Draft Local Elections (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Order 2024 Draft Representation of the People (Postal Vote Handling etc.) (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 21st February 2024 General Committees

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

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

The statutory instruments would bring about changes to postal and proxy voting in Northern Ireland and to EU citizens’ voting and candidacy rights. As elected Members of this House we should support all aims to make our elections as free and fair as possible and not to allow for any fraud at all. I think about why I got involved in politics, and why I stood to be a local councillor and an MP: it was because I wanted to represent my community, and I know every vote matters.

The Minister will be pleased to hear that we do not seek to refight the battles that took place over aspects of these regulations during the passage of the Elections Act 2022—I was on the Bill Committee and part of those discussions—and we do not intend to oppose these measures. However, I would still like him to consider what some of the serious potential unintended consequences could be if these regulations are not implemented with sufficient attention. First, I should make it very clear that for many years the Labour party has been signed up to the Electoral Commission’s code of conduct for campaigners, which bans campaigners from handling completed postal ballots. Our internal guidance also states clearly that under no circumstances should campaigners handle completed postal ballots, unless electors have absolutely nobody else to return them for them.

I remain concerned about the definition of political campaigners. In my constituency party, we have a thousand Labour members. During elections, many of them lent a helping hand by putting posters in their windows, by delivering leaflets on their block or road, or even just by commenting online. Some join the Labour party, as with every other party, and maybe do no more than that. Others do not join a party, but may still get involved in political activity at election time. These simple acts may be enough to draw them into the definition of a political campaigner.

A lack of clarity may have a chilling effect. If someone knows they are going to be handing in a postal vote, maybe further down the line, that could prevent them from getting involved in political activity. It may have unintended consequences for both sides. It is easy to imagine a party member in Northern Ireland who is inactive most of the time but willing to help in a small way during an election being caught by, or not being clear on, these regulations because they want to hand in a postal vote for a sick housemate or partner.

I am not sure how far the regulations draw a distinction between a political campaigner with a rosette who knocks on doors with a group of other people who are campaigning politically and someone who may happen to be an ordinary party member, or not even a party member, who is doing something political at an election time in a personal capacity. There may be times when it is difficult for electoral officers to adjudicate on this. What will the definition of a political campaigner be for the purposes of enabling electoral officers to adjudicate? Can the Minister outline what safeguards are in place to ensure that that would not be the case, and what efforts are being made to ensure that legitimate voters do not lose their voice because of these regulations?

The pressure on local authorities is significant. We have stretched electoral administrators up and down the country, who are getting their heads around the changes that the Government are making—we pointed that out several times in the Bill Committee—and sometimes rectifying errors along the way. Will these electoral officers be further resourced in Northern Ireland? Will they be strengthened to deal with the impacts and changes that have been outlined?

I would also like to know what will happen about communications and the postal vote packs being dropped through council letter boxes. The Minister outlined clearly that postal votes dropped through electoral offices without an accompanying form will be discarded or left behind, but will that be very clearly communicated to the electorate so that they will not be told afterwards that their vote was not counted? They may be under the impression that their vote would have been counted because they have gone to the office and dropped in the form. I hope that the Minister agrees that the right to participation in the democratic process requires a bit more careful planning. Maybe he can assure us of that, either in this Committee or afterwards. Though these layers may have security advantages, they risk overloading election officers who are already stretched by changes elsewhere in the Bill. I look forward to the Minister’s response.