Succession to the Crown Bill
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is going through the history, so may I point out that some of us represent parts of the country that were Christian even before St Augustine came to convert the Anglo-Saxons?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because it allows me to remind the House that Joseph of Arimathea is thought to have taken our Lord to visit Somerset when he was a young man. Some people maintain that that is mere legend blurring into myth, but I am quite convinced of its veracity.
I think that an established Church is good for the body politic—it is good for us that we can have jubilee celebrations held in St Paul’s cathedral or Westminster abbey, and that we can have that focus of national life through an established Church—but obviously an established Church cannot have as its head somebody who belongs to another Church. That would be logically inconsistent. It would be unfair on the Church of England; it would mean that bishops and archbishops appointed within the Church of England were appointed by somebody who did not share their beliefs and that could not be the right thing to do.
Dan Rogerson
The hon. Gentleman is seeking to address an interesting point through his amendments. However, would it not be fair to say that the Catholic spouse of an heir to the throne might feel that, with the full might of the British establishment against them, they had made every endeavour and been unsuccessful?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That is perfectly possible, but at what point would we know that that was the case? It seems to me that it is very important that we know who our sovereign is. We do not want to go through the courts to try to establish whether the child was brought up as a Catholic and was therefore in communion with Rome and excluded under the provisions of the Act of Settlement.
My amendments do not seek to change the requirement for the sovereign to be in communion with the Church of England. They are separate from the new clause, but simply state that a child brought up as a Catholic would not be deemed
“for ever incapable of succeeding to the Crown”,
which is the language used in the Act of Settlement about Catholics succeeding to the Crown. The question of eligibility could be clarified at the point of succession.
Mr Leigh
It was a joke. I am very loyal to the Saxe- Coburg and Windsor line and a great supporter of the Queen. As it happens, even if I wanted to be a Jacobite it would be difficult because they have all died out. The last one became a cardinal—[Interruption.] May I proclaim my loyalty to the Crown, Mr Deputy Speaker?
Dan Rogerson
I take it that the hon. Gentleman has not been on the telephone earlier today to the Duke of Bavaria to pledge his support in the future—
Paul Flynn
I would be delighted, but let me say—although I probably should not—that the contribution of royalty has been of one head, grudgingly donated.
The Bill appears prima facie to be incompatible with article 1 of protocol 12 of the European convention on human rights, which forbids discrimination on the grounds of birth in any right created by law. Perhaps the Government would like to think about that point. We are creating not only a piece of new discrimination, new unfairness and new gender bias, but something that is in conflict with the Human Rights Act and the European convention on human rights.
It would be good to know what advice the Government have had on the Bill. I have tried to question the Government about this, but they have been reluctant to answer. The Bill states that it complies with the relevant rights. Nevertheless, this is one of the most atrocious Bills ever to come before the House. So many Bills have unintended consequences, however, and this one opens a Pandora’s box on the royal succession: those who believed that the rules were set immutably in stone now know that they are not, and now that there has been one change, there can be many others.
We must move forward to an adult, 21st-century choice of Head of State, as have most countries in the world—those free nations that elect their Head of State and give their entire population the chance to be elected. Under the Bill, however, only members of the Church of England can become Head of State. The Church in Wales has pedigree. The Celtic Church existed long before the Roman Church—this European import—came along to take over the country, and we have the great saints Illtyd, Dyfrig, Samson and a string of other great saints.
Dan Rogerson
The hon. Gentleman is making a good point about the Celtic Church—as I did in an intervention—but I am sure that the Celtic monasteries would have accepted the primacy of Rome. The Synod of Whitby settled some of these matters once and for all, so although there might have been differences, it would have accepted the primacy of Rome.
Paul Flynn
I might address that point later, but the saints—Piran and the rest of them—are celebrated to this day in Wales, Cornwall and Brittany. It is an independent Church and one that has been disestablished since the 1920s. It has none of the problems that we have today because it is disestablished. It has even supplied a brilliant Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dan Rogerson
Although I am sympathetic to the aims of the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) in tabling the new clause and amendments, I believe that the most powerful argument for not accepting them is the one that the Minister has just set out: we should not seek to jeopardise the Bill’s moves towards equality by amending it beyond the agreement that has already been reached. I hope, however, that she and the Government will continue to have discussions with the other realms so that if further equalities can be reached, we do not abandon the possibility of having them.
Miss Smith
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for the Bill. I can reassure him and all Members that we are in working contact with the other realms, but we do not expect radical departures from the scope in any particular realm.
Succession to the Crown Bill
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
I did not intervene on my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister on this issue so I will do so now. There are two possible options for the Duchy of Cornwall. One is that it is held by the Crown but does not entirely revert to it, and the revenue is passed on to a female heir. The second is that, as the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, we somehow amend the original charters that established the duchy to allow the heir to hold it in their own right. That would, I think, be a more satisfactory solution given the other constitutional responsibilities of the Duke of Cornwall with regard to the constituency I represent.
Wayne David
I suspect that the hon. Gentleman is correct, but if we are to have a package that is watertight and constitutionally thought through, consequences of that type should be addressed as a matter of importance.
A number of Members have referred to the important issue of the relationship between Church and state. According to the Bill, the heir to the throne would now be able to marry a Roman Catholic. It has been suggested that that has implications for the religious upbringing of a royal heir, which might prevent them from being in communion with the Church of England, and then from acceding to the throne. I have been reassured, however, as has the Deputy Prime Minister, that both the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England have expressed confidence in the process that has been outlined.
As the Deputy Prime Minister said, Mr Richard Chapman, the Church of England’s secretary for parliamentary affairs, has written to Members with reference to the removal of the prohibition on the heir from marrying a Catholic, and it is worth quoting him again because it is of enormous significance. He said it is
“a welcome symbolic and practical measure, consistent with respect for the principle of religious liberty. It reflects the sea change in ecumenical relations over recent decades.”
That is extremely important and I hope it will reassure those Members who have expressed concerns.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
It is a great delight to follow the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker). He is a sort of hereditary MP himself, so he knows a little bit about “hereditary”—and we have a few of them around. I was not entirely sure where he was going with the “diamond queen” thing; “diamond geezers” was suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan).
I wholeheartedly support one of the main principles of the Bill, namely the change in the male preference primogeniture rules that have come to us through common law. We have taken far too long to resolve the issue. Other countries with constitutional monarchies got on with it much earlier: Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands all dealt with it in the 1980s. Indeed, it was much more difficult for Sweden, because at the time the heir to the throne was a boy, Carl Philip, who was ousted from his hereditary status by his older sister Victoria. Sweden took a more courageous decision and we have been rather slow, perhaps because we have felt so confident about our current monarch. So I support the change in the Bill but I do have some worries. A great deal of reference has been made to Pandora’s box, but that is the wrong image to use, because at the bottom of that box was always hope.
