Elections: Personal Data

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Wednesday 18th April 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I agree with my noble friend. I know Henry VIII is not always man of the match in this country, but the Data Protection Bill provides order-making powers so that the Government can act quickly to keep rights and responsibilities up to date and respond to the emerging threats that my noble friend has just mentioned.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that there may be widespread evasion of the basic principles of our electoral laws aimed at ensuring that there is a level playing field, and that the costs of gathering data, analysing it and then using it for communications purposes in general elections are not properly apportioned between constituencies? In referendums, its use by third parties ensures that we no longer have a principle whereby either side of a referendum campaign can spend the same amount of money. Before we have another general election or another referendum, we must put our electoral laws right because they are clearly not fit for purpose.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord will know that there is a case currently before the courts on precisely the issue that he has raised: the allocation of expenditure between local constituencies and the central party. It would be sensible to await the outcome of that case before deciding whether any legislative changes are necessary.

Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I too support these regulations, but I will probe my noble friend Lord Young on them and their position in the reform of electoral law that we are proposing to undertake, or have been talking about for some time.

First, on the change to the anonymous registration scheme, I of course absolutely support the widening of this gate. The fear of being bullied, threatened or attacked is very real. Therefore, people should be provided with the appropriate anonymity to protect their democratic right. But, of course, there is a balance to be struck because the transparency of the electoral roll is a very important part of our democratic system. Therefore, we need to bear in mind the extent to which the gate is being widened and the appropriateness of it being widened.

As my noble friend explained, the attestation procedure has now been widened quite a lot. While I absolutely understand about the police and the reduction of the rank to inspector, where it is quite an impersonal relationship, the other two categories move to a much more difficult and much closer relationship in the sense that a registered healthcare professional, as listed in the regulations, will be under a lot of moral pressure, come what may, to look after their patient. They will perhaps find it difficult to make a completely dispassionate judgment about whether anonymity should be granted in a particular case. That is referred to in paragraph 7.7 of the Explanatory Memorandum.

Paragraph 7.8 concerns refuge managers. That is an even wider category of individuals. It is clear from reading the Explanatory Memorandum that the Electoral Commission was concerned about this. Paragraph 8.2 says that it was concerned about,

“how widely the definition of a refuge manager may apply”.

The Government’s response is that its concerns were addressed,

“through a tightening of this definition”.

It would be helpful if my noble friend could give us a little bit of information about what took place in that regard. The problem is that it is not really clear how controlled that category may be. Obviously, refuge managers have a particular position and role to play, but we need to know that they are being properly watched over. There is a mention in paragraph 7.8 of the register of refuge managers. It says:

“The Electoral Registration Officer can then confirm that the refuge is registered on the ‘Routes to Support’ directory, a UK-wide online database”.


Do they have to be on that database to be permissible or is it at the discretion of the local electoral returning officers? My concern is that the gate is being widened. I understand why—my noble friend Lord Young made a powerful case for it, which I understand—but I hope that the Government will perhaps take a look at the situation in a couple of years and see to what extent it is being used properly in achieving the balance between this very proper area and the need to have a properly transparent electoral roll.

Turning to the changes to the wider registration system, I understand the need to simplify it and tighten it up against misrepresentation and fraudulent behaviour. It was not entirely clear to me why individuals should not be allowed to be told. This relates to paragraph 7.16: the Government have decided that they should not be told whether they are to be included on or excluded from the register, and that paragraph says:

“There is no added benefit to the elector of this letter”.


It seems to me that people should be told whether they have been successful or unsuccessful, as opposed to just finding out from examining the electoral roll themselves. There are some issues about how the local returning officer and the Electoral Commission work together.

Before I conclude, I want to draw my noble friend’s attention to two further points. I do not ask him to respond to them today but, as he pointed out in his opening remarks, we are all agreed that we need to maximise voter registration and participation. There is a strange anomaly where if you seek to register to vote in person, you can use a pretty wide range of identity documents, such as your passport or driving licence. But if you choose to register online, you have to use your national insurance number and no other document will do. I do not know about other noble Lords but my knowledge of my national insurance number and my accessibility to it is a great deal less than for my driving licence, which is probably in my wallet, or my passport, which will be to hand. So I wonder why we have that strange anomaly where online registration, which we are trying to encourage people to use, can be done only if you have your national insurance number to hand. I suspect that many people do not have it to hand and have some difficulty finding it out. As I say, I am not asking my noble friend to reply to that today but perhaps he could write to the Members of the Committee about it.

