Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Heather Wheeler Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

A number of Members have major overseas firms based in their constituencies—I have Toyota, Rolls-Royce and Bombardier—and have constituents who go to work abroad for these firms for many years. It is outrageous that they might be working for firms based in our constituencies and not have a vote. What does my hon. Friend think about that?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend has read my mind. I shall happily address her issue a little later, but she makes an extremely good point.

The House and the British people should take no pride in the fact that so few citizens living abroad are registered to vote. At a time of decreasing voter turnout, the overseas vote represents a potentially large pool into which we could tap, if the House was minded to accept my new clause. This issue will not go away, and today is a timely opportunity to tackle it. Each year, more and more British citizens, for one reason or another, choose to move abroad, as my hon. Friend said. The ONS international passenger statistics show that an estimated 130,000 British citizens left the UK in the year to March 2011—up from 119,000 in the year to March 2010. In 2008, according to the IPPR, of those who moved abroad, 55% did so for work-related reasons, as my hon. Friend said, 25% for study and only 20% for retirement. With an ageing population and particularly with the increased opportunities to work and study abroad, people are bound to continue to leave the UK.

In most other countries, both developed and emerging, voting rights for parliamentary elections depend solely on nationality, not on an arbitrary time limit. For example, US nationals can vote in presidential, congressional and state elections, regardless of where they reside in the world. Similarly, Australian nationals can vote in the equivalent elections there, no matter where they live. However, the most startling example comes from our nearest neighbour. French citizens in the UK have just elected a new President and taken part in parliamentary elections for one of the 11 Members of Parliament whose job it is solely to represent French people abroad. They include the French MP for the newly created constituency of North Europe, who is in the French Assembly to represent French people living in the UK, Ireland, Scandinavia and the Baltic states.

The right of Spaniards abroad to vote is enshrined in article 68 of the Spanish constitution. Likewise, the Portuguese constitution states explicitly that the single Chamber, the Assembly of the Republic, is

“the representative assembly of all Portuguese citizens”.

As a result, all Portuguese citizens living abroad have the same right to vote in Assembly elections as fellow citizens living in their home country. The simple fact is that the citizens of the US, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and all these other countries have better voting rights for their citizens abroad than we do for British citizens living abroad.

For a democracy as ancient as ours, it is not an exaggeration to say that it is a stain on our democratic principles that our citizens are placed at such a disadvantage when they have moved abroad compared with citizens from those other countries. Her Majesty’s Government is very happy to collect tax from most of the enormous number of people involved, but denies them the vote. British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years are completely disfranchised from voting in the UK. There is certainly no lack of interest among British citizens who have lived abroad for more than 15 years. Whenever I have addressed branches of Conservatives Abroad, this has been a contentious and profound issue. I understand that the Labour party has a similar organisation and that the Liberal Democrats have recently established their own version, so I have no doubt that this issue will have been raised by other parties’ organisations as well.

The states in which these British citizens reside do not allow them to vote as residents, because voting rights are based on nationality and not residence, and they cannot vote in the UK on the basis of the current rule, for which there is no obvious rationale. I challenge the Deputy Leader of the House to state where there would be any disadvantage in abolishing the rule. The consequence of the rule is that many British citizens living abroad are in a state of electoral limbo, unable to participate in any election whatsoever. That seems to be a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.

It is not just me saying this, as a number of learned Lords agree. Lord McNally, the Liberal Democrat Minister of State for Justice, said:

“I do not think there is a rationale…for the figure of 15 years, five years or 20 years”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 March 2011; Vol. 725, c. 1133.]

The noble and learned Lord Lester of Herne Hill said on the same day:

“I am not aware of any rationale for how these periods have been chosen. They seem to be entirely arbitrary”—

the point I was making—

“and, I dare say, discriminatory in a way that violates Article 14 of the European convention read with Article 3 of the first protocol.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 2 March 2011; Vol. 725, c. 1024.]

A number of learned people clearly think that this rule is unfair.