Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Grand Committee

We have discovered in this Committee that there is an effective international framework through the GPA, so I encourage the Minister to go away and consider whether we can slim down the Bill, which I think is the logic of my noble friend Lord Moylan’s creative amendment. In any event, perhaps I can say that I would find it useful if we could see what is old, what comes from EU law, what is new and why. I am open to persuasion that all is well, but I have my concerns, which I have articulated today.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I have listened with great interest to this debate and seen the tension between those who want what they call a flexible and open framework and those who want a more principles-based framework with an understanding of what public procurement is about. We have to be clear that the public procurement is not just about the monetary bottom line; it is about ensuring that social good comes from every pound that the public sector spends. It is not just about ensuring that value for money is the bottom line—the pounds and pence; it is about the environment, the local economy and trying to ensure that people have opportunity, and ladders of opportunity are sown in communities so that people can grow.

I have worked as a public sector employee, I have worked in the private sector on procurement, I procured in the public sector as a health service manager and, like others here, I have been a politician who set the framework for public procurement, particularly when I was the leader of Sheffield City Council. I think that, sometimes when we speak, we are divorced from reality. Most suppliers use a legal challenge not on the process but on the criteria and how those criteria have been judged for the award of a particular contract. I cannot think of any time in my life when I have been involved in procurement that a legal challenge has been brought against an organisation that I either worked for or have been a senior politician in where the criteria have not been the particular legal point on which a supplier challenges; it is not normally the process.

Interestingly, the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, gave many examples of why suppliers might not be able to do anything. Nothing in the Bill would stop that; in fact, the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, has an amendment in a future group that talks about having a more of an outcome approach to procurement, which would allow innovation. It would allow that innovation to be seen as something that it brought into the tendering process right at the beginning by going out to talk to suppliers about what outcomes were required, as the noble Lord suggests. So we have to be careful about how we frame this discussion and about saying that being less clear about principles and what is required will somehow stop legal challenge.

I would argue the other way: if there is no definition in the Bill of such things as value for money, that is a charter for lawyers to start saying, when a contract has been awarded, “What did you mean by value for money?” If over 400 different procurement authorities have a different view of value for money, and I am a supplier looking for a contract in 100 of them and everybody is giving a different definition, then legally there may be more challenges to come. There have to be clear definitions in the Bill of certain aspects, such as what we mean by value for money—or, interestingly, social value. Again, if there is no national definition of that, it is a lawyers’ charter.

The tension between what is in the Bill and having more flexibility has to be thought through. It comes down to what a number of noble Lords have said, namely that this Bill is very confused. It is complex and contradictory. It has not been thought through, particularly the elements which need to be clearly defined so that it does not become a lawyers’ charter. I ask the Minister, in replying, to say what we actually mean by social value. Once this Bill has passed, if I was a supplier, how would I know what value for money was? Will value for money be defined for every contracting authority and understood by every supplier? Or will it be open to local interpretation to determine what social value is? The Bill is contradictory and has some holes, but we should be very careful of saying that being more flexible stops lawyers challenging. Sometimes not having things in the Bill means that lawyers will challenge more.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken. Lest anybody be alarmed by the coughing I have inflicted on the Committee and my not very brilliant voice, I should say that I tested several times over the weekend and this morning for Covid and the results have been negative.

It has been a very interesting debate. I have listened to it very carefully, including the many contradictions within it, which were summed up ably by the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. There are differences of opinion. Indeed, one challenge was laid down at the beginning by my noble friend Lord Moylan and spoken to eloquently at the end by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe. Of course, we know the other extreme is the intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, who wished to use the Bill for very extensive potential government intervention.

All of us in this House and in public service care passionately about the principles in which we believe. Those principles differ and that is the nature of the change that can be made when Governments change. The question this Committee is wrestling with, and will I am sure continue to wrestle with through to Report, is the extent to which one encrusts the Bill with the total sum of all the hopes of those contributing to Committee, with some of the attendant risks that have been referred to in relation to litigation; or, at the other extreme, the extent to which one strips it down and concentrates on simplicity. There is an inherent tension, which is expressing itself in a very interesting and informative debate. I can assure noble Lords that, as we go forward, the Government will be listening carefully to both sides of it.

It started with Amendment 37 to Clause 10 and Amendment 460 to Clause 89, tabled by my noble friends Lady Neville-Rolfe and Lord Moylan. These seek to limit the scope of remedies for breach of statutory duty under Part 9 to compliance with only the procurement objectives in Clause 11.

A supplier’s ability to properly hold a contracting authority to account is essential for a well-functioning and fair procurement system and helps to ensure that contracting authorities comply with specific requirements under the Bill. Our submission, in presenting this legislation, is that, without such obligations to comply with the detailed provisions of the Bill, many of the important things that it seeks to deliver would fall away. For example, some of the transparency obligations in the Bill are intended to ensure early publication of information in order to support small businesses. If these cannot be enforced, we risk losing that important support mechanism.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Would the Minister give way? That is one definition of local growth: that it has to be a local company that gets the business. Local growth is completely different: it could be subcontracting or the value sustainability that it puts into the economy, which gets to the nub of the problem. Without having clear definitions, we get these kinds of differences. Would the noble Lord agree that his definition of local growth is predicated on who gets the supplier contract but, actually, local growth could be much broader?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I will look carefully at what I have said and what the noble Lord has said. I think I said—and will repeat if I have not said it already—that it is important to have some flexibility, particularly at the lower end of contract letting, precisely to give local authorities and others the freedom of judgment for which the noble Lord asks. The more one codifies these aspects in statute, and tightens the definition, the greater the risk—this is something we have wrestled with in Committee—that one limits the flexibility that the noble Lord seeks for local action.

A formal regulatory evaluation of whether each public contract delivered “social value” and “local economic growth” could also be an unnecessary burden on contracting authorities. I repeat my view that local contract management should be able to judge the effectiveness of all aspects of the contract. The Bill makes provision for the publication of information on the performance of large contracts—currently, those valued at over £2 million—which we consider a reasonable and balanced approach.

The Government do not support the use of a debarment list for any purpose other than to designate suppliers that meet a ground for exclusion and have failed to address their risk. Debarment is a last resort to be used when a supplier poses a significant risk to contracting authorities or the public, following criminal or other serious misconduct. We do not consider it appropriate that failure to meet characteristics such as social value should form the basis of such a punitive sanction.

Amendment 46, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who spoke with, as always, great passion and authority on these subjects, seeks to insert an additional principle on automated decision-making and responsible and ethical use of data when carrying out a procurement. The new data platform will deliver enhanced centralised data on UK public contracts and spending. All data that is published will be freely accessible through the central digital platform. This is in support of the objective set out in Clause 11(1)(c), which expects contracting authorities to have regard to the importance of

“sharing information for the purpose of allowing suppliers and others to understand the authority’s procurement policies and decisions”.

The data displayed in the platform pertains to the public sector’s commercial activity, including tender opportunities, contract awards, spending and so on. The UK’s historic commitments to data protection standards and public trust in personal data use will continue to be at the heart of the regime. The proposals build on the fundamental principles of the UK GDPR, and these will continue to underpin the trustworthy use of data to support our central digital platform.

The noble Lord asked why one would be reluctant to legislate for the ethical use of data and automated decision-making. We are not legislating for specific rules for certain sectors but instead setting the legislative framework for public sector procurement. In the same way that we are not legislating for the standards for construction projects, we are also not legislating for the standards for data projects. The Government already issue extensive guidance––the noble Lord referred to some of it—on best practice where appropriate, and contracting authorities should have that in mind when purchasing AI or data products and services.

The Government are resisting this amendment, as policies are still evolving at government level on ethical use of automated decision-making and data. This is a fast-changing world—as the noble Lord knows better than most—so legislating in the Bill could be a premature fix, as it were. I have already referred to the existing guidelines on responsible use of AI procurement for public sector organisations on how to use data appropriately. These evolving policies should be applied by contracting authorities as appropriate. That said, we are open to more engagement on this topic, and I have listened again very carefully to the points that the noble Lord makes. I can give an undertaking to him, as I did earlier to others, that we will engage with him between now and Report, because he is right that this is an important area. We are just cautious about seeking to fix specific things in legislation at the moment.

My noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering is, regrettably, unable to be here, for reasons referred to earlier in this Committee debate—and I confess I had nothing to do with that. Her amendments are around the subject of acting with integrity and being seen to act with integrity, which my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe also referred to. The integrity objective will oblige contracting authorities to consider how best to prevent fraud and corruption through good management, prevention of misconduct, and control. As well as oversight and control, open competition and the strengthened transparency requirements in the Bill will enhance integrity in public procurement.

It is essential that the procurement regime in the UK commands the trust of suppliers, the public and our international trading partners. While it is important that contracting authorities actually act with integrity—and that is a fundamental point—the objective is drafted as it is due to the importance that those observing procurements can see that contracting authorities are acting with integrity. We will, however, reflect on my absent noble friend’s amendment and the points made in debate, including the direct question that my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe asked me, to which I do not have an answer as I stand here, about precedents in legislation—clearly, her question will be in Hansard and requires an answer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise not solely to demonstrate that there is broad ideological support for small and medium-sized enterprises being given a larger share of the kind of procurement that we are talking about; I do so also because I have attached my name to Amendment 75B in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Thornton and Lady Hayman.

I am going to attempt not to repeat everything that has been said but I want to pick up something said by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. No one else has drawn attention to the fact that the previous group and this one are related. They have aspects acknowledging that SMEs bring different qualities—particularly quality. The noble Lord suggested that, if we do not put in specific provisions about SMEs, it is inevitable that the big companies will dominate. I say that if we do not put in provisions about social value and quality of services—as the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, said, that is delivered under the Public Services (Social Value) Act—and do not account for those things, it will possibly be even more telling against SMEs than the rules and the points addressed by the amendments.