My very last point relates to where this fits into the situation for the reform of our electoral law. These are some welcome and important bits of sticking plaster but there is a large Law Commission Bill on electoral law, which it says is shovel-ready. You have only to consider the headings of the chapters in that important document to see how it goes to the heart of our electoral system. Those headings include: “Management and Oversight”, “The Registration of Electors”, “Manner of Voting”, “Absent Voting”, “Notice of Election and Nominations”, “The Polling Process”, “The Count and Declaration of the Result”, “Electoral Offences”—that includes the important issue about bribery and treating which we debated in this Room not so long ago, and where we are working from a Victorian statute which is now not really fit for purpose—and “Regulation of Campaign Expenditure”. Those are some serious issues, raised by an apolitical body which has a chance to bring our system up to date and in line with modern practice. At a time when people have concerns about the way our system is working, we should make every effort to make it as clear, transparent and modern as possible.

My noble friend will forgive me if I refer to an Answer he gave to a Question I tabled just before Christmas on whether the Government planned to introduce any Bills in the current Session using the Law Commission procedure. On 8 January, he very kindly responded, saying that the Government work closely with the Law Commission and support its work to improve the statute book, and that the introduction of new Bills would be announced “in the usual manner”. I am sure my noble friend will forgive me if I say that I do not find that an entirely satisfactory Answer.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, in our various debates on electoral registration issues our usual mantra is about the accuracy and completeness of the electoral register. The measures before us may be of some marginal help in improving the completeness of the register and its accuracy, but in very small ways. They may mean that some of the victims of domestic abuse, or people who are vulnerable as a result of other serious criminal activity, will now register to vote when they may not be able to do so otherwise. There is certainly evidence that some of these people may have feared the consequences of registering and this may have deterred them from complying with their obligation to co-operate with the electoral registration process. We need to safeguard the interests of such people and guarantee their democratic rights.

My only concern about the new rules for anonymous registration is that some people may feel that they have to pay a charge to a GP as part of the process. If someone is a victim of domestic violence, or under any threat of violence which means that they should be registered to vote without publication of their address, I cannot think that it would be right for them to be charged by anyone in return for certifying their status and enabling them to register anonymously. It would effectively be a charge to register to vote.

Of course, GPs are very hard pressed and there may be better routes for people to secure a statement confirming that anonymous registration is necessary. I cannot believe that many GPs would feel it necessary to make a charge for confirming the status of a victim of domestic violence, or of someone living in fear of violence, if their address can be identified from the electoral register. The evidence submitted by the Cabinet Office suggests that 90% of GPs will not make a charge, but that of the 10% who might, their charges might range from £30 to £63. It seems potentially misleading for that evidence to suggest, therefore, that the average charge may be around £4, based, I assume, on the estimate that 90% of GPs will not make such a charge and the charges made by 10% of GPs is averaged out across all of them. It would be equally true to say that of those GPs who might make a charge, the average could be over £45.

There are, of course, many other health professionals, refuge managers or police inspectors able to attest to the need for anonymous registration without someone going to their GP. However, going to a GP to secure anonymous electoral registration may also help identify significant health issues that need to be addressed, so there could therefore be many benefits in going to the GP to discuss these issues. The suggestion that such vulnerable people might be expected to pay to secure anonymous registration via a GP seems utterly wrong to me. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will comment on this issue and say what guidance may be issued to GPs on informing some of their patients that anonymous registration may be necessary for them, and on how the GP can attest to their status, if appropriate, without such people being expected to pay for it.

