Representation of the People Bill

Lord Hayward Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

Does my noble friend at least concede that this is not a prescriptive amendment but rather a probing amendment? Clause 4 allows electoral returning officers to disregard the obligation in emergencies or specific circumstances. It is not a draconian amendment forcing every ERO to do the same.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I broadly support my noble friend Lord Fuller’s comments. Although I understand my noble friend Lord Jackson’s intervention, the key factor that one has to look at here, to which my noble friend Lord Fuller referred in passing, is the sheer number of parties that now operate on a regular basis in multi-member wards. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Pack. As a fellow pedant, I would be quite happy if he wishes to correct me, but if one looks back to the 2022 elections, I think there were only three wards in the whole of England that delivered three councillors from three different parties or independent parties. In 2026, there were three wards in Bradford alone that delivered three members from three different parties, let alone the rest of the country. I see the noble Lord nodding, so I feel reassured that I have been pedantic and accurate enough. That makes my point, which is that the probability for recounts has risen dramatically in the current political circumstances. Whether that continues is another matter, but we really should allow the EROs and local councils the capacity to decide, and decide sensibly, how they conduct the counts, so that there are not errors. At the moment, it is remarkable that there are relatively few errors in local government elections, even where there are recounts that have taken place many hours after the count has started, let alone when election day has begun, which is of course many hours before that.

Having said that in disagreement with my noble friend Lord Jackson on his amendment, it is important that I pick up on one or two other matters that he raised with which I agree. In our adjourned debate, he said that the objective of his amendment was to “to restore voters’ confidence” in the electoral process. That is key in everything that we do daily. In the complexity in which we now operate in this country, it is staggering that there are not more errors—I refer here to the Electoral Commission’s report on the elections in May which identified very few genuine errors—but it is still important that everything we do in this Bill should be aimed at ensuring or restoring, depending on which is necessary, public confidence in the electoral process. We should consider both public confidence and the candidates’ confidence.

My noble friend referred to amendments relating to influencing voters through religious messaging, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who is not in her place, gave strong support. I note that my noble friend Lord Pickles is in his place. He did a thorough report on a whole range of electoral issues, and this was addressed in the 2022 legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Walney, is in his place, and he has an amendment. Unfortunately, he was not here previously—these things happen—but I hope I am going down the path that he would have gone down, which the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, went down, in saying that there are clearly issues that need to be addressed and kept under consideration, and therefore they have to be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure that we are operating sensibly.

My apologies for the slight interruption, but I am going to have to rest on a crutch for the rest of my contribution.

I draw attention to the other comments that the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, made in relation to intimidation and crowds outside polling stations, which do nothing for confidence in the electoral process. I shall be returning to this issue later with my amendment on polling, issuing accreditation to tellers and the like, and the process of policing outside polling stations, but I just identify my support for what the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, referred to. I do not know how many Members of this place are aware that in the most recent parliamentary by-election, Holborn and St Pancras, there were so many crowds outside one polling station that the presiding officer asked for those people to be moved. In the end, the agent of the Green Party had to come down and tell the people to move because they were—in effect, being realistic—intimidating voters outside the polling station. This is a matter to which I shall return later, but I hope I have covered adequately at this stage the different issues that are raised by the amendments that we are considering in this group.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

I beg the indulgence of the Committee to conclude my remarks on Amendment 129, which I had to curtail because of time on Monday. I want to refer to what my noble friend Lord Hayward said. I was very grateful for the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, about her lived experience in Watford in support of my amendment on undue influence.

Following the Pickles report—I am delighted that my noble friend is in his place—steps were taken in the Elections Act 2022 to strengthen the provision by “adding undue spiritual pressure”. The Electoral Commission’s review noted that

“unacceptable activity which many people consider electoral fraud—including pressure and intimidation both in the home and outside polling stations”,

which my noble friend Lord Hayward referred to,

“—may not be reported by victims”.

This is a valuable provision in law. It is important that it is regularly reviewed by Ministers to ensure that it is upheld properly and is up to date with the challenges of the UK’s changing demographic and religious landscape. Without regular reviews and monitoring, such provisions risk stagnating or becoming subtly and consistently subverted. The law means nothing if it is not enforced. The Pickles review and recent legislative changes reflect the importance of the provision for the UK’s electoral integrity. It is vital that it is not diminished.