I am not particularly picking on the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, here as I was going to say this before he spoke, but I have seen from all sides of the Committee a huge focus on productivity improvement and innovation, but we need to be careful about that terminology. Again, this point comes back to the previous group: a lot of what we are talking about here is the provision of care and the caring services, the type of provision that really does not lend itself to the same kind of measurement as how productively you are producing widgets. If a nurse is caring for a dying person, maybe it would be more “productive” if they were caring for two dying people at the same time instead. We really have to ask ourselves about that. I can see some head-shaking happening but a lot of our measures of productivity have been that gross and raw, and have failed to acknowledge issues of quality and service.

We need to acknowledge that there are many elements of our service economy where those measurements would be inappropriate. If you are providing a rape crisis service to people in rape crisis, how do you make that more efficient? What does that actually mean? What does innovation mean in that context? I think we sometimes fall into a narrow, widget-based, economistic way of looking at these issues, and we need to look at them much more broadly.

I am going to finish with something on which I think the noble Baronesses opposite will agree, picking up on the point by the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, about 30-day payment terms. Speaking as someone who many years ago used to work for a small independent business that supplied supermarkets on 120 days, which usually meant 150-day payment terms, I think that is crucial. I say to the Minister, if he is responding to this group, that perhaps this is an issue that we could look at in future in the form of a letter. It is crucial for SMEs that it is acknowledged when 30 days or less being part of the procurement process needs to be written into the contract to enable them to bid. That could be an important factor.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating as well as nearly unanimous debate about the importance of small to medium-sized enterprises and the role they can play in innovating, stimulating, changing and helping local economies grow. Part of that will be—I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett—through productivity. Productivity and quality in themselves are not too separate things; they can go hand in hand in caring services. I speak as a former health service manager. Productivity is not just about how you apply people; it is how you apply all the resources to get better outcomes for those you serve. Therefore, sometimes there are contradictions and it is hard, but they are not always separate.

I would like to speak to a number of amendments in this suite. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, for doing this in a previous life because—I am sure she will understand what I am about to say—every little does help, particularly with small to medium-sized enterprises. A number of the noble Baroness’s amendments are probing for one reason, I think. I am sure that the Minister will come up with specifics in the Bill which will help small to medium-sized enterprises, but I think the general view is that it does not do it. It does not go in depth and give the clarity which I and other noble Lords have said will help to give a level playing field for small to medium-sized enterprises, which is what is required.

In particular, an important amendment spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Lansley, was on capacity building. In my life of working in local economies, I have seen that the big thing that helps is capacity building for small to medium-sized enterprises. If anything should be on the face of the Bill, capacity building for small to medium-sized enterprises and not-for-profits should be, because they can—with help from the public sector in terms of capacity building—achieve quite a lot.

I have seen that in a number of areas including my own area of Sheffield when I was leader. We had something called “Buy for Sheffield”. It was not an issue of giving special treatment to small to medium-sized enterprises; it actually got ahead and gave a lot of capacity building. Through that capacity building and then through their own innovation, they could go to larger organisations and get part of the supply chain on their own volition rather than what normally happens, which is that the large organisations look for small to medium-sized enterprises down the supply chain because it gets them ticks. It actually meant that innovation came. There is something particularly in Amendment 86.

I am not quite sure why the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, chose £5 million because the average turnover of a small to medium-sized enterprise at present is about £756,000. I think because it is a probing amendment there has to be a cut-off point which says that for companies below a certain turnover there should be a special emphasis within this Bill. I hope that the Minister goes away and reflects on what has been said because it does not seem deep enough, and I am sure we will be coming back to this on Report as an important part of the Bill.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes. We have been diametrically opposed on many Bills, but on Amendments 290 and 295 there are elements I would want to see apply to small and medium-sized enterprises. I understand why the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, has done that, but there are some really important issues about the probity and capacity of small to medium-sized enterprises as to whether they get the procurement.

Finally, I want to re-emphasise what my noble friend Lady Brinton said. There is a huge contradiction between having a Bill for public procurement and then saying that, by statutory instrument, the Minister can take away that right for the health and social care provision. I was explaining this over dinner on Saturday to a number of friends who were asking me what I was working on in Parliament at the moment. When you explain the Procurement Bill, people glaze over, but when you explain that there is a provision for £70 billion-worth of their taxes to be excluded at the signing of the Minister’s pen, suddenly they become very excited—the glaze stops.

The Minister tried to explain this to my noble friend Lady Brinton; I was more confused after the explanation than before it. She needs to try harder to explain where the contradictions are and how they will be dealt with as a unified Procurement Bill. On the whole, like most noble Lords, I agree with the thrust of these amendments, but Ministers need to go away between now and Report and think carefully. It is clearly not strong enough to give a level playing field to small to medium-sized enterprises.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank your Lordships for a really interesting debate. A lot of what has been said about support for small and medium-sized enterprises, social enterprises and voluntary organisations is something that the Government also support and, through the Bill, have been trying to support even more. After we finish Committee, we need to meet interested noble Lords and talk more about these issues because they are important to the Committee, as I can tell, but also to the Government. I make no promises, but we should be using all the knowledge in the Committee as we discuss it further.

In that context, I will answer a few questions. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, that I am sorry if I did not quite get to the interface with the Health and Care Bill. I will try to get a bit further but I am afraid I do not think I can go as far as she wants. All public authorities will be covered by the Procurement Bill in relation to health except those that will come under the regulations made under Clause 108. There should therefore be no gap in procurement regulations between the two. On health issues, regarding entities under health procurement, further work is going on at the moment in both departments, and we will come back to the noble Baroness as things move forward.

I turn to the amendments in this group. I note that other non-government amendments have been tabled, some of which address prompt payment and relate to SMEs but are also about social values, which have been quite a big part of this debate. Those will be covered at a later stage so I will not cover them; my noble friend the Minister will do so, some of them probably in the next group.

Amendment 38 would impact Clause 10, Amendments 97 and 100 would impact Clause 18 and Amendments 290 and 295 would impact Clause 54. Each of these amendments has been proposed by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, and I thank her for them. They would enable contracting authorities to exempt businesses, based on their size and turnover, from certain obligations set out in the Bill. Public sector procurers are required to determine the most advantageous offer through fair and open competition, and the Bill sets out that the buyer should contract with the bidder offering the most advantageous tender. We want to focus on getting the best value for the taxpayer by opening competition to all businesses of all sizes.

That is not to say that we are not keen to open public procurement, as I have said, to more SMEs; in fact, quite the opposite. First, we are committed to ensuring that the new procurement regime is simpler, quicker and cheaper for suppliers, which particularly benefits SMEs and social enterprises, ensuring lower barriers for entry to the market. Secondly, bidders will have to submit their core credentials only once to a single platform, making it easier, especially for SMEs, to bid for any public contract. The single transparency platform means that suppliers will be able to seek all opportunities, including a pipeline of future opportunities, in one place.

Thirdly, the Bill will ensure that prompt payment flows down the supply chain, making it more attractive for SMEs to get involved. Fourthly, contracts below the threshold listed in Schedule 1 can be reserved for suppliers based in the UK and/or small suppliers where it is good value for money to do so. Thus, the Bill represents good news for SMEs.

While we share the noble Baroness’s keenness to support SMEs in getting access to public procurements, we cannot do that by simply exempting them from procurement rules altogether, as her amendment to Clause 10 would do.

Amendment 50, also proposed by my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe, would require the procurement objectives in Clause 11 to make explicit the obligation on contracting authorities to have regard to the importance of keeping the burden on SMEs associated with tendering as low as possible. While we support this goal, there are risks in legislating in such stark terms. Contracting authorities must keep an open and fair playing field for all bidders. While we take steps which facilitate access, in particular for SMEs, it would not be wise to encourage the procurement community to believe that some form of active discrimination in favour of SMEs was appropriate.

That said, we have taken significant actions to level the playing field for SMEs without actively discriminating. Some of these I have mentioned, but I add that we have reformed commercial tools, such as frameworks. This will allow longer-term open frameworks, which will be reopened for new suppliers to join at set points, so SMEs are not locked out, and the new concept of dynamic markets—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Does the Minister accept the feeling around the Committee that, while we accept that things are moving forward, they are not strong enough? On the framework issue, one of the provisions in the Bill is that a fee has to be paid every time is contract is let. That does not help. Once you get into the detail, there are barriers to the progression of SMEs. What we are not asking for is a system which supports only SMEs; we are asking for a more risk-based assessment, based on what the risk is of the procurement amount, to release some of the normal procedures and bureaucracy that is required to give them a view. One of the issues that the Minister can perhaps look at between now and Report is a more risk-based approach to public sector procurement rather than a one-size-fits-all which, on the whole, the Bill still is.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I agree with a lot of that and I think it is something that we will discuss further. I thank the noble Lord for his ideas.

This will allow a longer-term open framework which will be reopened for new suppliers to join at set points, so SMEs are not locked out, and the new concept of dynamic markets which, like the current dynamic purchasing system, will remain always open to new suppliers. All these will provide greater opportunity for SMEs to join and win work.

Amendment 75B, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, would insert a clause into the Bill on market stewardship, meaning contracting authorities must consider the impact of procurement on small and medium-sized businesses, social enterprises and voluntary organisations. They would also need to consider how to improve the diversity of their supply chains including, but not limited to, these organisations.

I have previously touched on how the Bill benefits SMEs and would also like to highlight Clauses 32 and 33 to your Lordships, which enable contracting authorities to reserve certain contracts to supported employment providers and public service mutuals. We indeed recognise the importance of diverse supply chains and the benefits to the delivery of public services, and that is why in Clause 63 we require that 30-day payment terms will apply throughout the public sector supply chain, regardless of whether they are written into the contract, ensuring SMEs and other organisations receive prompt payments and the increased liquidity they bring.

Amendment 86, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lansley, would make explicit obligations on contracting authorities to consider small and medium-sized enterprises in preliminary market engagement. Contracting authorities are able, under the new legislation, to design their preliminary market engagement in a way which gives consideration to SMEs, but too many obligations on contracting authorities will discourage them conducting this engagement. I therefore suggest this amendment is not needed.

My noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe’s Amendment 534 proposes a new clause that seeks to make legislation obliging a Minister of the Crown to carry out regular reviews to consider the Act’s performance in relation to the award of contracts to SMEs. I draw to noble Lords’ attention that the Government do capture SME spend data for those SMEs contracting either directly or in government supply chains.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 4th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it has been an interesting and important debate, which we will reflect on as we go forward in the normal way between Committee and Report. I was asked a couple of definitional questions again, including: what is a public undertaking? Clause 1(2) defines a public undertaking as

“an undertaking that is not a public authority but … is funded wholly or mainly from public funds, or … is subject to contracting authority oversight.”

Public undertakings differ from bodies that are also funded wholly or mainly from public funds, or are subject to public authority oversight but which are considered to be public authorities, in that public undertakings do not have functions of a public nature, which means their activities may be more economic and commercial in nature—these are some of the things we have been discussing. For example, although it is no longer a public undertaking, before the Government sold their share in 2015, Eurostar International was a public undertaking. I am sure that people will examine that definition in Hansard. I will come on to some other points shortly.

On the question of what a private utility is, utilities are public sector bodies—public authorities or public undertakings—that carry out utility activities, or certain private organisations carrying out utility activities, which are the private utilities. The Bill covers private utilities only where they have been granted a “special or exclusive right” to carry out a utility activity. Rights are “special or exclusive” where they have been granted by a statutory, regulatory or administrative provision, and the granting of that right in itself substantially limits other utilities from carrying out those activities—it is a competition issue. This effectively puts them in a position of a natural monopoly and therefore they could, however unlikely it may be, engage, for example, in preferential treatment that favours their own affiliates or strategic partners and discriminates against other suppliers bidding for contracts, which could negatively impact the market and customers. That would not be good for the industry or consumers.

Furthermore, though I listened with great interest to what the noble Baroness opposite said in relation to international agreements, the UK is required by various international agreements to ensure that private utilities do not discriminate against foreign suppliers with rights under international trade agreements, known in the Bill as “treaty state suppliers”, and that they adhere to the rules we have agreed for utilities procurements. This is why the Bill regulates private utilities but only to the extent required by those international agreements and where we consider it appropriate or necessary to make the regime work.

There has been a lot of debate in relation to the extent of coverage; I will come on to that. A philosophical question was posed by the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, and the noble Lord, Lord Fox: what is in and what is out? I am sure that we will debate and discuss this in our engagement as the Bill goes forward. There was a slight difference of opinion. Behind me, I have been hearing, “Everybody out”, whereas, on the other side, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, seemed at one time to stray towards a definition of private delivery of public service. That sounds like the kind of concept that might have led Mr Benn or Mr Corbyn to say, “Let’s have them all in. They provide food, the banks and all these things”. I do not think that one would want to go that far but obviously there is a question of how far; indeed, my noble friends behind me have posed the question of “if at all”.

I was alarmed by what my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, with her immense experience both in the public sector in Europe and in business. She said that, as it is drafted, she would find the Bill a deterrent to applying for public business. That is certainly not what the Government intend at all.

I will come back to the question of coverage shortly but we have included a number of measures that will reduce the regulatory burden for private utilities. For example, the Bill contains a number of provisions unique for all types of utilities, such as the higher financial thresholds and the utilities dynamic markets, which are available only to utilities. In framework agreements, public utilities can let closed frameworks for up to eight years and there is no maximum term for frameworks entered into by private utilities. In addition, with contract amendments, there is no 50% financial cap on the value of permitted modifications.

Obviously, the Bill seeks to reduce the regulatory burden on private utilities in terms of transparency. The transparency requirements for private utilities are the minimum required by international agreements—that is, the tender notice, the transparency notice in cases of direct award and the award notice. Regarding mandatory and discretionary exclusions, the Bill retains the flexibility under the current regime where the application of mandatory exclusions is discretionary for a private utility. Private utilities are not restricted in the duration of closed frameworks, which is generally four years for non-utilities. The terms of any closed framework are their commercial decision. Private utilities will also not be subject to oversight by the procurement review unit, which we will come to discuss later in the Bill.

I was asked about broadband and drainage. I am not sure that I have an answer on drainage except to say that I always evoke the great spirit of Bazalgette. Schedule 4 sets out that the Bill covers utilities operating in the water, energy and transport sectors that are regulated in our international trade agreements to minimise the burdens on utilities. Broadband is not covered by those trade agreements so we have not chosen to regulate public or private utilities in that area.

In relation to that, I was asked about private bus companies and Transport for London. Private utilities that run transport services, such as private bus companies, are regulated as they operate services where they have special or exclusive rights to do so. That limits competition and is reflected in international trade agreements; for example, the World Trade Organization government procurement agreement specifically lists Transport for London as being covered by that agreement. The Bill exempts it under paragraph 17 of Schedule 2 as it will be regulated by Department for Transport regulations.

The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, asked about the reasons for excluding certain utilities. I will turn to his amendments now. Schedule 4(8) includes certain utility sectors that are exempt from the regulations. As they have proved to the European Commission, they are exposed to competitive forces. Schedule 4(8) provides an exemption determination for those decisions. If other sectors can do similarly, we will be able to exempt them from procurement regulations.

Regarding the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, Schedule 4 sets out the scope of utilities activities, largely mirroring the coverage of the existing regime domestically. I repeat: this reflects our commitments in trade agreements such as the WTO’s GPA. Amendment 25 would extend the exclusion for the supply of gas and heat produced as a consequence of carrying out a non-utility activity to all contracting authorities where this is currently available only to private utilities and public undertakings. This would breach our commitments in the WTO government procurement agreement and other international agreements where this exemption applies only to private utilities and public undertakings. It does not apply to contracting authorities that are public authorities.

Amendments 26 and 27 seek to remove from the scope of the Bill utility contracts related to public transport services and contracts associated with activities for the provision of airports and ports, as was discussed by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and my noble friend Lord Moylan. Both activities are covered under the existing regime, and are required by our international commitments under the WTO GPA and other international agreements that require access to utility contracts in the transport, ports and airports sectors. The Bill therefore regulates these utility activities to comply with our international obligations.

As my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe said, the Bill provides for a mechanism in Schedule 4(7); this was alluded to in a different context by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. This will be developed to permit an appropriate authority to exempt utilities operating in these sectors where they are exposed to competition. This would apply to all utilities and is permissible under our international obligations.

I will reflect carefully on—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Can the Minister clarify what an appropriate authority is? Who are the appropriate authorities and what is the process for that appropriate authority to amend the private utilities provision?

[Lord True (Con)]

I was asked that at Second Reading. An appropriate authority is a Minister of the Crown or a Welsh Minister. Indeed, the noble Lord’s colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, referred to this when we discussed the earlier group of amendments. We clarified it in some of the amendments that we tabled but were not brought forward earlier. Among them was an amendment to replace “appropriate authority”, although I cannot remember with what exact words—a Minister of the Crown or a Welsh Minister, I think.

--- Later in debate ---

which essentially has no scrutiny at all. It has the Secretary of State, who may or may not choose to scrutinise it. Within those powers, ARIA can buy property for example. It can buy things—anything it likes, effectively—with essentially no public scrutiny. We are dealing with a Procurement Bill, and to deliberately put in place an organisation that can spend hundreds of millions of pounds—if, as I say, it ever manages to find a top team and get itself in order—with no scrutiny whatever is remiss. It would be remiss of your Lordships on this Committee not to consider this and it would be remiss of the Minister not to respond directly as to why there should not be some form of scrutiny. It could be the same sort of scrutiny that the Security Service enjoys or something different, but simply relying on the Secretary of State, as currently, is not good enough.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak on this set of amendments, particularly Amendment 42. It is the first time that I have been able to speak on the Bill. I was not able to participate in Second Reading, but I have followed the debate and, like many noble Lords, spent the weekend probably losing a little hair trying to make sense of the number of amendments that have come out. I thank the Minister for the withdrawal of Amendment 1 and for looking to find a way forward with some of the issues that those amendments made.

Particularly with Amendment 42, I raise my interests in the register, particularly as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as an adviser to the Robertson group of organisations, which does work with the public sector. Amendment 42 is genuinely probing. It addresses what is in, what is out and what is the autonomy and the role of local authorities within the Bill. In particular, when a local authority works with others, how do some of the provisions within the Bill work—whether it is a central purchasing authority or not—particularly when they overlap with other procurement legislation in, for example, the Health and Care Act?

I shall put a couple of scenarios to the Minister and genuinely look forward to hearing some of his replies. First, local authorities are being asked to significantly integrate social care and health. They will be part of integrated care boards, which are purchasing organisations. Some public sector money from local authorities will come forward as part of that. When they are purchasing as an integrated care board and significant amounts of local authority money is put in there, which provisions will the local authority be asked to enact? Will it be the provisions within this Bill or the provisions under Sections 79 and 81 of the recently enacted Health and Care Act? There will be potential conflicts of interest as to by which procurement rules two different partners procuring a public good will be bound. I hope the Minister can help to explain that scenario.

There are also lots of local authorities that have significant public-private partnerships. Again, what rules will the public-private partnership be bound by, particularly when the local authority purchases significant services or goods with a private sector organisation which are to be used for public procurement? How will the private sector organisation be bound by that? For example, what rules will there be for that public-private partnership when purchasing a good, depending on whether the 51% amount has been put forward by the public sector—the local authority—or by the private sector entity?

I understand from reading the Bill that there will be the national procurement policy statement. I just need to understand from the Minister what autonomy local authorities will have to move away from the procurement guidelines that will be in the NPPS.

Finally, it would be helpful if local authorities could be put in the Bill as centralised procurement authorities. Is there any particular reason why the Government did not take that on board in the Bill?

There are many general questions about local authorities; those are a number that I wish to probe. I genuinely look forward to the Minister’s answers.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the question of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, about local authorities. They are so often underappreciated and undervalued, and we need to know what can and cannot be done in a collective way—the question he is rightly probing. For example, a simple question would be: for planning services—where my committee has identified a huge shortage of talent and resources in some planning authorities—could you have a collective procurement, and would that be caught by this Bill?