The more worrying concern is that when we pull out one of the threads of the constitution, there is a danger of unravelling the whole jumper—if the jumper is indeed made out of threads. I worry because the religion of the monarch in this country depends on a suite of legislation. The Coronation Oath Act 1688 makes it clear in precisely what words the monarch shall accept the throne and what oath they shall make at their coronation. That was reformed in the 20th century and, in fact, Her Majesty the Queen did not use the prescribed oath, as laid down in legislation. We need to address that issue; in the past Parliament has decided what the oath should be, not the monarch.
Dan Rogerson
Several hon. Members in the Chamber have examined the issues involved, as have many others, who are busy elsewhere, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that out in the country at large there will be little understanding of them? This is perhaps part of the problem. Our constitutional history is fascinating, but if we had a far more transparent and, dare I say it, written constitution, people might understand more deeply what we are talking about.
Chris Bryant
I have always been in favour of a written constitution, but that is not what we are debating. The important job of work that we have to do when we write elements of our constitution into statute is to make sure that they meet any possible eventualities that could come down the road, because we can never imagine precisely what is going to happen. In 1936, we had a crisis because there were no means by which the monarch could abdicate, so we had the odd situation where the monarch announced his abdication and the next day legislation had to be got through the House. As was said earlier, that took only 10 minutes, but none the less we had to make legislation on the hoof.
The Act of Settlement contains two clauses that make different provisions in relation to the monarch. As the hon. Member for 1642 said, section II says that anyone who
“is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome or shall profess the Popish Religion or shall marry a Papist”
shall be excluded from the succession. So I raise the genuine point: if someone marries a Roman Catholic in a Catholic church—the Minister said that Her Majesty has been to a Roman Catholic church—it is difficult to see how that person is not then reconciled to the See of Rome. I hope that the Church of England will be reconciled to the See of Rome. The advances we have seen in ecumenism over the years do not just mean that we have rejected the ludicrous prejudice that there was about Catholicism and the belief that somehow or other a Catholic could not be a patriot. We need to go further, and I hope that in the ecumene of all the Churches there will be reconciliation one day. I know that that is the view of the most recent Archbishop of Canterbury and I suspect it is the view of the current one, so it would seem odd if it were not then the view of the monarch. I want to start asking whether we do not need to change all the provisions in relation to the religion of the monarch. As an Anglican, I would have no fear of a Roman Catholic who accepted a series of oaths to protect the Church of England, as established by law—
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
Like several other Members, I had not planned to speak on Second Reading, but then I thought about some of the issues involving the Duchy of Cornwall. Others have referred to the Duchy of Lancaster and, indeed, to the Duchy of Normandy, which I had not considered but which I believe has a separate status, in that it was not created by a monarch but was held by previous monarchs prior to their accession to the throne of England. I was interested when the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) tempted the usual channels to consider creating a new calendar for the country, as Napoleon did during one of his tenures, but I shall not pursue that issue.
The hon. Members for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) were proud of the Celtic identity of at least two of the houses that have ruled over England and, in one case, Scotland. We have of course been a multicultural nation: Norman French, Welsh, Scots, and people of German descent have reigned over us successively. Perhaps at some time in the future there will be a dynastic war, following which an Anglo-Saxon will reclaim the throne on which Harold last sat.
I am interested in the religious dimension, which other Members have already explored. On Sunday, after attending mass as a Roman Catholic, I moved to the other side of Bodmin to attend the Anglican christening of my niece. A warm welcome was extended to all of us by the rector of the church of St Petroc, who was keen to inform us that the Norman font had been moved, that it was one of the oldest parts of the church, and that it had escaped the damage done by that great vandal King Henry VIII. I wondered which of the Churches I was delighting in at that point, as the rector seemed so eager to draw attention to something with which I might have been a little more in agreement.
In principle, I am very happy with the proposal in the Bill to update the rules of succession in line with changes in society so that an eldest female child can inherit the throne. The hon. Member for Caerphilly listed countries that had got there before us. If Hanover had got there before us in the 1830s, the history of western Europe might have been different. Had the kingdom of Hanover still been united with the United Kingdom, it might have had all kinds of influences when it came to the unification of Germany.
As one who represents a Cornish constituency, however, I am keen to explore issues relating to the Duchy of Cornwall. The hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace), who spoke about the Duchy of Lancaster, said that it was his understanding that the Duchy of Cornwall was recreated whenever there was a male heir, but that is not my understanding. My understanding is that it does not disappear and revert to the Crown in its entirety, but is held by the Crown pending the arrival of a future male heir to the throne. The institution of the Duchy is a continuous organisation, which has been keen to assert its rights on a number of occasions throughout history: its right to the foreshore, for instance, and its right to bona vacantia in Cornwall.
The hon. Member for Wyre and Preston North spoke of the property that is owned. I am not as familiar with the Duchy of Lancaster as he is, but I think that there is a distinction between the rights to property that the Duchy of Cornwall, for example, owns elsewhere in the country as a private estate, and the rights that it has in terms of the territory of Cornwall, which are far deeper. Perhaps at some point I could discuss the issue with the Minister, or, indeed, with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister.
Those involved in the tin mining industry in Cornwall had their own Parliament, the Stannary Parliament. It was dissolved in 1753, which is not an incredibly long time ago in constitutional terms. The question of who becomes the Duke of Cornwall is not just financial; it is far more important than that, because it also involves a constitutional issue. The Bill makes it more likely that there will be periods without a Duke of Cornwall when the heir to the throne is female. I hope that the Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister will agree to meet me to discuss some of these issues and that prior to such a meeting they might allow me to have access to the translation of the charters that established the Duchy of Cornwall. They might have those to hand and that would allow us to have an interesting exploration into what might be done to deal with these issues as they pertain to the Duchy of Cornwall.
Succession to the Crown Bill
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Sir Alan Beith
That is an interesting argument but I am not persuaded by it in the first instance. It seems to me that it has always been possible for a person to renounce the religion in which they were brought up. It had not previously occurred to me that the way in which we currently define the position would invalidate such a renunciation as removing a barrier to taking up the Crown.
Dan Rogerson
My right hon. Friend has hit on the spirit in which the law would probably be interpreted now. At some point, long before the Acts to which Members have referred today were passed, no members of the Church of England would have been able to escape that position, as they would all originally have been baptised Roman Catholics.
