Overseas Electors Bill (Third sitting)

Layla Moran Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Alex Norris]

It is a very important consideration when choosing whether to cast a ballot, but I do not think it is a material consideration when choosing whether to register to vote. We certainly would not tolerate that at home. There are significant penalties attached to not registering, so we would not be persuaded if a person had a knock on the door and their answer for why they had not registered was, “I don’t fancy the candidates very much.” The Minister has made the important assertion multiple times that she sees no difference between an overseas and a domestic elector, so I am not persuaded of that point.

Secondly, I reflected on the point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham that an extra seven working days, with a weekend in there too, was maybe too long. Again, the review would get to the bottom of that. Electoral administrators will know for how many days after an election they are still getting votes by post—I bet they hate that, but it must happen, and I bet there are some hilarious stories about votes coming in six months after too. In general, they will get votes coming in the day after polling day, and I am sure they look at them in great frustration. How many days is that true for? It probably has a half-life and diminishes by whatever the inverse of exponential is.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

Logarithm.

[Alex Norris]

I thank the hon. Lady, who clearly gave more consideration to her mathematics studies than I did. I do have a maths A-level, and my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester will be amazed to learn that I got an A grade. I am very proud of it.

A relatively quick conversation with electoral administrators will determine whether we need a couple of days or three days and whether an extra week would be superfluous. That lends more weight to the case for a review.

When I moved previous amendments, the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire and other hon. Members said that what I was suggesting might have halted the Bill’s progress, which was undesirable, but this proposal would not halt the Bill’s progress. It would set in train an entirely separate process and would strengthen the Bill because we would have a true understanding of how we might need to improve our system. I reiterate the point that we should listen to our electoral administrators, who are really good and who know about this issue. They have said that consideration needs to be given to it, so we should back them and do it.

--- Later in debate ---

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Layla Moran]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McDonagh. Now I have the right clause in my head. The other one was about overseas constituencies, and I am partly sad that that did not pass, but this is the clause that I feel passionately about. New clause 2 tackles, or tries to start to tackle, some of the issues around donations that will arise as a result of this Bill. I prepared the clause with the Electoral Commission and we have had many conversations about its concerns regarding donations to do with this Bill. I strongly urge hon. Members from across the House to bear some of these things in mind.

The issue arises because by removing the 15-year time limit we will by definition have many people who were not at some point in the past on the electoral register. The way that political parties are currently allowed to accept donations is that it is quite easy to look up whether someone has previously been on the electoral register at some point in the past 15 years. Let us face it, we probably have the data from the lists that we have kept over the years. Even if someone came to us and said, “Right, I’ve been living in Belgium”—or Cambodia, or whatever—“and I would like to make a donation. I was on the electoral register at this address at this time,” it would be very easy for us to check.

The problem with this Bill arises because there will now be a large number of people who are absolutely—as is right—British citizens and allowed to vote, who will now be allowed to make political donations but will not have been on the register at any point in the last 15 years. What the Electoral Commission would like, which is not what I have proposed, is clarification in law that someone has to be on the register now in order to make a political donation, so that that grey area is completely removed.

We could say, “Well, you could just make sure they are registered,” and a political party could just ensure they are on the register. The problem arises because there is a Supreme Court judgment from 2010 that said that political parties, and anyone accepting a donation, must bear in mind the permissibility of being on the electoral register. They do not have to be on the electoral register; they just have to be allowed to be on the register by the current law.

This Bill thus opens up a large number of people who could possibly donate into the UK and puts a huge onus on political parties to decide whether to accept the donation. In this new clause we are simply asking for a report. I know that reports are all the rage in all these new clauses, but the report would come after the Bill was enacted and would not stop anything, but would ask the Government to look carefully at the specific matter of donations to do with this Bill.

I know that the Minister has said in other arguments that the Government want this to be a very closely defined Bill, and I understand that. However, the problem I am raising arises only because of the Bill, so it is right to make a provision to assuage the Electoral Commission’s concerns about the issues that it will bring up. We are asking for a simple report on, first, whether political parties have faced situations where they could not tell whether donations coming in were from permissible donors. Incidentally, the flip side of that is that British citizens who are now within their rights to vote and want to be able to donate to political parties will have trouble doing so. We need to ensure that that is as easy as possible. Secondly—this is critical—the Electoral Commission is worried about its ability to enforce whether donors are permissible.

