they had an operation called Operation Gripe, in which they basically did nothing. We have now moved on. We are eight years down the track. I do not think that it would be reasonable to prosecute people for things they did eight years ago. Let me quote again from the judgment:
“The reaction of the police can be best summed up by drawing attention to the code name they gave to complaints of malpractice—Operation Gripe. This indicated better than anything else their view that the whole business was a complete waste of time and that Mr Hemming and the other complainants were a tiresome nuisance.”
I gave all the evidence to the police, who piled it in a box, called it Operation Gripe and did nothing. At the same time, we have to be realistic. We have moved on eight years and I am not going to spend all my time trying to get a particular woman prosecuted for handing poll cards to the Labour party. What I said to the returning officer, the chief executive of the council, was that I wanted her to stop doing it, not get her imprisoned. There are questions about the objectives. My objective in the campaigning I have done on election fraud over a number of years is to stop it. To do that, we must have systems to monitor and detect things. That is where these particular probing amendments come in. They would give the Government a facility to make changes. I happen to think that the proposal for video recording in the polling station would be one of the best solutions.
Chris Ruane
What estimate has the hon. Gentleman made of the cost of kitting out every polling station in the UK with such video evidence?
John Hemming
What value does the hon. Gentleman place on integrity in electoral processes? That is the real question. One of these new video camera thingies, such as a mobile phone, would cost about £100 per polling station, and if we do not necessarily introduce them throughout the country, the question is, what value do we place on integrity in election processes? To me, the integrity of an election is absolutely critical.
Chris Ruane
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about integrity, but within that, and in hard times, we have to weigh two things in the balance: integrity and cost. So what assessment has he made of the incidence of such electoral fraud—personation or whatever? Would it be worth paying out £100 for every polling station in the UK, or would some of that money be better spent on installing disabled access, which is a far bigger problem?
John Hemming
Somewhere in the judgment, Members will find that I made about 50 complaints to the police in 2004 in Birmingham. As I have said, things have moved on, and some progress has been made on dealing with election fraud.
One issue was the large amount of postal vote fraud, and we proved that a small number of people had forged all the witness statements, but since then witness statements have been abolished so we can no longer prove whether any are forged. So changes have been made, but not all have necessarily been good changes.
Chris Ruane
The hon. Gentleman says that things have moved on in eight years. Does he have the statistics for the number of cases of electoral fraud and personation last year and this year? Is it a current problem, or would we be spending £100 on every polling station to resolve problems that existed eight years ago but do not exist today?
John Hemming
Paragraph 717 of Richard Mawrey’s judgment states:
“The systems to deal with fraud are not working well. They are not working badly. The fact is that there are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been.”
In paragraph 714, which I did not read out earlier, Mawrey states:
“In this judgment I have set out at length what has clearly been shown to be the weakness of the current law relating to postal votes. As some parts of this judgment may be seen as critical of the Government, I wish to make it clear that the responsibility for the present unsatisfactory situation must be shared. All political parties welcomed and supported postal voting on demand. Until very recently, none has treated electoral fraud as representing a problem. Apart from the Electoral Commission, whose role I have described above, the only voices raised against the laxity of the system have been in the media, in particular The Times newspaper, and the tendency of politicians of all Parties has been to dismiss these warnings as scaremongering.”
So there we go: personation is still going on.
In South Yardley ward this year, for instance, we put in a little bit of effort after the election and uncovered personation, but one difficulty is that when people are asked, “Did you vote?” they all tend to say yes—whether they did or not. There is a record of people who voted in 2012 but not in 2011, and when they are asked, “Do you remember whether you voted in 2011 or 2012?” they tend to say, “We voted both times,” when in fact we know that they did not vote in 2011.
We did, however, find a small number of personated votes in South Yardley ward—not enough to affect the result, but the point is that we found some. There are difficulties in dealing with things retrospectively, however, and that brings us to the point about new clause 1, which is about facilitating change. Emotionally, I like what some democracies have, which is orange or purple dye on the finger.
John Hemming
First, I do not think that that is true; and, secondly, the new clause is not necessarily the best way to deal with the issue, because it is an important one that needs consideration in primary legislation. Experiments—pilot schemes—might be undertaken to see how the proposal worked in certain areas, but it is an important issue that in primary legislation would attract far more Members than are currently in the Chamber to look at it. So we cannot say now what the exact solution would be, but at the moment Richard Mawrey is still right: there is no system for controlling personation.
A voter does not need their polling card, so they can turn up and say, “My name is X, of this address, please give me a ballot paper,” and the officials are under a duty to do so. Interestingly, during the 2010 general election I had in Birmingham observers from Kenya and Bangladesh, and, after I took them round and showed them how it all worked, they were quite surprised at how easy it was to defraud the system.
To return to the point I was about to make before the previous intervention—that is no criticism of the intervention—I am emotionally attracted to the practice in some countries of putting purple dye on a finger.
Chris Ruane
If we were to adopt the hon. Gentleman’s policy of putting an extra 60,000 CCTV cameras in polling stations throughout the country, how would that fit with his party’s view that there are too many such cameras already? An extra 60,000? Surely that would be Big Brother.
John Hemming
The question we have to ask is whether the use of something is proportionate, because in my constituency I supported the use of closed circuit television cameras, for instance, in the Yew Tree shopping centre, where they provide a useful function in an area with a history of crime. Sadly, there has been a history of crime in certain polling stations too, and, although I am not saying that we should put cameras all over the place, I think there is an argument for them as an option.
Chris Ruane
What criteria would the hon. Gentleman use for placing those—[Interruption.] The Parliamentary Secretary, Office of the Leader of the House of Commons, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) sniggers, but this is a serious issue. What criteria would the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) use for placing those extra 60,000 CCTV cameras across the nation? Would he do so if there had been previous electoral fraud or personation in an area, or if a certain socio-economic group or ethnic group had been involved? If he had a plan of the UK, where would he plonk those cameras?
John Hemming
Any decision would be better driven by the requests of the political parties. If they were willing to fund the measure so that it did not affect the deficit, they could place a camera to record what was going on and make sure that people were not being intimidated in the polling station.
There have been serious problems with people being bullied by their families in what is supposed to be a secret ballot. That is not supposed to happen, but it happens at the polling station as well.
Chris Ruane
Would political parties decide where the cameras went throughout the nation? If there were 60,000 of them, would there be 20,000 for Labour, 20,000 for the Tories and 20,000 for the Lib Dems, or would there be some kind of proportional representation for the allocation of CCTV cameras? Will the hon. Gentleman clarify that point?
John Hemming
One point about the new clause is that it does not try to be explicit about how we might deal with a specific problem; it would allow a discussion to take place. I am very pleased to have the hon. Gentleman’s interventions, however, as we look creatively at how we can deal with an issue to which, effectively, a blind eye has been turned for more than a century. When political parties had larger memberships it was easier to arrange polling agents all over the place; it has become harder as political party activity and social capital has gone down. So the hon. Gentleman might make that proposal, but what is important is that something should happen.