Sir Alan Beith
That is a further interesting point. The problem is there and we should not ignore it, and I think any wise parents would have to consider it. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister will have had to consider it when he married. I would expect a couple from the royal family to exercise a lot of care and wisdom in making such a decision. However, we have to recognise that we are placing a potentially serious limitation on the children of a marriage such as we are considering, and giving their parents quite a dilemma.
Dan Rogerson
I am following the hon. Gentleman’s argument closely, and I see, as have other Members, that he is arguing that the provisions just move the injustice on a generation rather than deal with the issue. His solution would be “leave it alone”; another solution is “make a change”. My position would be “let us not make the best the enemy of the good.” We might be able to explore the issues raised by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) on another occasion, but let us at least make some progress now.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I do not agree with that, because when we bring legislation before this House, we are not limited by three or four words. We have it within our power to rewrite the whole of the Act of Settlement. That is why I think that, if we are not going to leave the whole thing alone, we have to make the fundamental change: we have to get rid of the fundamental injustice.
I am not going to hold myself up as a great bastion of political correctness. That is not a creed to which I particularly hold or one for which I have any great concern, but I do think that, broadly speaking, there should be equality of tolerance among the religions people choose to follow in this country, and that statute law should not favour one religion against another within the context of an established Church that provides a backdrop of Christianity for historical reasons and that has been a strength of this nation.
Oral Answers to Questions
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Mr Hurd
I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman, but I understand that the Charity Commission has engaged with the charity, and the bottom line is that its role is to deal with serious misconduct or mismanagement, not to deal with complaints where people are just unhappy with decisions that are taken within the law and within the governance arrangements of the charity.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General (Mr Francis Maude)
My responsibilities are for the public sector efficiency and reform group, civil service issues, industrial relations, strategy in the public sector, government transparency, civil contingencies, civil society and cyber-security.
Dan Rogerson
I welcome the fact that the Government are increasing the range of services that they provide online to our constituents. However, digital by default is a cause for concern as some constituents who do not have access to broadband or for whatever reason choose to use a paper option are worried that that may not continue. Will the Minister reassure the House that that option will remain for all those constituents who do not wish to use the computer option?
Mr Maude
Transacting with the Government online costs about one twentieth of the cost of doing so by phone, one thirtieth of doing it by post, and one fiftieth, on average, of doing it face to face, so there are massive savings as well as increased convenience from moving public services online. But we recognise that there are of course people who cannot access services online and we will make sure that proper provision is made for them. We will publish our assisted digital strategy before the end of the year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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The Deputy Prime Minister
This is a very important issue and I am looking forward to the Labour party’s revealing what it believes on this, as on so many other issues. If the right hon. Gentleman’s characterisation of the Bill were accurate, I would agree with him. Of course I would; no one wants to see evidence and matters heard in open court decanted into closed material proceedings. Let me make it clear that the Government’s view—it is certainly mine, as I would find this unacceptable otherwise—is that the provision will apply only to those cases where at the moment the evidence is not heard at all. It is not a question of a choice, with evidence held in open court being moved into closed court, as nothing will be heard—[Interruption.] The judge decides on how the procedure is conducted.
The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and I want to pick up on that if I may. As he knows very well, the Committee has tabled an extensive range of amendments to improve the Bill. I am very sympathetic to a lot of what the Committee says, and the Government are considering its amendments with an open and, in many respects, sympathetic mind. I hope that we will be able to amend the Bill to allay those concerns in line with many of the recommendations made by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
T2. In the interests of fairness, my right hon. Friend is making the case for higher property taxes above a certain threshold. Will he also consider the issue of second, third and fourth homes that might fall below any such threshold?
The Deputy Prime Minister
On taxational levies on higher value properties, it is no secret that there is a difference of opinion in the coalition Government. There is no point in pretending otherwise. My view is that a police officer seeing 20% cuts in the policing budget, a teacher whose pay has been frozen or someone whose benefits are being reduced would find it very difficult to understand why we are not asking people in large multi-million pound homes to make an additional contribution as we have to tighten our belts further. I do not think that most ordinary people in this country think that it is fair that a family living in a family home, working hard to provide for themselves, has to pay the same council tax as an oligarch living in a £5 million mansion. That is why we will continue to make the case for a fairer approach to taxation. As we tighten our belts, and as I have said on numerous occasions, we should start at the top and work down, rather than the other way around.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Tristram Hunt
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I wholly agree; I shall come on to that. I am in favour of the referendum, as the Labour party rightly proposes, on this major piece of constitutional change.
I served on the Joint Committee, and a number of points emerged from our investigation. This is a serious, problematic reform, as the hon. Member for Hereford and South Herefordshire (Jesse Norman) suggested, throwing up detailed problems about the interrelationship between the Houses, the fundamental change to Parliament, the role of bishops and the established Church, and the dual mandate between the other place and this place. That is why we need proper, detailed investigation of the Bill. The programme motion will not allow for that. If the change is to last down the centuries, does it matter if we have another five, seven, eight, 10 or 15 days to look at it? If the Government are serious about major constitutional reform, they should allow us the time and space to consider it.
There is also, as the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) suggested, the need for a referendum. We are beginning to move towards different forms of democracy, and whether we like it or not in this place, referendums play an increasingly powerful part in that. So if, as has been noted, we have had referendums on city Mayors and on voting systems, and we are having the farce of elections for police commissioners in the depths of November, why do we not have a referendum on a major piece of legislative change which will affect the governance of the entire country? It is right that the people have a say on that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) suggested.
The Bill contains numerous problems. The 15-year term is very difficult to accept as a democrat. Personally, I am in favour of two 10-year terms, but that throws up equal problems in terms of electioneering.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
Could the hon. Gentleman point to the occasion on which there was a referendum on removing the hereditary peers from the House of Lords, which one might concede was a big constitutional change?
Tristram Hunt
I think that removing the hereditary peers was so obvious a change that we did not need a referendum, but this is not an obvious change. There are major complexities, as we have just teased out, with regard to justiciability between the two Houses and composition. All sorts of questions need to be answered.
I also agree with the change from 300 to 450 Members, because I think that the initial proposal for a wholly professionalised and salaried body of 300 was incorrect. However, if Ministers think that the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority will simply allow them to decide who is paid what, it is clear that they have not looked at the evidence its representatives gave to the Joint Committee on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. I think that Ministers will find that IPSA will take a great deal more control of what happens to Members of the other place than they believe. I am in favour of keeping the bishops and the established Church, and the appointment of Ministers seems exactly right.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr David
My hon. Friend is encouraging me to go way beyond my brief, as you probably agree, Mr Evans, so with all due deference to his incisive comment, I had better return to my original text.