Other issues that have been set out may be considered relatively minor, in my view. Explaining on registration forms who may not be entitled to vote if they are not qualifying Commonwealth citizens, citizens of the Irish Republic, citizens of the UK, et cetera, is not something with which one can argue, but the need to explain this highlights the complexity of the franchise issues. As we prepare to extend the franchise to people who have moved abroad for longer than 15 years, it is high time that we looked again at the franchise issues, including extending the franchise to those who are legally entitled to live and work here permanently. I believe that that should include many of the 3 million EU citizens who currently enjoy the right to live and work here. Does the Minister agree that there should at least be a debate about such issues?

European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the draft European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 (Amendment) Regulations 2018. These instruments make changes to the existing procedure for filling MEP vacancies in Great Britain and Gibraltar in order to reduce the likelihood of any costly by-elections in the run-up to us leaving the European Union.

Following the EU referendum, the UK will be leaving the EU. However, while the UK remains a member of the EU, we are obliged to make arrangements to fill any MEP vacancies that may arise—for example, due to the resignation or death of a sitting MEP. Currently, electoral law provides that in Great Britain and Gibraltar a vacant MEP seat will stay with the party that won the seat at the previous European parliamentary general election and is filled with reference to the unelected candidates on that party’s list of candidates at that election in the region where the vacancy arises. If it is not possible to fill a vacant seat from the winning party’s list because there is nobody else left on it who is willing or suitable to take up the seat, a by-election is held to fill the vacancy. To date, no by-elections have been needed to fill a vacancy, as it has been possible to fill vacant seats from the relevant party list.

We consider, however, that in some areas there is now a significant risk of a by-election being necessary due to the number and circumstances of the candidates remaining on some party lists. For example, UKIP won a seat in Wales in 2014 and, although there are three persons on its reserve list, we think there may be difficulties, not least following the events over the weekend, in filling any vacancy that may arise, and this could lead to a by-election being necessary. The cost of a by-election in Wales would be about £7 million. Elsewhere, by-elections could cost up to £20 million. Existing MEPs may resign ahead of the end of the Parliament to pursue career opportunities elsewhere. Those lower down the list, drawn up some years ago, may no longer be as enthusiastic as they were.

The Government consider that, in the current circumstances, there is strong justification for taking action to reduce the likelihood of a by-election occurring before the UK leaves the EU. As I have indicated, there would be significant financial costs in holding a by-election, and given that the UK will be leaving the EU, the turnout at such a poll could be low and electors may query the value of holding the poll. These statutory instruments therefore make sensible, precautionary changes to the process for filling vacant MEP seats that will reduce the likelihood of any costly by-elections in Great Britain. The instruments provide that, if a vacancy cannot be filled from the list of candidates for the party that won the seat at the previous round of elections, the party that holds a vacant seat may instead nominate a person to fill the vacancy and be returned as an MEP for that party.

I turn briefly to the details of the proposed changes. The European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 (Amendment) Regulations 2018 amend the regulation-making powers in Section 5 of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 concerning the procedure for filling vacant MEP seats. Then, using these new powers, the European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2018 amend the European Parliamentary Elections Regulations 2004, which set out provisions governing the conduct of European parliamentary elections in Great Britain and Gibraltar.

The proposed changes in the European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2018 address the position where a vacancy has arisen and it is not possible for the regional returning officer—the RRO—to fill the vacant MEP seat from the list of the party that won the seat in the region at the previous election. Under the proposed changes, where the outgoing MEP stood for a registered party, the RRO will still initially seek to fill the vacancy through approaching in turn the reserve candidates on the party’s list of candidates in the relevant region. If the RRO is unable to fill the vacancy from the party list because it is exhausted, this will no longer automatically trigger a by-election. Instead, the RRO must ask the nominating officer of the party that previously won the seat to nominate a person to fill the vacant seat and be returned as an MEP for that party. The person must meet the existing requirements to be an MEP, for example, in terms of age and nationality.

Under the proposed changes, the nominating officer must respond within 28 days to the RRO, giving the name of the person who is to fill the vacant seat. In the event that the nominating officer was unable to nominate a person within 28 days, this would cause a by-election to be held to fill the vacancy. We think it would be extremely unlikely that a party would not be able to nominate a person to fill the vacancy within the specified 28 days and so cause a by-election.