[Mr Bradshaw]

The hon. Lady may or may not be aware that the biggest donation to the Democratic Unionist party in political history was made during the referendum campaign and we still do not know whether the donor was permissible. The Government’s refusal to backdate the change in the rules to make donations in Northern Ireland transparent means that we do not know, and possibly never will know, the source of that money. She will be aware that that is of great concern to many parliamentarians and the Electoral Commission, as well as to investigative journalists and the people of Northern Ireland. They have been trying to get to the truth of whether that money, which bought hundreds of thousands of pounds of advertising in the rest of the UK—it was not spent in Northern Ireland, and some of it was spent on Cambridge Analytica—in effect helped to buy the referendum.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. In fact, I asked the question in Northern Ireland questions today. We can leave aside what is going on with the referendum, the investigation into Vote Leave and all the rest of it, but also we cannot. The public are keenly aware, now more than ever, that there is a potential problem with political donations and interference from abroad. This new clause would allow a mechanism to say to the public, “We understand your concerns and we promise to take them into account.”

I credit the Minister. I think she does a fantastic job, and I have said that to her. She said that during the course of her normal working life she will talk to the Electoral Commission as issues arise and all the rest of it, and I absolutely agree, but I think we need to send a strong signal to the public that we are taking the issue seriously. The new clause is an opportunity to do that, as a direct consequence of how electors will be allowed to enter registers in this country. I urge everyone to support the new clause, partly because it is the right thing to do, partly because the Electoral Commission has specifically asked for it and partly because it would send a strong signal to the public that we take foreign donations seriously and that this Government will ensure that if there are any shenanigans, they will be caught comprehensively—not as we go—and dealt with.

[Christian Matheson]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing forward the clause and her introduction to it. It was very welcome and had great clarity. She touched, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter, on some of the more unpleasant and unpalatable reasons why the new clause is necessary. Despite overseas donations from overseas citizens or citizens based outside the UK being prohibited, there are still mechanisms whereby Russian money, for example—it is in the news at the moment—might find its way into a campaign or political party to try to distort UK democracy. We need to be clamping down on that. That is not simply the case of some Russian billionaire who happens to have somehow mysteriously been given a British passport having a tennis match with two leading politicians. There are more discreet channels for siphoning money into British politics and distorting it.

The hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon makes a clear point. The hon. Member for Montgomeryshire —he is in charge of the Bill—said earlier that the new clause would be a delaying mechanism, but it would not delay the Bill and it would give a sense of certainty and clarity. More importantly, it would focus people’s minds on the importance of being wary of dirty foreign donations—I use that word with consideration—and forces that would malignly seek to intervene in our democracy. As such, the new clause is most welcome, and I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for introducing it.

The new clause requests that the Secretary of State

“prepare and publish a report on the effects of the provisions of this Act on...the ability of political parties and campaigners to determine the permissibility of donations from persons resident overseas, and...the ability of the Electoral Commission to take enforcement action where the rules on such donations have been breached.”

I have previously mentioned concerns about registration. It is more difficult to take enforcement action against persons living overseas. Again, that is why the consideration given by this new clause is important.

The Association of Electoral Administrators has expressed significant concern about the consequences of the Bill for the integrity of UK election campaigns, leaving the door wide open to unchecked foreign donations to UK election campaigns. There is widespread fear that, without proper preparation, the Bill could open floodgates to wealthy overseas donors having undue financial influence over our elections.

Our democratic system must continue to prevent elections from being influenced by wealth. At a time when public trust in politicians is pretty much at an all-time low, due to revelations about, for example, overspending by the Vote Leave and BeLeave campaigns—my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter alluded to some of that in his intervention—it is important and is in the Government’s interests to put in place robust legislation to prevent foreign money from unfairly influencing our elections. We must avoid developing an American-style system, in which the voices of the most wealthy are elevated above all the rest.

An influx of unfair and illegitimate foreign donations could have a detrimental impact on the integrity of our democracy. Our reason for supporting the new clause is that one perhaps unwitting and unintended consequence of extending the franchise—along with all the difficulties that we have discussed in debates on previous amendments, such as the pressures on electoral registration officers or the investigatory ability of the Electoral Commission—could be to make it easier for dodgy foreign donations to get through and to taint and contaminate our democracy.