Chris Ruane
I was not making that proposal; I was asking the hon. Gentleman whether he agreed with it and was proposing it.
John Hemming
I am proposing, believe it or not, new clause 1, which would facilitate secondary legislation to deal with the matter. I accept the point that the issue is so important that it should be dealt with in primary legislation, but it would be nice to see the Electoral Commission showing some interest in pilot schemes to deal with these issues. Personation is well known in many areas of the country, and the noble Lord Greaves has highlighted cases in his area.
Chris Ruane
In a recent parliamentary question, I asked how many successful prosecutions of electoral fraud there are every year, and the answer came back, one or two, but 36% of the British public think that the situation is worse than that. Part of the reason for that disparity could be that MPs and Ministers stand up in the Chamber and on the news and say that electoral fraud is a terrible problem, but really it is not and there are very few cases. Yet the whole gist of the Bill—
The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
In fairness, Mr Hemming, you have taken a lot of interventions, and we have to deal with other new clauses after this. You have already been speaking for 30 minutes, and I think you are in danger of being drawn into something you do not want to be drawn into. It may be helpful if you are not drawn into it, and I am sure that you are now coming to the end of your speech.
Mr Jones
The hon. Gentleman says that, but what is to prevent someone from shifting the camera so that it covers the voting booths? My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd also made a good point about cost. I think that many electors would find it intimidating to be filmed while they were performing their democratic right. I therefore think that this is a very strange suggestion from the Liberal Democrats. They rail against the Big Brother state a lot, but this would be taking the Big Brother state to a huge and strange conclusion.
I also find it strange that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley is in favour of people marking their fingers. Again, I am not sure that that would go down well in my constituency.
Chris Ruane
For the record, I want my hon. Friend and the rest of the Committee to know that that was a joke. I was not honestly suggesting that we put ink on the end of people’s noses.
Mr Jones
Having known my hon. Friend for many years, I know his sense of humour and will take his comment in that spirit. I certainly would not support electors having to have their fingers, noses or any other part of their anatomy dipped to show that they had voted.
I think that robust training for polling clerks is important. The safeguards are already there. The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) spoke about police officers at polling stations. That is a good idea where there are problems. If there are problems in certain wards, as hon. Members think there are, the Bill allows for community support officers to take that role. That is a good move because it will free up police resources. The mechanisms are there to ensure that the ballot is run fairly.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley made the accusation that somebody was giving out polling cards to the Labour party. His speech was interesting in that he said that the problem affects all parties, but did not name one case that involved his party, when we know that the Liberal Democrats have been at this on an industrial scale in parts of the country. If he has evidence of polling cards being given out, he should report it. The only problem comes if he bombards the police with 50-odd minor complaints. In that case, even I would consider him an irritant.
Chris Ruane
I refer the hon. Gentleman to my earlier intervention. That research is already in place. I referred to a parliamentary answer from a few weeks ago, which stated that there are one or two cases a year. We need to get this problem into perspective.
Wayne David
Yes, that is a real concern. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend was present when I referred to my own mother of 86. She ticked the box and assumed she would have a postal vote for the rest of her life. She will be surprised if she does not get through the data-matching exercise and finds she has to fill in a complicated form to be able to exercise the vote she thought she always had.
Those are our two real concerns, which loomed large in our Committee debate. We have other concerns as well. The role of the Electoral Commission has been referred to many times by a number of Members in debating different clauses and amendments. We think that the Electoral Commission should play a pivotal role in achieving the move towards individual electoral registration. We are concerned that the Government as a whole seem intent on undermining and degrading the Electoral Commission’s role.
We are also concerned about the lack of ring-fencing of moneys for electoral registration officers—
Chris Ruane
Before my hon. Friend moves on to ring-fencing, I would like to say that the Electoral Commission has been pivotal over the past year or so in putting the case for the proper introduction of electoral registration. Does he think that that has upset the Government and explains why they want to reduce its role, as the Electoral Commission has come up with the facts and figures and supported the arguments of the civic societies and, indeed, my hon. Friend’s position as shadow Minister?
Wayne David
I cannot, of course, speak for the Government, and unfortunately I cannot read the Government’s mind, but I believe that there is some concern in Government circles about the role of the Electoral Commission. We strongly believe that the whole electoral process needs to be firmly depoliticised—that it needs to be outside and above the short-term interests of party politics—and we think that the Electoral Commission is the key organisation that can ensure that that happens. We therefore think it important for the commission’s role to be defended and enhanced whenever possible.
I was going to say something about the ring-fencing of resources. The chief executive of the association of electoral registration officers, whose views I have quoted previously, says that there should be a firm demarcation and ring-fencing of what resources are available, so that EROs know exactly where they stand when it comes to the resources they need to introduce a new system. It is not just a question of ensuring that the right systems are in place; it is also a question of ensuring that EROs themselves are trained and retrained, and are competent to make the system work effectively. We fear that the money may not be sufficient, and it certainly is not ring-fenced.
Chris Ruane
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way yet again. About five years ago, when Labour was in office, I asked the Government to specify the amount spent per elector in each local authority area. The figure for England was not available, but I managed to obtain the figure for Wales from the Welsh Government, and lo and behold I found that the more a local authority spent on registration the greater the registration rates. I think that funding is crucial to proper implementation, and that ring-fencing the funding is crucial to the actual spending of it.
Wayne David
My hon. Friend makes his point forcefully and clearly. I pay tribute to him for the work that he has done locally and among his colleagues here in Parliament in raising awareness of an issue that is central to our democratic process. We have all come round to his point of view that it is a vital issue, but he was the trailblazer, and I want to record our particular and general thanks, as a House, for his efforts.
Let me list, very briefly, a number of other matters that concern us. In its present form, the Bill gives Ministers the power to cancel the annual canvass at any time. The Government’s reasoning is based on the idea that an annual canvass will not be required as the register becomes more complete and accurate. We believe that, although a Minister might push that through Parliament, it gives Ministers far too much power to intervene in a crucial aspect of the electoral registration process. Removing annual canvasses risks causing a marked deterioration in the quality of the electoral roll.
If we are fortunate enough to move eventually—as I think it may well be, rather than straight away—towards an electoral register that is pretty complete, we need to ensure that it remains complete. That is why it is so important that we do not rest on our laurels but ensure that the annual canvass is in place, that as many people as possible are on the register, and that they stay there.