The regulations make similar provision for independent candidates and jointly nominated candidates. The changes are modelled on the process previously agreed by Parliament for filling MEP vacancies in Northern Ireland, and which has been successfully used to fill a vacant seat there. I should explain that the single transferable vote is used for European parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland, which differs from that used in Great Britain. Under STV, there are no party lists, and in the event of a vacancy, the nominating officer of the party that previously won the seat will nominate the person to be the new MEP, who will then be returned to the seat by the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland.

We have consulted on the instruments with the Electoral Commission and with others such as the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, the Association of Electoral Administrators and the Government of Gibraltar. We have also consulted with a Parliamentary Parties Panel which advises the Electoral Commission. There is general agreement among those whose views were sought on the instruments that it would be desirable to avoid a European by-election across a region just before the UK leaves the EU.

I should also explain that our law provides that, if a vacancy occurs less than six months before the next European parliamentary general election, the seat remains vacant until that election and it is not necessary for a by-election to be held. We are maintaining this position. Without these changes, there would be a period for almost a year where it would be necessary to hold a by-election if a vacant seat could not be filled from the candidates on the relevant party list.

These statutory instruments make sensible and proportionate changes to the process for filling vacant MEP seats that are designed to reduce the likelihood for any European parliamentary by-elections to be held in Great Britain before the UK leaves the EU. I commend them to the House.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, these regulations are designed to avoid a situation, if possible, that has not arisen before, is most unlikely to occur in future, but which may happen anyway, irrespective of the passing of these regulations. If the Minister knows anything more specific about any political party which may have difficulties of vacancies occurring among its MEPs—including, perhaps, the Conservative Party in Scotland—perhaps he might enlighten us on why it is so necessary to introduce these regulations.

Since the introduction of proportional representation with the closed party list system in 1999, there have been 12 vacancies among our MEPs arising out of a death or resignation. Most of them have been as a result of an MEP being elected as an MP, or appointed as a Peer. All those vacancies for MEPs—five from the Conservatives, four from Labour, and one each from the Lib Dems, the Greens and UKIP, have been filled by someone from the relevant list of party candidates from the previous European parliamentary elections. I was the first person from any party to confirm the filling of a vacancy in this way. As the Liberal Democrats’ nominating officer at the time, I confirmed that my now noble friend Lady Bowles would become an MEP in 2005 when a vacancy occurred because she was next on my party’s list from the 2004 European Parliament elections. Because of arrangements such as this, there have not been any by-elections for MEPs in the past 19 years.

Some of us still hope that the UK will elect MEPs in 2019. As the Minister said, existing law provides that there would not be a by-election if a vacancy were to occur and a party could not fill it from its list in the six months before European elections were due. So the window in which we are anticipating the possibility of a vacancy and the potential problem of it not being possible to fill it from the existing lists of candidates is between the passage of these regulations into law and some time around December of this year—a very short window. It seems surprising to me, therefore, that they have been considered necessary.

On the longer-term issues, reference is made in the Explanatory Notes to work by the Law Commissions highlighting the need to modernise and codify the entire provisions of our electoral laws. Does the Minister accept the case for doing so, and do the Government intend making progress on this?

Will the Minister also agree in particular that these regulations should be reversed in the event that Britain does not leave, or rejoins, the European Union? Normal democratic provisions should allow voters to choose their representative in a by-election in the event that nobody on a party’s list accepts the position. The solution proposed to an unlikely problem may be acceptable in the short term, but such expediency, in which more power is handed to political parties rather than to voters, would not be acceptable in the long run, and it should not be extended or repeated wherever list systems are used.

In the meantime, political parties will of course still have the power to ensure that a European Parliament by-election occurs following a vacancy if nobody on their list is willing or able to accept the position and it refuses to submit a nomination for a substitute. So if the intention of the regulations is to prevent any by-elections for MEPs, they may still not succeed. This is considered in the Explanatory Notes to be extremely unlikely, but it is a tactic that could be employed by a party to force a by-election—or it may be that a vacancy occurs in an MEP’s seat held by a party that during the relevant period is no longer registered with the Electoral Commission. For example, I understand that Ladbrokes today is offering odds of 5-1 that UKIP will not be registered as a political party by the end of the year. Is this perhaps a factor in the Government’s thinking on these regulations?