Given the uncertainty that exists, it would surely be sensible to wait for the results of the second pilots, but, for reasons best known to themselves, the Government are intent on introducing a new individual electoral-registration-based register by December 2015. That date may be of significance to some Members. Coincidentally, some would say, it is when the next boundary review will take place. It could be a coincidence, of course: who am I to say otherwise? I am sure that the Minister will give a clear explanation, and that he will give it without smiling. No doubt he will tell us that there is a specific reason, which everyone except him has missed, for the fact that the pilot projects must be assessed after the legislation has reached the statute book.
I want the legislation to succeed—as I have said, we are in favour of individual electoral registration in principle—so it would be common sense and far better if we waited a few months for the certainty provided by the evidence from the second set of pilot schemes. That would also give the Government an opportunity to propose new measures if the schemes raise questions. At the end of the day, what all of us, as democrats, want is as many people who are entitled to be on the register to be on it. That is our objective, and we must ensure that everything possible is done to make that happen. It disturbs me slightly that the suggestion—made not just by Opposition Members, but by the Electoral Commission and many others—that the sensible thing to do would be to wait a few more months to ensure that as many people as possible are on our electoral register has not been taken up.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is right to set out an aspiration on behalf of us all that everyone who is entitled to be on the register should be on it. Does he also agree that those who are not entitled to be on the register should not be on it?
Mr David
Yes, absolutely, and we will discuss that in more detail later. I am happy to say that people who are not entitled to be on the electoral register should not be on it, but I am very concerned that many people who are entitled to be on the electoral register might not be on it.
I am glad that the Government have moved away from their original, outrageous position of saying that the decision about whether to be on the electoral register will be a lifestyle choice, and that they have recognised that that is, after all, a civic duty and civic responsibility. The crucial point, however, is that being on the register is not an end in itself; it gives people in a democracy the chance to exercise, whether they want to or not, their right to vote. That is why it is so important that everybody has the opportunity to be on the register so that they can make the choice, when the time is right, whether or not to exercise their vote.
Dan Rogerson
I have been prompted by the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) to speak briefly in the debate. I understand his aspiration to encourage participation in political life by those who are temporarily abroad for good reasons. A couple of points have occurred to me, which I am sure the Minister will have considered. Our first-past-the-post system— which we seem likely to retain for some time, and of which the Conservative party is a great supporter—is based on electorates in individual constituencies. It is therefore important for the individual voter to have a relationship and an affinity with the geographical location concerned, and the communities within it—boundary changes notwithstanding. If an overseas voter is voting in a US presidential election, for example—or perhaps in congressional elections, which are closer to our parliamentary ones—they are voting on issues that affect the whole of their country. Their ties with a particular small locality might be less important in those circumstances.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend is right. Our whole system is predicated on the basis of the voter having a connection with the place in which they last registered. I would point out to him that, although parliamentary boundaries are changing, those for district and municipal councils—where the electoral registration officers sit—will probably not do so.
Dan Rogerson
That is probably true, but I am thinking about the relationship that Members of Parliament would have with their overseas constituents. If they are electors, they are in a sense also constituents. I question how the relationship would work in relation to overseas voters, especially if there were a large number of them compared with the local electors who have a more traditional relationship with their Member of Parliament.
The other point that occurred to me is that, given the importance of encouraging all candidates at every election to engage with the people in their voter base, it is much harder to do that if those voters are overseas. We cannot go and knock on their doors, and we sometimes do not even know where they are. We need to resolve that issue if this proposal is to be introduced. We will need information to tell all the candidates seeking election exactly where those electors are. That does not always happen at the moment.
Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)
Perhaps we could learn something from Australia, which operates a constituency-based system. I believe that Australia House in London is the largest single Australian polling station, and anyone who goes along there on polling day will see a plethora of candidate information being given out.
Dan Rogerson
I would argue that, in an election campaign, one would hope to have more engagement with the voters before polling day. If we are to have a more meaningful discussion with the electorate, the candidates will need to know where their electors are, so that they can send them literature or perhaps telephone them.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
Is the thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s argument that he is happy for the system of overseas voting to remain intact when only a relatively small number of overseas electors is involved, but that if that number became so large that it could make a profound difference to particular results, he would be more concerned about the proposal put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown)?
Dan Rogerson
I can see why the hon. Gentleman might think that, but no—this has been a source of frustration to me when I have been a candidate at local and national elections and it has not been easy to engage the overseas electors. It would be even more of a problem if their numbers were much greater. This is more about the principle than the number, however, although in some constituencies—and certainly in some local council elections—the majority involved could be very small indeed. Those numbers could affect the outcome in those circumstances. I hope that we can find a process whereby those voters’ addresses could be provided, if the proposal is adopted.
The proposal could also affect electoral spending limits. For example, the hon. Gentleman’s constituency might well contain many people who are involved in finance and travel all over the world. Similarly, the military garrison town represented by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) will contain much greater numbers of overseas voters. That might need to be taken into account when the limit on election spending is being set.
Mark Field
The issue in my constituency is not so much one of overseas electors, although there is the potential for that; it is more one of the electors having second homes, many of which might be in North Cornwall.
Dan Rogerson
The hon. Gentleman is tempting me to speak to the amendments to clause 2; the lead amendment, which I have tabled, covers that very subject.
Andrew Griffiths
Has my hon. Friend had any thoughts about the role of the internet? He talks about getting information to the elector, and all candidates now have web pages, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, so it is much easier to communicate with people overseas now than it was a few years ago.
Dan Rogerson
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. If that sort of information were provided to candidates, it might help to overcome the situation. In the recent past, another group of people emigrating, shall we say later on in their years, would have been less likely to have access to those facilities. Nowadays, however, with grandchildren and great grandchildren wanting to contact them through Skype or whatever, they will be encouraged to make contact in that way.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
May I say two things to the hon. Gentleman? First, on changes to the number of overseas voters, in view of the opt-in I mentioned, making people fairly permanently registered as overseas voters—depending on the cut-off time that may or not be negotiated through the Bill—there would not be the churn problem. Secondly, people would be registered at the beginning of each calendar year, so there would be plenty of time before an election to get hold of them by electronic means or even by postal means. The difference between overseas voters and postal voters is that the former are more permanently registered.
Dan Rogerson
My question to the Minister is: if such a process is to be extended and codified in a new way, can we ensure that we provide information to candidates about how to contact those electors through whatever means is appropriate? It is important to examine the question of how a constituency MP or even a local councillor is to represent people in this category who have elected them. It is not just a question of the election alone, as the role of representing such individual people is also important.
