Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Graham Allen Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Williams]

I concur with the hon. Gentleman. I think we have nothing to be scared about in the Government’s legislation or in respect of the good practice that some local authorities are exhibiting. I am concerned that we spread good practice, and I believe clause 5 provides us with the mechanism to do that by requiring returning officers in the first instance to send the invitations to register and then by providing a secondary power to make regulations about the substance of the initial applications. Further to that, the regulations

“may confer functions on the Electoral Commission”.

I hope that the Minister can flesh out the role he believes the Electoral Commission should play in these matters.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Weir.

Before I deal with this important clause and set of amendments, let me say a few words about the role of those who have served on my Select Committee, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I believe that it did an exemplary job in examining not just clause 5 but all the other clauses, and I fear that had it not done so, and had the Government not engaged with it as they did, this Committee stage would have been much more fraught. It is because the Select Committee managed to clear away a lot of the undergrowth—a lot of the detail—during its close discussions with the Government that the real, strong political issues that should be debated on the Floor of the House are being so debated. Not only the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who is present, but other members of the Select Committee have participated in the first two days of this Committee stage, and will probably participate in the third.

I was surprised to see how many amendments the Government had accepted. I had thought that we had done a reasonable job, but that co-operation has taken the Select Committee to a better place in the way in which we should, responsibly, seek to amend Bills. There can be nothing more important than what we have tried to do in respect of the right to vote, the registration of the vote, and the invitation to vote. It may sound very dry and technical, but the truth is that those issues are fundamental to our democracy. If we get this wrong, all the high-falutin’ phraseology about our freedoms and liberties, and our right to create our own Governments and dispose of them, will be rendered useless.

We need only read the history books, such as those that deal with the Jim Crow laws in the United States, to know that, even when there is a nominal right to vote, if registration is not got right—if, indeed, it is deliberately twisted so that it is difficult for people to vote—everyone is denied their right to democracy. As Lyndon Johnson is quoted as saying in a famous book by Robert Caro, which I would recommend to anyone, if people are given the right to vote they are given access to the whole panoply of the power of Government, and can then exercise their ability to change law by whatever means they wish to employ: through their political parties, and through other organisations. We have seen how vital it is for registration to be exercised in a responsible and comprehensive way in countries such as South Africa, which, in recent years, has done a tremendous job in fulfilling that requirement.

However, we also need to look a little closer to home. When we talk about registration, I always think of the old Shire hall in the middle of my city of Nottingham. Three blocks can be pulled out of the steps of the hall, and that is where the old tripod gallows used to be. It was used at the time of the Pentrich rebellion, only six generations ago, to execute people who were demanding the right to vote—demanding the right, in our own country, to exercise the mandate that would decide who should be the Government.

I go to those stratospheric lengths only to demonstrate that we are debating an extremely serious matter. We are not merely discussing the dry technicalities that electoral registration officers, who are almost always extremely capable and conscientious public servants, put into law and into our democratic process. We are discussing a fundamental issue.

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[Mr Allen]

I beg to move amendment 33, page 5, line 12, after ‘penalty’, insert ‘of £500’.

The amendment would provide that the fine for failing to comply with a requirement to make an application to be on the electoral register would be set at £500.

[The Temporary Chair (Mr Mike Weir)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Amendment 14, page 5, line 14, at end insert—

‘(7A) The civil penalty shall be £100.’.

Amendment 15, in schedule 3, page 19, leave out lines 9 and 10.

[Mr Allen]

It is a great pleasure to speak again on these very important issues and, in particular, on the amendments before us, regarding the civic duty that we all have to vote, and the question of what a society does when, in a voluntaristic democracy, some individuals consistently refuse to play by the rules, to play their part and to carry out their share of the democratic duty that should fall on all of us.

We have heard a lot about the sacrifices that people have made, and I will not go over those issues again, but, when one looks at the history books and sees what sacrifices people made to achieve the vote, one finds that it adds great resonance to our debate. We have all had the experience of people who say, “Well, I don’t bother. I don’t even register. A plague on all your houses —it doesn’t mean anything to me.” As far as I am concerned, that is breaking the social contract that we all have when we commit to serving our democracy. If we do not maintain, hone and develop that social contract, we leave the door open for those who would take away our very democracy.

Therefore, on behalf of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, I am taking what might at first sight appear to be a rather draconian view. It is that, in extreme circumstances, after many warnings and much discussion, there should be a power—a reserve power—to fine those who deliberately flout the rules and regulations of registration.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

How did the hon. Gentleman’s Committee come up with the figure of £500?

[Mr Allen]

I do not think that any science was involved in coming to that figure; the Committee felt that it should be pitched at a reasonable level. If it were pitched lower—at a parking or traffic-offence level—it might be regarded less seriously. Where it is actually pitched is a matter for debate and for the Government, but I hope that they will listen to people who say that, on the very rare occasions when a prosecution takes place, such offences should be met with an adequate fine.

I am not suggesting that everyone who fails to register should be fined £500. We heard that in a whole year in this country, people were prosecuted for non-registration only 67 times. That is not quite one in a million, but such prosecutions are a very rare occurrence. However, we need the power to fine so that people understand how seriously we take the matter.