On the first day of the Committee stage, the Minister made great play of the publication of secondary legislation. He told us that some had been placed in the Library before the Committee stage had begun. Well, that was partly true. I went to the Library and found that some secondary legislation in draft form had been placed there minutes before the beginning of the debate, so that it had not been possible to have sight of it beforehand. There were only two pieces of draft legislation there anyway, both of which refer to verification. One addresses what alternative evidence might be required if an individual were unable to come forward with a national insurance number or a date of birth. The Government suggest that there should be a list of alternative documents. The first list mentions a utility or landline phone bill, a Post Office, bank or building society statement, a debit or credit card statement, and a mortgage statement. The individual will be asked to provide two or more documents from that list. It is perfectly possible that an individual will be unable to provide two such documents, however. As we all know, ever fewer people are using landline telephones, so they would not be able to produce that document—people increasingly rely solely on mobile phones. They may not have a bank account, or own a house either, so they will not have a mortgage statement, and they might not have a Post Office account. Such a person would have a moral right to claim they ought to be on the register even though they were unable to fulfil the criteria the Government have asked of them.
In respect of the second list, it is stated that:
“Proof of name and date of birth will also need to be provided. Currently our view is that this will involve one document from the list below”.
That list consists of Commonwealth or EU passport, Commonwealth or EU identity card, and a British passport. Again, it is perfectly possible that a British citizen might not have a passport. Therefore, yet again, the Government are being too prescriptive and are not allowing people to exercise their democratic right to be on the electoral register. I have concerns about the secondary legislation, therefore.
It is a pity that the constitutional affairs Minister, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), has just left the Chamber, because I was hoping he would stay to hear about my next area of concern; I hope he returns before we vote. It is unfortunate that, despite his earlier utterances, he said that in his view, “Secondary legislation isn’t that important because we’re considering primary legislation here.” A key point we have been making throughout this entire debate is that this area of legislation is highly dependent on the fine detail of secondary legislation, as the Electoral Commission has said on numerous occasions. Therefore, the secondary legislation should have been produced in full for proper consideration, so we could have had comprehensive democratic scrutiny of what has been suggested. It is a great shame that the Government have not done that, despite our repeated requests over many months.
I welcome the fact that the legislation is to include a civil penalty, but the Government have not come forward with details about how much that civil penalty might be. We have moved forward slightly, as I was told I was not far wide of the mark when I referred to parking fines, but no specific details have been given.
We had an important debate about university accommodation and sheltered accommodation in particular. We are worried that multi-occupancy buildings such as halls of residence present a particular challenge that is not effectively met by the Government’s plan for individual electoral registration. The National Union of Students, among others, has expressed concern about the drop in electoral registration levels in university halls of residence. We share those concerns, and the Government have not come forward with any proposals that have convinced us that this potential problem will be effectively tackled.
Our very last debate was about queues at polling stations. My final disappointment is that, despite a cross-party consensus on the Floor of the House uniting, dare I say it, all reasonable people, the Government were unable to offer any convincing argument about why they did not accept the reasonable suggestion to ensure that all people could vote in general elections. I find that very disappointing.
As I have said time and again, we welcome individual electoral registration, as we legislated for it and we are convinced it is a sound principle, but we are concerned that the Government have not moved beyond their initial concessions and have not responded to the concerns that hon. Members have expressed in Committee. Therefore, I feel that we have no alternative but to vote against Third Reading. We believe that completeness and accuracy are important concepts, and we certainly support them, but the Government have not done anything near enough to make them into meaningful reality. The Bill is flawed and therefore it is unable to command our support this evening.
Chris Ruane
It is a pleasure to speak on Third Reading—the final part of this long debate. My interest in these matters goes back not just over recent years but over the past 10 years.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) mentioned that there was a feeling of conspiracy on the Opposition Benches and he is right. There are just reasons for that because there was a settled consensus in 2009 that this legislation would be introduced with the support of both sides of the House by 2015. During that six-year period there was to be an opportunity to raise electoral registration levels to their maximum so that we could have a full analysis of the drop and get people back on the register. It was all agreed and cut and dried after many years of debate that the date would be 2015, but the first act of the coalition was to bring that consensual date forward by a year. That might have been happenstance or coincidence, or it might have been that it would benefit them.
Mr Kevan Jones
Like my hon. Friend, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but one does not need to be a conspiracy theorist to look at the facts and see where this change and the redrawing of the boundaries came from. The Conservative party has learned from the United States, where the American Legislative Exchange Council, which backed and funded the Atlantic Bridge scheme in which senior Government members were involved, did exactly the same thing to make it more difficult for people to vote in local elections.
Chris Ruane
Absolutely. It was my hon. Friend himself who put me on to relevant websites. There are specific examples across the whole of the United States, and lo and behold they happen in Republican states. They call it voter frustration or voter suppression. There are examples of the poor and the black being kept off the register going back to the 1950s.
There is a feeling of conspiracy on the Opposition Benches because the date has been brought forward by one year. As I said, it might have been happenstance or coincidence, but I think it was a deliberate attempt to gain maximum political advantage first for the 2015 election and secondly for the redrawing of the freeze date for the next Boundary Commission in December 2015. There was particular concern on the Opposition Benches, and, I hope, on the Government Benches as well—I know that some senior Liberal Democrats were concerned—when the Electoral Commission said that the number of current unregistered voters was 6 million, not 3 million. I informed the House that I had told the Electoral Commission that two years previously and that it had said, “No.” Then it did the research and said, “Yes, you are right—it is 6 million but it is a different 6 million” from the figures I got from Experian. When it predicted that that 6 million would go to 16 million unregistered voters, we were at risk of becoming like a banana republic, with 40% of our electorate being off the register.
Angela Smith
To go back to my hon. Friend’s previous point, does he share my surprise—astonishment, actually—that Government Front Benchers have never managed to come up with a decent reason why the carry-over register cannot be used for the boundary review in 2015?
Chris Ruane
I will come on to that point when I conclude my speech, but I share my hon. Friend’s concern.
There was a lack of co-operation at the start of this process. The Government were sure that they were absolutely right and that the independent Electoral Commission’s figures were nonsense. They initially dismissed the concerns of civic society, including Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society and Age Concern.
We can compare the Government’s approach with Labour’s attitude on the constitutional changes that we made during our 13 years in government. People may say that we did not do enough to get those who were unregistered back on the register. I would agree with them entirely, because I was knocking on Ministers’ doors—and Prime Ministers’ doors—to say that there was a problem, but it was not properly addressed. However, Labour cannot be accused of using those changes for party political advantage.
Jonathan Edwards
Given that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, I refer him to the Government of Wales Act 2006, because there was not much cross-party support for the reforms that were led by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain).
Chris Ruane
Let me set out a list of the constitutional changes that Labour implemented and the way in which we approached them. We changed the position in 2001 so that if someone did not put their name down for two years on the trot, they were taken off the register. That was the cause of the first big drop. Some 1 million to 2 million people came off the register as a result of the Labour Government’s action, and they were our voters. I thought it was daft, but we did it, even though it went against us.
In Scotland, a consensus was in place five years prior to devolution, meaning that everything had been squared with all sections of society. We introduced proportional representation for European elections when we did not need to, and we went from four Labour MEPs in Wales down to one.
Chris Ruane
Politically, they were all mistakes, but constitutionally it may have been the right thing to do.
