Draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (amendment) Regulations 2017 Draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017

Chris Skidmore Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2017 General Committees

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2017.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017.

[Chris Skidmore]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.

The purpose of the instruments is to modify provisions in the Representation of the People Act 2000 to enable the pilot scheme provisions to apply to combined authority elections and local mayoral elections. The provisions brought into effect in 2000 were used extensively in pilots in 2007. There has been no piloting of changes to the voting process for more than a decade, but new polls have been introduced to other local authority elections, namely elections for local Mayors and Mayors for combined authorities. However, the 2000 Act piloting provisions do not fully apply to the new polls.

Earlier this year, the Government announced that they would conduct pilots for voter identification at the local elections in May 2018 in line with their manifesto commitment to legislate to ensure that a form of identification must be presented before voting. Voter ID is part of the Government’s commitment to improve the security and resilience of the electoral system that underpins our democracy, and will ensure that people have confidence in our democratic processes.

Five authorities have indicated their intention to run voter ID pilots in the local elections in May 2018, including Woking, Gosport, Bromley, Swindon and Watford. Tower Hamlets will also pilot new security features for postal voting. Watford and Tower Hamlets will be holding local mayoral elections in addition to their local council elections.

The powers to alter electoral conduct rules for the purpose of running pilots are contained within section 10 of the 2000 Act. Section 11 enables the Secretary of State to apply measures trialled in a pilot scheme generally, taking into account any report on the scheme provided by the Electoral Commission under section 10. The sections currently make provision to conduct the pilots in local authority and Greater London Authority elections.

As I have indicated, two of the local authorities that plan to conduct pilots in May 2018—Watford and Tower Hamlets—will also hold local authority mayoral elections on the same day. Those polls are normally held in combination for the benefit of both electors and administrators, and proposed changes will allow pilots to be conducted at both. That will ensure that voters have a smooth voting experience. It would be confusing for voters if the provisions were piloted at one poll but not the other on the same day. The changes will also facilitate the effective administration of the polls.

More generally, the statutory instruments we are considering will enable pilot scheme orders to be made that are intended to improve the voting experience for voters, and to make the electoral process more secure. The pilot schemes orders will also allow evidence to be collected for statutory evaluation by the Electoral Commission on the impact of voter ID in polling stations. That evidence and evaluation will inform the Government’s decision about how most successfully to meet their manifesto commitment and introduce voter ID nationally. No pilot schemes are planned for a combined authority mayoral election—elections for metro Mayors, as the media have termed them—but the order will facilitate any pilot scheme orders for combined authority mayoral elections in future.

For the record, I will describe the detail of the proposed changes. On the draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2017, section 10 of the 2000 Act enables the Secretary of State, as I have explained, to make provision to run pilot schemes in relation to the conduct of local elections in England and Wales by order. Section 11 allows the Secretary of State to apply those changes generally. Currently, section 10 does not enable changes to be made to the conduct of rules for local mayoral elections.

Provisions in section 11 that enable measures tested in a pilot scheme to apply generally and on a permanent basis do not encompass conduct rules for local mayoral elections. When the mayoral rules were made in 2007, provision was made to apply sections 10 and 11 of the RPA 2000 to mayoral elections. However, a further modification was needed to enable changes to be made to the mayoral election conduct rules, because they are made under the Local Government Act 2000. Sections 10 and 11 only enable changes to conduct rules to be made under that Act, which was a technical oversight. The regulations make those modifications so as to enable pilot scheme orders under section 10 of the RPA 2000 to make changes to the mayoral conduct rules. That will enable pilot scheme orders to be made that will facilitate, in the short term, voter ID pilots during local mayoral elections and, in the longer term, any other future pilot schemes.

Turning to the draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017, similarly to local mayoral elections, sections 10 and 11 of the RPA 2000 as currently drafted do not enable the conduct rules for combined authority mayoral elections to be modified. When the combined authorities mayoral order was made in 2017, provision was made to apply sections 10 and 11 of the RPA 2000 to combined authority mayoral elections. However, a further modification was needed to enable changes to be made to the 2017 conduct rules, made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. That, again, was a technical oversight. The order makes those modifications to enable pilot scheme orders under section 10 of the RPA 2000 to make changes to the combined authority conduct rules for the purpose of conducting pilots.

We are also taking the opportunity to address a technical issue concerning subscription of candidates’ nomination papers at combined authority mayoral elections. The order will amend the definitions of “elector” and “local government elector” to clarify who may subscribe a nomination paper. A subscriber must be of voting age on the day of the poll and they must be on the local government register of electors on the last day for the publication of the notice of election, which must be published no later than 25 working days before polling day. It also includes new versions of the form of the nomination paper for use by candidates at a combined authority mayoral election as a consequence of the changes.

The provision for the combined authority mayoral elections did not contain the limitation of the register being the one produced by the last day for publication for the notice of election, which is the case for other polls. That meant that administrators had to check subscribers on the register both up to that date and beyond it, which opened up scope for confusion and error as that was unlike the position for other polls. The change brings the provision in line with that of other polls and thereby also supports more effective administration of polls held in combination. The amendments will make combined authority mayoral elections consistent with other polls on this issue as well as provide certainty to candidates and administrators as to whom they subscribe the nomination paper.