I also ask what the GPA does on telecoms and the internet infrastructure. I must say that I tried in vain, as a Minister, to get contracts for the roll-out of infrastructure around Washington DC—there was not a level playing field. I fear that overseas interests will benefit preferentially from this Bill, as they have done in some other areas, such as contracts for difference in energy. Can the Bill help to hold the GPA to level the playing field?

I strongly support my noble friend Lady Noakes, both on her brilliant technical points, which I barely understand, and on ARIA. On the latter, I agree with her that it must be free from hassle—I think we agreed that in our debates in this House. It probably does not have enough money, but it is important to ensure that it can proceed without the benefit of lots of new regulations, which could be quite bureaucratic to them.

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord True, has made two sets of powerful arguments about the right to vote. First, he made a series of powerful arguments in favour of photo identification as a right to vote and, just now, he talked about the rights and responsibilities of citizens with respect to prisoners’ right to vote. Would an acceptance of this amendment not represent some consistency, and a rejection of this amendment represent some very clear inconsistency in the following sense? What would the Minister do about a situation where someone turns up at a polling station with a British passport and a British driving licence on which their address is registered, and they are then refused the right to vote? They will have complied with everything the Minister argued for in the discussion of identification, but they will be denied the right to vote because of a variety of complexities that still bedevil our registration system.

Surely it is appropriate that there are democracies—Norway, Australia—in which a presence on the register and the right to vote are automatic and ensured by modern data systems that can easily do the job. Surely, if he has a degree of consistency in his arguments about this Bill, the Minister will support these amendments.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, throughout Committee I have kept coming back to the impact assessment. Right there on the front page of the impact assessment it says:

“What are the policy objectives of the action or intervention and the intended effects?”


It is:

“To ensure that those who are entitled to vote should always”—


always—

“be able to exercise that right freely, effectively and in an informed way”.

That is the intended consequence, the stated intention of the Bill before us: that those who are entitled to vote

“should always be able to exercise that right”.

People cannot exercise that right if they are not on the electoral roll. It is an absolute condition of always being able to exercise that right.

The amendments before us are absolutely bang on the money, in terms of what the intended policy of the Bill is in the impact assessment. As citizens of this country, we are all given automatic rights and responsibilities. Through that, we get certain certificates or automated numbers. We get our national insurance number automatically. We do not have to apply; it is automatically granted to us at 16. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, we are registered for taxation automatically. We get our NHS number automatically. If noble Lords asked the vast majority of the public if they would object to being automatically registered, I have seen no evidence that says people would reject that proposition. Whether people then go to vote is down to the politicians to encourage them, enthuse them and get them to the polling station.

The very fact that the Government’s policy is to “always” ensure that people are able to exercise their vote in an automatic, easy and effective way means that these amendments should be accepted by the Government. If they are not, I would ask the Minister to explain why not having automatic registration, and keeping what is on the face of the Bill, would actually meet their objective to

“ensure that all those who are entitled to vote should always be able”

to do so.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, in speaking to my Amendment 144B, I would like first to take the opportunity to thank the Patchwork Foundation for its very helpful briefings on this matter. I will be brief because we have already heard that the current system of voter registration really is not working to the benefit of many people, and that voter registration rates are disproportionately low among young people and some minority groups.

There is confusion among eligible voters about how and when to register. The University of East Anglia carried out a survey in 2016 which found that two-thirds of electoral registration officers reported that citizens had complained to them about the voter registration process being bureaucratic, and that this had discouraged them from registering. Surveys of poll workers have also found that the most common problem that they encounter is citizens asking to vote when they are missing from the electoral register. Furthermore, a poll conducted by YouGov before the 2019 general election found that 16% of respondents believed that they were automatically registered to vote if they paid their council tax, and 17% believed that they were automatically registered when they turned 18. There is a lot of confusion and we belief that AVR will go a significant way in tackling the disparities and the inefficiency of the current system. It would diminish the impact of cyclical registration patterns, which can put so much pressure on voting infrastructure and the officials who are running and managing it. It would also go some way in bridging the current gaps in registration across various ethnic and social economic groups, as other noble Lords have said.

The UK is one of the few liberal democracies that does not already have some sort of system of AVR in place. Of 40 liberal democracies assessed by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and the University of East Anglia, the UK came out as one of just six countries that does not have a system of either automatic or assisted voter registration. Where it is in existence, it has proved very effective at encouraging first-time voters to vote. By contrast, the UK is witnessing a fall in the number of young people registering to vote.

We have had quite a discussion on this, and I will finish by saying that this is terribly simple and straightforward. As other noble Lords have said, people are already written to ahead of their 16th birthday with their national insurance number. If we can do that, why can we not at the same time have an automatic registration to vote? We have the means to do it, so why do we not just get on with it?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments both seek to improve and expedite means of voting for British citizens living overseas. My noble friend mentioned Estonia and although Estonia has e-voting, it still uses paper ballots and less than half of Estonian voters use the e-voting system, which relies on the national ID card as a credential to vote. The blockchain technology which supports its system, although advanced in security, is not foolproof and hackers are becoming more and more sophisticated.

That leads me to Amendments 144 and 209, which would require the Government to conduct research on electronic voting and technological solutions to increase the security of the electoral register. I fully understand that electronic voting and further technological solutions supporting our processes may sound attractive in the light of ongoing digital advances. However, all electronic changes are large-scale programmes and we are currently not persuaded of the need for them and are wary of the risks that they may usher. In particular, electronic voting is a double-edged sword.

The selection of elected representatives for Parliament and other public offices is regarded as requiring the highest possible level of integrity, and the introduction of electronic voting would raise a number of issues. We know that electronic voting is not seen to be suitably rigorous and secure and could be vulnerable to attack or fraud by unscrupulous hackers and hostile foreign states.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

If that is the case, can the noble Baroness then say why we are allowed to register to vote electronically and why the Government encourage us to do that?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Security is not as necessary for that as it would be for voting.

Amendment 150 from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, would require the Government to ask the Electoral Commission to make proposals on how to facilitate the participation of overseas electors in parliamentary and local government elections while maintaining the security of the election process. I highlight the fact that British citizens resident abroad who are registered as overseas electors are not currently permitted to vote in local elections, though they may participate in parliamentary elections. Overseas electors are, by definition, more likely to be directly affected by decisions made in the UK Parliament than by decisions made by local government. For example, decisions on foreign policy, defence, immigration, or pensions may have a direct impact on British citizens abroad. The Government have no intention to change the franchise for local elections in this way.

In a similar vein, Amendment 151, tabled by the noble Baroness, would require the Government to consult on the possibility of introducing digital ballots for overseas electors within six months of the Bill passing. Ballot papers are printed on specific papers with security markings on them as a measure to prevent fraud. This cannot be replicated when printing on home printers and it would raise concerns as to the secrecy and security of the ballot if such measures were removed. Furthermore, the votes of overseas electors could then be easily distinguishable at a count if, for example, they were printed on different paper. That cannot be appropriate. As such, the Government cannot support the introduction of a “print and return” system for ballot papers.

On a wider interpretation of “digital ballots”, the Government hold the position that, at present, there are concerns that electronic voting by any means is not suitably rigorous and secure and could be vulnerable to attack or fraud. Due to these concerns, the Government could not support any alternative online voting option for overseas electors. This consultation, therefore, would be a poor use of time and resources.

The provisions in the Bill will enable overseas electors to remain registered for longer with an absent vote arrangement in place ahead of elections. The registration period for overseas electors will be extended from one year to three years. Additionally, electors will be able to reapply or refresh their absent vote arrangements as appropriate at the same time as renewing their registration. We are also introducing an online absent vote application service allowing electors registered in Great Britain, including overseas electors, to apply for a postal or proxy vote online. It is anticipated that an online service will alleviate some of the pre-existing challenges for electors and electoral administrators, by reducing the need to rely on manual processes. In addition to benefiting citizens, these changes will benefit electoral administrators by reducing workloads during busy electoral periods.

Additionally, the Government have already improved the postal voting process for overseas electors registered in Great Britain by working with Royal Mail and the British Forces Post Office to expedite dispatch abroad and funding the use of the international business response licence which expedites the return of ballot packs from overseas in a large number of countries, as well as covering any postage costs that might otherwise be incurred.

In summary, the Government have already taken steps to improve voting methods for overseas electors, without risking the integrity of the ballot, and will not consider these amendments. I urge that the amendment is withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have tabled my Amendments 146 and 147 mainly to probe what kind of checks and balances are taking place for who can register for a vote as an overseas elector. This is because our main concern about the overseas elector section of the Bill is that it could undermine the integrity of our electoral process if not done well. I have mentioned in previous debates concerns raised by local government and others about the pressures on our councils and election teams, which are already overworked and underresourced. These changes to who can register as an overseas elector will in some areas greatly add to the pressures and workload, so they will need support in making sure that everyone who applies is a proper person to be on the register.

I also draw attention to the fact that we are very worried that the proposed changes could create a loophole in donation law that would allow donors unlimited access to our democracy—in other words, foreign money to be able to bankroll election campaigns from potential offshore tax havens. I will not go into any detail now, because we are going to debate this in some detail on Monday.

Whether we agree with removing the 15-year limit or not, it does not seem right to me that expats will be granted more flexibility in registering a right to vote than some people living in this country. My noble friend Lord Collins will talk about this in the next debate.

I want to briefly talk to my Amendment 148. The issue of sanctions is pertinent at the moment, given Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has led to new legislation and designations of Russian individuals and businesses. This has shone a light on the complexities of sanctions legislation and the importance of the entire statute book complying with such declarations. The purpose of this amendment is to highlight that election law must too be implemented in accordance with any sanctions legislation. There is clear evidence that Putin’s regime has sought to undermine democracies around the world, and it is entirely possible that, in the future, it may seek to do the same in relation to the UK. For this reason, public bodies in the UK that organise and facilitate elections must work closely with the bodies responsible for maintaining our compliance with sanctions. Ultimately, this means ensuring that sanctioned individuals play no role in elections. But given the complexities of holding elections, this is easier said than done. That is why we have tabled this amendment—in the hope that the Minister is able to explain how the Government can help to ensure that elections are held with consideration of sanctions legislation, to prevent foreign interference from hostile actors. I beg to move.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to the two amendments in my name, Amendments 147A and 147B. They are meant to be helpful, in the same way that the amendments I put down on postal voting numbers and handing them back at city halls or town halls were meant to be helpful—helpful in the sense that they come from briefings from and discussions with those who administer the elections. What those people are saying is that they welcome the move from annual to three-yearly registrations for overseas voters, but that the new three-year period might not help with the administrative burden because general elections can be five years apart. Therefore, people registering late and not every three years, as the tendency is, will mean that the problem from the impact assessment that the Government are trying to solve—about late registrations posing

“challenges for persons who choose to vote by postal ballot and live further away from the UK”

in getting their vote back—may not be solved by what the Government are doing.

