European Union Referendum Bill

Kelvin Hopkins Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[John McDonnell]

Given the limited time available, I will be brief. I know that other hon. Members wish to speak on the other amendments. I just want to warn the Committee that on subsequent occasions I will bore Members by going on about electronic voting as often as I can. We have been waging a campaign for 15 years to see whether we can update our electoral methods and bring them into the 21st century. For brevity’s sake, I will circulate the notes prepared by the Library for those Members who are interested. I want to thank Isobel White, the researcher, for preparing the notes, which go through the history of electronic voting, including the various pilots that we have undertaken since 2000.

We started the adventure way back in 2000, when we established the first pilots, and we had more in 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007. At each stage we had reports back on the enhancements that electronic voting would bring to our procedures. The background to the attempt to introduce electronic voting is the declining turnout in elections, although the key issue is whether the subject of an election excites the general public, such as in the Scottish referendum. If people feel the issue is important enough, they will turn out and vote, but unfortunately they do not have the same incentive in some elections. Part of the issue, therefore, is ensuring that voting is as easy as it can be, and we have been piloting electronic voting for a long time.

The Speaker’s Commission on Digital Democracy has explored the issue in the last two years and made several recommendations. The remaining issue to be confronted is the security of online voting, but I do not believe it to be an insuperable problem. The reason for raising the issue in the debate on the Bill—as I will for every other Bill that we consider, including the trade union Bill we are expecting—is to ensure that we force the Government to resolve the issue of security, which seems to be the only thing holding this back.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

This is possibly the first time in 18 years that I have had a slight disagreement with one of my hon. Friends, but my hon. Friend suggests that changing the way we vote will increase turnout. We introduced postal ballots for that reason and we have still seen a big decline in turnout. People do not vote if they see less difference between the parties: if there is a real difference and they have a real choice, they turn out to vote.

[John McDonnell]

Thank goodness, we are not disagreeing. That is the point that I tried to make earlier, but in a more complicated fashion. The issue about turnout is how people are incentivised to vote, but the minimum we can do is increase the access to voting procedures. We have done that through postal voting, as my hon. Friend says, and we have just introduced electronic registration, to assist in the registration process. It was argued that once we had introduced electronic registration we would revisit online voting, but unfortunately that is not the case in this legislation. I hope that the tabling of the amendment will make the Government go back to the Electoral Commission and ask it to make detailed proposals. Even if we have to pilot electronic voting in some areas in this referendum, we may be able to overcome some of the problems that have been identified.

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[Mr McFadden]

I take the hon. Lady’s point, but the issue of May 2016 has already been dealt with through amendment 55, and I am focused on May 2017, when local elections are taking place in various parts of the country.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I strongly agree with my right hon. Friend that, when we are voting on whether to leave or stay in the European Union, it should not be confused or blurred with party allegiances and so forth; there should be a clear understanding that on that day we are voting on our membership of the European Union and nothing else. No other elections should be held on that day; we want a unique day for that vote.

[Mr McFadden]

On European matters, it is not always the case that I am in agreement with my hon. Friend, but this time on this point, I am. I entirely agree with his point.

The first reason, then, is that on such a major constitutional question about the country’s future, the focus should be entirely on that question, but there is a second reason why on this occasion it makes sense to separate this poll from other polls, which relates to the discussions we have had about purdah arrangements. Without re-running Tuesday’s debate, the Government’s argument is that there needs to be some qualification of the purdah arrangements that would normally apply. The jury is still out on what the eventual outcome of that argument will be, but we know from Tuesday that the Bill will be amended in one way or another on Report.

However, purdah arrangements also apply to a local election period, so combining the referendum with other elections could mean we had full purdah in place for some things and qualified purdah or no purdah in place for others. In such circumstances, what exactly would the role of Ministers and the civil service be? We could have one set of rules for one poll taking place on that day, and another set of rules for another poll taking place on the same day. We do not need to think long and hard to realise that that is not an ideal arrangement for clarity on the conduct of the poll.

Our point is that the Bill deals with a big constitutional issue, which deserves to be considered by the public on its own merits, not tacked on as an add-on to local elections in various parts of the country. For those reasons, we feel that there is unfinished business from Tuesday. Amendment 55 was not the end of the matter, and our amendment 3 would, if passed, make it clear that this has to be a stand-alone poll and not one combined with other elections—either next May or in May 2017. To conclude, if given an opportunity to do so this afternoon, we intend to press the amendment to the vote.

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[Mr Lidington]

I take the hon. Gentleman back again to 2011, when we had the London mayoral election on the same day as the referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. That did not appear to cause the electorate any great problems.

The other question that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East put to me was about the difficulty of operating different regimes for purdah during overlapping electoral and referendum periods. To some extent, the riposte to that came from my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), but given that the Government have this week undertaken to consult all parties on the appropriate framework for purdah in the run-up to the EU referendum, I am happy to take on board the right hon. Gentleman’s points as part of that consideration and future discussion.

There are some technical flaws in the Opposition’s amendment. There is, for example, no carve-out regarding by-elections, so an unanticipated by-election could inadvertently result in an agreed referendum date becoming invalid at short notice. Nor does it capture police and crime commissioner elections, which, if the amendment were agreed to, would still be possible on the same day as the referendum. Even if the right hon. Gentleman had his way, there would need to be some tidying up at a later date.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

rose—

[Mike Gapes]

rose—

[Mr Lidington]

I am overwhelmed by Members’ enthusiasm.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The Minister implies there is more to be discussed and there has been too short a time to have a proper debate about the issue. It should be returned to on Report and, possibly, in another place before the final Bill is approved.

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[Mr Lidington]

I am sure my colleagues in the Cabinet Office, who lead on constitutional matters, will have heard that point. E-voting may be something that the Government will want to consider in the future, but it is not a priority immediately for the legislation to authorise the arrangements for this referendum.

I want to say a few things about the conduct rules more generally. Clause 4 provides that Ministers may make provision about the conduct of the referendum in regulations. The provisions in clause 3 and schedule 3 already set out the key aspects of the conduct of the referendum, and broadly they are concerned with the overall framework. In addition to those general provisions, it will be necessary to set out more detailed rules for conduct. Clause 4 grants Ministers the power to do so by regulation.

Our intention will be to draw on the rules used for the conduct of the parliamentary voting system referendum in 2011 and those used for elections more generally, in particular for our parliamentary elections. We will also take account of recent changes to electoral law to ensure that they also apply for the purposes of this referendum. The clause also requires that Ministers consult the Electoral Commission before making any regulations on these issues.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

The Minister will know that there have been serious concerns in the European Scrutiny Committee, the Chair of which is in the Chamber at the moment, but there is not the time at this stage to discuss bias in the media on European Union matters. Will there be a time on Report for a more thorough discussion of this, because there are some serious concerns? As he will know, the chair of the BBC Trust and the director-general of the BBC have both been before the European Scrutiny Committee to discuss the matter.

[Mr Lidington]

Obviously, what we discuss on Report will be in the hands of Members who table amendments. I have known my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) for many years, and I know that he is ingenious and creative in finding opportunities for parliamentary debate on subjects that are close to his heart.