When PR for local government was introduced in Scotland, Labour lost its natural base. Had we not introduced the change, we could have been in control of local government in Scotland. We also introduced devolution for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. In 1997, we had a huge majority of 180, so we could have railroaded those proposals through and used first past the post for the devolved Administrations, but instead we used proportional representation. All Labour’s constitutional changes were neither party political nor politicised, and that is the big difference compared with this Government’s constitutional changes. The Deputy Prime Minister said that his proposals were the biggest constitutional change since 1832, and House of Lords reform is probably the biggest constitutional change since Magna Carta or 1066, but they are all being rushed through for party political advantage. A Government who use party political advantage on constitutional measures set a dangerous precedent because the party that comes in after them might do exactly the same thing, so it becomes a zero-sum game. Such measures should be taken forward with party political consensus.
I give some credit to the Government—this is the nice part of my speech, although there will be a sting in the tail—because, despite their initial position of intransigence, their Ministers then listened. That was only because the Opposition’s excellent Front-Bench team took the issues out to wider society, such as the Electoral Reform Society, Unlock Democracy and Age Concern. Those organisations held meetings in the House of Commons, took evidence and contacted the Government. The Electoral Commission, the independent monitoring voice, had massive concerns about the proposals. I also pay tribute to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee under its excellent Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), which took evidence and produced a consensual report containing strong recommendations. Our Front-Bench team has shown strong leadership throughout the process.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion mentioned Denbighshire county council, and while I am giving out plaudits, I pay tribute to the council and its electoral registration officer, Gareth Evans, for increasing elector registrations in Vale of Clwyd from 47,000 to 57,000 over five years. I pay tribute also to the leadership of the chief executive, Mohammed Mehmet, who was the one who issued the letters to the non-responders, saying that if they did not fill in their electoral registration form, he would turn them over to the county council’s solicitors and they would be fined £1,000. That had a big impact and increased registration. Even in the Rhyl West ward, one of the poorest wards in the whole country, with 900 houses in multiple occupation, registration increased from 2,500 to 3,500 electors.
Now for the sting in the tail. I am pleased with the concessions made so far, but there are two outstanding concessions that we want. If the Minister were to say that he was prepared to listen to us on this, we may not vote against Third Reading. The first concession that we seek is on the next boundary date—2015. There needs to be a carry-over from the old register to the new register. The second is a carry-over for postal ballots. There can be no reason whatever for not accepting this, except party political advantage. I warn the Liberal Democrat part of the coalition to be very wary. The advantage will be for the Conservatives, and it will come up and bite the Liberal Democrats from behind in the inner cities, where they have some presence, and in the south-west, if they do not sort the issue out.
The House of Lords Reform Bill was printed today. It states that the freeze date for that election will be December 2011, so there will still be 6 million people missing from the register. Remember, those who are elected—the new Lords or senators or whatever they are—will be elected for a 15-year period, so if those 6 million people cannot participate in the first vote, they will have to wait about 18 years before they can have any influence on who represents them in the other place.
Mr Kevan Jones
On electoral registration and issues to do with election, there has always been a degree of consensus in the House, which has ensured that it is not a political issue and that there is cross-party support for any changes that are introduced. But on the Bill and the boundary changes, we have seen a politicisation of the arguments.
We do not have to look very far to see where that came from. Individuals in the Conservative party were determined to use this Bill and the Parliamentary Voting Systems and Constituencies Bill to gain political advantage. They learned that from the United States, where the American Legislative Exchange Council has been trumpeting these changes, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) said, have made it more difficult for other people to register to vote or actually to vote in elections. That is exactly where the policy came from. What was the connection? The Atlantic Bridge, of which senior members of the Government were members, was supported and paid for by that organisation, which is sponsored mainly by wealthy right-wing neo-cons in the United States.
Has the Bill been improved? Yes, it has, because of the outrage that has been generated. I do not include in what I have just said the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper). He is increasingly becoming the Minister for dealing with sticky sticks. He is obviously going to—
Mr Jones
I certainly did. I am far too polite to suggest anything other of the Minister. He is a fine gentleman. He dealt with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, he has had this Bill to deal with and he has Lords reform to deal with. I look forward to the long debates that we will have on that. Overall, the hon. Gentleman has tried to do the right thing.
Has the Bill been improved, or have the most radical and extreme parts of it been expunged through the process of pre-legislative scrutiny and Committee? Yes. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd, I pay tribute to the Select Committee for the work that it has done, to the various outside bodies, such as Unlock Democracy and the Electoral Reform Society, and to the Electoral Commission, which focused on the fact that if the Bill had remained in its original format it could have changed democracy in this country. The idea of being able to opt out of the register was clearly designed to make things harder and push down the register in certain areas. Just by chance they are the inner-city seats that are mainly represented by the Labour party.
Chris Ruane
My hon. Friend refers to the fact that if the Bill had gone through in its original form it would have damaged democracy. Does he agree that we could have been looking at a British coup?
Mr Jones
Yes, and that is what is sad about what the Bill has done. When any legislation to do with elections or boundaries came before the House it was always consensual. This has been highly political, as the opt-out clearly was.
The Liberal Democrats’ position is very strange. As I said the other day, it is the first time I have seen turkeys voting for Christmas. They are doing it yet again on this Bill. They think that they will get some advantage out of it, but I just do not see that at all.
I am still concerned about how the Government will deal with the penalty. If it is a derisory amount, will it be effective? I do not think that it will be. I wait for the Government to come forward with that. The measures were clearly designed to hamper registration and make it difficult for people to register to vote. As democrats, we should be encouraging people not only to vote, but also to get on the electoral register. As I said on Monday, the important thing is not only to get people on the register, but for it to be accurate.
A lot of things have changed since the last general election when the Liberal Democrats were in opposition, but I want to read what the then Liberal Democrat Member for Cambridge, David Howarth, said in the House on 13 July 2009. He said:
“The validity and credibility of democratic elections depend both on the register being comprehensive and on its having a great deal of integrity. If the register is not comprehensive, it is not the electorate who are making a choice but some subset of the electorate. If it is not secure and we cannot be sure that the people whose votes are being counted are electors, that people are not voting more than once or that there is not fraud going on, equally there is a threat to democratic credibility…I do not think that anybody”—
[Interruption.] If the Minister is patient, I am coming on to the issue around changing the date in terms of using the register for the 2015 boundaries.
David Howarth went on to say:
“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. 111-2.]
But that is exactly what the Government are doing and that is exactly the situation we will face if the carry-over is used for the 2015 boundaries. The Conservatives know exactly what they are doing. They know that the register will be depleted and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) said earlier, if the money assigned for electoral registration is not ring-fenced, in certain parts of the country no real effort will be put into ensuring that the register is as complete as possible, no matter how much guidance and encouragement is given nationally to local councils, and my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd gave an example the other day relating to the leader of Islington council.