I seek clarification from the Government. What advice has come back from the discussions they have had with electoral registration officers? Do they feel it would solve the problem to move to the three-year gap or that, in their view, a five-year period for re-registration would help to deal with the problem that the Government identify in their own impact assessment?

--- Later in debate ---

I assure the noble Lord that the approach taken by the Government to extend the registration period for overseas electors to three years from 12 months currently was developed closely with electoral administrators. It was felt by them that a three-year registration period reflects the fact that overseas electors can vote only in UK parliamentary elections, which typically happen every four years or so.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The five-year period in my amendment comes from a briefing from Solace. Could I suggest that further discussion takes place to see whether something has happened since the original discussion?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I shall certainly ask the team to go back and check. I do not know whether it was Solace or another group that has been working with the policy team on this. We will check that out for the noble Lord and see why there is a difference.

Furthermore, the Bill carefully balances the need to ensure that registers are kept accurate and that overseas electors’ contact details are up to date, which is particularly important to ensure that they receive a postal ballot. I hope the noble Lord will consider these points and not press his amendments

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Wednesday 23rd March 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Scriven]

121A: After Clause 9, in subsection (2)(a)(i) leave out “or the relevant area”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I am a little perplexed and confused. Many noble Lords will ask how that is different from my normal state, but the reason I am confused is this. I am looking at this from the perspective of a potential voter at a parliamentary election. Many noble Lords will probably argue later in Committee that the link between the MP and the constituency, particularly for voting, is strong and must be maintained. Most people, when they vote, look at the link of the candidates to the constituency they are standing in, not necessarily the local authority area, as those can be very big.

Let me give an example. In my home city of Sheffield, there are five and a half constituencies: the half is because one half of the constituency is in Barnsley and the other half is in Sheffield. Sheffield is quite large: it is 367.9 kilometres squared. If you live in the north of Sheffield, it is highly unlikely that you have a link with the south-west of Sheffield. You would not go shopping there; you probably do not work there; you probably do not go to the parks there. People living in south-west Sheffield probably do not have a link with the north of Sheffield. There are many constituencies across the country like that. Therefore, just having the name of a local authority does not necessarily mean that the candidate has a link with the constituency. I agree with the Minister on the importance of the security of candidates, but that has to be balanced with the need for information for the potential constituents and voters to be able to ascertain how local the candidate is and what link they have with a particular constituency.

There are 650 constituencies in the UK and 398 councils, as laid down in the Government’s amendment. That means that there are 252 more constituencies than councils. I am not going to become a geek and tell you what the square kilometres of those are, but the number is quite large. When the Minister responds, will he say whether there has been any evaluation done about the exact amount of extra security and safety that will be afforded to candidates if we move from constituency to council area? That is key. If not, we potentially lose the link between the candidates and the constituency in which they are standing. That is the main reason for my amendments, and I look forward to the Minister’s reply, particularly his answer to that question about what evaluation has been done and what level of extra safety and security will be afforded if the Government’s amendment is implemented. I beg to move.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, government Amendment 121 relates to election candidates and the location which they state on their ballot paper and elsewhere. We on these Benches fully agree with the Minister’s comments about concerns held by Members of the other place. At present, there are two options available to candidates: they may state either their full address or the name of their constituency. Police forces and other authorities have often advised candidates that the first option can be unwise. Elected politicians and candidates are often subject to extensive abuse, so making their full address publicly available can increase the risk that such abuse will lead to violence or intimidation. For this reason, it is often appropriate for candidates to select the second option and instead list their constituency.

At times, this can be problematic, because the names of constituencies often do not accurately describe or reflect their location. It therefore makes sense that a candidate may instead list their local authority, but I am concerned by a few unintended consequences. In particular, there is a possibility that candidates will use this option to mask the fact that they live far away from the constituency. Many rural local authorities such as Cornwall, Shropshire and Northumberland are well above 1,000 square miles, a point which the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, made in relation to Sheffield.

In these examples, a candidate may now list their local authority to obscure the fact that they live close to two hours away. Does the Minister accept that this amendment might have the unintended consequence of hindering transparency? In addition to this, I am concerned that some local authorities may not accurately describe their locations. Will the Minister consider expanding this to include local authority wards? I look forward to hearing his response and thoughts on these points.

[Lord True (Con)]

I am grateful to those who have spoken, and I will think about the last point made by the noble Lord, Lord Khan. This is a balanced proposal which has come from concerns from Members in another place; we all know of recent sad events. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, says about people seeking to pass off where they live. This is a democracy, and I have been in politics for quite a long time, and if someone does not live very close to their ward or constituency, a leaflet comes pretty fast through the door—usually from the Liberal Democrats—with lots of big arrows over it, claiming, not always correctly, that they live somewhere on Mars. I think that democratic challenge would offer a control. The Government hope that there would not be unintended consequences.

We are suggesting a further option and, as the noble Lord, Lord Khan, said, sometimes the local authority’s name is closer to people’s understanding than the name of the constituency. While I understand what the noble Lords are saying, one would not want this to be abused in any way to deceive electors. I point out to your Lordships that it is an option already available to candidates at local and mayoral elections, so we consider it appropriate to extend the option to candidates at parliamentary elections. Although I listened carefully to what was said by both noble Lords, the Government believe on balance that this is an appropriate move to make in present circumstances, and in light of this I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, will withdraw his amendment and the House will be able to support this very small change, which brings parliamentary elections into line with local and mayoral elections.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that response. I am now perplexed but not confused, so at least he has helped with the confusion. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Khan, for reiterating the issue of unintended consequences. Having listened to the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 121A (to Amendment 121) withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I hear what the noble Lord has said, but the difference between the spoilt ballot papers in the local elections at that time and the PCC and London mayoral elections is too great to be laid wholly at the door of the shape or design of the ballot paper.

The British people understand the first past the post system, which is why they supported it in 2011. It gives a clear result to the candidate with the most votes, and that is the heart of accountability. If that candidate does not perform to the electorate’s will or expectation, they can boot him out; they can vote him out at subsequent elections. That is the key advantage of the first past the post system: it gives a very clear result.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Is the logic of what the noble Baroness is saying that electors in Northern Ireland and Scotland who use STV, or people in South Yorkshire who elect their mayor, cannot vote their officeholders out because of the voting system?

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

They can vote them out, but it is much more obscure—the link is much less direct. The supplementary vote system, which is what we are talking about replacing, clearly allows weaker candidates, with fewer first preference votes, to get through the system because of second preference votes, which have the same value as first preference ones—that does not seem right.

My only regret about the Bill is that it does not get rid of the even more confusing additional member system for the London Assembly. As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, we fortunately no longer have the proportional representation system for the EU elections, which resulted in MEPs being distant and certainly not accountable to electorates. I would personally look again at the systems used in Scotland and Wales, but I shall stick to my normal practice in your Lordships’ House of not getting involved in devolved matters. It is time for our electoral systems in England to return to their roots and for the first past the post system to be the default for national elections and all English elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak on behalf of my noble friend Lord Shipley, who has Amendment 144C in his name, but he is in Grand Committee and unfortunately cannot be here to speak to it. In so doing, I declare my interest as laid down in the register, both as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as a trustee of Make Votes Count.

The amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Shipley would implement PR in local government—not a system for proportional against the whole district, but a system for each ward based on the one-two-three model. This keeps the ward as the basis of the representative district but makes sure that the system is more representative of the majority views of the electorate.

That would avoid councils being heavily dominated by one party that secures less than 50% of the poll, in the vast majority of seats. At least each councillor would have the support of 50% plus one after the transfers at second preference. If I apply that to my own city of Sheffield, 29 seats were up for election in 2021 but in only seven of them did someone get more than 50% of the vote in the ward. The figure for the candidate who got elected with the smallest percentage of votes was 31.7%. That happened to be a Liberal Democrat, so this is not a political issue; as a matter of principle, I do not think a system is fair when 29 seats are up for election but only seven of them are elected on the basis of the majority of people who decide to go out and vote. So I support the amendment in my noble friend’s name.

I turn to the wider argument about how Clause 11 came about. Having listened to the last hour and a half, I say to those noble Lords who are not normally invited to Liberal Democrat ward meetings that it has sounded a bit like a Liberal Democrat ward meeting. Some people in this Chamber who are not Liberal Democrats seem far more technical and geeky than some Liberal Democrats on voting systems. I have heard many arguments about why we are talking about voting systems. Let me be clear: we would not be talking about voting systems at all if the Government had not tried to push through this clause as they did in the House of Commons.

It is quite insulting for an elector back in South Yorkshire, who has voted for a metro mayor, who was asked whether we wanted one and then told what the voting system would be—or at least we were asked about how we wanted a mayor and a voting system—to be told now that that voting system is somehow too complicated for us or not relevant to our local area. This has been pushed through without any consultation at all with the areas that have metro mayors. We have had no say back in our regions about whether we want this change. That is not the way to bring about change. It is for that reason more than anything else that I do not think Clause 11 should stand part.

I turn to some of the other arguments. I have to point out very gently to some noble Lords that this is not 2011; we are now in 2021.

[Noble Lords]

2022!

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Sorry, 2022. It feels as if this debate started last year.

