Foreign National Offenders
Debate between Lady Hermon and Sam Gyimah(7 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Gyimah
I am certainly willing to look at that case. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I cannot make a decision here about who gets deported and under what terms; we have to look at the case very carefully. If he writes to me, I am willing to look at that with the Immigration Minister and the Home Office.
Lady Hermon
I intervene with reference to dissident republicans. Terrorism is not an issue that is devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly; it is a responsibility for this Government, thank goodness. I would like the Minister to reply to my earlier question. How many dissident republicans—who wage a violent campaign and who have murdered, bombed and shot people in Northern Ireland and elsewhere—have requested to return to prisons in the Republic of Ireland? Since they want a united Ireland, surely one can understand that they would wish to go back to prison in the Republic of Ireland.
Mr Gyimah
I thank the hon. Lady for her very forcefully put question. I do not have those data to hand, but if they are available—I look to my officials—I will be happy to write to her with the detail.
There is a huge amount of activity under way on each stage of the FNO process, from the point of arrest to appearance in court, being given a prison sentence and removal back to the home country. For example, the Government have introduced clauses in the Policing and Crime Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, that will strengthen police powers with regard to early identification of nationality and will require anyone appearing in court to state their nationality. Those provisions are designed to help to speed up early identification of FNOs and so assist with their quick removal from the UK.
Recall of MPs Bill
Debate between Lady Hermon and Sam Gyimah(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Sam Gyimah)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mrs Laing. For some reason, I suspect that today’s debate in Committee will be less excitable than Second Reading or the first day of Committee.
The clauses and schedules in this group set out the process by which constituents can sign a recall petition, who is eligible to sign the petition and where the responsibility for running the process rests. I will summarise the effect of the provisions and address amendment 38, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), when I describe clause 7.
Clause 6 provides that every constituency in the United Kingdom will have a petition officer and that the role will be fulfilled by the person who usually runs UK parliamentary elections in the constituency.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister so early on. He will know that in Northern Ireland, the chief electoral officer has huge responsibilities because we have Assembly elections and local council elections. Will any additional resources be given to the chief electoral officer and his staff so that he can be the petition officer under the Bill?
Mr Gyimah
Yes, it will be up to the local authority to provide additional staff to help the electoral officer fulfil their duties with regard to petitions. Petitions will be funded centrally through the Consolidated Fund, so returning officers will get the resources that they need to perform their role. We focus on the returning officer in that context because they have experience of running elections, and we believe that they have the necessary skills and experience to run the petition process.
Clause 6 gives effect to schedule 1, which sets out the general duty of the petition officer in the conduct of the recall petition. It empowers them to appoint deputies, delegate their responsibilities, and claim expenses for running the petition.
Clause 7 sets out the steps that a petition officer for a constituency must take on receiving the Speaker’s notice issued under clause 5. The petition officer must, as soon as reasonably practicable, designate
“a place, or places, at which a recall petition is to be made available for signing”
by constituents. They must designate
“the 10th working day after the day on which the officer received the Speaker’s notice”
as the first day on which the petition is open to be signed, unless that day is not practicable. In that case, it may be sensible to defer proceedings to the next day. The clause also requires the petition officer to make the petition available for signing in a maximum of four places, ensuring that venues selected have “reasonable facilities” for signing the petition, and are accessible to people with disabilities
“so far as is reasonable and practicable”.
Amendment 38 would make it a requirement for the petition officer to select a “minimum” of four places where the petition can be signed, and no maximum would be set on the number of places that could be selected. I can see the good intention behind the amendment, which is to ensure that the process is as accessible as possible. However, I reassure hon. Members that the Government have tried to address that concern, by accepting a recommendation from the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee made during pre-legislative scrutiny that the number of signing places be increased from one to a maximum of four. Introducing a minimum requirement of four signing places and not setting a maximum number could result in an inconsistent approach across the country and increase costs. For example, my hon. Friend has 21 wards in his constituency and if he—perish the thought!—were subject to recall, the returning officer could decide on 21 signing places in his constituency. In constituencies such as Norwich North or Norwich South, for example, which are densely populated, there would be just one place to sign the petition because of that dense population.
Mr Gyimah
The view is that eight weeks—roughly 40 working days—gives sufficient time, or even more than ample time, for constituents to engage properly with the process.
Clause 8 details who is entitled to sign the recall petition. The general rule is that a person who is eligible can sign the petition on any day during the eight-week signing period. They must be on the register of parliamentary electors and entitled to vote in a parliamentary election in the constituency as a result of an application made on or before the day of the Speaker’s notice.
Lady Hermon
I am very grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene again. I gently remind him that, after the 2001 general election, vote stealing in Northern Ireland was identified as a serious problem, particularly in Sinn Fein constituencies—that is a statement of fact and also a criticism. To deal with that serious problem, all those registered to vote must produce a photographic identity document. The Government have been good in producing free electoral ID cards, but will a person signing a recall petition be required to produce photographic ID?
Mr Gyimah
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention—she is welcome to intervene as much as possible. The petition signing process has been designed with general election voting in mind. In Northern Ireland, where voter ID must be produced, the petition process will require voter ID.