Mr Syms
I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown). We all know the history—that the first Thatcher Government implemented legislation, which was then watered down in the wash-up, as a result of which overseas voting has never really taken off. For the reasons already set out, it has seemed to be too difficult and too complicated. Given that there are a potential 4.3 million people abroad who could vote, yet only 23,000 are registered, we ought to be ashamed of the fact that we are not engaging with so many of our citizens.
We live in a global economy. Our future lies in exports and in our companies going abroad. We all know that in getting and undertaking export contracts, we have people in the middle east and elsewhere working for British interests sometimes for years. It is totally wrong if people without a home in the UK who are nevertheless working for British interests abroad do not have the opportunity to vote. Let us not forget that even those who retire to the Costa Blanca or other areas in Spain will have spent a lifetime in the UK working and paying taxes. They will often have family in the UK and still take an interest in what goes on here. Many get British pensions and some in the Costa Blanca even get winter fuel allowance. We seem to be able to pay benefits to retired people abroad, but we have not given enough priority to making a few simple changes in order to empower them by giving them the right to vote.
My hon. Friend argued powerfully about overseas voters registering their last address in the UK, but I am rather attracted to the French system of putting them all into one category and perhaps having an MP at large to represent certain areas abroad. That would make life somewhat easier than the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) having to e-mail 25 people in Alicante. It is better if the MP represented these people’s concerns, as it might be necessary for the MP to make representations to Spanish local government about what it is doing to the health service.
Dan Rogerson
I beg to move amendment 1, page 2, line 44, at end insert—
‘(2A) Provision must ensure that application forms ascertain the eligibility of an applicant to register in another local authority area, and which local authority area or areas’.
The Temporary Chair (Katy Clark)
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 4, page 3, line 4, leave out from ‘(3)’ to end of line 9 and insert
‘will require a person to provide their date of birth and National Insurance number’.
Dan Rogerson
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark.
Members who followed the discussion on Second Reading and in the Opposition day debate on individual electoral registration that we had some time ago will not be surprised to hear me talk about voting and electoral registration among those fortunate enough to own multiple properties.
I welcome the concept behind the Bill, as do Members across the House, except the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), who is no longer in his place but has been outed as a sceptic on individual electoral registration. However, it is absolutely right for us to take every opportunity to strive for accuracy and look at any ways in which we can generally improve the process. It strikes me that while we have the Bill in front of us, there is an opportunity to consider the issue of multiple registration by individuals.
If we are to have a system based on one elector, one vote, and a system that allows them to register for that vote, we need to resolve the position whereby people are entitled to more than one vote. If they are so entitled, we should look carefully at the reasons for that and make sure that the electoral administrators, who have to decide whether someone should be added to the register, have all the information to hand.
Mr Mark Williams
My hon. Friend highlights an important issue in many parts of the country, but is not the real issue the fact that electoral registration officers, were they so minded, do not have the mechanisms to cross-reference and check the situation?
Dan Rogerson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall come to that point a little later.
We have a residential qualification. Many who own property in my constituency, elsewhere in Cornwall and the south-west and in other rural areas will have other property as well. The same may apply in urban areas such as Tower Hamlets—around the Isle of Dogs, a large number of properties will be owned by those in the financial sector who occupy them in the week and return to their families at the weekends—so this issue covers many parts of the country.
People who own multiple properties have been writing to me saying, “No taxation without representation”—a great rallying cry. However, we do not have such a voting system. Those who pay business rates in my constituency but do not live there are not entitled to vote; they were once, but that was scrapped a long time ago. Those people writing to me have a nice soundbite, but it does not apply in this case. Our electoral system is based on people’s residency in a particular area, their affiliation to the community and their desire to have a say in its future and that of the wider country through their registration on the local electoral register.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) said, it is right that we give electoral administrators the tools to do the job. When they are called in, as they increasingly are, to adjudicate on whether a person should be on the electoral roll, they need to have a basis on which to make that decision other than just the determination of that person to be admitted on to the roll. The data-matching exercises that the Government have undertaken offer one route to this. As I said on Second Reading, there may be other sources of data that have not been looked at, such as someone’s registration for tax purposes with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, to determine which is their principal residence. We have famously seen some examples of people who have sought to move, or flip, that qualification around a little. If someone is registered for tax purposes with a particular place as their main residence, and is thus saying that that is their main residence as regards the state, then that is the place where they should be voting.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
This will affect not only people with multiple residences but students, who live in one place when at college but have what they would regard as their main home somewhere else. What is the hon. Gentleman’s view on what the main residence would be in those circumstances?
Dan Rogerson
That is a very good point. Students will spend roughly six months a year in each of those two locations. They will probably have a strong affinity with the place where they grew up, particularly in the case of those who have recently left school. Their family may still reside in the area and they may ultimately look to return to it and therefore want to have a say there. They may spend all their time working there during their vacations. Students often take an active position in the community by volunteering, and perhaps interacting with the local political scene as well. If our approach is to be based on this principle, which is currently in place, we need to get it right and make sure that the information is available for electoral returning officers. We must determine the basis on which registration in more than one place is legitimate and where there is a case for it. Students may be an example of a group for which such a case can strongly be made.
The current position is based on whether the person applying to go on the register can demonstrate equal residence. That is what Cornwall council is using as the qualification, having decided to take action on the issue. It is writing to people to say that if they are seeking to be on the register in more than one place for a property in Cornwall and a property elsewhere—usually the one at which they spend most of their time—they will need to demonstrate some sort of equal residence. They may be in the process of moving to Cornwall for their retirement and have bought the property in advance of that, and are spending time there getting it ready and gradually making the transition. In many cases, however, we find that people are spending only a few weeks, or perhaps a month at most, a year at the property, and for the rest of the time they are renting it out as a commercial let, particularly in the winter, or as a holiday let in peak season. In those circumstances, it is a source of frustration to people who live in communities such as mine that their votes have equal standing with somebody who is on the register for that purpose.
There is another dimension to this. At the moment, if circumstances allow somebody to be on two registers at once, and if electoral officers are happy with that, it is permissible for them to vote in local elections in the two places, even if those elections are on the same day, because they are seen as separate elections. However, they are not allowed to vote in two places on the same day in a general election, nor would they be able to do so in a European election or a referendum on a national question. However, postal votes are readily available now, and it is entirely possible that someone could cast a vote based on one address in the run-up to the election and still vote in person on the basis of the other. Of course, people will say that we can check that.
Mark Durkan
Is the hon. Gentleman aware that although it is not possible to vote in two constituencies in a general election, if there are by-elections in two constituencies on the same day it is entirely legal for someone who is registered in both places to vote in both by-elections? In January 1986 in Northern Ireland, people who were registered in more than one constituency were free to vote in as many by-elections as they were registered for.
