Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Myners Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, this amendment takes us back to the debates two years ago on the Political Parties and Elections Bill, for which we took Committee stage in the Moses Room. There were long debates on the whole issue of fraud in elections. From the discussions that everyone had been having with the Electoral Commission and with Ministers during the course of the debate, it was clear that the Electoral Commission was bending over backwards to find ways of sorting out the problem of individual registration. I tabled a number of amendments dealing with individual registration but none in this particular area because it had not dawned on me at the time that, in the very different world in which we now live, there might be those who, in certain conditions, might be prepared to abuse the system.

No major change is being asked in this amendment. This minor change would check that the first elector was the first elector, so that people would know whether there were ballot papers already in the ballot box, to put it bluntly. Even though fraud at this point in the process might not be prevalent, the proposed change would help reassure the wider public that everything possible is being done to ensure that the electoral system in this country has integrity.

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I speak in support of Amendment 122. I think that it is a small but important step; in fact, I would like to see us go further. It is absolutely critical that we take every action within reasonable grasp to protect and enhance the integrity of the voting system, which has been brought into disrepute in recent years.

I think particularly of the comments by the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, about ballots that she believed had been in contravention of correct process. I acknowledge that at times it is difficult to tell whether the noble Baroness is speaking on behalf of the Government, the coalition, the Conservative Party or a faction within the Conservative Party. For example, I think of her comments immediately after the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election about the right wing of the Conservative Party. I also think of her comments the previous night on BBC2’s “Newsnight” programme in connection with the Royal Bank of Scotland—I regret I was unable to be in the House this afternoon when this matter was handled in Questions—when the noble Baroness said that the Government were renegotiating contracts with executives of RBS. Since then, the Treasury has been very keen to suggest that it is not doing anything of the sort. However, the comments made by the noble Baroness on electoral issues were ones that we should take careful note of when considering this amendment.

I would actually prefer a change in the design of the ballot box. I would like to see ballot boxes that are transparent, so that it is possible for people to see their vote going into the box. The amendment deals with the authenticity and the integrity of the ballot process only at the time when the first decision is made on a vote, but I think that my proposal would bring huge confidence.

[Lord McAvoy]

My first reaction is that a transparent ballot box could add to democracy and could be useful. On the other hand, when thinking of the mechanics of polling day, one has to consider that sometimes people do not fold the ballot paper properly and if that happened in a transparent box it would show who the person had voted for, or did not vote for, which would render the vote invalid because someone was able to identify it.

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[Lord Myners]

My noble friend is as sharp as ever on these issues. I had already given thought to that matter. I suggest to my noble friend that a ballot box could be transparent at the top, so that you could see your vote going in, but not transparent at the bottom where the vote rested. That would perhaps address the issue. I encourage the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, when he engages with his colleagues in the Cabinet Office on further constitutional reviews, to give this some consideration.

However, it seems to me that my noble friend Lord Rooker has made an entirely reasonable proposal that in no way seeks to obstruct the intention of government policy. It would be commendable to the House and to the country as it would endorse the integrity of the balloting process and the confidence that we can have in the outcome of elections conducted through such a mechanism.

[Lord Maxton]

I support the amendment as well. I support my noble friend Lord Myners in his idea of a transparent box, whether or not the bottom is transparent. I would rather we did not have ballot boxes at all and voted electronically, but that is a personal campaign which I have been running for a long time. I include in that this place as well. I notice that we will be able to bring electronic devices into the Chamber—but perhaps not yet—and then we can start to vote through them as well.

I have one question for my noble friend who moved the amendment. Who exactly is the first elector? In certain circumstances, those who work at the polling station can be electors in that seat. They could be given the right to vote prior to the polls actually opening. That is a bending of the rules but I think it happens. It is an easy way to ensure that someone who is working all day has the opportunity to vote first. How would my noble friend respond to such circumstances? I think there is some case for saying that the rules must be absolute and that the polling station must not open until 7 or 8 am, whichever election it is, and that no one can vote before then. I have a suspicion that in the past people have been allowed to vote just before the polling station opens.

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I ask the Leader of the House to consider these issues and to convene a non-partisan gathering of all the parties to see if there is a way forward.

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I have sympathy with some of the sentiments expressed by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours about where electoral stations should be located. There is clearly sense in using school-houses for this purpose, not least because, in the past, each village and town would have its own school. I speak with the experience of coming from a rural constituency in Cornwall, where the schools are getting bigger; local village schools are being closed and our children have to travel longer distances to school. This probably makes sense because we are able to give them a better education and ensure that the schools are better resourced with technology.

However, it means that people in rural communities who tend to use schools as voting centres will now have to travel a greater distance to the school. This has always been a problem in rural constituencies. My mother never voted until quite late in the day. At about nine o’clock in the evening people would knock on the door and say that she had not voted, and the Conservatives and Liberals would offer cars to take her to the voting station. She always went with the Conservatives because they tended to have rather big cars and she quite liked that. She always voted Labour but she felt that it was a part of the joy of the constitutional process to go in the kind of large car in which, no doubt, the Leader of the House is accustomed to travelling, both in his ministerial office and in his private life.

A school is not the obvious place to hold an election and there is an opportunity here which resonates with the big society. Like many people, I have been wrestling to understand the big society. It is like trying to put together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and I have now got 15 pieces on the board to help me work out what it is. I am not unattracted by creating a part of the complex of our social life which is not dominated by governmental or quasi-governmental institutions and where a sense of community is fostered. One of the things I suggest to the Leader of the House is that we should give real consideration to looking at nodal and communication points, where people cluster in communities, and see if we can put polling stations in those centres. People clearly now gravitate towards urban shopping centres and out-of-town shopping centres; perhaps we should at least experiment with putting polling stations closer to where people go in their day-by-day life. The local post office is the obvious place, for instance, to have a polling station in a village that has for many years not had a school-house. This observation tends to point me in the direction of supporting the sentiment expressed on this point by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

I wonder if I could also just delay the House for a brief moment to pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Soley: why the application for a postal vote requires the date of birth at all. Can the Leader of the House explain this? We now operate in a society where it is increasingly regarded as inappropriate to ask people their dates of birth. Indeed, when you interview somebody you are no longer allowed to ask their date of birth; you have to deduce it from their education and their appearance. It seems quite extraordinary that this is a requirement of the postal voting form. There must be a suspicion that, perhaps if one misrepresents one’s age—one perhaps becomes accustomed to taking a couple of years off in polite conversation—you might complete the form incorrectly and in so doing prejudice your vote and conceivably the outcome of the whole election. I ask the Leader of the House if he can tell us why it is necessary that people should still be embarrassed by having to disclose their date of birth.

[Lord Tyler]

I will respond briefly to the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, because she has a good point about the way in which the whole of these arrangements should be looked at on a non-partisan basis. However, I am frankly mystified as to why this debate is taking place at 9 pm in your Lordships’ House. That does not seem to be the appropriate place. The discussion that she is seeking would be much more appropriately done within a different context. I cannot understand from any of the contributions—