National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) (Amendment) Order 2010

Lord Elystan-Morgan Excerpts

Wednesday 1st December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gale]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for bringing this order before us today. Although this is not a milestone on the devolution road which we travelled last week, it is nevertheless an important order, although largely technical in nature. As the Minister has said, it corrects drafting errors in previous legislation and its provisions update the National Assembly for Wales (Representation of the People) Order 2007, bringing the 2010 order in line with changes to electoral law effected under either the Government of Wales Act 2006 or the Electoral Administration Act 2006.

Article 3 updates the definitions in the 2007 order to ensure that they are consistent with those in the Government of Wales Act 2006. It also updates the definition of elector as set out in the current definition in the Representation of the People Act 1983. We agree with this tidying-up amendment. We welcome the change proposed in Article 5 of the 2010 order that amends Article 39(2)(b), which stipulates that the office of an election agent for a regional election should be within that region. This amendment is in keeping with suggestions made by the Electoral Commission to allow election agents for the regional elections to have their office anywhere in Wales and not solely within the region. This practical amendment makes sense: in most cases the campaign for the regional list candidates would be run centrally, usually from the political party's headquarters in Wales.

We are content that the amendments in Articles 6 and 7 reflect changes made by the Legal Services Act 2007, which expands the description of bodies regulating the legal profession that must be considered by election courts and describes the duty of the Director of Public Prosecutions. These are reasonable and appropriate amendments and we would support them.

We are content with the changes to Schedule 10 described at Article 10 of the amended order relating to the format of the ballot papers for the Assembly constituency elections and for the regional elections. The changes improve the ballot paper, making them easier to understand, and correct omissions on one of the forms and one of the poll cards used in the elections. They are rational and evidence-based.

I believe that this format for the ballot papers is much easier and clearer for the voters. In the case of regional list ballot papers, electors are asked to vote for a political party rather than for a named political party candidate, unless of course the candidate is an independent. Will the Minister confirm that a full list of candidates will be on display at the polling station?

We agree with the order before us. They are sensible and practical amendments to the elections laws for the Welsh Assembly elections on 5 May next year. Agreeing to them tonight means that they will be in place in time for those elections. I am pleased to say that we support these amendments.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, there are two good reasons why one should welcome this order. The first is that the House is not experiencing any problem as far as seating is concerned. The second is that, for once in the history of Wales, we have a development that seems to be applauded generally and totally by everyone. That is almost unique in a land of such fissiparous divisions as my own land and nation of Wales. The Electoral Commission and all those bodies responsible for these amendments are to be commended on the way in which they have conducted themselves. They have consulted fully and have managed to achieve a rapport among all bodies. All that is involved in the order are amendments that are consequential on legislation that this House and the other place have passed over the past four years.

Having said that, perhaps I may, with the indulgence of the House, take one minute to mention other matters. No one can speak of elections in Wales without being aware of the vulturous presence of legislation that will in a few months affect Wales greatly. I refer specifically to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which will deprive Wales of one-quarter of its constituencies. That is an immense proportion. Reducing the number of constituencies of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by 50 will mean a reduction of one-thirteenth. If my mathematics is anywhere near right, that is about 7.8 per cent of the totality. In Wales, it will be 25 per cent.

Many people may say, “Well, come off it, you have managed to have this advantage for many decades. Has not the time come when you should surrender this advantage?”. That exact point was put to the right honourable Kenneth Clarke as Home Secretary when he was conducting the parliamentary commissions Bill through the House of Commons in 1992. He said, “I am not having it. Wales is a land, a nation. There is a constitutional arrangement here, which I respect and am determined to uphold”. Wales is no less a land, a nation, now than it was in 1992.