Dan Rogerson
While the hon. Gentleman was speaking, it clicked into view that the period he was talking about was that of the Anglo-Irish agreement. I was not aware of that, but I am now. I thank him for his intervention, which was helpful to me in giving the example another scenario in which this is legitimate.
Sir Peter Bottomley
Obviously voting twice in the same election is illegal, and the number of people who are thought to have done it must be very small. Can the hon. Gentleman explain whether a Member of Parliament from, say, Devon, who spent four or five nights a week in London and three nights a week in Devon for 34 weeks of the year would be required under his system to say that London was their main home, not the place that they represented?
Dan Rogerson
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman credits me with having a system—a grand plan—but I do not, as yet. My amendment relates to specific issues that I will deal with soon, Ms Clark, because I know that you will want me to move on. He is right to observe that there will be Members of this House who are on the register in two separate places, as indeed I was for a while. I stay in hotels in this fine city when I am up here now, so that no longer arises. Some of the people who have written to me feel that the short amount of time they spend in Cornwall entitles them to be on the register because they happen to own the property, and I have pointed out that I probably spend more time in hotels in Westminster than they do in Cornwall, and that I should perhaps be petitioning to get on the register on that basis as it is not a property qualification.
How do we check that someone who is on the register in two places is not voting in the same election on the same day in two locations or, as that would be pretty hard to do if they are some miles apart, postal voting in one location in the run-up to the election and voting in person in the other? First, one would have to find out the other location at which the person is registered. Subsequent to the election, one would have to get hold of a copy of the marked-up register for both locations in order to check, and then one might be able to put a case together that the person had voted in two elections. I am sure that, as the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) suggested, people will say that this is a very rare occurrence, but that does not matter—the problem is that there is no way for anybody to check and challenge it. Whether it involves one vote, 10 votes or a few hundred votes across the country, it could still have an effect in some locations. I would venture to say that in some parts of the country where second homes are clustered, it will have more of an effect than in other areas, and it might therefore have an effect on an election result.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman says that it is difficult to determine where this happens. I had a case in my constituency in which a couple of constituents were registered at two places. I had them registered as Labour party supporters on the basis of my own canvass. We checked the marked-up register and noted that they had voted in both places. We took the issue to the police but it was not followed up. There was no prosecution and not even an official caution—apparently just a word was had and that was it. What could we do?
Dan Rogerson
What action happens when the police and the courts get hold of this is a secondary point, but a fair one. The hon. Gentleman is talking about people who were registered at two locations in his constituency, and presumably he looked for them in another location because he had suspected that that might be the case. However, when the second property is at the other end of the country it is on a completely different electoral roll, and there is no way that one would know which Mr Tom Smith one was looking for unless, at the point of registration, they were asked to declare the other properties at which they were seeking to be on the electoral roll. That is what my amendment would do. Electoral officers would be able to check that, and members of the public who wished to challenge whether someone had done this at another election would also have a basis on which to check. Both electoral registers are public documents; my amendment would merely tally the two up.
Sir Peter Bottomley
My hon. Friend is perhaps trying to persuade us that a person who is prepared to break the law and vote twice is prepared to tell the truth when asked if they are registered in some other constituency.
Dan Rogerson
There would be pressure to make a declaration at that point. My amendment would tighten up the system a little. I am not saying that it is foolproof, but I think that it would improve matters.
As I am sure that the Minister is aware, this is a probing amendment to raise the subject again. We had a briefing from the Electoral Commission saying that it understands that the Government may be about to reconsider the issue and respond in some way through regulation, which I would certainly welcome. The point that I am seeking to make, which I have made before, is that given that electoral officers in some parts of the country are seeking to be tougher on this matter and to question people’s right to register in a certain location, we need to provide them with the tools to ensure that the electoral register is accurate. As I have also remarked before, if we are moving to a system of holding local referendums on matters such as setting a higher council tax rate or establishing a neighbourhood or community planning document, it is important that it is the people who live in the community who vote. That is not to say that people who own property, businesses or agricultural land in the area may not venture a view or be part of the consultation, but voting is a very different thing.
Jonathan Edwards
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point about stopping duplicate entrants on the electoral register. Has he given any thought to the impact of the amendment on the process of creating new constituencies with the same number of electors, in particular in constituencies such as Ceredigion, where there is a large student population?
Dan Rogerson
The amendment may well make a difference to the size of the electorate in places such as Ceredigion. It would also make a difference in Cornwall, which is being told that it must have five and a half seats, instead of the five that it used to have or the six that it currently enjoys. There will be a seat across the border between Cornwall and north-west Devon. The large number of second homes in north-west Devon and north Cornwall may have a bearing on the size of that constituency, so the hon. Gentleman makes a very good point.
As I said, this is a probing amendment, so I will draw my remarks to a close. I hope that the Government act on this issue, if not in this primary legislation, then in secondary legislation or the guidance for local authorities when they are designing the forms that people will fill in, to make people aware of its importance. Although it is more acute in areas such as mine than in other parts of the country, only through a joined-up approach can we get the information that is needed to resolve the situation. If the Government cannot respond positively today, I hope that they will indicate that they will look at it in the future.
Mr David
I will say a few words about the process of verification, because clause 2 gives significant powers to the Secretary of State to make secondary legislation; to determine what evidence should be on an application form for registration; to determine the form of those application forms; over the role and functions of electoral registration officers; and over local authorities and the Electoral Commission.
One of the most significant issues is the evidence of identity that individuals will have to provide. Paragraph 19 of the explanatory notes says of subsection (3):
“The required evidence may be specified in regulations or be determined by the Secretary of State, and such evidence may for example include a person’s date of birth and national insurance number.”
My concern is about the lack of specificity in the words “may for example include”. My understanding was that the Government had all but decided that a person’s date of birth and NI number would be the two specific pieces of information that would be required. I am therefore worried that the Bill will give the Secretary of State the power to make broader decisions on other information.
Mr Harper
Yes. This is about people who have moved. People who legitimately reside in more than one place, which may well include students, are entitled to be registered in either or both of those places. It is up to them to choose. As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall, we will also ask people if there are other locations where they reside and where they are registered or intend to be registered. That will not drive anyone away, but will help electoral registration officers to make sure that the register is more accurate.
