Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 24th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

My Lords, I cannot claim to have the allure or charisma of Simon Cowell but, if your Lordships will excuse me, I am trying to dip my toe for the very first time into the waters of this kind of debate. I have sat for many hours in a House that is stuffed with constitutional experts, people learned in the law and those with glorious and glittering political careers behind them and, in some cases, ahead of them. I cannot compete with them in their analysis of what is happening around us, and I have not wanted to compete with their excellence or experience. However, I feel that I must remind myself that as a citizen of this country, all these discussions relate to the constitutional arrangements under which we all live, claim our rights and want ourselves and our children to flourish, and I have as much right to speak in these debates as anybody else. It is in that sense that I dare, almost with the feeling that I am making a maiden speech, stand here and offer some thoughts now.

I was terrifically interested in the cascade of figures that the noble Lord, Lord Trimble, gave us about what happened when the voting arrangements in Northern Ireland changed from household registration to individual registration. I believe that the noble Lord said it was a straightforward move from one to the other, but that it took 10 years to return to the same level. Perhaps that ought to be a stark reminder that in anything we do in this Bill we should try to avoid losing so many voters that it will take us 10 years to catch up. We might learn from that experience, perhaps avoid making the same mistakes and try to tread a safer path.

One of the great disappointments in my experience of the House is the way we have, in more recent times, got round to discussing constitutional measures. I feel that of all the things on which we ought to seek a consensual arrangement, something that we can all subscribe to, constitutional arrangements ought to be on the highest rung. I have sensed the trading, whether obvious or subterranean, that has been going on between the parties in government as they seek to satisfy each others’ needs and expectations. It has been a major feature of the way constitutional arrangements have been discussed in the House latterly. That may be a layman’s observation, but it is deeply felt, and I feel the need to say so before I continue with my remarks.

In 2009, when we considered our electoral system under another Government, we were all very clear that we must reach whatever arrangements we end up with consensually. Let me read what was said in the other House by the then shadow Conservative Minister about moving towards individual registration. She said that these plans,

“should not be rushed but taken step by step to ensure that the integrity of the system is protected ”—

the noble Lord, Lord Norton, talked about the integrity of the system—

“and not only protected, but seen to be protected, so that there is no perception of harm being done to the system … I can assure the Minister and the House that any future Conservative Government would never take risks with the democratic process”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/09; col. 108-9.]

In that debate, the Liberal Democrats made similar fulsome promises:

“I do not think that anybody was suggesting that the timetable be artificially shortened, or that any risk be taken with the comprehensiveness of the register”.—[Official Report, Commons, 13/7/09; col. 112.]

That was the assurance given us by the Liberal Democrats.

Here we are with an arrangement or a direction of travel that all of us want to see happen, which I am convinced we need to make happen at a pace that will assure us of the assimilation of experience gained and a confidence in destinations reached. That seems to me to be so self-evident that I cannot quite understand why the acceleration of individual registration is being given so much attention. Since I did A-level Latin, I have always subscribed to the tag, festina lente—it is slowly that we make the most speed in a forward direction. After all, we are talking about a change of culture, and a change of culture does not happen by diktat or by the imposition of a set of new rules and regulations that push things forward artificially. Therefore, we should do as my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer suggests; take the proper steps at the proper pace, with good monitoring in place and proper scrutiny at each step, so that we can have confidence in what we end up with.

However, I have one more problem that I want to share with noble Lords. It was an article in one of our newspapers by an Oxford professor—not that Oxford professors are always right. I suppose a Cambridge man might say that. He says,

“To move straight to individual registration risks moving straight to mass disenfranchisement of the young, the urban, the mobile and ethnic minority voters”.

That is my overriding worry; it is the main point that I want to offer in this speech. I have been considering this Bill at the same time as I have been trying to evaluate a report on what happened with the riots in our inner cities almost a year ago. I live in the East End; at my front door is the borough of Islington, at my back door the borough of Hackney. I am not far at all from everything that was happening last year. There are lots of young black teenagers within the company I keep and the people I try to offer mentoring to. In conversation—although I can only be anecdotal about this—I do not detect a heightened understanding of the probity, necessity or valour of voting. It is not just that we have to raise awareness, as the noble Lord, Lord Bates, suggested; we must educate and shape the expectations of whole bodies of people who feel disenfranchised and quite at odds with the system. I do not want to say anything that would appear to condone last year’s events. However, I know that if you do not feel you are a stakeholder in a society, you have no motivation to involve yourself with it or with shaping its future. So I look at the literacy and numeracy levels with which people leave some of our schools; I look at the lack of character formation within some of our schools; I look at the brokenness of the homes and the difficult social patterns within which people live. All these things are very real. We frame constitutional arrangements in order to prepare a country for this generation to grow up in, with all the diversity that there is in our land in these days.

I am trying to articulate, then, the needs and deep desires of ordinary, young, urban people across the ethnic groupings of our city. I do not want the system that we end up with to threaten their involvement, because they have so much to give. They are genuinely talented people, but they do not feel plugged in. We must work on that a bit harder.

I have finished my remarks, and since I am six minutes early, perhaps the credit can be given to my noble friend Lord Wills as some kind of compensation.