Local Government Elections

Lord Greaves Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

Asked by

[Lord Greaves]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of whether the law relating to local government elections is in need of improvement or clarification.

[Lord Greaves (LD)]

My Lords, I want to concentrate on the offence of treating, which is a corrupt practice under Section 114 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. Subsection (2) says:

“A person shall be guilty of treating if he corruptly, by himself or by any other person, either before, during or after an election, directly or indirectly gives or provides, or pays wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing, any meat, drink, entertainment or provision to or for any person—(a) for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to vote or refrain from voting; or (b) on account of that person or any other person having voted or refrained from voting, or being about to vote or refrain from voting”.


Subsection (3) extends the offence to:

“Every elector or his proxy who corruptly accepts or takes any such meat, drink, entertainment or provision”.


This wording has been passed down from the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. The last case law appears to be more than 100 years old. My reason for raising this is to suggest that this 19th century law as it stands is antiquated, uncertain and not fit for purpose in the 21st century.

Over half a century ago, when I learned the trade of running election campaigns, treating was taken very seriously. Candidates and agents were firmly instructed to make sure that any food or refreshments—in committee rooms, for example—were strictly for bona fide party workers and a small contribution should be asked for. Candidates were told to be careful about buying rounds in the pub during the campaign. But the practice has now grown of providing free food, including hot dinners, both in walk-in committee rooms and at public meetings addressed by candidates and their supporters before and during elections, notably in places with large numbers of electors of south Asian heritage. My immediate interest comes from activities carried out by two Conservative candidates in Pendle in the county council elections in May this year.

In brief, the events concerned were that four public meetings were held before the formal four-week election period started but after the candidates had been announced in press releases and the local press, on social media and in leaflets distributed in the area. At these meetings speeches were made by the candidates and other persons in support, including councillors and the local MP, urging people to vote for them. A hot dinner was then provided to the people present, free of charge, including curry and rice and soft drinks. In total, at least 1,000 people attended these meetings, most of them electors in the two divisions. Other than a small number of party officials and councillors, all the people present were Asian men. We estimate that the cost of providing the accommodation and meals and associated publicity, including leaflets, would not have been less than £3,000, and possibly rather more.

I made a complaint under Section 114 and provided a dossier of evidence, which the Lancashire police investigated, and I have no complaints about the work they put into that. I quote the conclusion from a letter that the investigating officer kindly sent to me:

“Unfortunately the decision has been taken that the matter will not be prosecuted due to a lack of evidence. It was deemed that the evidential threshold required to present the case to the Crown Prosecution Service for them to consider charges had not been met”.


He goes on to say:

“As I think we alluded to when we first met, this particular offence presents some unusual hurdles in terms of prosecuting”—


noble Lords will probably realise that I knew more about it than the police did at the time—

“and I found myself hitting these hurdles at regular intervals when looking at the matter through evidential eyes. I agree with your initial observation some three months ago, that perhaps this is an area of law that requires some modernisation”.

The Law Commission agrees. In its report Electoral Law: An Interim Report, published in February 2016 and produced together with its Scottish and Northern Irish counterparts, it proposes in Recommendation 11.3:

“The electoral offence of treating should be abolished and the behaviour that it captures should where appropriate be prosecuted as bribery”.


This follows a discussion about a similar situation which was considered by commissioner Richard Mawrey QC in the Tower Hamlets petition. It challenged the election in May 2014 of Lutfur Rahman as mayor of Tower Hamlets. Similar difficulties arose at that time over the offence of treating, described by commissioner Mawrey as,

“surely an obsolescent if not obsolete concept in the modern world”.

The treating part was then dropped. The Electoral Commission in its response to the whole report said:

“We very much welcome these proposals and believe that they will address many of the difficulties with the current law. It is important that the UK and Scottish Governments now agree that the Law Commissions can begin preparing draft legislation to implement these changes”.


Yet the problem remains, and I am not in any way suggesting that it is a problem for just one party. From inquiries I have made around the country in recent years, it is clear that putting on quite large amounts of free food at public events is a common practice across the parties in areas with large numbers of Asian voters. Of course, outside elections this is not unlawful. It is when it is done in connection with the promotion of candidates that it is at the least questionable. They are practices which have been imported into this country from abroad. The fact that it is happening will raise eyebrows in those other parts of the country where such practices would be regarded with horror. Imagine a candidate hiring a village hall and inviting the entire population of the village to a free dinner on the condition that the villagers listen to speeches telling them why they should vote for him or her. They would, I suggest, soon be up before the beak.

The Electoral Commission in its candidates guide states that,

“treating requires a corrupt intent—it does not apply to ordinary hospitality”.

What is meant by ordinary hospitality? Presumably if a neighbour calls on a candidate at home, it is okay to provide a cup of tea or even a full tea if they are friends who ordinarily do that, but not to invite the whole street for the first time three days before polling day. So is a hot curry dinner for a few hundred people “ordinary hospitality”? Among much ambiguity in this law, the interpretation of the undefined words “corrupt” and “corrupt intent” appear to cause problems. They imply an intention to affect the outcome of the election, but this is far from the clarity that good law requires.

Returning to the hot curry dinners targeted at Asian electors, the College of Policing authorised professional practice manual, Policing Elections—Investigating Electoral Malpractice includes the following:

“Cultural factors can affect this offence in that among many cultures the provision of refreshments is considered to be socially acceptable, and it would be perceived as an insult should refreshments not be provided”.


This seems very close to suggesting that electoral law is different according to the composition of the local community. If you live in a mainly indigenous village or a mainly white town such as Colne, where I live, and you put on free meals for voters, you will be locked up. If you live in a strongly Asian area and provide those meals for Asian electors, or even just for Asian men, as in Pendle, MPs and councillors will turn up and you will get away with it. I wonder whether this advice from the College of Policing has government support and should perhaps now be reviewed.

The law on treating is not fit for purpose. It is antique and it is not clear what it means. It is not clear that a law that was designed to prevent candidates providing food, drink, entertainment and provisions—whatever that means—to voters in the days of Mr Gladstone is able to deal with modern phenomena such as piles of chapattis in committee rooms open to the public to walk in and eat, and hot curry dinners open to anyone who walks in. Above all, candidates and agents in all kinds of areas need to know clearly where they stand with the law. I am not an election agent at the moment but I declare an interest, as I usually am every year. With tongue in cheek, I say that if the provision of hot dinners to voters on a large scale is now acceptable in electoral law, the nature of elections in this country might change quite a lot. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.