The YouGov tracker looks at a number of issues. One issue that it has been tracking for 10 years is people’s perceptions of voting and voting systems. The question it asks is:

“Some people support a change in the British voting system to proportional representation, where the number of MPs a party wins more closely reflects the share of the vote they receive. Other people support retaining our present voting system, First Past the Post, which is more likely to give one party an overall majority in the House of Commons and avoid a hung Parliament. Which voting system would you prefer?”


In March 2022, the latest figure—and this has been a trend for over 10 years—the vast majority of people who give a preference support PR, with 44% in favour of PR and 27% in favour of first past the post. Among Liberal Democrat voters, 62% support a PR system while 21% are in favour of first past the post. The party with the highest number of people who support first past the post is the Labour Party; 64% support PR and 13% support first past the post. I accept that among Conservative voters there is a small majority for first past the post.

We should look at the Red Wall seats. This is really important because a lot of people really feel that their vote does not count, that they do not have a voice and that in some constituencies there are MPs for life. In certain parts where I come from, people say, “No matter who you put up, if they wear a certain colour of rosette then they will get elected.” This is not a middle-class or a southern debate; in the north, 43% support PR and 28% do not.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Could the noble Lord remind us of his sample size? Mine was 19.2 million.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

That was 11 years ago. I am trying to point out to the noble Lord that people’s views change. I am not prepared to accept that 2011 is still how the public feel.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

Could the noble Lord answer the second question, which was: what type of PR was wanted? That is the problem. It is not just about saying “We like PR.” There is a huge gamut of options. Unless you are clear about what is actually being offered to people, you will get that answer but then, when they have to make a choice, first past the post comes back to the front.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I support Amendment 140, which is about setting up a citizens’ assembly to go through this question so that citizens can come to a view about the best voting system that they would wish to see if we moved to a PR system. I would therefore like to leave it to a citizens’ assembly rather than dictating it. I have my own personal preference, which is STV, but I do not think it should be about my personal preference; I think it should be down to a citizens’ assembly.

I do not think the British public are stuck back in 2011. I think we have moved forward and people feel that PR is the future. That goes across all parties and social demographics—apart from the Conservative Party voters who support first past the post—and all regions of the UK.

The way that Clause 11, regarding mayors and police and crime commissioners, was introduced by the Government in the other place, and the very fact that those people who were offered a mayor on a system of voting that was not first past the post have not been asked, is not levelling up; it is pushing us down and completely ignoring the voice of the people back in those regions who now have a metro mayor.

[Lord Kilclooney (CB)]

My Lords, back in the middle of the last century when I was Minister of State for Home Affairs in the old parliament in Northern Ireland, I had the task of reforming the local government system in Northern Ireland, which was then first past the post. This meant that in the west all the councillors were Irish nationalists and in the east all the councillors were Ulster unionists. Against some opposition from my own party, I introduced a Bill that included STV for local government. This resulted in the unionists in the west, who are the 40% minority, having representation for the first time, and they have it still today. Likewise, the Irish nationalists gained seats in the east that they would not have had under first past the post. So there was fair representation of Catholics and Irish nationalists in the eastern part of Northern Ireland and fair representation of unionists and protestants in the western part.

When it comes to UK elections, of course we still have first past the post because that is the UK law. What does that result in? It results in Sinn Féin/IRA winning many seats where they get less than 50% of the votes cast in their constituencies, and the result of that election is that they boycott the House of Commons. If we had STV or some other kind of proportional representation system in UK elections in Northern Ireland, I think we would have very few Sinn Féin MPs in the House of Commons.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

I will come to that, my Lords. If the Committee will be indulgent, I think it has heard quite a lot of debate on this subject and I will try to come to the point. As I see it, this very lengthy debate boiled down to two things. First, do we like first past the post? Regrettably, a lot of your Lordships who spoke do not seem to like it, although, like the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, having fought a few elections myself, it seems pretty simple and clear for electors to stick a cross on a piece of paper and get a result. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, was not impressed by that, but the simplicity and clarity of first past the post has a lot to say for it. The second issue in the debate was: should we do this now, in this Bill and in these particular elections? I shall seek to address both of them.

It is irresistible to contemplate the thought of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, poring over his opinion polls about how popular PR is. I remind him that, before the referendum in 2011—you can look it up on Wikipedia if you like—the opinion polls said how rapturously enthusiastic the majority of the British public were about PR. When the actual argument came along and it was put, they voted for first past the post by—I cannot remember the figure, but I think the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said it was 68%. I would not advise the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, to put too much faith in his opinion polls, although it is a characteristic of that party.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I just make one point of clarification. It is not an opinion poll but a tracker of opinion over time. If the public should be asked about changing the system, will the Government ask the people in the areas with police and crime commissioners and metro mayors to have a referendum to see whether we want to change the system that we already have?

[Lord True]

My Lords, whether it is a poll or a tracker, the noble Lord is welcome to look at it. I will persist with my remarks, which will address the point he just made.

Another argument put by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, was that new parties could not arise. A very great new party arose under the present system: it is called the Labour Party. It supplanted the other party, and it did so because it was popular. As we will see on a later group, one problem is that the parties that want to make the change are those that are not popular, or generally less popular.

That is what the debate was about. I listened with great respect and persistence to the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake —he spoke for nearly 20 minutes. It could have boiled down to one sentence: he did not like first past the post and he wanted your Lordships to stop this proposition. I will now try to address both those points.

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak to the amendments in my name in this group, namely Amendments 96A, 96B, 96C and 96D. The Government have proposed limiting the number of postal votes a voter can hand into polling stations or to the returning officer to two. This would be specified in secondary legislation and is not on the face of the Bill in Clause 5. Secondary legislation could also require that the person must complete a form if handing in a postal vote. While we on these Benches recognise that there have been cases of postal vote fraud reported at some elections, the rationale for the limit of two has not been set out. In any case, whatever limit is specified may be easily circumvented.

Clause 5 ultimately derives from the recommendation in the report from Sir Eric Pickles—as he then was; now he is the noble Lord, Lord Pickles—on securing the ballot in 2016. It said:

“Completed postal ballot packs should only be handed in at a polling station by the voter or a family member/designated carer acting on their behalf—a limit of two should be applied for any one person handing in completed ballots and require an explanation as to why they are being handed in and signature provided.”


The justification offered in the report, that postal votes handed in on the day might be subject to less scrutiny and checking than postal votes arriving sooner, is simply inaccurate. All returning officers perform the same checks on postal votes regardless of when they are received. Placing a limit on the number of postal votes that could be handed into a polling station might be an effective tool in deterring people from turning up at polling stations with a higher number of postal votes. However, it would not stop industrial-scale vote harvesting. This is because, under the Government’s proposals, a person could still collect any number of postal votes and post them prior to polling day, although any political campaigner who did so would certainly commit an offence under the new Section 112A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 inserted by Clause 4.

It is unclear how the secondary legislation will be cast in respect of council offices, where returning officers are usually based. For example, does using a postal box in the wall of the office constitute returning by hand to the returning officer? If it does, it would mean posting boxes at council offices would have to be sealed during the election period, or a member of staff would have to be stationed at said postal box 24 hours a day in order to prevent people returning more than the prescribed number of postal votes. This would create unnecessary difficulty in delivering other items to a council. Perhaps legislation is intended to capture only the handling of postal votes, at a reception desk for example. Moreover, there seems to be no reason why someone who posts a voting pack back in a posting box at council offices should face any additional hurdle compared with a person posting in a post box elsewhere.

So Clause 5 will not prevent postal vote harvesting and could easily be circumvented. Yet the Government’s proposal will cause additional complexity and delay, for example if a form has not been filled in, or a voter turns up at an office or a polling station with too many postal votes. Potential lengthy or adversarial discussions about the fact that the postal vote would be rejected could take place.

The reason I am asking for an amendment to Clause 5 to include a limit of five and not two, notwithstanding the problems I outlined, is that it would enable family households to hand in votes more easily, as there are fewer households with more than five adult members. I also think that any limit should be set out in the Bill, rather than the Secretary of State being able to determine it in secondary legislation. I ask the Minister to clarify how these provisions will operate at council offices, where returning officers are based, and to give a justification for the limit of two, particularly in light of the fact that many households have more than two adults living there.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, these amendments investigate some of the safeguards for postal ballots introduced in the Bill. I welcome the underlying sense of the comments made: the Committee recognises that, as we move through the suite of arrangements which the Government suggest to protect electoral integrity, there is more support here than there was for the first measure.

Clauses 3 to 7 require voters to apply more frequently for a postal ballot, ban political campaigners from handling postal ballots, introduce, as the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, just explained, new limits on the number of postal ballots that can be handed in, limit the number of electors for whom someone can act as proxy and increase secrecy protections for absent voters. As has been said, all these changes implement recommendations in the report by my noble friend Lord Pickles into electoral fraud, which suggested addressing weaknesses in the current system. We submit that they are sensible safeguards against known vulnerabilities and, taken together, they will reduce the opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to exploit the process and steal votes, as we have seen in Tower Hamlets—often referred to in your Lordships’ House—but also in other locations mentioned during debates in the other place, such as Peterborough, Birmingham and Slough.

I noted the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, on her amendments and her amendment probing the expiration period of postal votes, in which the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, also expressed an interest. Currently, an elector may have a postal vote on an indefinite basis as long as they provide a signature sample every five years. The noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, has benefited from this.

The Pickles report recommended that voters should reapply for a postal vote at least every three years as a safeguard to prevent postal voter fraud. More frequent applications would not only enable EROs to regularly assess a person’s application and confirm whether they are still an eligible elector but give an opportunity for someone who was initially pressurised—that is obviously not the case for the noble Lord—into having a postal vote to break out of that situation and thus not have their vote influenced on an ongoing basis. Additionally, ensuring that electors’ details are kept up to date and that each postal voter’s signature is refreshed more frequently will reduce the likelihood that their postal vote is rejected should their handwriting change over time. You have only to ask my wife to hear how illegible mine has become in recent years.

