Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Frank Dobson Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I am going to make some progress, and will perhaps take an intervention from him later. Otherwise I will not get through my speech, and many other Members wish to contribute to the debate.

It is clear that the current system of registration is unacceptably open to electoral fraud. There is widespread concern about that; indeed, a survey carried out at the end of last year found that 36% of people believe that it is a problem. If citizens do not have confidence in the integrity of our electoral register, they will not have confidence in the integrity of the outcome of elections. We need to tackle that. When we came into office, we did not think that the plans for which Labour had legislated, which involved a voluntary process initially running in parallel, were the best way to tackle the problem. We thought that it would lead to confusion and have a very significant cost. That is why we want to speed up the introduction of individual registration so that the register published after the 2015 annual canvass will consist entirely of entries that have been individually verified, with the sole exception of some of those in the armed forces.

The Electoral Commission supports that position. At the beginning of the month, Jenny Watson, chair of the commission, said, when commenting on alleged fraud in the recent London mayoral elections:

“The Electoral Commission wants to see our registration system tightened up and it’s good that the Government plans to introduce new laws to do this which will apply to any of us who want to vote by post before the 2015 General Election.”

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

Did the Electoral Commission find any fraudulent activity in the London mayoral election?

--- Later in debate ---

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate and I broadly welcome the content of the Bill. There is much to commend it, especially individual electoral registration, which is long overdue. Regardless of what official statistics say, the simple fact is that in parts of Britain electoral fraud is widespread and has led to fraudulent election results. That is a disgrace and should be tackled immediately or at least as soon as is practicably possible, not in 2014 or 2015—or even later, as the Opposition suggest.

[Frank Dobson]

The law provides for people who commit electoral fraud to be prosecuted, fined or imprisoned. If the problem is as widespread as people suggest, why are there not more prosecutions, more people paying fines and more electoral swindlers in jail?

[Andrew Stephenson]

I shall come on to that exact point. There are a range of reasons why electoral fraud is not reported, the police do not have the resources to follow it up and the culprits are not brought to justice. Dozens of MPs have majorities in two or three figures and I have real concerns about the integrity of the ballot and its impact on recent elections as well as future ones.

My Labour predecessor in this House, Gordon Prentice, was a vocal supporter of individual voter registration, particularly in April 2008 when he found out that our Lib Dem opponent for the last general election had 27 registered voters living in his house and a household of 44 people. I know that some Members will raise their eyebrows at that, and it was indeed an exceptional case, but I can assure them that in parts of my constituency it is not uncommon for seven, eight or more voters to be registered as living in a terraced house and no one makes any checks on that.

We have also seen a sharp rise in the number of eastern European names appearing on the electoral roll, including those of Polish, Lithuanian or Czech citizens, but few are correctly marked as being unable to vote in UK parliamentary elections or referendums. During my time in Parliament, the names of virtually every illegal immigrant or illegal overstayer with whom I have dealt has appeared on the electoral roll. We know from Operation Amberhill, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), that almost half of all forged or counterfeit documents were positive matches on the electoral register.

Surely all that would lead anyone to support individual electoral registration—and I do—but we need to ensure that it is properly scrutinised for fraud and that the returns are accurate. Scrutiny costs money and it will take a significant amount of time and effort to check people’s citizenship or residency status, in particular, so I welcome the Minister’s comments about extra money for the project.

The nub of the issue of electoral fraud is on-demand postal voting, on which I believe, sadly, that the Bill should go further. It was introduced by the previous Government and my concerns are widely shared by a number of Members and by many of my constituents. In a letter to the Electoral Commission’s Jenny Watson last summer, Pendle borough council’s chief executive, Stephen Barnes, described how

“allegations and perceptions of malpractice around”

postal voting

“are seriously undermining public confidence in the whole electoral process”,

and expressed his own view that those concerns were fully justified, citing examples of probable malpractice and difficulties for the council in taking action.

In a motion last year, Pendle borough council resolved that practices related to postal votes

“affected the result of the election in some wards”.

Just last week, five councillors in Pendle from the three main parties came together to form a taskforce on tackling postal vote fraud. One of those five, Conservative Councillor Linda Crossley, said:

“People used to have to be really ill, virtually bed-ridden, to get a proxy or postal vote, now anybody can get a postal vote”.

To put that into context and explain how it happens, I shall refer to one ward, Reedley, where the scale and impact of postal voting has been dramatic. I should declare an interest. Reedley was for many years a safe Conservative ward and perhaps it still is, without on-demand postal voting. Until last year all three councillors were Conservative; now there is only one. In 2010, 800 postal votes were issued in Reedley in an election in which 3,049 people voted. The Conservative candidate secured 49% of the vote and was easily elected. In 2011, Reedley saw a 25% increase in postal votes, and this year a further increase of almost 25%. In two years an extra 479 voters felt the need to vote by post. Virtually all were from the British Pakistani community and virtually all were signed up for postal votes by the Labour party. Not coincidentally, Labour was elected on both occasions. The Conservative vote did not collapse. The Labour victory was not on trend across the constituency. Nevertheless, in this ward its support rocketed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

The first time I heard of the proposal for individual registration, I expressed my opposition to the idea. I remain of that opinion, like my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).