Our principal stakeholders, the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, have been consulted on these draft statutory instruments and are content. Furthermore, the stakeholders have expressed support for voter identification pilots in general. The Cabinet Office and Electoral Commission will undertake detailed evaluation of the pilots, after which the Government will announce the next step to implement voter ID nationally.

We consider, in summary, that these instruments are necessary for the conduct of electoral pilots in respect of local mayoral elections and combined authority mayoral elections and also make the law governing candidates’ nominations at combined authority mayoral elections consistent with other polls. I commend the statutory instruments to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Skidmore]

I would like to start by thanking the hon. Lady for her remarks today. I want to put on record the admiration of all hon. Members for her having turned up despite not being very well and still managing to make a significant and important contribution. We all appreciate that as part of our democratic process.

I would like to put the Government’s comments on the record in response to the hon. Lady’s specific points. The changes to the order made during the general election period in June were to funding allocations, and many of them were necessary because of errors or inconsistencies in previous claims by returning officers that had been put into the funding allocations. By allowing that process to take place, we could ensure that they have effective and up-to-date funding.

The hon. Lady is absolutely correct that the law governing our elections is fragmented and complex. The Law Commission’s interim report was an important contribution that has had the wide support of the electoral community. As a Government, we are determined to work with the Law Commission on what can be introduced at this stage, given the restriction in primary legislation. As she will be aware, many of the laws governing electoral conduct are in primary legislation. On Monday, when I held the first electoral summit, which included representatives of the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, I announced that we will be taking forward further work with the Law Commission, particularly on rationalising 25 statutory instruments on the conduct of elections into two single statutory instruments. We hope that that work can progress. While we are unable to move forward with primary legislation, we want to maintain the relationship and show the commitment of this Government to rationalising that complex tangled web of electoral law.

Regarding the pilot of voter identification at the poll, that is obviously a package of measures that was announced in the Government’s response to Eric Pickles’s report, “Securing the Ballot”. When it comes to considering electoral integrity, the identity pilots will form just one part of the Government’s overall package, which in future will also include legislation to look at postal vote harvesting, so that we can ensure there is confidence in the whole system. It is not just to do with identification at polls.

The hon. Lady also mentioned photographic ID. These pilots are determined to ensure that we have evidence-based policy making, so some of the pilots will be photographic, some will be non-photographic and some—for example from Watford, which has been mentioned as one of the mayoral authorities—will involve people bringing their polling card, which will have a barcode on it that will be scanned through. That may provide interesting opportunities for a marked register, which currently is a manual one, to show how people voted, and that would eventually be digitised from the bottom up.

There is a potential for innovation. We want to trial all these different methods, but I want to make assurances to the House, because I am obviously committed to democratic engagement, and I will be publishing a democratic engagement plan this month, looking at how we can ensure that those groups that are under registered have the right to vote. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of women getting a right to vote, and the 90th anniversary of women getting an equal right to vote. Our democracy is still a very young one, despite our being in the austere surroundings of this place, and we want to ensure that everyone gets that right to vote. If there is anyone who does not have the identification that is needed, there will be a significant communications campaign in advance to ensure that people are aware that they need to bring ID and if anyone does not have the required ID, certificates of identification will be able to be issued. I am assured that no one will be disenfranchised by these pilots. We will listen to the evaluation process from the Electoral Commission and it is right that we take this managed and staged approach to looking at how identification might work.

The hon. Lady mentioned the small number of cases of personation and electoral fraud. That is a debate that we have had in the main Chamber. Yes, the number of cases of electoral fraud that have been reported is relatively small—I think 1,974 cases were reported to the Electoral Commission between 2010 and 2016. But there is a broader point about the confidence in our electoral process. I want to put on record the comments of Sir John Holmes, the chair of the Electoral Commission, who gave a seminal speech to the Institute for Government on 6 December in which he stated that

“there is a persistent and widespread perception of a significant level of fraud. More than one third of respondents to our surveys after the 2017 general election thought some fraud had taken place, and less than half believed that there were sufficient safeguards to prevent it.”

The Electoral Commission has recommended that solely photographic ID should be used. As I said, the Government wish to trial various forms of ID. The Electoral Commission made the case that photographic ID has been used in Northern Ireland since 2003. Sir John Holmes went on to state in his 6 December speech:

“This has some public support—when asked what single measure would be most effective in preventing electoral fraud, 52% of voters polled in 2016 said ‘a requirement to show photo ID at a polling station’.”

I agree with the Electoral Commission and Sir John Holmes: we must always act ahead of the curve on electoral fraud and electoral integrity to safeguard our electoral process.

Sir John Holmes also stated:

“We want to address this before it becomes a problem, and part of a wider reduction of trust in the system. It does not seem unreasonable to demand proof of identity before voting, if we have to do so simply to collect a parcel, for example. It is certainly something which many other countries do routinely.”

With that in mind, the Government are piloting measures that are proportionate and fair and will be fully evaluated as part of the process of bringing forward our manifesto commitment on identification at polling stations. However, they will not be taken alone: other measures will be taken to address issues with electoral integrity and postal voting. The Government do that not to disenfranchise people or to restrict voting rights, but to ensure that the voices of the vulnerable are protected, that every elector has an equal right to vote and, above all, that no one’s vote is stolen from them.

Question put and agreed to.

DRAFT COMBINED AUTHORITIES (MAYORAL ELECTIONS) (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2017

Resolved,

That the Committee has considered the draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017.—(Chris Skidmore.)