The Government consider that the timeframe of three years still enables a person to have a postal vote for a reasonable length of time, while ensuring the person normally replies during every Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendments 96E to 96J. Similar to the last group, these are probing amendments on the proposals for proxy votes. During the progress of the Bill, the Government have given a number of instances to demonstrate where proxy voting has been abused in the past. It was notable in the PACAC oral witness evidence that Helen Mountfield QC said that, in her view,

“It is uncontroversially a good thing to stamp down”


on people holding multiple proxy votes. PACAC agreed with the Government that it is sensible to limit the number of proxy votes that can be exercised by individuals to two for domestic electors and four for overseas electors.

My Amendment 96G is the same kind of probing amendment on proxies as that just spoken to by my noble friend Lord Collins on postal votes. What happens if somebody accidentally voted on behalf of four or more electors, without appreciating that this was no longer allowed? It is just about ensuring that people are given proper guidance and information by local authorities and that the local authorities have the proper guidance and information, so that these sorts of mistakes do not happen.

I have just mentioned PACAC. The Electoral Commission also made a few points, because proxy voting is clearly an important option for people who cannot vote in person. It said:

“Changes to limit the number of voters for whom a person may act as a proxy could disadvantage some people who need someone to vote on their behalf.”


That comment was the reason behind tabling Amendment 96E, which probes the impact of proxy vote limitations on people with disabilities. Clearly, people with disabilities often need some support or someone to vote on their behalf.

As we know, when a voter applies to appoint a proxy, to protect against fraud, they are already required to state their relationship to the proposed proxy and the reason they cannot attend the polling station. My Amendment 96H is because I thought it would be interesting to draw attention to economic crime and election fraud, and to probe whether there is any evidence or information of any connection between the two. That is the purpose behind that particular amendment.

In the 2019 UK parliamentary general election, we know that some overseas voters struggled to find a proxy in their constituency. Tightening the limits on the number of people for whom a voter may act as proxy could potentially make it harder for overseas electors to cast their vote. This is where my Amendment 96F comes in. It probes why the number of four electors was chosen. Has the impact on overseas electors been taken into consideration?

Finally, Amendment 96J looks to probe the application of this particular schedule to parliamentary by-elections. Do Ministers have any information as to whether there has been any kind of impact assessment? Has any thought been given to the impact on different kinds of elections, in particular by-elections? I beg to move.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. These Benches concur with a lot of what she had to say. When I asked why the number of postal voters should not be in the Bill, the Minister replied that it was better to deal with it flexibly, under secondary legislation. I note that the Bill states that the number of proxy votes which can be used by an elector is four. What is the difference between having this in the Bill for proxy voters but not for postal voters?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I have a question more out of ignorance than expertise. I am old enough to have gone round as a young man in the days when different parties competed in treating the matrons of care homes, and relying on them to collect all the votes up and make sure that everyone voted in the right direction. I am sure that that no longer happens—let us hope that it is something that we left behind in the 1960s. However, this raises questions about care homes. How are people assisted to vote? Who posts their votes for them or holds their proxies? I wish for a little assurance about this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, earlier this evening the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made reference to the original secret ballot of the 19th century. To a large extent, what we have seen over the last 150 years is what should happen: a ballot should be secret, in that one person goes into the polling booth alone, marks their vote and then casts it in the ballot box. Unfortunately, because of a series of interventions, with the Electoral Commission and others denying who is interpreting the legislation in whichever way, this issue has been called into question. I am going to cite Tower Hamlets again, but I know that this problem is broader than that. Too regularly, presiding officers in polling stations are faced with a problem whereby people attempt to accompany somebody else into the polling booth, effectively to influence the casting of that ballot.

I can do no better than to quote research undertaken in 2018 by Democracy Volunteers, an organisation of lawyers who operate a system of reviewing the processes of elections, within Tower Hamlets and other similar locations. I make no apologies for quoting the research in full:

“QUESTION 9. Was there evidence of ‘family voting’ in the polling station? … In 58% of polling stations our observer teams identified so-called ‘family voting’. OSCE … describes ‘family voting’ as an ‘unacceptable practice’. It occurs where, generally, husband and wife vote together. It can be normalised and women, especially, are unable to choose for themselves who they wish to cast their votes for and/or this is actually done by another individual entirely. It is a breach of the secret ballot. We identified this in 58% of polling stations (74 separate occasions). As family voting, by definition, includes more than one person this means that we observed this 74 times in the 764 voters we observed. This means that over 19% of all the voters who we observed were either engaged in, or affected by, this practice.”


This is the key qualification:

“We would, however, like to add that the vast majority of cases of this were prevented, or attempts were made to prevent it. However, we believe that this constitutes an unacceptably high level of family voting in an advanced democracy and further steps should be taken to discourage and prevent it. However, this activity is generally not the fault of polling staff, in fact we commend the staff for being so active in their attempts to prevent it.”


As one of the observer teams said:

“Family voting is a definite concern in Tower Hamlets. At the best-run polling stations, the Presiding Officers kept an active watch for potential cases and took steps to prevent it happening. They took care to issue ballot papers to family members one at a time, and then direct them to polling booths in different parts of the room. With three members of polling staff, this meant that while two clerks checked the register and issued papers, the”


polling officer

“could remain vigilant for possible family voting or other problems. All the observed cases of family voting took place when the”

polling officer

“was absent or distracted, or their attention was elsewhere.”

There is no criticism here of the polling staff; they try to do their best. But I am afraid, as this report from Democracy Volunteers identifies, that this is a far too pervasive problem, and we need clear guidance. Most people believed that we had clear guidance for a century and a half, but because of varying interpretations, my amendment is an attempt to ensure that we move away from this practice and back to what was originally intended.

As the noble Lord, Lord Khan, identified, I have tried to allow for those people who need accompaniment. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, in a previous debate, there may be other people in similar circumstances who need assistance. Generally, the assistance will come from a polling officer, but there may be special reasons why somebody needs accompaniment from a member of the family. However, these should be virtually unique occasions, not—as the report from Democracy Volunteers identified—a pervasive problem. I therefore believe that my amendment is attempting to tackle a problem which is quite widespread and needs clarification, and that it is in the best interests of conducting elections across the country.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Hayward. As an aside on families and secrecy of the ballot, I have had to ask somebody to be a proxy only once: during the very fraught referendum on Brexit, I had to ask my husband. I can tell your Lordships that, to this day, I still do not know which way I voted. I think I know which way I voted, but the secrecy of the ballot is absolutely sacrosanct, and I do not know.

On a more serious point, these Benches support the raft of amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, and those in the name of the Minister that support the secrecy of the ballot. The only difference we have with the noble Lord, Lord Hayward—this has been an ongoing issue with him—is that if guidance has to be given on such issues, it probably would be better coming from the independent Electoral Commission rather than the Secretary of State, although we do not dispute that such guidance would be helpful. However, we understand from previous discussions and debates with the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, why he seeks the Secretary of State giving such guidance, but if it was to come, we feel that it should come from the Electoral Commission. With those points, we support these amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the underlying issue here clearly might lead to concern in certain circumstances, but the point I took the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, to be making is that this is a very new category of injury. I have never seen in legislation before the concept of “spiritual injury” or individuals being placed under “spiritual pressure”. Could the Minister give us any precedents for these terms in legislation so that we can get some idea as to what other matters they have referred and how they might actually be applied?

Although we can understand the issue, how do we define what counts as spiritual pressure? If, for example, a religious group put out literature supporting one candidate or another, as often happens, would that count as undue spiritual pressure? There could be a freedom of speech issue here, which I do not think we want to get into, so it would be useful if the Minister could explain to us other contexts in which this has been used so that we can get some idea of what a proportionate judgment on “spiritual injury” and “undue spiritual pressure” might be.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I want to follow on from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, because his concerns were also mine. I am not clear what the definition of some of these issues would be in law and how they would be taken by the courts. Are there issues like this in legislation elsewhere and has there been interpretation by the courts, particularly regarding spiritual injury? For example, if someone was to stand up in a Catholic church and ask for people not to vote for candidates who supported abortion, would that constitute spiritual injury? Would that be undue spiritual pressure in determining which way people vote?

This is a very finely balanced issue, and I have not come across it before. Therefore, the Minister needs to explain very specifically where the lines and the boundaries are. It is a balance between people having the right to freedom of speech and of faith—I say that as somebody who does not have a religious faith—and the issue of them not being unduly influenced or forced to go against what they believe in. It would be really interesting to hear a clear definition and clear examples from the Dispatch Box for us to be able to determine exactly what this means in legislation.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I shall give my noble friend an American example, which has been debated in the United States very recently. There have been Catholic bishops who have suggested that President Biden should be denied communion, as a Catholic, because he is not prepared to be sufficiently anti-abortion. That, it seems to me, would be undue spiritual influence—although the spectacle of a Catholic bishop or archbishop being prosecuted for undue spiritual influence would be quite an interesting one.

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Can the noble Baroness explain where the Electoral Commission by itself said that voter ID was required? Or was it responding to options that were put before it in terms of what it saw as the best form of voter ID? Does the noble Baroness have the evidence to say that the Electoral Commission has said of its own volition that voter ID is required?

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I am sorry that I do not have chapter and verse with me, but the Electoral Commission has called for voter ID since 2014. As I said, Northern Ireland has used it for nearly 40 years.

I find it quite extraordinary that polling station procedures in Great Britain are virtually the same today as they were when I started voting 50 years ago. It is quite remarkable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness says we are not comparing like with like, and I completely agree. I drew no parallels with the wearing of identity badges in this building or, indeed, many other buildings; many corporate organisations require this for their own internal security purposes. That is completely different from engaging in certain acts, whether it be going into certain buildings as an outsider or carrying out daily tasks such as collecting parcels. I am suggesting that it is perfectly ordinary to propose using it when going to election polling stations to cast one’s vote.

Northern Ireland has used photo ID for more than 20 years with no problems. Indeed, Northern Ireland electors are happier with their elections than the rest of the UK. To the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, I say that there has been no harm done in using voter ID in photo form in Northern Ireland at all—no recorded harm whatever. The issue that we should focus on is how to facilitate voting by those who do not already possess the kinds of photo ID that are allowed for in the Bill. The Government’s latest estimate—there are higher estimates from earlier studies—is that this applies to 2% of the population. That is roughly a million electors, which is a lot of people, but the Government have already successfully piloted a scheme of voter cards.