I hope that with those assurances my hon. Friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Dan Rogerson
I am delighted to hear what the Minister has to say and it was remiss of me not to have checked in the Library before I spoke. I am grateful to him for his remarks and for how he has listened over the past couple of years to me and my constituent Mr Angus Lamond, with whom he has corresponded on several occasions. My constituent was an independent council candidate in the elections and was incensed because he felt that second-home voters were being targeted and mobilised in some way. I am delighted that the Government are taking this issue seriously and dealing with it proportionately. I look forward to seeing the proposals that the Minister has put in the Library today come into effect, and I beg to seek leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr David
I just have a query on my amendment. The Minister was slightly cavalier in comparing primary legislation, and matters on the face of the Bill, with secondary legislation. Yes, both have to go through the House as part of the parliamentary process, but there is a world of difference. I would not like to think that the Minister was undervaluing primary legislation.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Harper
The right hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. There are about 5 million British citizens overseas, and there is a debate to be had about the length of time—currently 15 years—that one should remain entitled to vote. Of the 5 million citizens overseas, only 30,000 or so are registered to vote, and for those who have been overseas for less than 15 years there is no bar at all on voting.
There are questions to be asked of all of us about why those people do not feel the urge to register and to cast their vote in our elections, but in part 2 of the Bill, which I shall come on to later, we are going to lengthen the period of a general election campaign, making it more practical for overseas voters to receive and to cast a postal vote so that it counts in an election. I hope that that will be helpful.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way so early in our deliberations. The point about overseas electors bears a great deal of exploration. If they are not going to participate, alongside citizens who are still resident, in the democratic process and in our constituency-based system, will more information be provided to political parties and to independent candidates about how to contact overseas electors? The information that has been on the electoral register up until now would not allow for much discussion or interaction with them.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point—to which we might return in Committee, given that I have not got very far with my speech and want to make a little progress before I take any more interventions.
As I was saying to the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), part 2 also contains provisions to improve the administration and conduct of elections, thereby serving to increase voter participation and to make a number of improvements to the running of elections.
Before I explain the rationale behind our proposals, I shall deal briefly with the Opposition’s reasoned amendment and approach.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made a thoughtful speech, although I disagree with some of what she said. Unlike her, I think that we are going in the right direction with individual voter registration, and most Members’ comments seem to reflect that view. When we last debated this matter in January, in Opposition time, I covered two issues, and because I always strive for consistency in what I do in this House, I will do so again.
The first issue is people who are fortunate enough to own multiple properties and therefore find themselves able to register to vote in two or more places. The council in Cornwall has started to take action that the former district councils did not in challenging some of the registrations by second home owners in Cornwall. I have supported that publicly and have therefore been in receipt of letters from all parts of the United Kingdom from people who have property in north Cornwall; many choose to do so. Second home ownership is a serious issue in terms of property prices, the property market, and so on. I have been at pains to say that I do not believe that all second home owners are a drain on the local area’s services or that they do not contribute to local charities and other organisations.
Voter registration, however, is a different issue. As I said in the previous debate, I have heard that several people have come across political campaigning in certain elections that targets the second home vote, which is unhealthy. As I said, I have received letters from other parts of the country from people whom Cornwall council has decided to remove from the register on the grounds that they are not resident in Cornwall, and I see trotted out phrases such as “No taxation without representation”. However, I view their property ownership in a similar vein to that of those who operate a business in a constituency but do not live there. Business rate payers have not had the vote for some time. It is the same with other forms of land ownership.
The accuracy of the register is important, for the reasons that the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) pointed out, although he worries that people should be on it but are not, whereas I worry that people are on it but should not be.
The Government have stated their intention to offer further opportunities for local people to influence decisions in their local area through referendums about, for example, council tax setting or development and neighbourhood plans. A referendum could be held to see whether people want to endorse or to think again about a development framework for a local community. My concern on that score is about places where there is a dire need for affordable housing. It will undoubtedly be in the interests of the people who live in the area for that affordable housing to be built—they might have relatives who are in desperate need of it—but it will probably not be in the interests of those who have second homes there. I therefore suspect—call me cynical if you will, Mr Deputy Speaker—that those who own property in the area, but do not have an interest in whether the community is a living, thriving one, will take a different view on whether a new affordable housing development should be built, particularly in a coastal or village community. Those are crucial questions that we need to get right.
As I said, the first issue is whether people who have multiple properties should be on the register in multiple locations. If we are moving towards an individual electoral registration system, it ought to be just that: each individual should be on the register in one place and should state where that place is. We could have a discussion about what options there are for determining where somebody should register. I would be happy for a person to opt for which place they use. Another school of thought says that it should be based on the amount of time they spend in each area. There are data, such as those that have been used in the data-matching pilots, that show where a person spends most of their time. That information would be useful for a local authority in determining whether a person is resident in its area.
We could go further than the data that were authorised for use in the pilots. Many of the cases will relate to the ownership of property. Although pay-as-you-earn information was on the list, registration for capital gains tax purposes was not. In the past, we have heard celebrated examples of people changing the designation of their properties for capital gains tax purposes, depending on which property they were about to sell. If somebody opts to say that a place is their main residence for tax purposes, should they not also say that it is their main residence for electoral registration purposes? That is another form of data that could be useful, but it was not used in the data matching pilots.
Earlier this week, we discussed the council tax discount. There is still a 10% discount for second homes even in councils that have chosen to make second home owners pay as much council tax as possible. Although my hon. Friend the Member for St Austell and Newquay (Stephen Gilbert) was reflecting the opinion of the electorate in Cornwall and other parts of the country in supporting the abolition of the discount, it will present a problem. At the moment, there is an incentive to register a property as a second home, because to get the 10% discount one has to notify the council. That is useful for data mapping and for resolving the registration issues to which I am referring. If the 10% discount goes, we will lose that option. Other methods will therefore have to be used to ensure that the register is accurate.
Putting the new systems in place presents a huge opportunity, whether paper forms or computer systems are used. I appreciate that the Government do not want to be in the business of deciding what system a local authority should use and exactly how the forms should look. There will inevitably be differences. Having lived in different parts of the country, I know that different councils have different ways of doing things, but we could specify in regulations certain items of data that must be captured. I would welcome a view from the Minister on this point.
I would like people who are completing the form to be asked whether they have another property that they might consider registering at and, if so, where that property is. We could discuss those sorts of questions in Committee. The form will provide an opportunity for such cross-referencing. At the moment, it would be incredibly difficult for an electoral registration officer to check whether somebody who was registered in two places had voted in both places in a general election. They would have to know where the other property was, get access to the marked register and compare it with their own marked register. For areas such as north Cornwall that have a large number of second homes, that would be very time consuming. If we could capture that information at the point of registration, it would be hugely reassuring.