If the House wishes to have a sleepless and nightmarish experience over the next few hours, one need only contemplate the possibilities of what will happen not in May 2011 but in May 2015—assuming that Parliament will by then have passed an Act making the life of Parliament a solid five years, no more and no less. It will mean that the elections to the Welsh Assembly will coincide exactly with the elections to Westminster, and people will be in constituency A of the House of Commons but constituency B of the Welsh Assembly. It is, as I say, a wholly terrifying and nightmarish consideration. But that is not strictly relevant to this issue.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

My Lords, I appreciate the words of both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, both of whom I consider as colleagues and as friends. However, looking at this order, I am not quite as appreciative of it as others who have spoken. There is some concern that the order distances us from local areas and local people. It is true that you can have one agent for the whole of Wales, but it means that the Wales campaign is centralised, not localised—or it can be. The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, knows more about this than I do. So you could have a central campaign that does not reflect local interests.

There was a time when I was a young candidate and every ward had its own committee room on election day and every constituency had its central committee room—its swyddfa ganolog. Then there is the region. Yes, you can get on in the region, but remember that Welsh regions, like Scottish regions, are quite massive sometimes; they can stretch for many miles. The agent is far away, even at a regional level, from the local activity. We could possibly accept this, but some may remember when we had not one agent for Wales, but we had subagents covering so many areas of a constituency. To have an office located anywhere in Wales could present difficulties in the organisation of election days and electoral officers. It needs to be very well thought out.

The region-less ballot paper—the new one that has been presented to us—is far less cluttered than previously because, as has been stated, no candidate’s name is printed. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, suggested that Scotland has the same kind of ballot paper. Is this the first time in the United Kingdom that we have had a ballot paper with just the party’s name but no candidates? Is this a step in the right direction? I can understand why, because many parties—my own included, I am sure—have in the past nominated, say, 12 candidates for each region. Let us say that you have six or seven different parties contesting and most of them give you a dozen candidates. Wow, that ballot paper will be very cluttered. But to go further in a different direction and simply say Conservative, Labour, Plaid Cymru, Liberal Democrats, Greens, without giving any indication of who is the lead candidate, would cut away the personal link. It makes the regional candidates second-class Assembly Members, because they have not been elected as individuals, even though, as the noble Baroness mentioned, you can have a list of them in the polling station. When I go into a polling station—and I am allowed to vote at some elections, including the Welsh Assembly election—I do not look at the posters, I just look at the ballot paper I vote on.

I would ask—and other people are thinking this way—that we do not put 12 names for each party, but that we print the four top names selected by each party on the ballot paper of a regional list. At least we would have a personal involvement. People will have some idea about who they are going to return, not just someone who they have never heard of and whose name is totally strange to them. I speak to the Minister as a very dear friend of mine. I hope it is not too late to amend this order. I suggest we have four names—it might be three, it might be five—so that we keep that personal link with the regional list members as well as with the constituency members.

What you are doing also is that you are increasing the authority of a party and making it far superior to the individual candidate. Is this a danger? I think it is a dangerous step—a very dangerous step. We do not have to take that step—it is not too late—because we can amend it to include the lead names for each party.

I am more than happy with the constituency ballot paper. It is clear and the sort of ballot paper that we are more or less used to. Mind you, there is one great sadness. You are asked to put an X in one of the boxes. I hope the time comes when we do not ask for Xs but for 1, 2,3, and 4 and we have a proportional system.

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

My Lords, in so far as that particular specimen ballot paper is concerned, has the noble Lord noticed that all the names used were Anglo-Saxon ones—there was not a Jones, an Evans, a Morgan or a Williams? It may very well be that this was done, as lawyers would say, ex abundanti cautela—out of an abundance of caution; I must say it struck me as rather strange that there was not a single Welsh name among them.

[Lord Roberts of Llandudno]

I of course defer in this to the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan; he not only has one name on the ballot paper, he has two. I am reduced to the very inferior status of a Roberts, but, as a Roberts, I say, yes, I welcome the constituency ballot paper. Then I ask the Minister to look again at the absence of names on the regional ballot paper. I think that we may have to accept the one agent for the whole of Wales, although I still remember the ward committee rooms with great affection.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness and the noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. I am grateful for the general welcome that has been given to the order. I noted that the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, rehearsed his speech for the debate that we will undoubtedly have during the passage of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill. I rather suspect that it will fall to me to answer that part of the Bill. At least I am well prepared by knowing from where the attack will come, and I can expect it also from the noble Lord, Lord Jones.