The Bill is unique in the history of all changes to electoral law over the past 180 years. All the others added citizens to the electoral register; this one, as we all know, will do the reverse. Individual registration will reduce the number of people on the electoral roll. Those who support the Bill say that its object is to reduce the scope for electoral fraud, but whatever the intentions behind it, its main effect will be to reduce the number of people entitled to vote. That number will be reduced not by keeping swindlers off the electoral roll but because it will become more inconvenient, complicated and difficult for the law-abiding majority to get on to it.

The right to vote is the birthright of every British citizen and the most important right granted to those who become British citizens. It is a symbol of our democracy. Over the centuries, British people have struggled, fought and in some cases died for the right to vote. In the last century, women had to battle for it. This afternoon, we are being asked to vote to make it harder for many of our fellow citizens to exercise that democratic right.

[Mr Harper]

Why does the right hon. Gentleman think that our fellow United Kingdom citizens in Northern Ireland are perfectly capable of registering individually—just as many of them are on the register—but people in Great Britain are not?

[Frank Dobson]

I am rather surprised that the hon. Gentleman gives the example of Northern Ireland, because he cannot deny that there was a massive drop in registration immediately after individual registration was introduced. I see no reason to believe that the people of Northern Ireland are inferior to any other people.

No one can deny that there have been examples of electoral fraud, which are deplorable. We know that, because people have been successfully prosecuted. However, the number of fraudsters is small, otherwise there would be more prosecutions. The most glaring scandal of our electoral system is not that some have swindled their way on to the electoral roll but that as many as 9 million of our fellow citizens have been left off it. That is the scandal that we should be addressing. Instead, the Government want to add to the number of their fellow citizens who will be denied their birthright.

We are being asked to pass a law to make life more inconvenient and difficult for the law-abiding many, in response to the law-breaking of the wrongdoing few. Instead, we should be targeting more effort, and much more effective effort, at whenever and wherever electoral fraud is suspected.

[Mrs Laing]

I am thinking about the figure of 9 million that the right hon. Gentleman gave. Is it not the case that at present, those 9 million people, if there are 9 million—I think there are 3 million—have to go through their “head of household”, whatever that might mean, to register to vote? When the Bill becomes law, they will be able to register individually in their own right, which will give them a power that they do not have at the moment.

[Frank Dobson]

I do not think that is what will happen in practice. I admit that it may happen in some cases, but in a very large number of cases, particularly in inner-city areas such as my constituency where people live in houses in multiple occupation, it will be more difficult for people to get on the register. Virtually everyone in the Chamber accepts that that is likely to happen, but apparently regards that reduction as a bit of collateral damage in the headlong pursuit of individual registration.

[Mr Harper]

The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken about houses in multiple occupation. At the moment, people in houses in multiple occupation get one form and depend on someone to whom they are not even related to put them on the electoral register. Under our proposals, they will all be written to and all get the chance to register individually. That is a step forward, not backwards.

[Frank Dobson]

The measures are proposed for areas where there is about a 30% to a 33% turnover of population each year. To whom will the electoral lot write if people have moved on? The proposals do not reflect the practicalities, problems and inconveniences that arise.

The Bill reminds me of when the police tried to counter football hooliganism by inconveniencing the majority of law-abiding football fans by treating all football fans as hooligans. It did not stop hooliganism. It was only when the police started to identify and target the trouble-making few that widespread hooliganism was stopped and the law-abiding many felt safe again. If we want to deal with the fraud, we need to target the potential fraudsters much better.

By all means we should ensure that no one votes who should not vote, but surely a far more important task is ensuring that everyone who is entitled to do so can cast their vote. The whole approach is simply back to front. Our first priority should be to get on the register the 6 million people who are not on it—I do not know whether by a slip of the tongue I said 9 million. Even the benighted Electoral Commission admits that the figure is about 6 million. The Bill proposes all sorts of cross-checking of official records, but largely with the object of getting people off the electoral roll. We should cross-check official records and private databases with the object of adding people to the register. The Bill’s object is wrong. Getting more people on the roll should be the main task of all involved in the electoral system: registration officers, the Electoral Commission, the Boundary Commission, civil servants, Ministers, holders of private sector data and political parties.

The Bill is back to front, dealing with a minor problem compared with the glaring scandal that 6 million of our fellow citizens are not on the electoral roll. Even if there are 10,000 fraudsters—I do not accept that there are—we are paying far more attention to them than to the absence of 6 million people who should be on the electoral register. The whole damn thing is back to front and it is about time we took our duties seriously and discharged our obligations in the way in which my hon. Friends the Members for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts) and for Mitcham and Morden suggest. We should go out there, day in, day out, using every possible method we can devise to get on the register people who could legitimately be on the electoral register. The Bill has a cock-eyed priority.