[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

My Lords, I wonder whether my noble friend can help me. I think that I heard him say that the cost of a by-election in Wales is £7 million but that it is very much greater elsewhere—I have a feeling that he gave a figure of either £12 million or £20 million. I do not understand why there is this difference. Can we not learn something from Wales, so that costs can be brought down elsewhere?

Democratic Political Activity (Funding and Expenditure) Bill [HL]

Lord Rennard Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 27th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, today is another one of those debates that may feel like “Groundhog Day” for many of us and in which we may expect to go round the houses and fail to make progress. But the two-year parliamentary Session allows us time to make progress on a Private Member’s Bill, and the evidence of the last two general elections, the referendum, many media reports and what is before the courts strongly suggest that we should be adopting some of the measures proposed in the Bill

Indeed, the Minister himself in answer to a Question from me on 29 March about the ambiguity concerning what is local and what is national election spending accepted that the time will come when,

“we should stand back and look at the legislation to see whether we need greater clarity for all political parties in interpreting how that distinction should be made”.—[Official Report, 29/3/17; col. 590.]

Just because an issue is before the courts does not mean that Parliament cannot consider relevant legislation. If that were the case, Parliament would be able to consider very little legislation at all. It would make a mockery of democracy to leave the consideration of these issues until after another general election or referendum.

The House will be pleased to know that I will not repeat my arguments about these issues from the debate on a very similar Bill held on 10 March this year. They are of course available in Hansard at col. 1613 for all those interested in them. My noble friend Lord Tyler has already mentioned the excellent report published in full for the first time yesterday by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. It is an excellent piece of work by Chris Bowers which asks the crucial question: do the present UK election spending limits prevent parties buying elections? If they do not, and the evidence he cites shows that they do not, then we do not have a healthy democracy because one that can be bought cannot be considered to be based on fair and democratic principles. In the report, Chris Bowers expresses concern that, “There is an array of loopholes and omissions of enforcement that are allowing candidates, parties and third party actors to bypass spending constraints, thereby jeopardising both the principle of the level playing field and the previously limited role of money in UK elections”. His report should be required reading for everyone concerned with the health of our democracy and the crucial link between money and politics.

Chris Bowers points out how the laws that were framed to avoid rich candidates or parties effectively buying elections are no longer working. Spending that is targeted in support of individual candidates in individual seats is not classified as such if it omits the name of the candidate and could also be described as national spending. But rather absurdly, it can mention the name of the constituency at which it is targeted, and the purpose of such spending is clearly to affect the outcome in particular seats. This spending may take the form of printed leaflets or letters delivered to voters either by volunteers or commercially by the Royal Mail and others. It can be adverts appearing on Facebook targeted at voters in a particular constituency and using data collected in order to target that constituency. But the costs of such advertising and the costs of the collection and analysis of the data may not be counted as local spending, thereby evading local spending limits.

The relevant legislation governing election expenditure dates largely from 1883 and 2000. The legislation from Gladstone’s era worked for a long time, but that from Tony Blair’s for a much shorter period. The introduction of national spending limits without a proper definition of national campaigning to prevent it being targeted at particular constituencies has been entirely counterproductive to the purposes of that legislation in 2000, as I warned at the time. The world of social media has now completely overtaken the legislation, and its costs, methodology and vulnerability to anti-democratic forces from other countries all require the introduction of some form of accountability to try to protect basic democratic values. My noble friend Lord Tyler and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, also drew attention to the excellent work by Carole Cadwalladr, looking at the role and funding of organisations like Cambridge Analytica. Her work states the following:

“A shadowy global operation involving big data, billionaire friends of Trump and the disparate forces of the Leave campaign … influenced the result of the EU referendum”.


These areas of campaign activity need to be properly examined if we are to ensure that our election laws are fit for purpose.