I also have great fears about the data matching. I think that it is a good idea to rely not just on the annual canvass, but to use other methods as well. Durham county council has pioneered that and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly raised another good example. But if local councils are faced with budget cuts and they can get out of doing the annual canvass, they will, which will deplete the register even further. I think that the annual canvass will be more important in the early stages of individual registration than it is today. The only way to get to hard-to-reach communities practically will be through individual canvasses of those electorates, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly said earlier and as the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) said excellently yesterday when speaking to his amendment, particularly in relation to disabled people and those who have difficulty either accessing the registration forms or filling them in. Therefore, I fear that there are things in the Bill that will be used by certain people to ensure not only that it is harder to get on the register, but that there are disincentives for doing so.
The most scandalous thing in the Bill, as my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly has already said, is the carry-over relating to the 2015 boundary changes. It will be interesting to see what the Government do if there is a big drop, which is clearly possible. Clearly such a drop will not be in the more affluent areas represented mainly by the Conservative party. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), said, it will be in the inner-city London constituencies such as his and others where the register will drop substantially. That will then affect the figures that will be used to draw up the new boundaries. They will therefore be artificial and will not truly reflect the electorates.
We should be encouraging people to get on the electoral register, but what the Government are aiming for here—we know why the Conservatives are doing it—is to ensure that those people are not taken into account when the new boundaries are drawn up. I will give an example from the present redrawing of the boundaries. Durham county council, when it came into being, took responsibility for electoral registration; before it was a unitary council, seven district councils were responsible. Registration was patchy in different parts and the councils all did it in different ways. I described the other day how in some areas, such as Derwentside, it was obvious to see that there were mistakes in the register but the council made no effort to address the gaps. When the county council took responsibility, it made a real effort to ensure that the register was as accurate as possible. It put over 12,000 missing electors on the register, and that had an impact on the boundary commission’s deliberations for the recommendations in the latest redrawing of boundaries. In the city of Durham, for example, a lot of students were not on the register, but they were put on and that had an effect, so there is clearly going to be an effect if we do not have such a carry-over. The Political and Constitutional Reform Committee was very clear about that, and its Chair said:
“There are real risks in moving to a new system, not least that people with the right to vote could fall off the electoral roll in large numbers. This would be damaging to democracy, to public engagement in politics, and to the fairness of the basis on which MPs are elected.”
That is fundamental, and if we read the report we find that, even though the Committee has a Labour Chair, those sentiments are shared across the political spectrum.
Dr Stuart Wilks-Heeg of the University of Liverpool said in evidence on 8 September 2011:
“If we do see a large number of people drop off the registers, even if in all likelihood they are not going to vote, that will have a profound implication for the redrawing of boundaries under the new rules that have just gone through.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly asked, as my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd did earlier, I think, whether the Government have provided a good explanation for introducing the measure. No, they have not.
My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly said that, in the previous Parliament when we introduced individual registration, there was consensus on the timetable, and it is more important to get the measure right and to make the register comprehensive than it is to do what the Conservative party in the coalition is doing, which is to make it more difficult to create an accurate register, meaning that the boundaries will be affected when they are redrawn.
The other strange thing that I cannot understand is why those who have postal and proxy votes will not be carried over, either. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly referred to his 86-year-old mother, and her situation will be replicated throughout the country by disabled people and people who have had postal votes for many years, as they will think that, because they have one, it will continue on and on. It will not. If we do not engage with those individuals, we will find that large numbers of a very vulnerable section of society, are disfranchised. My hon. Friend said that MIND and other pressure groups dealing with that section of society have argued against the measure, but the Government seem to be ignoring them, and in Committee of the whole House I did not hear any explanation for it.
Major changes have been made to the Bill, and it is better than the one we started with, but it still has within it that bit of poison, which the Conservatives will use in their attempt to gerrymander the next boundary review, and that is why I will not support it on Third Reading.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Chris Ruane Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Mr Heath
I repeat: this is a power for Parliament and I expect Parliament to use it sensibly because I believe—contrary to all the evidence—that most Members of Parliament want our democratic system to work as effectively as possible. Yes, the hon. Gentleman is right that there are differences between constituencies. The electorate in my constituency is almost the same as the electorate in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras, but demographically the two are very different and a comparison between them would be almost meaningless in those terms. The right mechanism in his constituency might be completely wrong for mine and there may be better and more effective measures we can deploy—as long as we are clear that our intention is to have in every constituency a register that is as complete and as accurate as we can manage.
Chris Ruane
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way so graciously. Earlier, he said, “We would not move forward unless we—no, not just we: the Electoral Commission and both Houses—were satisfied.” Let us imagine that on one side there was the Government and both Houses—one of them, this place, in an unholy alliance and the other stuffed with Liberal and Conservative peers—and on the other side the Electoral Commission saying, “No, things are not right.” Who would win?
Mr Heath
I do not remember any Government of any complexion introducing proposals on electoral law on which there was not a measure of agreement with the Electoral Commission, but the whole purpose of the Bill is to ensure that the first word—not the last word—lies with the Electoral Commission. The commission has the duty in the first instance to assess any proposal and to do so in the light of the evidence from pilot schemes run in the interim. It is inconceivable to me that a Minister would put forward a proposal using the mechanism in the Bill that did not have the full approval of the Electoral Commission. A future Government could decide to write their own primary legislation and abolish the canvass overnight—that is exactly what the Labour Government the hon. Gentleman supported did—but we do not intend to do that, because we think there is a better mechanism, based on evidence and on the views of the Electoral Commission, and that is what we have proposed.
Let me go though the amendments in the group. Amendment 22 would remove the possibility of the Government proceeding with the abolition or the amendment of the annual canvass. We have no immediate intention of doing either, but I believe that that is a valuable power to be available to both Houses, provided there are safeguards and it is used on the advice of the Electoral Commission. It would be a great shame to be unable even to consider following the example set in Northern Ireland if that is the best way to achieve completeness and accuracy of the register.
Amendment 24 deals with the mechanism within Parliament. As I said, the mechanism proposed is unique because of the requirement to have the advice of the Electoral Commission before starting. I hope that the House is satisfied that the two-stage process—a report by the Electoral Commission followed by the normal affirmative procedure in both Houses—provides sufficient scrutiny and safeguards.
Amendment 23 would remove the ability to reinstate the canvass, which seems a little perverse, given the comments made by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras. I hope that the House will reject it.
Under clause 6(5), an order to amend or abolish the annual canvass would include provision to create further secondary legislation. I think that makes sense. If amendment 25 were made, it would prevent subsequent orders, so everything would have to be in primary legislation. I do not believe we need to use such an unwieldy method and that regulation and subordinate legislation are better. On reflection, I suspect the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge will agree with me that that is not the most sensible way of setting about our business.