I congratulate the Government again on how they have moved on a number of these issues. I am delighted to be joined by a member of my Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), who participated in our debates and made sure that so many of our proposals were put in a way that allowed the Government to accept them and take the Bill forward.

Like the other Committee members, my hon. Friend will remember the early days when it appeared that our electoral system was almost being marketised or commodified by some of the phraseology around at the time. Our right to vote—our democracy—is, in the Committee’s opinion, a civic duty and I am delighted that the Government have reaffirmed that. It is not a consumer choice; it is not a punt, a bet or going down the shops—it is about how we run our society. There are alternatives to democracy; it is important that it is healthy and strong and that everybody participates in it.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

From my hon. Friend’s perspective, would the £500 represent more of a preventive measure, that would hopefully garner so much registration that it would never have to be used? A lower figure might mean that many more people would not register and would be taken to court.

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If someone is fined for failing to register, that is a symbol of failure for us all—Government and non-Government Members, those on Select Committees and those who are not. We want everybody in our democracy to participate. Many of us have said on visits to schools and other places, “Yes, of course, in a partisan way we care about the way you vote, but we come and do these things because we feel you’ve got to exercise your rights in a democracy and as a citizen.” The lessons that we give to our children, particularly teenagers, when we talk to them in those terms apply to everybody.

It would be a failure if we fined people every time, but as my hon. Friend said, there needs to be a preventive, deterrent effect that encourages people to vote who might otherwise say, “Well, nothing will happen if I don’t, so I’m not going to bother.” If the thought that something might happen is in the back of their mind, a lot of people will be encouraged to register who otherwise would not do so. If they then choose not to vote or decide to go to the polling station and spoil their ballot, that is their decision, but they are enabled to make that decision by the very fact that they are on the register, and disabled from doing so if they are not on the register or encourage others not to be on the register.

[Mr Mark Williams]

I, too, welcome the Government’s direction of travel on the penalty. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that rather than becoming too hung up about the figure, we should consider how to communicate the fact that there is a penalty at all? It is about the size of the font and the prominence given to the wording in the documentation that is sent out as much as the scale of the fine.

[Mr Allen]

At the risk of summoning the ghost of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), the hon. Gentleman makes that point far more articulately, and perhaps more often, than I do. If we can persuade people to vote because they have got this message clearly from the panoply of paperwork that we send out to get them to register, then that in itself is a good thing, and it will mean that the threat of deploying a fine is not acted on.

As the Minister said, members of the Select Committee are trying to be as good as we can in giving the Committee an explanatory statement of the amendments so that Members can wander into the debate and know exactly what we are talking. The statement is straightforward. We hope that the deterrent would be used only very sparingly and rarely, if ever, but it says, in effect, that the concept of registering to vote is not about marketisation or convenience but about values—the values of which we in this place must be the guardians at every conceivable opportunity. The amendment is about the right of every qualified individual in this country to vote for the governance of their choice, and we believe that it would safeguard and extend the possibility of all of us enjoying that right.

[Mr Richard Shepherd (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

The burden of the argument in the earlier part of the speech by the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) seemed to be that there should be a fine for not voting. If I have misunderstood that, I apologise.

In the long history of these islands, people have sought to accomplish the very thing that we represent here—a representative democracy that is their check on autocratic government and all the things that go with it. I profoundly believe in exercising the right to vote. I have never not voted, with the exception of the time when I was abroad as a student, when it was not possible to vote as such a person. However, I also believe that with a sense of liberty goes the right not to vote. This is a clear choice of citizens. When I first stood for election during the 1980s, most of the polls in my area, which is in the west midlands and is not the wealthiest of regions any more, we had turnouts of between 79% and 81%. As we know, the collection of data for the electoral register—the very thing that we are talking about—is under-recording numbers because of movements or deaths. Therefore, 79% to 81% is a very good turnout. Only in the most recent years has the turnout collapsed. Who is to say why?

[Mr Allen]

May I reassure the hon. Gentleman, whose record is second to none in this House in the service of democracy, that nothing in my amendment indicates that someone should be fined for not voting? The sanction would apply to people who do not register and should apply only in rare cases as a way of encouraging individuals to get on the register. People may then choose to not vote, to spoil their ballot paper or to vote for the party of their choice.

[Mr Shepherd]

I stand for a complete register. I do not know that I would go as far as to force people to register, unless it was for census purposes. I see the failure of the census as often as not.

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[Mr Allen]

The penalty is not the first but the last resort. People can do a range of administrative things, including visits, letters and calls, which hon. Members use within political parties to get people out to vote, before a fine is levied. The penalty will enable people to register. It would not be fixed in the sense that a bureaucrat will say, “I see Mrs Smith hasn’t registered. Send her a £500 fine.” It will be the last in a very long chain of events.

[Wayne David]

My hon. Friend makes the point extremely well. He mentions in passing his proposal for a £500 fine. The official Opposition are proposing a £100 fine. Both probing amendments were tabled because we are disappointed that the Government, despite the encouragement we have given them, have not proposed a figure for the fine. We are told that the figure will be in regulations in the not-too-distant future.