Finally, the scandals of all parties and referendum campaigns that depend on the donations of a few rich individuals will continue until we cap donations at a sensible level and consider redirecting some of the Government’s advertising budget to extend existing levels of state funding to support our democracy—something which does not come free.

House of Lords: Register of Hereditary Peers

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Wednesday 25th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that question. Moving on to the next Question would not help me at all, as I have to answer that one as well. As he will know, when I replied to the Second Reading debate on his Bill, I said, referring to the specific anomaly that he referred to, that as a consequence of the current arrangements we have a system that is very difficult to defend in equality terms, and that reflected the views expressed. However, I went on to say that there is an exemption from the Equality Act for this arrangement. The Equality Act 2010 provides that neither a life peerage nor a hereditary peerage, as a dignity or honour conferred by the Crown, is a public or personal office for the purposes of the Act. So Parliament specifically exempted these provisions when it passed that piece of legislation.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept the principle that no one Parliament should be able to bind its successors, and that therefore an understanding between two Front Benches in 1999 to continue, as a temporary arrangement, the presence of hereditary Peers via by-elections should now be brought to an end by providing time in this House and the other place for the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, to be considered in order to end the embarrassment of these hereditary by-elections?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The arrangements that the noble Lord refers to do not just date back to 1999; they were confirmed in 2010 in the Equality Act. This legislation was introduced by the Labour Government and the relevant provisions exempting peerages passed without debate and without amendment in this House in 2010. So it is not a matter of blaming the 1999 arrangement. The House recently had an opportunity to address this matter but, when the legislation went through, it declined that opportunity.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Rennard]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether it remains their policy to reduce the number of MPs to 600 in accordance with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, we are committed to ensuring fair and equal representation for the voting public across the UK. The independent Boundary Commissions are proceeding with the boundary review in accordance with laws already passed by Parliament, which provide for the number of constituencies to be reduced to 600. The Boundary Commissions are required to submit their final proposals in autumn 2018.

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, figures from the Cabinet Office itself suggest that about one in six voters are missing from the electoral registers, making it very hard for the Boundary Commissions to produce fair boundaries. Since they began work, millions of extra voters were added to the electoral roll during the course of the EU referendum and the recent general election. Will the Minister consider convening all-party talks aimed at producing a Bill to amend the 2011 legislation in order to allow the Boundary Commissions to include these voters in time for a general election in 2022, and to reconsider the appropriate number of MPs to be elected?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

On the last point, I see from the Liberal Democrats’ 2010 manifesto that they committed themselves to cutting the number of MPs by 150, so I am not sure why the noble Lord is so squeamish about reducing the number by 50. There are a record 46.8 million people on the register, and what he has proposed is yet another Liberal Democrat delay to the Boundary Commission proposals. The dates for the current boundary review were approved by an amendment—to which the noble Lord put his name—to the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill back in 2013. The amendment made it clear that the electoral register as at 1 December 2015 would be used in this review. That was an amendment to which the noble Lord put his name.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Rennard Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, “It feels like ‘Groundhog Day’,” is an expression that is bound to be used as we debate this issue again. I certainly feel like Bill Murray, who played the weatherman in that film who finds himself inexplicably living the same day over and over again. As the US Congressman Mo Udall once famously commented, “Everything has been said, but not everyone has said it”. I expect to hear the same arguments over and over again, as little has changed since last December, when the House clearly expressed the view of its Members that a Bill such as this should be allowed to make progress and be considered by the House of Commons.

On 9 December last year, the amendment aimed at blocking the progress of the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, was defeated in this House, as he said, by 95 votes to 26, with 78% of us voting to make progress on the Bill. My first point is simply that every speech made on this subject, on every side of the debate, references respect for this House. Therefore, the will of the House should now be respected and we must put an end to the practice of holding by-elections to maintain a substantial hereditary presence in the House indefinitely, long after those hereditary Peers chosen to remain in 1999 have passed away.