I will move on briefly to the second point that I want to cover. The Bill does not include the issue of the edited register. I know that there is a range of views on this matter. I am pleased that the Government do not propose to change the status quo and abolish the edited register. I hope that they will cling to that position, because many organisations rely on the edited register, including charities, those who seek to unite family members who have been separated, credit referencing organisations and those who are seeking to catch up with people who are trying to avoid their responsibilities—for instance, by not paying their bills. The edited register is a useful and valuable resource. I am pleased that the Government have not included its abolition in the Bill, despite the view of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I hope that the Government will stick to that view and that we will not have to revisit the issue.
Individual Voter Registration
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
I would like to cover a couple of elements connected with the prospective legislation though perhaps not the main business. The Minister makes eye contact with me, so I am sure he can imagine what one of those elements will be. First, I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) and his Committee for the work that they have done, although I take issue with one aspect of that, to which I shall return as the second of my two points.
My first point relates to multiple property owners. The hon. Member for Hendon (Mr Offord) referred to this issue, but it has a particular resonance in constituencies such as mine where many properties are second or holiday homes. I pay tribute to a local campaigner, Mr Angus Lamond, who stood as an independent candidate for Cornwall council in the first elections to that new authority in 2009. He stood in a coastal ward with a high number of such properties and noticed that their owners were being targeted in a particular way to get them out to vote. According to the Electoral Commission’s guidance, it seems that many of them should not have been on the local electoral register, because we are talking not about people who divide their time relatively equally between two places, but about those who spend a few weekends or a few weeks in the summer in their properties and who are, according to my definition, in no way resident in the community. Some of those people have had second homes for many years and play an active role in the community, for example by fundraising for the local lifeboat, but as a general principle it ought to be the people who live in the community who get to vote, particularly in local authority elections.
I have been told that it is perfectly legal for people to be registered in a number of places and to vote in other local elections on the same day by postal vote. I would like us to consider whether that is right, because by allowing that we are effectively saying that those who are fortunate enough to own more than one property can have more of a say in what goes on in this country than those who are not, and I find that very difficult. If we are to have a system that recognised that some people genuinely live in two parts of the country for different parts of the year, whether because of their business lives, family circumstances or studies, I do not have a problem with making them specify which home they regard as their primary address. If one is talking to our great friends in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs for capital gains purposes—famously, some former Members might have juggled the property they registered with HMRC as their normal residence—one should have to specify where and in which community ones lives.
If we are to have an electoral system based on constituency mandate—I, of course, favour a more proportional system—that mandate is very important and should be the same for local and national elections. Is there really a problem otherwise? Two of the constituencies in Cornwall were decided at the last general election by small majorities: one changed hands with a majority of 66 and the other was won by fewer than 500 votes. I am in no way criticising the duly elected Members of Parliament for those constituencies, who I am sure won fair and square; I am merely making the point that we are talking about sometimes very narrow margins of victory.
Sheila Gilmore
I am not convinced that the current proposals will address the problem that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I wonder what his view is of the coalition Government’s decision not to go ahead with the system proposed by the previous Government, which would have enabled such cross-checking. Under the current proposals, so long as an elector provides their local electoral registration officer with their identifier, they could still register in more than one place, which I think is what he believes to be a problem.
Dan Rogerson
The hon. Lady makes a fair point. I have discussed this with the Minister informally and in meetings, including one that involved the constituent I mentioned earlier. I am seeking to urge the Minister to do all he can to provide local electoral registration officers with the tools they need for cross-checking so that they can be confident that the people who are presented to them are resident in the community. In the best-case scenario, we have people who are on the register and who scrupulously ensure that they vote in two places only in local elections and only in one place in general elections. Of course, some of them might vote in both places in a general election, or even in three or four places. Realistically, what electoral registration officer will have the wherewithal to indentify where an elector’s other properties are and to get hold of the marked register for those places in order to perform that cross-checking? I am genuinely concerned about that and hope that the Minister will take my comments on board and look at what can be done.
There are further connected issues. If we as a Government are moving towards more consultative referendums locally on planning and local plans, I can see a slight diversion of interest in an area between those who have a second home and those who are trying desperately to secure an affordable home when it comes to what the local plan says about, for example, the provision of affordable housing and where it might be located.
The same thing might be said of a referendum under the Localism Act 2011 to vary council tax upwards in order to provide local services, with local authorities quite rightly having to make the case to the electorate on such issues. People who are not so involved in the services in an area may still have a view on having to pay for them. The flipside of that argument is no taxation without representation, but that does not apply to council tax. With business rates, people have a big stake in a local community, but they have not had the opportunity to vote in local elections for a long time, and we should see people who have the luxury of a second property as being more in line with people who operate a business in that area, rather than as a resident paying council tax. I urge the Minister to ensure that that question is addressed as we move forward.
My second point, on which I disagree slightly with the report by the Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Nottingham North, is about the edited register, which does a huge amount of good for business. We have heard already about tackling credit card fraud, and the agencies that pursue it often use the edited register. The Salvation Army and others do fantastic work in reuniting separated families, and it has told me how much it relies on the edited register to do so. Many other practitioners in the field reunite people who have been adopted with their birth parents, and other family members who have lost contact with each other.
Work is undertaken on dormant assets and matters of probate, and the people involved all make use of the edited register, so I hope that when the Minister comes to legislate he will think carefully about how that aspect of the register is treated. I accept that for reasons of safety people should be able to opt out, and we have that safeguard in place already, but when the edited register meets so many demands in society it ought to be a provision that we retain. Charity fundraisers, a category that I did not mention, also make great use of the register, so before we throw it out we should look at what it achieves.
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) on the importance of a canvass in the run-up to a general election, and many have made the point that a 2014 canvass would help a great deal with preparations for the next general election. So, although I shall happily support the Government tonight, I urge the Minister to consider carefully the key issues of the edited register and second-home voters.
Oral Answers to Questions
Dan Rogerson Excerpts(13 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Harper
That was not up to the hon. Gentleman’s usual standard—no, on reflection, I am afraid that it was. I made it clear from this Dispatch Box when I announced the policy that we are just as focused on completeness as on accuracy. As the Deputy Prime Minister set out, we are listening carefully to the responses to our consultation and to what was said by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and we will bring forward our proposals in due course.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
The Minister will be aware that councils such as Cornwall are taking action to deal with multiple property owners being on the register in several places. I welcome the Government’s change of view on the 10% discount on council tax, but as that is one way of encouraging people to register their ownership of a second home, making it easier to cross-match data, has the Minister considered other ways in which councils could fulfil their duty of ensuring that the register is accurate?
Mr Harper
I have not considered any proposals arising from our council tax moves. The hon. Gentleman and I have had conversations about this matter, and I know that his electoral registration office has been making sure that the law is applied fairly but firmly in registering people who reside in Cornwall, thus ensuring that it is indeed more accurate as well as more complete.