Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Debate between David Heath and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Jackson]

I agree, but there are existing checks and balances if the system does not work. I referred earlier to the situation in Sheffield, and in particular Sheffield, Hallam, the Deputy Prime Minister’s constituency. That was not just swept under the carpet. That was a very serious issue of people feeling they had not had the opportunity to take part in a vote and, as the hon. Gentleman will know, it resulted in a full, open, transparent inquiry by the Electoral Commission, and lessons have been learned. There is room for discretion within a permissive approach, but the amendments do not propose that.

I am always slightly wary of dismissing legislation that says, as schedule 4 does,

“so far as is reasonably practicable”.

That is the language of consensus, reality and pragmatism—the language of a practical approach. To disregard that and be overly-prescriptive would be a mistake. For that reason, if this amendment is pressed to a Division, I shall vote with the Government. I hope the Minister makes it clear that this amendment is unnecessary and the Bill’s current wording is appropriate.

[Mr Heath]

It is a pleasure to return to this Bill under your chairmanship, Mr Hoyle.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) for their amendments and the manner in which they discussed them. However, the hon. Gentleman’s revealing that he intends to vote for his amendment irrespective of my response does not give me a great incentive to try to persuade him—but my hon. Friend has a more open mind, and I know will listen carefully to what I have to say.

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[Mr Heath]

No, it would not. The steps that an ERO needs to take will be set out both in the guidance from the Electoral Commission and in the secondary legislation. Those steps will be a duty upon them; it will not be about doing this if they get round to it or if they feel it would be a good idea. There will be a basic level of steps that they must take. All we are doing with this “reasonably practicable” qualification is saying that, despite their best endeavours, EROs are not going to achieve a perfect register, because no one in any constituency in any country in the known world has ever produced a register that is absolutely accurate and perfect. However, EROs must do everything they can to make it is as near to that as possible by taking all reasonable steps.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

The Minister is making a strong case. Is not the corollary of these amendments that, if we disregard the practicability of the efforts by the EROs to put this register together, compiling a register would be exactly the same, and would be seen as such, in Colchester, a constituency made up of one town in a compact urban area, as it would be in Orkney and Shetland, a constituency of many islands? It simply is not practical to regard the constituencies as being the same for the purposes of compiling a register.

[Mr Heath]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He sets out why we must avoid being too prescriptive: we want EROs to do a variety of different things in different places to achieve their objective.

The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) asked whether there is a minimum that is required. I can tell him that there is. Our draft regulations will set out what the EROs must do to encourage applications to register to vote. That will include, as a minimum, the sending of an invitation, of two reminders and of a canvasser to encourage an application. There is no question of our watering down the duty of EROs; we are simply recognising that even at the end of all that, because of the change in the way in which this section is constructed by the amendment of the original Act, EROs will not have a perfect register. However, they must have as near to a perfect system as possible for getting to the perfect register.

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[Mr Heath]

I think that the hon. Gentleman agrees with that point.

May I just deal with the other two issues raised in the amendments? Amendment 37 deals with the reporting of suspicions that an individual had committed offences relating to electoral fraud when submitting either a registration or absent vote application. Again, nobody would quarrel with the purpose of that. Perhaps I should say the “purported purpose”, as we never know exactly what the purpose of the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Caerphilly is because he does not provide an explanatory statement, unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion. I accept that the purported purpose is a good one.

Let us be absolutely clear that there is a need for EROs to refer to the police any suspicions they have on registration and postal vote applications that they receive, and that is set out clearly in the guidance issued to them by the Electoral Commission. The hon. Member for Caerphilly will have looked at that, and he will know that paragraph 3.37 of the Electoral Commission’s “Managing electoral registration in Great Britain” guidance clearly states:

“Any issues concerning the integrity of the registration process should be reported”—

by the ERO—

“to the police immediately.”

In addition, the Electoral Commission has worked with the Association of Chief Police Officers to produce guidance for EROs, returning officers and police officers on identifying and responding to allegations of electoral fraud associated with the registration and postal voting process. In exercising powers under section 9A of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the Electoral Commission has also set out a specific performance standard on integrity—performance standard 4— which EROs need to meet on maintaining the integrity of registration and postal vote applications. In order to meet that performance standard, EROs are required to establish and maintain contact with their local police—a single point of contact—and ensure that any suspicions arising from registration and postal vote applications are reported to them immediately. EROs are already assessed on their compliance with that standard by the Electoral Commission, so putting in place this statutory requirement would be otiose in those circumstances. If the question is whether they are doing that, the Electoral Commission’s report is encouraging. EROs appear to be making significant progress in the completion of the integrity performance standard.

The figures in the report on the performance of electoral registration officers in 2011 show that 260 EROs, or 68%, met the standard, whereas 116, or 31%, performed above it. Those who are mathematically gifted will work out that 68 plus 31 is 99, which leaves only 1% of EROs—only four—who did not meet the standard. Why not? They did not provide sufficient documentation to the Electoral Commission about the work they had done—they had done it—to take matters forward with the police. The Electoral Commission has give a strong bill of health to the steps taken by EROs of their own volition and with the support of local authorities, as the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) said, to do the job with which they are entrusted and to report their suspicions.

[Mr Stewart Jackson]

I concur warmly with the Minister. My experience of living through Operation Hooper, which was the postal vote fraud investigation in Cambridgeshire arising from the June 2004 local and European elections, puts that sharply into perspective. It is important that there should be no perverse incentive that means that electoral registration officers do not take action because of the resource implications. Hooper cost the Cambridgeshire constabulary a huge amount of money, which has never been recouped by the constabulary or by the city of Peterborough, and the Minister should be mindful of that.

[Mr Heath]

I absolutely agree. There should be no constraint on dealing effectively with attempted or actual fraud in the electoral process. EROs should be confident not only that they have the capacity to act but that the police will engage with them. That is why the work between the Electoral Commission and ACPO is so important.