Clause 7 sets out the requirement, when a proposal is made, for a report by the Electoral Commission containing an assessment of the extent to which registration officers are currently able to ascertain those unregistered people who are entitled to be registered and those who are registered but are not entitled to be so; the extent to which proposals in the order meet that objective; and the merits of alternative methods of meeting it. If amendment 27 were made, that report, instead of going to the relevant Minister, would go direct to Parliament. That does not necessarily make sense, because if such a proposal were to meet with a negative response from the Electoral Commission, it would not proceed to Parliament—Ministers would not entertain the suggestion. If the report were positive, however, it would be presented to Parliament and would necessarily form part of the process. In any case, I would expect the Electoral Commission to publish such a report, irrespective of whether it was to be presented to Ministers or to Parliament; the report would appear on the website and be available for general view and consideration. The amendment is therefore unnecessary.
Amendment 28 would set arbitrary limits on the time the Electoral Commission had to produce a report. It is unnecessary to place such a restraint on the commission.
Amendment 29 relates to the important matter of the commission’s role in relation to schemes to pilot proposed changes to the annual canvass. If we are to have a successful system, the pilots are extremely important. Without them, proper evaluation of schemes proposed by registration officers for their areas will be impossible. This covers the point raised by the hon. Member for North Durham about, in effect, horses for courses. The instigation comes from the registration officer for the area, it is agreed by the Minister, and Parliament must agree it by the affirmative resolution procedure. To insert yet another hurdle into the process is unnecessary because, in practice, the Electoral Commission would play a part in the design of any pilot scheme and would be responsible for evaluating it in due course. At the end of the day it is Ministers who are responsible to the House for schemes that are introduced.
Mr Heath
This involves two things. First, we need to have pilots to see how we can most effectively secure the information; the Electoral Commission might want to take a view on that. Secondly, we need to ensure that that is reflected in the secondary legislation—the regulations that specify what needs to be collected. There is already quite a long list of things that are specified; indeed, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) has complained that it is too long. Despite his reservations, I think that accessibility issues would be a useful addition. Provisions elsewhere in the Bill provide specific powers to add other requirements. For example, new paragraph 3ZA(1)(a) to the Representation of the People Act 1983 provides the power that the hon. Member for Hendon is concerned about. It seems that his view is shared by the Electoral Commission, which slightly worries me, but I will come back to that.
Chris Ruane
If a local authority offered to pilot such an initiative, would it receive additional funding?
Mr Heath
We want to make sure that every authority has the funding it needs to do the job properly. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a duty on local authorities to make available to electoral registration officers the funding that is necessary for them to do their job. He also knows that some authorities do that very well but some, frankly, do not, and in those cases the ERO ought to be saying, “You, Mr Chief Executive”—or Mr County Treasurer, or whatever—“are not providing the resources necessary to do the job effectively.” We will support every time EROs who lack the resources to do the job properly.
Chris Ruane
If such a pilot is of national significance because it could influence national policy, and it is above and beyond what an ERO or a local authority is already doing, surely it is incumbent on the Government, in a time of cuts, to recognise that and make additional funding available to it.
Chris Ruane
We have had promises from IT companies before that everything will be all right, but the systems have failed at the first hurdle after we have spent billions of pounds on them. We have a political deadline to meet, because the Conservatives want to win the next general election on the back of the Bill. Does my hon. Friend agree that that must not stand in the way, and that the IT system must be in place properly before we move forward?
Angela Smith
My hon. Friend makes an important point, especially given that the new register will be used for the boundary review in December 2015. It is critical that the data-matching arrangements work. He is right that the IT systems procured by Governments for public sector services often prove to be lacking, inefficient and not fit for purpose. The outcome of such problems is usually a backlog, causing frustration and anger for people up and down the country who do not get the services to which they are entitled.
That is not a problem just with central Government. When I was in local government, we introduced a new IT system to process housing benefit. It was introduced by the former chief executive of the council, who is now the top civil servant in the country and is very competent indeed. Even so, it was impossible to get an IT system that worked in the right way from day one. Sheffield city council ended up with one of the most severe backlogs that I have ever seen in processing the benefits that were due to the people of the city.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) is right that it is crucial to the democratic process that any IT system is tested thoroughly before people use it to register their right to vote. It is crucial that the right to register is given priority over anything else. If the IT system is found wanting, the partial register that results from it should not be used for the boundary review in 2015.
If the House is to have confidence in the Minister’s verbal reassurances, it must have the detail on how the changes are to be introduced. We must have concrete evidence in an implementation plan that every process that is required for the new system, including the data-matching and confirmation processes, will be up and running efficiently and properly before we move on to using the new system. Given that the boundaries in the 2020 general election depend on our getting this right, the House is entitled to a proper response from the Minister and to reassurance that the details will be made available soon.
Mr Kevan Jones
May I also say, Mr Weir, what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship?
I want to record my thanks to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and his Committee for the work they have done. They have improved the Bill substantially, which demonstrates the power of Select Committees when it comes to pre-legislative scrutiny. I think that we should see more of that, because it would not only give Bills a smoother passage in this place, but allow external agencies to ensure that their voices were heard. I also think that the Minister should be commended for the spirit in which he has accepted the Committee’s report.
Clause 5 deals with the maintenance of the register, a topic we touched on earlier in the context of ensuring it is as accurate and up to date as possible. As my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North said, this goes to the heart of our democracy. People must have the democratic right to be on the register. My hon. Friend referred to Lyndon Johnson, and I, too, have just finished reading the latest version of Robert Caro’s fourth book on Johnson, which I recommend as essential reading to all Members. It is important to ensure that citizens have the right to vote for their local representative, whether at parish, district or county council level or in parliamentary or European elections.
Clause 5 covers regulations governing electoral registration officers. It is important to give clear steers, either in the Bill—as suggested by my Front-Bench colleagues —or in regulations. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s comments on that. As the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) said, there are onuses on EROs to do certain things, but there must be consistency in this regard, as well as the will to do those things. The Bill states:
“A registration officer in Great Britain must give a person an invitation to apply for registration in a register maintained by the officer if—
(a) the officer is aware of the person’s name and address,
(b) the person is not registered in the register, and
(c) the officer has reason to believe that the person may be entitled to be registered in the register.”
Under current legislation, there are certain onuses on EROs. The Representation of the People Act 1983 was amended by the Electoral Administration Act 2006, which added a new section, 9A, setting out the steps that must be taken by EROs to identify people eligible for registration as electors. The steps include:
“(a) sending more than once to any address the form to be used for the canvass under section 10 below;
(b) making on one or more occasions house to house inquiries under subsection (5) of that section;
(c) making contact by such other means as the registration officer thinks appropriate with persons who do not have an entry in a register;
(d) inspecting any records held by any person which he is permitted to inspect under or by virtue of any enactment or rule of law;
(e) providing training to persons under his direction or control in connection with the carrying out of the duty.”
It may be claimed that many of those steps are already in place, but I come back to a point made earlier: the key is how they are implemented by local EROs.
