Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Jonathan Edwards Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Heath]

I would not want to mislead the hon. Gentleman by suggesting that I have personally made such contact, because I have not. That would have been a matter for the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), who is the Minister with responsibility for constitutional reform. However, throughout our work on the Bill, we have ensured that we have shared our intentions with all the devolved Administrations that will be subject to it. I will confirm to the hon. Gentleman what consultation was carried out with the Welsh authorities, but I am confident that that will have taken place, because it has happened with other aspects of the Bill. When possible, we have accommodated any points that the devolved Administrations have made.

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

The clause deals with the timing of local elections, but local authority elections are a matter for the National Assembly. Clearly, community council elections should also be a matter for the National Assembly, rather than being reserved to Westminster. Further to the question asked by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), will the Minister hold discussions with the Welsh Government on taking that idea forward? There is a Green Paper on future electoral arrangements for Wales, and perhaps the subsequent White Paper and legislation would be a vehicle to move that forward.

[Mr Heath]

I undertake to draw the hon. Gentleman’s remarks to the attention of the Wales Office and my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office. If progress can be made in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests, that can certainly be considered.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 14 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 15

Alteration of electoral registers: pending elections

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

As always it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams). I want briefly to outline where my party stands on the Bill.

Although we support the principle of individual electoral registration, we believe that the changes to electoral boundaries that are set to affect Westminster constituencies and possibly even National Assembly constituencies in Wales make the Bill far more contentious than it should have been. In an Opposition debate on this issue earlier this year, on Second Reading and in Committee, I warned that completeness of the register was now the major issue because of its effect on constituency sizes, a point that was made by the hon. Gentleman. Accuracy is important, but the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 has effectively moved the goalposts of electoral registration. This means that, more than ever, completeness of the register is more important because those who are not on it will have an impact on parliamentary representation for the whole community. It will not just impinge on their own rights to choose their MP or Assembly Member. That is why I believe that the EROs and the Electoral Commission have a very important role in getting completeness of the register and why they must have the resources to do so. That is why the ring-fencing point is so important. It is disappointing that we did not have a chance to debate that amendment in more detail.

I want to repeat the concerns about the possibility of a cliff-edge drop in electoral registration ahead of the next National Assembly elections in 2016. I hope that there will be regular updates via the Electoral Commission on the success of the EROs and the work they are doing on individual electoral reform to ensure that a cliff-edge drop in electors does not take place as it did in Northern Ireland when those reforms were implemented some years ago. That continues to be a major concern for us even at this late stage.

We have had a good debate on the principles and implementation of this legislation, although the concerns that I have consistently placed on the record—mostly about the effects of the 2011 Act—have, disappointingly, not been fully answered by Government Front Benchers. We will therefore be voting against the Government tonight.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Ruane]

I will come on to that point when I conclude my speech, but I share my hon. Friend’s concern.

There was a lack of co-operation at the start of this process. The Government were sure that they were absolutely right and that the independent Electoral Commission’s figures were nonsense. They initially dismissed the concerns of civic society, including Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society and Age Concern.

We can compare the Government’s approach with Labour’s attitude on the constitutional changes that we made during our 13 years in government. People may say that we did not do enough to get those who were unregistered back on the register. I would agree with them entirely, because I was knocking on Ministers’ doors—and Prime Ministers’ doors—to say that there was a problem, but it was not properly addressed. However, Labour cannot be accused of using those changes for party political advantage.

[Jonathan Edwards]

Given that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, I refer him to the Government of Wales Act 2006, because there was not much cross-party support for the reforms that were led by the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain).

[Chris Ruane]

Let me set out a list of the constitutional changes that Labour implemented and the way in which we approached them. We changed the position in 2001 so that if someone did not put their name down for two years on the trot, they were taken off the register. That was the cause of the first big drop. Some 1 million to 2 million people came off the register as a result of the Labour Government’s action, and they were our voters. I thought it was daft, but we did it, even though it went against us.

In Scotland, a consensus was in place five years prior to devolution, meaning that everything had been squared with all sections of society. We introduced proportional representation for European elections when we did not need to, and we went from four Labour MEPs in Wales down to one.