Oral Answers to Questions

Greg Hands Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

By allowing rents for new tenants, but not existing tenants, to be set closer to market rates—and by the way, rents for existing—[Interruption.] Rents for existing tenants went up by about 15% under the Labour Government. We are saying that we need to give registered social landlords an incentive to build new affordable homes—the building of which was at lamentably low levels under the previous Government—while all the time, of course, compensating those tenants through the housing benefit system. As I said earlier, we also think it is right for the Government to say that there needs to be some kind of limit for those people who are on housing benefit, and it seems fair for that limit to be set roughly at the level at which people who are going out to work would be looking for rented property in the private sector.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

T10. The Deputy Prime Minister will be aware of Labour’s catastrophic defeat in Tower Hamlets last week at the hands of the Ken Livingstone-backed independent candidate, but will he examine the issue of electoral fraud, because serious allegations of it were made at the local elections in May and again last week? Some 18 postal votes came from one four-bedroom house and eight postal votes came from a maisonette above a shop, and more than 5,000 new names were added to the roll just before the deadline. Will—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that that is quite enough and we need an answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry]

I think everyone recognises that being a vicar is not an easy job. Betjeman succinctly observed:

“When things go wrong it’s rather tame

To find we are ourselves to blame.

It gets the trouble over quicker

To go and blame things on the Vicar.”

Every clergyman deserves our full support for what they do in the community, and their spouses—whether pre-ordination or post-ordination—deserve our support, because they are often on the front line of helping parishioners in the community. I very much hope that if any clergy spouse does not feel that she is getting full support, she will get in touch with me and I will make jolly sure that her diocesan bishops and others ensure that she gets the support that she deserves.

[Greg Hands (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)]

9. What recent assessment the Electoral Commission has made of the effectiveness of mechanisms to increase voter registration of and turnout by UK citizens who are resident abroad.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

The Electoral Commission runs campaigns to promote voter registration among British citizens living abroad. The Commission informs me that the campaign in the run-up to the 2010 general election resulted in more than 40,000 overseas voter registration forms being downloaded from its website. In its report on the 2010 general election, the Commission said that the election timetable leaves insufficient time for overseas voters to receive and return their postal votes, and recommended that the Government should undertake a thorough review of the timetable for UK general elections.

[Greg Hands]

May I remind my hon. Friend what happened in the Polish elections of November 2007? Poland set up a number of polling stations in this country for its citizens to participate in their elections. Could we consider doing the same at British embassies or consulates abroad? The impression that I had in Hammersmith was of thousands of Poles queuing up at Ravenscourt Park to vote. It is something that we could quite reasonably copy.

[Mr Streeter]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the suggestion. We have looked at using British embassies abroad as places where expats can go and vote. There did not seem to be a great deal of interest when the suggestion was put forward by the Electoral Commission, but given the persistence with which my hon. Friend puts his case, we will consider it again.