My second point is that almost every Peer who speaks in this Chamber says that we must also respect the primacy of the House of Commons, yet a small number of Peers seek to block the House of Commons from being allowed even to debate the Bill. The principle of it has already been voted on by the elected House: the principle of ending the by-elections to top up the number of hereditary Peers was voted on by MPs in January 2010, when they supported the measure as it was proposed in the then Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. They did so overwhelmingly, by 318 votes to 142. The House of Commons has already voted in support of exactly what is in this Bill, by a majority of 176, or by 66% to 34%—again, an overwhelming majority.

Those who are defending the rights of hereditary Peers to vote to elect more hereditary Peers to be a part of this legislature, should perhaps take note of the previous votes of this place and the other place on this very issue. They should allow this Bill to go forward to the Commons, without further filibuster bringing about further damage to the reputation of this House.

Thirdly and finally, I want to challenge those suggesting that a deal seen as a temporary measure, and secured by the votes of both Houses in 1999, must be binding for all time. Some noble Lords regard those votes as being irrevocable, but I believe that those same noble Lords also subscribe to the principle that one Parliament cannot bind any successor Parliament; for if it could, what would be the point of our meeting to consider much of the legislation that we do consider, if an issue has been decided in the previous Parliament, let alone one five Parliaments ago?

[Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does he think it significant, as the previous speaker said, that Lord Weatherill himself tried to change this situation later?

[Lord Rennard]

I am grateful for that intervention; that is a highly significant point. It is very clear that some of those most involved in the negotiations of 1999 would not favour our being where we are today, and would favour this Bill making progress. The argument that we cannot discuss this issue or make progress, because of an agreement in 1999, is absurd in terms of parliamentary democracy.

What, for example, would be the point of our debating the EU withdrawal Bill, if the European Communities Act 1972 had been binding on successor Parliaments? Would the noble Lords fighting to preserve hereditary by-elections also be arguing that we cannot consider leaving the EU, because of votes by both Houses ratifying a treaty 45 years ago and subsequently confirmed by the 1975 referendum? I suspect they will not make that argument.

[Lord Hamilton of Epsom (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for giving way. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was, like me, appointed to this House on the whim of his party leader. Does he really think that is more legitimate than being elected from a body of hereditary Peers?

[Lord Rennard]

The noble Lord considers it a whim—I suspect many other noble Lords would disagree. There are at least some criteria by which people who are elected leaders of political parties make appointments. A hundred years after the attempts to reform the House of Lords before the First World War, when it was announced by the then Liberal Government that we would end the hereditary principle to replace it with the popular one, I do not think we can justify continuing to maintain the hereditary presence in any way. It seems that we must let this Bill proceed and we must vote for a minor, but important, reform to improve the credibility of our Parliament.

Local Government Elections

Lord Rennard Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Greaves knows a great deal about elections and how they are fought and won. We have campaigned together in a number of them for almost exactly 40 years, since he came on behalf of what was then the Association of Liberal Councillors to assist in a couple of council by-elections in Liverpool in October 1977. Around that time, I read all my noble friend’s many booklets about fighting local elections and learned a great deal from them, but I learned nothing about the practices which he has just described. He has raised serious issues about electoral law and what he calls treating, which in plain English we know to be better described as bribing the voters. He rightly says that breaches of the spirit, if not the letter, of the law may occur in any party.

Many years ago, I heard of a branch of the Liberal Party that refused to undertake any of the accepted electioneering methods of canvassing and polling day organisation. Instead, it laid on a huge tea with free refreshments in the village hall on polling day, and it was customary for people to visit it after voting. Whether this affected the results, I do not know, but it should not happen. Electoral law should be more explicit about the provision of refreshment to voters and there should be proper policing action to prevent what appear to be major abuses of the law, as just outlined by my noble friend. Perhaps the Minister could share with us the latest thinking about how the Government may now attempt to implement some of the recommendations outlined in the recent review of election laws by the former chair of the Conservative Party, Sir Eric Pickles, since it first responded last December.

In relation to the overall question, I hope that the Minister will agree that there is not a massive amount of cheating in local elections, or in any form of election, in this country. For my part, I accept that we can act to reduce its prevalence, even if it is small, and that fraud would possibly be more common if it were more widely known how easy it can be. It is also important, however, that any action to prevent or deter electoral fraud is proportionate. We must recognise that any measure which might restrict the capacity of people to vote legitimately must be considered very carefully and be balanced by measures which make it more likely that people who are properly entitled to vote are enabled to do so.