Mr Gyimah
The hon. Gentleman mentions a town hall or local council office, but it is not necessarily for the Government to determine that. The petition officer will determine where the petition takes place and make the appropriate arrangements for the handling of that petition. That is not being prescribed in the Bill, as he says. I will try to get him further information on that point in due course.
Other constituents will be able to take part in the petition process: anyone aged 18 years or over can do so, and so can anyone whose 18th birthday is before the end of the signing period. Clause 10 sets out that the last day on which a person can make an application to register as an elector, which will enable them to participate in the recall petition, is the day when the Speaker’s notice is issued. The electoral registration officer must determine such applications on or before the cut-off day, which is defined as the third working day before the beginning of the signing period. Such a cut-off mirrors practice at elections and ensures there is a point in time when the register is set and can be distributed to signing places to ensure that only those eligible to sign the petition can do so.
Clause 10 gives effect to schedule 2, which inserts new section 13BC into the Representation of the People Act 1983, and which is on the alteration of registers of parliamentary electors and necessary amendments. The amendments are necessary to ensure the recall petition process can rely effectively on the register of parliamentary electors.
I have received inspiration with regard to the question from the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty). Opening hours will be set out in regulations. Obviously, locations would not be open all hours, but there may be a possibility of their opening later. That will be a matter for the petition officer to determine, and will be set out in regulations.
Clause 11, as I mentioned, establishes that electors will be able to sign the petition in person by post or by proxy.
Lady Hermon
It is very kind indeed of the Minister to invite an intervention before I am even on my feet. As I have indicated to the Committee, vote stealing in Northern Ireland was a very serious crime and had to be dealt with very seriously. For those who turn up in person to vote at a polling station there is a requirement for photographic identification. There are also very strict regulations on proxy voting and voting by post. Will equivalently strict measures be put in place to ensure that recall petitions do not result in an increase in vote stealing? It is such a serious crime.
Lady Hermon
For the sake of clarity, can the Minister sum up what the position is now in Northern Ireland for someone who wishes to go and vote in person? They will be required, as in a general election, to produce photographic ID and if they do not turn up in person, the same rules for proxy and postal voting will definitely pertain, to ensure that we do not have vote stealing again in Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] I do not think that is what he said either. Indeed, that was what I was hoping the Minister had said to me, but I have a horrible feeling that it was not what he confirmed.
Mr Gyimah
The advice I have received is that the same protections on voter ID will apply in Northern Ireland. In relation to postal signatures, this will be available on demand in Northern Ireland, unlike for elections, because we recognise that signing a petition in person may raise different issues from casting a secret vote. The position is therefore slightly different from what I said earlier.
Lady Hermon
I am very grateful indeed to the Minister for repeating the explanation that floated across the Chamber to him to correct what was said earlier. I must invite him to go back and look at the evidence taken after the general election about the serious problem with postal voting in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Belfast West and other Sinn Fein constituencies. They had something like three times as many postal votes as any other constituency throughout the UK, so provisions were introduced swiftly to deal with vote stealing, particularly where it involved postal votes rather than impersonation.
Mr Gyimah
That is precisely why we are considering the issue. Obviously, the point of the register is to mark people off for verification purposes as they turn up at the petition station. Further to that, we are considering whether to make the register public. We have to recognise that this process is very different from an election and think about what happens when the register becomes a marked register.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife asked about appropriate opening hours. I assure him that we will look into that when it comes to drafting the regulations. It may be possible for a petition officer to choose a location that is open in the evening, on weekdays, and so on. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that we should have a consultation to determine some of these questions every five years rather than doing so in the heat of a petition process.
Lady Hermon
I am most grateful to the Minister for giving way. He kindly said to me at the beginning of the debate that he was happy to welcome as many interventions as I wanted to make, so I am taking him up on that offer.
A couple of very useful suggestions have been made by the hon. Members for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and for Foyle (Mark Durkan). Will the Minister pick up on those as a compromise that would take us through this group of clauses? The hon. Member for Foyle rightly observed that eight weeks is too long a period, and that four is too small a number of designated places for a recall petition. Will the Minister consider shortening that period, because it will be agonising for the sitting MP? For eight weeks, a sitting MP who has been successfully elected in an election will not know whether they are sitting or suspended, or what they are going to be, until perhaps 10% of the electorate have cast some manner of vote. Will the Minister consider the compromise offered of more designated places and a shorter period in which a person could sign the petition?
Mr Gyimah
I thank the hon. Lady for that point. The Government are trying to strike the right balance. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said that four places would be the minimum rather than the maximum, but not setting a maximum at all would risk having great inconsistency across our constituencies. Allowing for eight weeks provides a balance and people will be able to vote either by post or by proxy during that period.
Lady Hermon
I am enormously grateful to the Minister for giving way. If he persists with this line of argument, I invite him to visit Northern Ireland, particularly Belfast, where more peace walls have been built since the Belfast agreement was signed on Good Friday than existed during the troubles. We have constituencies that are divided. Four places for people to vote on a recall petition would be so unrepresentative.
Mr Gyimah
I appreciate the hon. Lady’s particular point about Northern Ireland, but I do not think that the Government’s point about a maximum of four places and allowing eight weeks is particularly onerous. If people are particularly exercised about signing the petition, eight weeks is a sufficient amount of time for them to be able to do so.