As I have mentioned regulations, Mr Weir, may I make a point in passing? The Minister referred a number of times to the draft regulations placed in the Library last Monday. I went to the Library after our debate last Monday and was told that the regulations were placed there at 4.1 pm, or 22 minutes before the debate began. As he well knows, it is impossible for any reasonable person to discuss such regulations with such access. In addition, the existence of the draft regulations is more theoretical than real—only two appeared, when the others would have been directly relevant to the debate. We must wait for the publication of the other draft regulations, but the communication placed in the Library was clear that there are no draft regulations in six important areas.

[Mr Allen]

The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) spoke of affronts to liberty, but does my hon. Friend agree that it is an affront to liberty that Ministers can set the level of the fine by diktat outwith the processes of the House? All Governments have introduced such provisions—I am not making a partisan point—but we should take that power by amending the Bill this evening. All hon. Members would understand that, and the Government would have the ability to adjust the fine over the years, because of inflation or because a different view is taken of the offence.

[Wayne David]

My hon. Friend makes his point very clearly. That is precisely what we would have liked: full parliamentary scrutiny, with the figure having been presented to us in the Bill or at least in regulations that we could have considered in parallel. In fact, we put that request to the Government months ago, so I am disappointed—not from a partisan point of view but in the interest of scrutiny and democracy—that it has not been possible. There are several gems in the regulations. I do not want to digress, but there is a reference to “agile methodology”. That is a new one on me. Perhaps the Minister could write to me about what it means with regard to verification.

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[Mr Harper]

The Electoral Commission will consider such issues when addressing the design of the form, and I am sure the points the hon. Gentleman raises will be taken into account.

Having set out why I do not think the level of the fine should be stated in the Bill, and having drawn attention to the draft secondary legislation and the approach we plan to take in coming up with that figure—rather than just making it up, we will listen to what stakeholders have to say—I hope the amendments will be withdrawn so we can allow the clause as currently drafted to stand part of the Bill.

[Mr Allen]

First, may I name-check another member of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), for her attendance and contribution? She made an epic contribution, and she was extremely helpful to me when I was indisposed, in making sure the Committee carried out its scrutiny duties effectively. Secondly, may I give credit to the Government, as they have moved on this issue? At the outset, there was not to be any fine whatever, and it takes courage, and some cost, to listen, and the Government should be commended in this Chamber and outside it for having done so. There is more to do, of course, but we are now in a position from where we can move forward.

There were a couple of references in the debate to Robert Caro’s mammoth biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, from a very difficult position, became the leading promoter of civil rights, including civil rights legislation. At the beginning of those enormous volumes, the scene is set by a black woman in the south seeking to get registered to vote. We need to remember, particularly in discussing registration and clause 5, that she was prohibited from participating in the democracy of the United States not by being prevented from voting, but because she could not even register in order then to participate in the voting process. That is why this clause is important, and why I hope the Minister will listen to the arguments that have been made tonight. In order to ensure that he listens even more carefully than he normally does, I will withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 3 agreed to.

Schedule 5

Transitional provision to do with Part 1

[Wayne David]

I beg to move amendment 21, in schedule 5, page 27, line 21, at end insert—

‘(6) The Government shall report to Parliament annually within two months of the end of the financial year on what money had been made available to local authorities to meet costs of transition to the new register and what safeguards have been put in place to make sure the money has been spent on the specified task.’.

I will refer specifically to the amendment and then more generally to schedule 5. On the financing of individual electoral registration, our concern is whether sufficient finance is being provided. The explanatory notes that accompany the Bill indicate that:

“A total of £108m was allocated at the Spending Review in 2010…This includes £85m resource funding in 2014/15 to fund registration officers to make contact with each potential elector individually”

who hopes to be on the register.

The petitioners of individual electoral registration and those who work in the field have concerns. I cite in particular the comments of the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, Mr John Turner. I know there has been discussion between the Government and the association, which I welcome. However, Mr Turner made the following important point in his written evidence to the Select Committee:

“It is our view that the successful implementation of the new system will depend on the relevant funding going directly”—

I emphasise the word “directly”—

“to electoral services.”

This is critical. He continues:

“Any funding needs to continue post 2015 and should not simply be seen as one-off capital funding.”

Our concern is essentially in line with his comments. We are worried, for example, that there will be insufficient resources to provide electoral registration officers with the necessary new guidance and training, particularly in respect of data management. We recognise that it will be necessary to enhance the skills and knowledge base of officers, and we are concerned that money is not provided for that. In other words, a comprehensive training re-vamp is needed, along with a comprehensive skills analysis, in order to inform the appropriate provision of training and support for electoral administrators.

In addition, there is also the fear, as I said, that the money allocated by the Government will not eventually get through to where it is needed. We have tabled this amendment because, ideally, we would like these resources to be ring-fenced, so that the whole transition period and the implementation of a new system is properly financed with money that is guaranteed. The only way that electoral registration officers can plan effectively and do what is necessary is if they know exactly how much money is coming through.