Chris Ruane
Although some of these steps have been in place since as far back as 2006, many have not been taken up. This Bill presents us with an opportunity to make sure EROs take up their past duties, obligations and laws as well as their future ones.
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He has done a lot of good work in highlighting low registration across constituencies in the UK, and what he says is right, as I know from my own experience in County Durham. We could see obvious mistakes on the register, such as large gaps in streets—numbers 12 to 15 might be entirely missing, for example. A member of the council staff should have said, “Wait a minute; it can’t just be a matter of chance that all the residents in that sequence of addresses haven’t registered. A mistake must have been made.” Another example involved a sheltered accommodation property. It was run by a local councillor, but it was not included on the register at all. The new county council has made a determined effort to address such mistakes through a canvass, and we added about 12,000 people to the electoral register. That was a result of Durham county council looking at council tax records and other resources and of door-to-door canvassing, which will still be key.
My constituency has quite a stable population, but, as I said earlier, in certain parts of it—including parts of Stanley and Chester-le-Street—and especially in areas with a lot of private landlord accommodation, the names on the register change fairly often. The Electoral Commission report says:
“Incompleteness and inaccuracies on the registers are strongly associated with population movement.”
That comes as no great surprise. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) talked earlier about the transitory nature of much of his constituency’s population, and any Member representing a constituency with a large student population could make the same point.
The Electoral Commission report also makes it clear that there is a decline in registration in the most densely populated urban areas. It states that that decline may be
“as much as 10–15 percentage points over the lifetime of the registers.”
That, too, will come as no great surprise to anyone who has been involved in local government or in elections.
All EROs must make the accuracy of the register a top priority, and we must take steps to ensure that measures that are already in place are put into effect. We will wait and see whether that is pursued through the Bill or through regulations. If these amendments are not agreed to, there must be regulations that deal with this matter.
My experience in local councils tells me that we must do more than just rely on local EROs. Councillors must have the political will to take these steps, as must the chief officer. It must be seen as a key priority, for the reasons my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North outlined.
As amendment 12, tabled by my Front-Bench colleagues, makes clear, the new council tax bill that is sent out every year presents a golden opportunity. Durham county council is running a trial that enables people to tick a box if they want to apply a postal vote. Again, the good councils are doing that, and I think the Minister will agree that good councils will use such measures. This aim is to ensure that councils that are not mandated to use that process will in fact do so, as permitted under existing law.
Chris Ruane
As has been mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), local government has many ways of contacting electors. It can do so by way of housing benefit, council tax, disabled parking badges, the people it puts in residential care, the home helps who visit people in their homes, contact when people are placed in council and social housing, contact when enforcement and registration is carried out in respect of houses in multiple occupation and contact when new houses, be they private sector or public sector, are built. Local authorities are not extending the invitation to register to many people who use those things. A lot more can be done, but it will take time, effort and resources, and that has been used in the past as an excuse not to act. This Bill and other Bills are bringing about huge constitutional changes, which could dramatically alter the constitutional landscape, and local authorities need to do everything in their power to maximise the registers in their areas by using the previous legislation and this Bill.
The Government also hold databases, as outlined in amendment 17; they relate to
“welfare payments, pensions, driving licences, revenue collection, National Insurance and passport applications”.
All those offer an opportunity for national or local government to extend that invitation to register to people using those things at critical moments in their life. We need to address an issue about sharing national Government databases with local authorities, but there is no issue involved in using local databases within the remit of a local authority. Local authority databases can be used for the purpose of registration, and we need to examine ways in which we can improve those channels of communication between national Government and local government to open up those databases. I realise that people have concerns about losing databases; Department for Work and Pensions databases have been found on roundabouts in the past, and that caused a national outrage as it hit the national press—
Chris Ruane
Indeed, as my hon. Friend reminds us. We need to keep that in perspective, because although losing those databases was bad, I am sure that new systems can be implemented to allow secure access to those databases for the purpose of registration.
I also want to talk about the rights and responsibilities of Assembly Members, MPs, councillors, MSPs and Members of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland in respect of putting pressure on electoral registration officers to ensure that the existing legislation and this Bill are monitored, not only by the Electoral Commission, but by us as parliamentarians—as elected representatives. Last week, I e-mailed 250 Labour Members with a specific list of questions that the Electoral Commission had designed for MPs to put to their ERO. I have circulated those questions to Labour MPs and asked them to go to see their ERO with their Assembly Member, with their local group leader to put pressure on the ERO to ensure that everything is being implemented. That should also be examined in this Bill to ensure that elected representatives at least have that invitation to work with EROs to maximise the register. I have done this in my constituency, where we have a fantastic ERO, Gareth Evans, who has increased the registration in my constituency from 47,000 to 57,000 in a two or three-year period. That is excellent and I pay tribute to Gareth for his work on that.
On the invitation to register, we also need to ensure that there is no political interference by politicians who do not want people to be registered. Liberal Democrat Members will be aware—I have mentioned this in the past—that when the ex-Liberal leader of Islington council was asked by the Labour group to have a registration drive to get the unregistered on to the register, he said, “No, we are not doing that. Keeping people off the register is how we win elections.” If there is such a degree of political interference within a local authority, it needs to be tackled. The case might have been isolated, if high profile, but we need measures to tackle political interference if it occurs.
Such interference could be tackled in a number of ways. There does not necessarily need to be political interference; there could be political, bureaucratic or administrative incompetence. If the job is not being done and the mustard is not being cut, a solution is needed to allow registration to take place. I ask the Minister to consider, in the final analysis, transferring the rights of a local authority’s underperforming electoral registration department to that of a neighbouring authority that is achieving or letting the Electoral Commission carry out the registration in emergency circumstances. Alternatively—I say this as a Labour Member—there is perhaps a case for using the private sector. Experian has built the databases and knows exactly where the unregistered are, so perhaps there is an opportunity for its involvement if local authorities are too lazy or if there is political interference.
A number of the amendments would put the onus on the local authority to explain why it is important for an individual to be on the register. More needs to be done and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham that the question of civic duty might fall on deaf ears. Having said that, I am very glad that the Government, who initially talked about downgrading the civic duty to a lifestyle choice, listened to the avalanche of complaints from across the country, from the civic sector and from Opposition parties and decided to keep the civic duty. The explanation from Ministers, from political parties and from the ERO of the reasons why someone should be on the electoral register and the benefits that it brings in getting a mortgage and credit is important. If members of the local population are not on the register, they will not have access to proper credit and will be forced into the hands of loan sharks.
A great deal more education and explanation are needed from EROs and us. I am pleased that a lot of progress has been made. I pay tribute to the Ministers, whom I have hounded over the past two and a half years with hundreds of written parliamentary questions and oral outbursts in Committee and in the Chamber. I make no apology for that. A group of dedicated MPs from all parties have pursued the issue and progress has been made, specifically on the issue of fixed penalty notices. I pay tribute to Ministers for that but I maintain that the whole Bill is unnecessary. These things could have been done with all-party support, through Labour’s Political Parties and Elections Act 2009. I did not support it—I voted for it, but it was not in my heart— but I accepted it as a political reality and necessity. These things could have been achieved with all-party parliamentary consensus in 2015.