My experience of suspecting personation was when I believed that the Liverpool Militants were undertaking the practice when I organised elections there in the 1980s. I was suspicious because of the way in which I noted that Militant supporters would call at doors and, if anyone said they were not voting, they left immediately without argument—the Militant people tended to be rather argumentative. In contrast, other party workers would plead with such people to turn out and vote. But in those Liverpool elections, turnouts were perhaps high because of the approach of the Militant supporters, as they identified names of people who would not be going to the polling station themselves, who may then have had votes cast on their behalf.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, then a Liverpool Liberal MP, told me how he saw people going into polling stations apparently with names and addresses written on their wrists. Some years later, the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, told me that her investigation into the Labour Party in Liverpool when she was her party’s national organiser confirmed that personation was indeed the tactic of the Militants.

It seems to me, therefore, that a greater police presence at polling stations would have helped, together with a greater number of staff at the polling stations to ask the questions allowed for by law about whether or not people have voted already or are who they say they are. When I attempted in the Liverpool Walton by-election in 1991 to get presiding officers to ask the statutory questions of people turning up to vote who had died or said that they would not be voting, I was told by the returning officer that he simply did not have the staff to do what was legally required of him when I arranged for our agent to make the formal request for him to do so.

However, I do not believe that these tactics are common. Last year the Electoral Commission identified 19 allegations of personation in the EU referendum, some of which proved not to be personation at all, out of more than 33 million votes cast. This is in line with statistics from other national elections and does not in itself suggest that there is a widespread problem with personation requiring measures which may deter people from voting when they are entitled to do so. Voter identification is required in Northern Ireland in order to deal with problems of personation, and it is said not to have reduced turnout, but political passions run strongly there and such measures are perhaps less likely to deter voters in the Province than in Great Britain.

There should be greater awareness of the penalties for personation, greater police presence at polling stations where it may be suspected, and more resources for presiding officers to ensure that the statutory questions can be put. In this age, it should not be difficult to provide presiding officers with details of people who are known to have died, and if a mistake has been made and a supposedly dead voter turns up, they can be provided with a tendered ballot paper, as happens when a second person tries to claims the same vote as one cast earlier.

If any form of ID is ever required, a suitable form of it must be provided free of charge. If poll cards were sent in unmarked envelopes, they should suffice, because it would be hard to steal such a poll card and then impersonate someone. Lost or stolen poll cards could be reported and anyone seeking to vote on the basis of one could be questioned at the polling station. However, there is a danger that the proverbial sledgehammer is provided for the nut, and I could not consider supporting any measures requiring evidence of ID at polling stations without us also addressing the much bigger issue of the many millions of people missing from the electoral registers.

The Government’s position appears to be that people should have to opt in to the right to vote, despite the fact that Parliament has specifically preserved the principle that failing to co-operate with the electoral registration process can be subject to a fine or civil penalty. You do not have to opt in to the right to benefit from the emergency services, nor from many other things approved by law and provided by government, so you should not have to opt in to being able to vote. If you have the right to vote, the process should be automatic and making it so would be a great improvement to our democracy.

Finally, I raise the issue of postal voting. It seems legitimate to question whether a reason should be provided for voting by post rather than going to a polling station. Some years ago, I was responsible for a change in postal vote regulations requiring that the signature of the voter accompanying the postal vote matched the signature on the form applying for the postal vote. I hope the Minister might look rather more carefully than the Government have so far at seeking to amend the declaration to be signed by the voter.

In my view, the declaration should state that: the ballot paper has been completed only by the person entitled to complete it; that that has been done, together with the sealing of the ballot paper in the envelope provided, in conditions of privacy; that the envelope is being returned directly by that person to a post box, the electoral registration officer or returning officer, or a polling station on polling day; that exceptions to those principles should be made only for people who require assistance from someone such as a carer or as is necessary on grounds of disability; and that, in any event, no candidate or representative of a candidate should be involved in the process of returning ballot papers.