I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and I especially look forward to hearing the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Walney, who I know was not present on Monday, which was commented on from the Liberal Democrat Benches. I am sure he will explain that there was a perfectly good reason. His Amendment 136 and my Amendment 129 are very similar. I thank the Committee for its indulgence.

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[Lord Frost (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I put my name to Amendment 124 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Jackson. I want to explain why and bring one element into this debate that we have not had so far, which is the voters and how they perceive the electoral process in local elections. It is quite a recent development that counts have drifted into the next day—really only since the late 2000s in local elections. We seemed to manage the situation perfectly well before that. Certainly, elections have got more complicated since then, as many noble Lords have noted. Nevertheless, we seemed to do it, and it is not an inherently implausible suggestion that we might be able to do it again.

In UK elections there is a sense of drama, and that sense of drama is important: the idea that something significant is changing as a result of the ballot. The drama of democracy is quite important. That is more true at general elections, but it is something we should not lose in local elections, which have, in many ways, just as big an effect on people’s lives as general elections.

On Monday, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, said:

“The main beneficiaries of immediate counts are not the voters”


but

“the campaigners, candidates and commentators”.—[Official Report, 2/11/26; col. 1452.]

That struck me as an interesting comment, because I am not sure I entirely agree with it. Speaking as somebody who has seen elections on TV and listened on the radio far more than I have actually participated in them, one of the things that has struck me with our longer counting process is that it allows much more opportunity for political parties, the party leadership and party-aligned commentators to spin the results. Long before we know what the actual results of a whole period of local elections are, we have media comment on them. We have party spokesmen telling us how to interpret the results long before we know what the actual results are.

One or two councils take on exaggerated significance because they come relatively early in the sequence and shape the narrative, and that suits political parties. I am not making a party-political point; I think it is true of all parties. It blurs what is important. It allows scope for commentary and spin, and the actual results of the process take longer to come out. By the time we know the results, what is more important is the nature of the commentary. So, there is an issue here. I am happy to give way.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My noble friend has not addressed the issue of the extra matters on which we now give local voters the opportunity to vote. He referred to 2000, but in the previous Conservative Government and before that, we introduced things such as environmental neighbourhood referenda, mayoral elections and police and crime commissioner elections. I am not going to delay the House by listing them all, but that is one of the reasons why, as was identified, you finish up with people being asked to vote on three, four or five different decisions on one day.

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[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her very generous comments at the start of her contribution. On the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, I omitted to observe that, when reviews of pilots take place, cost should be considered. If one is taking trials over a period of days, there are all sorts of attendant costs in addition to the question of whether the system worked.

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Moved by

[Lord Hayward]

13: Clause 7, page 10, line 23, leave out subsection (4)
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment, and others in the name of Lord Hayward, seek to allow for a debate on the complexity of electoral law as affected by this Bill.

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[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that I can please the Government Whip by indicating that, although I tabled a few amendments in relation to one particular aspect of this group, I could have tabled dozens of amendments on this subject. The subject was possibly best described by someone whom one might describe as a half-Irish lyricist who was brought up in inner south London. Four years ago, when he spoke to this Chamber, he said:

“I hope that, when we get a new Prime Minister, they will look at the whole issue of our electoral law”.—[Official Report, 15/7/22; col. 1709.]

That half-Irish lyricist from just south of the river is, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who made an observation on the Ballot Secrecy Bill. I gave him notice that I intended to quote from his speech on that occasion.

As noble Lords can see, the one amendment I have tabled to Clause 7, Amendment 13, runs to a whole page. We have to look at a string of legislation, much of which was introduced by my Government and previous Governments. It has been a clear fact for years that our electoral law is a complete mess and is in desperate need of consolidation into one Act. Page after page of this Bill just refers to one piece of legislation or another. I could understand it if it was dealing, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, referred to on Monday, with devolved powers and therefore devolved legislation, but in far too many instances that is not the case. We have what I would best describe as a complete cacophony of electoral law.