There will undoubtedly be an opportunity to consider the coincidence of elections when we come to debate the Fixed-Term Parliaments Bill—I hear the point made by my noble friend Lord German. The noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, and the House will perhaps be reassured to hear that the Government are aware of the concerns that have been expressed in some quarters about the coincidence of polling dates in 2015. They are consulting the Welsh Assembly Government, all political parties represented in the Assembly and representatives of the Assembly itself on options for moving the date of elections to the devolved legislature—a similar consultation is taking place also in Scotland and Northern Ireland. We will decide whether further legislation is needed in the light of the consultation.

The two issues of concern to my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno related to the location of the agent’s office and the names on the ballot paper, which my noble friend Lord German mentioned as well. The relaxation of the rules for agents is only for the regional election. The order states that the office must be “in Wales”. It could be in the respective regions, given that they are all in Wales. Only if political parties choose to have one agent for every regional election will it now be possible for an office not to be in every region. That arose during the 2007 election and has been taken forward. No party has objected to the change. I remind my noble friend that this rule applies to the agent’s office and not to the candidate’s offices. Candidates will still have offices in the respective Assembly constituencies. I hope that that gives some reassurance to my noble friend, who I know will engage in the electoral battles with the same gusto as I have seen from him over many years.

It shows just how much attention I pay that I had thought that names had been on the regional list for the previous Scottish elections; I am told that they were not, that that already is the case in Scotland. Such was my enthusiasm to vote for Scottish Liberal Democrats, I did not pause to notice whether the names were there or not. The names of the candidates will be displayed in the polling stations. My noble friend asked whether it would be possible to amend or reduce the number of names to four. That could happen only with the agreement of all the political parties that would be putting up more than four candidates; and although that agreement has been sought, it has not been forthcoming. It could be done by primary legislation, but clearly there will not be an opportunity for primary legislation between now and the elections.

The Government did give careful thought, and did consult the main political parties in Wales, before deciding which was the appropriate way to go forward. In the regional elections voters cast their votes predominantly on the basis of party affiliation rather than individual candidates, although independents can of course stand; and we believe that the change will help ensure that ballot papers do not become unduly unwieldy if all the names are on them. I am advised that representatives of Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Labour Party agreed the proposal, while the Welsh Liberal Democrats did not object. No comments were received from the Welsh Conservative Party, although it was circulated with it. The change is strongly supported by the Electoral Commission and by the representatives of the Association of Electoral Administrators in Wales, including the regional returning officer for Wales.

After every election there is a wash-up by the Electoral Commission. No doubt in May next year, this may be something that the respective political parties may wish to reflect on with the Electoral Commission in the light of that experience.

With regard to the sample names that have been mentioned, I had noted—the noble Lord, Lord Jones, beat me to it—that the candidate on the constituency ballot paper representing the farmers of Wales was Sarah Gale. I am not sure of the Welsh origin, if there is any Welsh origin, of the name which the noble Baroness is no doubt proud—

[Lord Elystan-Morgan]

What struck me was not the name of the candidate but the bovine that represented the logo. It was not a Welsh black, it was a Friesian.

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

Even more damning, I suspect. I rather suspect that the names were put there to be neutral. I only conclude on this point by noting that in the regional ballot paper, where there is one independent named, he goes under the name of Xavier Alfonso. I may be wrong, but it does not sound like the name of a boy from the valleys to me.

In conclusion, the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said that this was perhaps a unique moment given that all sides were applauding a particular order; and the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, commended the order for its evidence base, for being practical and for being sensible. I think there is general agreement. I have no doubt that when the time comes, the respective parties will engage in electoral combat with great passion, but no matter which party we belong to—or none—it is in all our interests that these elections are conducted effectively and efficiently, and I believe that with this order, we put in place the machinery for doing so. I commend the order to the House.