I recently asked in a parliamentary question why Labour’s Act was negated and the 2015 deadline was brought forward to 2014. The answer was that it was imperative to go through all this turmoil and upset and to take up all this parliamentary time because there is great concern out there among the Great British public, 36% of whom believe that there is electoral fraud, that meant we must tackle the issue. I also asked how many cases of electoral fraud there were, and the Minister replied that there were a couple a year.
Mr Kevan Jones
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Electoral Commission’s report on the pilots a few years ago, which was buried following outcry from the Daily Mail and others, said that in most of the pilots—including e-voting, text voting and, to give an example from my constituency, full postal voting—fraud was negligible?
Chris Ruane
The question I drafted on the train from Rhyl to Euston this morning expands on my hon. Friend’s point. It asks what assessment the Minister has made—he might want to think about this overnight—of the reasons why 36% of the British public think that there is electoral fraud, on the impact of Ministers and Government MPs talking about electoral fraud and on its coverage in the media—
The Temporary Chair (Mr Mike Weir)
Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman to come back to the amendments. I have been rather lenient, but he is going very wide of the subject now.
Chris Ruane
You have been very lenient, Mr Weir, and have let me rabbit on for a few minutes.
I give the Government credit for their recognition of representations from both sides of the House, civic society, the police, the Electoral Reform Society, Unlock Democracy, the courts and so on. They have listened, but this was all unnecessary. If they had stuck to Labour’s 2015 timetable, we would not have been discussing the matter today and would perhaps have been discussing the economy, growth or other such issues.
Mr Harper
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir.
I should acknowledge the very charitable comments—for him—made by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). It was pleasant to have such a polite outburst, compared with some of his previous ones. I acknowledge straight away that he is right that we all have a responsibility to help get these matters right. As Members of Parliament, we are in a very powerful position when it comes to talking to our electoral registration officers, asking what they are doing and checking that they are doing everything that is necessary. The same applies to senior councillors. I often hear anecdotal evidence that EROs say that they have trouble getting the resources to do the job properly, but the EROs and returning officers are often the more senior officers in the council. Councillors are very interested in ensuring that the electoral register is done properly and we as Members of Parliament have an opportunity, which the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we should take, to ask EROs what they are doing. When the Bill becomes law, as I hope that it will, it will be incumbent on us all to talk to our EROs, to check that they are doing all the work and to ask how they are progressing in implementing the provisions.
I thank the hon. Members for Vale of Clwyd and for North Durham (Mr Jones) for what they said about the Select Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and the excellent work it did in pre-legislative scrutiny. I also thank the hon. Member for North Durham for what he said about our response to that scrutiny. There is not much point in its being done only for us to ignore all of it, and we made a number of significant changes before we introduced the Bill. I should also praise the hon. Gentleman for mentioning accuracy as well as completeness. They are of equal importance and the Government have focused on both.
Mr Harper
I want to say one or two words about the draft secondary legislation. I do not apologise for when I laid it in the Library, because we are not debating it; we are debating the Bill. I put it in the Library so that Members could see it. I know I said this last week, but I will repeat it, because the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) needs to think it through: I will take no lectures from him about secondary legislation. Two similar Bills delegating significant powers to Ministers on electoral matters were introduced in the previous Parliament. I shall tell the House when the previous Government published the secondary legislation. It never published any in draft during the parliamentary passage of the Bill. The first any Members saw of any secondary legislation was after royal assent. I have published the draft secondary legislation while the Bill is still before this House, let alone the other one, and I have said that the rest of the secondary legislation will be published by the autumn, before the Bill has finished its passage through the other place. It might not be perfect and we might not be paragons of virtue, but we are doing an awful lot better than the previous Government. He ought to think about that before makes that point again.
Chris Ruane
Does the Minister accept that the difference between the two previous Bills, which, I admit, were certainly not perfect, and this Bill is that the former were not highly politicised? The 2009 legislation had cross-party support, but this Bill is highly contentious. We believe it to be highly politicised and the Conservative party’s ticket to winning the next election and the one afterwards. There is polarity there, which is why we need to see the fine print.
Chris Ruane
Many constituencies with large numbers of unregistered voters cover some of the poorest areas of the country, where cuts in other areas will loom large. EROs will be under a lot of pressure. If they legitimately raise finance through fines, should they not be allowed to keep a proportion of that, to reflect the additional work they will have to do? Will every step be monitored? Further, will there be an increase in bureaucracy, and if so, how will it be paid for?
Mr Harper
I shall make two points in response to the hon. Gentleman’s questions. First, some of our stakeholders are concerned that many people who are not registered to vote may well be poorer people; they do not want people without much money being hit with fines and being financially penalised. We thought about this matter when drafting the legislation, and my view was that it was better to make sure there was not a financial incentive. Everyone who gave us feedback, including EROs, said they wanted a penalty. They do not want to issue any penalties, however; rather, they want to be able to write a scary notice on the form saying, “If you don’t do this, something will happen, so you can’t just ignore this form and put it in the bin.” That goes back to a point made by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams).
We will work with the Electoral Commission on how to set out the description of the penalty so that it has the desired effect. It will test that in the design of forms, through user testing. If we come up with forms that are effective in this regard, we will be able to make it mandatory that they are used, which is important because at present authorities do these things in a variety of ways.
Chris Ruane
On this question, may I refer the Minister to the example set by Denbighshire county council, which stated in the middle of its form for registration, “If you do not fill this form in, you will be fined £1,000”? The warning has to be prominent and at the centre of the page, so that the recipients of these forms clearly understand that they must fill them in.
Mr Harper
The Electoral Commission will consider such issues when addressing the design of the form, and I am sure the points the hon. Gentleman raises will be taken into account.
Having set out why I do not think the level of the fine should be stated in the Bill, and having drawn attention to the draft secondary legislation and the approach we plan to take in coming up with that figure—rather than just making it up, we will listen to what stakeholders have to say—I hope the amendments will be withdrawn so we can allow the clause as currently drafted to stand part of the Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Chris Ruane Excerpts(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
8. What assessment he has made of the potential effects of advertising aimed at children on (a) childhood obesity and (b) children’s mental health.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
No assessment has been made. The rules on advertising content standards are the responsibility of the independent regulators—the Advertising Standards Authority and Ofcom. It is for those regulators to assess the sort of material that is appropriate for different audiences.
Chris Ruane
Half the adverts aimed at children encourage them to gorge on junk food and become obese, while the other half extol the virtues of size zero. Is it any wonder that 20% of children suffer with mental illness? Will the Minister look at the example of Sweden, which has banned advertising aimed at the under-12s?