If we think this is a mess, just imagine the sets of circumstances under which the returning officers have to operate. Whereas we can spread out our discussions on electoral law over a number of days, the returning officers are operating, particularly when they do not have notice of an election—for example, a general election—under extreme pressure. It really is astonishing that we have so few cases of an error being made in one form or another. Just think of what we will be coming on to talk about, whether it is postal votes, entitlement to vote from abroad, or registration of votes. Whatever it may happen to be, the poor returning officers are looking at this on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis. It is truly astonishing that we do not get petitions asking that matters do not go to the elections court and challenging the result in one form or another. I have paid credit to returning officers previously, but I will do so again on this occasion. As I say, there are many amendments that I could have put down here, but I chose not to.

On the other broad category of amendments, this is where we have a serious problem. I ask the Minister clearly to identify when she replies why on earth we need all these amendments saying that, instead of a registration officer we have a senior registration officer, or that we have to ensure that councils call in every possible officer to administer the elections. I will come back to that point in a minute.

We are talking here about devolution. One of the great mantras of this Government is that we must devolve power. The Prime Minister went to Lanarkshire the other week to tell the Scots that they are not devolving powers enough. The Minister herself, earlier this week, said:

“As we extend the devolution programme, this Government have made it very clear that we think that it should be people with skin in the game in their local area who take the key decisions about those areas. It is perfectly right that each of the Governments around the UK are free to do what they feel is right”.—[Official Report, 2/11/26; col. 1407.]


If we are devolving powers to local councils, how is it that clause after clause tells local councils what role and status the registration officer should hold within a local council? Birmingham City Council’s chief executive is paid £300,000 a year. Surely, he knows better than the Minister and officials in Whitehall who should be deputed to handle what aspect of elections. It is true throughout the land that we have highly paid chief executive officers, one after another; yet Whitehall seems to think it knows best how an election should be administered. I could understand it if a whole series of elections had gone wrong—but I refer again to the Electoral Commission’s report on general elections. There is not one reference to a general election going wrong; in local elections, there are one or two very minor exceptions. I genuinely believe that this is Whitehall dictating utterly unnecessarily to local councils who should handle what.

The bit of the Bill that astonishes me most is the clause stating that a council should require all its officers, whatever they may happen to be—this is implicit in the phrasing of the Bill—to be called on to administer elections. Are we going to insert in an education Bill that every employee of a council should be called on to help with education; or that every employee should be called on to help with environmental matters or hygiene matters, or whatever it may happen to be? There is no justification for this, given that we do not have a failed electoral system; we have an extremely challenging one, but we do not have a failed one. I see no reason whatever why there is a series of clauses in the Bill suggesting that Whitehall knows best.

In conclusion, I referred to the Prime Minister going to Lanarkshire to deliver his message on devolution. He should go to Marsham Street and deliver the same message in relation to this Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Shamash (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Hayward. I woke up this morning thinking that I would love to quote Martin Luther King—that I had a dream. I will give a tiny bit of history. The Representation of the People Act 1983 is the core legislation that everything has sprung from. It was 18 years from 1983 to the creation in 2001 of the Electoral Commission, in which I, and maybe others here, was involved. It is now 43 years since the 1983 Act came into being, and there have been repeated amendments and additions: the Electoral Administration Act, the Elections Act, and so on. We are getting to the point where, to move election law, you need a pick-up truck. It is completely crackers that we are in this situation.

The most important thing, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hayward, is consolidation. I have discussed the possibility of that with others, including my noble friend the Minister, and it is a major undertaking. But there is a new kid on the block, and that is AI. We must get to a situation where we can do this, because it is impossible to operate. I should have declared my interest as a former election lawyer to the Labour Party for many years. Having to deal with this legislation is very difficult, and you can miss things out very easily. My plea to the Minister is to take this idea away to the officials, so that my dream can actually come true and we can have a bit of consolidation in this Act.

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[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the Minister for her comments in general, and I want to continue the conversation. I seek clarification on her last comments about the particular clause. Are her comments fully supported by both the Electoral Commission and the AEA on behalf of returning officers?

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

My understanding is that that the EC and the Association of Electoral Administrators were consulted on provisions in the Bill, but I will go back and check and answer the noble Lord in writing.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I have heard some interesting comments from the Minister and, as I indicated just now, I appreciate her offer to have further conversations in relation to the specific matters. I think we all knew that, on the question of consolidation, sadly, we are going to have to live with Encyclopaedia Britannica, whether it is on AI or any other system, for the future. It is grotesquely challenging for everybody who is involved. However, on that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 13 withdrawn.