I will make a point that is perhaps a little party political, but I will make it anyway. Not always, but most of the time, those donations tend to go in one direction when they reach the UK. I ask Ministers to think carefully about whether there are any unintended consequences from the Bill.

The Government should intend to clarify in legislation that a person must be included in a UK electoral register at the point when the donation is made in order to be a permissible donor. According to the Electoral Commission, changes to the eligibility of overseas voters will present practical difficulties for political parties and campaigners to determine the permissibility of donations.

The complexity of overseas registration, as discussed in previous sittings, will cause practical difficulties when it comes to verifying campaign donations. In the case, for example, of a one-off referendum—we have seen it; my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter alluded to this—someone can make the donation and it can have its effect and change the nature of a campaign. Yet by the time the permissibility or otherwise is established, the decision has been taken one way or another and that donation has had its desired effect. It may well be, as with the case of dodgy dealings in the referendum, that somebody gets a slapped wrist and pays a fine. These are very rich people, by the way, who can afford to pay those kinds of fines. There has to be some kind of enforcement or verification at the time that the donation is made.

The Government are yet to clarify if a person must be included in a UK electoral register at the point when a donation is made in order to be a permissible donor. The precedent was set by the Supreme Court, and the Opposition feel it is important that that provision should be set out in legislation. The Supreme Court judgment of 2010 ruled that a donor’s eligibility to be registered was a significant factor in deciding permissibility. The 2010 judgment related to a donation made by a UK citizen and a UK Independence party member, who was eligible to register as an overseas voter but who, at the time that some of the donations were made to UKIP, was not actually registered. UKIP did not forfeit any of the money that it had received and was taken to court by the Electoral Commission.

--- Later in debate ---

[Christian Matheson]

Before the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon winds up the debate, I want once again to thank the Minister for her response. It is her view, and that of the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire—the Member in charge—that this specific Bill is not the right vehicle for addressing the concerns that I and other hon. Members have expressed.

My one concern—it was hinted at by my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter, and I hope I am not misquoting him—is, “If not in this Bill, then when?” How many times will the advice of the Electoral Commission be sought and then not acted upon? I take the point that she is consulting on these matters, but the longer this goes on, the more frustrated hon. Members get—a familiar argument for those of us who sit on other Bill Committees at the moment.

It is a serious point in this case. At what point does the Minister plan to bring forward the consolidated proposals for this and other matters? I do not expect her to reply now, because she has already replied very fully to the new clause, but there is a concern that once again the matter is being paid lip service—perhaps that phrase is disrespectful to the Minister, which is not my intention. It is perhaps being kicked into the long grass or, more respectfully, not given the urgency it needs. The implications of widening the franchise are not given the urgency needed.

In thanking the Minister for her response to the hon. Lady and the Committee, I ask her to realise that the more cumulative the effects of the different recommendations by the Electoral Commission, the greater the need for action rather than further consideration.

[Layla Moran]

I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this debate, particularly the hon. Member for City of Chester, who put flesh on the bones of what I was talking about, particularly with regard to the Supreme Court judgment.

The point to make about guidance is that the guidance has always been there. The problem was that the judgment made it okay for those donations to be acceptable. Until such time as that loophole is closed, that is the problem and that Supreme Court judgment therefore allows it.

We would love to think that it would never be our parties that do it. In that case, it was UKIP, which does not have an MP any more. It could be a smaller, banana republic-style party that comes out of the woodwork. With the shifting sands of politics as they are, I have major concerns that this could well end up as a loophole that emerges quite soon after the introduction of this legislation.

As to the scope, this is answering specific concerns raised by the Electoral Commission as a result of this legislation. The reason I did not go for doing exactly as they say is because there may well be unintended consequences beyond that single issue worth taking into account, as a result of this legislation.

That is why I believe that a clause saying that a report would come back with actions for what the Government will do to close those loopholes is the right thing for this legislation. I would love to think that another Bill would then come along to tidy it all up. The Minister rightly points out that, on the one hand, we have very uncertain business and there are many days when we do not have a lot of things to do. However, should Brexit happen, we know that we will then be facing 10 years of a very fraught legislative process, while we go through all the changes that will be needed.

I am seriously concerned that, unless we send a signal now to the electorate that we are taking this absolutely seriously, guidance is not going to work. We had guidance and it did not work, because it still allowed that donation to be accepted. We need to send a strong signal and the proposed new clause would do exactly that.

Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.