There is no evidence from the pilots of an impact on different communities, although there has been a lot of speculation throughout today and our previous Committee days on which particular groups will be affected. I am sure that there will be local issues in local areas, which is why—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The Electoral Commission’s analysis of the 2019 pilots showed that people in the compulsory voter ID pilot, after the ballot, had a 69% satisfaction rate with the poll, compared to 77% of those outside the photo ID pilot. Why, if it did not cause a problem, does the noble Baroness think that satisfaction was less in the pilot area than in the non-pilot areas?

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I cannot answer that question, but the purpose of pilots is to find out what practical problems there are with major policies, and it was good practice on the Government’s part to have various different pilots to find out the sorts of issues that might arise.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

But if the basis of this, as the Government keep saying, is to increase the public’s satisfaction and the ballot integrity, why is it that 69% versus 77% think that that did not happen?

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

I do not think the only metric is how satisfied people were. The most important thing is how comfortable people are with the integrity of the voting system. Just being satisfied with the first rollout of something is not going to give you the final answer. It is right to let local authorities, who know about their local electorates, work out how to reach these hard-to-reach communities. It is right to enlist civil society groups to do the same, as well as political parties, which should know their local areas and know how best to do it.

We know there will be some teething problems, and some voters may not bring the right voter ID with them the first time they come. But according to both the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, this happened to a very small degree during the pilots. As I said earlier, pilots are there to find problems so that they can be overcome. I hope that noble Lords will stand back and look at these reforms—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

If I may intervene, I knew where the pilots had taken place, but they were not nearly proportionate to the scale of the reforms being introduced. We do not know anything about their likely impact on voter turnout or the administrative issues that will be raised by the nationwide introduction of this reform. The very small, selective pilots were not even in representative areas. The issue of piloting is still very much there. If this is to be a nationwide reform—we are talking about parliamentary elections—this should be piloted in many constituencies before we move in this direction.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Is it not the case that this has not been piloted before a general election? The Electoral Commission specifically says that there should be a pilot before it is ruled out for a general election.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

That is a fundamental point. They were piloted in local elections. The scale of the pilots has not been nearly proportionate to the scale of the proposed reform.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, at Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Rennard, who unfortunately cannot be here today, drew attention to the Government’s negligence in trying to assess the scale of the problem that they say they seek to address. He pointed out that anyone attending a polling station who finds that their vote may have been claimed by someone else is issued with a replacement, known as a tendered ballot paper. He has been pressing the Government for some years to collate and publish the information about how many of these ballot papers are issued, and tried again recently with a Written Question.

Unfortunately, the Government would not answer, even though they know the figures. Fortunately, the independent Electoral Commission publishes them. There are several reasons why such tendered ballot papers might be issued, apart from someone impersonating a voter. The most common reason is probably a clerical error in the polling station when the wrong name is crossed off by mistake. At the last general election, 32,014,110 ballot papers were issued across the UK in 38,812 polling stations. The total number of tendered ballot papers was just 1,341. That is 0.004% of the total number of ballot papers issued—just two tendered ballot papers for each of the 650 constituencies, or one for every 30 polling stations. Most are probably issued because of clerical error or for reasons other than personation.

Clause 1 is all about a supposed solution to a problem that simply does not exist, or that the Government have been unable to show exists. At Second Reading, the Minister clearly stated that this was not about the precautionary principle to prevent voting error. I asked the Minister to reiterate: is this not the precautionary principle? If not, where is the evidence that the problem is so big that the clause’s provision is proportionate to deal with the problem?

I have also looked back at the opening remarks of the noble Lord, Lord True, at Second Reading. He said:

“Voter ID is used across the world, including in most European countries and in Canada.”—[Official Report, 23/2/22; col. 2228.]


He did not say that those European countries had compulsory national ID cards, meaning that no additional ID is required other than that which citizens have to carry as part of being citizens of those countries. We do not have such national ID cards and the Government are opposed to them. In Canada, a photo ID card is issued to Canadians who do not have a driving licence, thereby serving as a national ID card, and in Canada you do not need that ID to vote if you do not have it to hand, provided someone with such ID is also present at the polling station and vouches for you.

The Government have pointed to Northern Ireland, which requires voter ID, although it has a significantly different political culture that made that necessary. Northern Ireland introduced mandatory ID in 1985 in response to what happened in the 1983 general election. Nearly 1,000 people arrived at polling stations there only to be told that a vote had already been cast in their name. Police made 149 arrests for personation, resulting in 104 prosecutions. In contrast, in Great Britain, in two national elections in 2019, there was only one conviction for personation and one caution, both of which related to the European Parliament election of that year.

It should also be noted that Northern Ireland did not move immediately to require photographic ID. Elections took place there for almost 20 years with a less stringent ID requirement. The first election there to require voter ID was the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly election. Estimates have shown that about 25,000 voters did not vote because they did not have the required ID. That is more than 1,000 per constituency. Furthermore, almost 3,500 people, 2.3% of the electorate, were initially turned away for not presenting the required ID. It took more than 12 years—I repeat, 12 years—for turnouts to return to previous levels; other factors were, of course, involved relating to political controversy in Northern Ireland.

We have very limited information about the effects of introducing any form of voter ID from pilots in just 15 out of over 400 local council elections in England, but all the information suggests that many more legitimate voters were unable to cast votes than there were people who needed replacement ballot papers. Extrapolating from these 15 pilots to around 450 local authorities suggests that perhaps 30,000 legitimate voters could have been turned away from polling stations, to say nothing of the number of people who did not attempt to vote because of the requirements.

The proposals in Part 1 of the Bill are in response to one conviction and one caution in 2019, with hardly anyone finding that their vote could have been stolen and, in any event, all were compensated with a replacement ballot paper. After the voter ID pilots, the independent Electoral Commission said that more work was needed to make sure that an identification requirement did not stop people who are eligible and want to vote in future elections. That is why Clause 1 should not stand part of this Bill.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the speech that we have just heard from the noble Lord was utterly compelling. Indeed, he gave the House a detail that I was not aware of about the impacts of compulsory voter ID in Northern Ireland; I do not think that the House was aware either. In the case of Northern Ireland—I remember the discussions that took place in government at the time—the evidence of voter personation was at a level completely out of proportion to what we are dealing with here in the case of elections in Great Britain. But if, as the noble Lord says, it took 10 years to get voter participation up—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

It was 12 years.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

That should be a matter of huge concern. In an extraordinarily un-Conservative statement earlier, the noble Baroness said that voting in the way that we used to vote 50 years ago is somehow bad and means that we are not keeping up with modern times. If we applied that principle to every other aspect of life that works well we would be seeking to change everything for the sake of it—something I imagined she thought this side of the House was seeking to do.

A combination of those two great Gladstonian reforms, the Ballot Act 1872 and the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act 1883, has maintained a level of integrity in the conduct of elections in this country that most of the rest of the world finds awe-inspiring. The idea that people look at the United Kingdom and say that, among all the democracies—let alone other regimes—there is great doubt about the integrity of our election outcomes and people are constantly concerned that ballots might be being stuffed and all that, is so far removed from reality that it is obviously a farcical proposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, applications for the free card will be available up to 5 pm on the day before, as has been said. I note what the noble Lord has said, and I will take away what he and the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, have said but our submission is that the time to apply for the card is satisfactory at the moment and anyone who is turned away initially on the day of vote can return. As a matter of fact, at the last election in which I took part, which certainly was not a general election, I was turned away. The returning officer said: “We are too busy at the moment. We have a technical problem, can you come back later?” I went back later in the day. People can return, and I did.

It was also pointed out, and this is correct, that the provision is backed by leading international election observers such as the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. It has repeatedly called for its introduction, saying its absence is a security risk. Many people would question why it is not already the case. In fact, as my noble friend said last week, the 2021 Electoral Commission winter tracker report was clear that the majority of the public—66%—say that a requirement to show identification at polling stations would make them more confident in the security of the voting system.

The choice of photographic identification as the model has been questioned by noble Lords. Put simply, it is the most secure and familiar way of confirming that someone is who they say they are. It is true that a number of different models of voter identification were trialled as part of the pilots undertaken by the Government in 2018 and 2019. However, when evaluating the security strengths and weaknesses of each pilot model, the Electoral Commission found that

“the photo ID only model has the greatest security strengths compared with the other models.”

On the basis of those evaluations, it was clear that the most secure and appropriate approach was photographic identification.

Many noble Lords in the debate raised questions about the practical implications of selecting this model. Obviously, as we go forward in co-operation into the face of implementation, the Government will carefully consider all the points that have been raised. The Government understand this and want to prepare the system as well as possible. This is why we considered the absolute maximum range of identifications that could be accepted for the policy. Using the Government’s Verify security scale, we opted for level 2 and then considered this against the widest possible range of documents which would meet that assessment. Should other forms of photographic identification meet that level of security in the future, the Government will be able to add them through the power inserted into Rule 37 by paragraph 18 of Schedule 1 to the Bill. This will ensure that the list remains up to date and is as accessible as possible going forward.

We commissioned a nationally representative survey of over 8,500 electors in Great Britain. This found that 98% of people have access to an accepted form of photographic identification, including 99% of people from ethnic minorities and young people aged 18 to 29. We need to reach all those others, which is why a free card is being offered and the Electoral Commission will be entering into a publicity process to ensure, with the Government, that that is known. Some 94% of the people surveyed felt that having to present a photo identification at the polling station would either make it easier to vote or make no difference.

Voter identification is a proven approach and although I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, said, in addition to the provision made for Northern Ireland by the last Labour Government, it is in place in most European countries and also in countries such as Canada which do not have compulsory national identity cards. Whether noble Lords like it or not, Northern Ireland is a comprehensive empirical example of the introduction of photographic identification in the UK. We know that it operates there with ease. It has brought real benefit to the democratic process, and Northern Ireland consistently reports high rates of confidence in the outcome of elections. The 2019 Electoral Commission post-election questionnaire reported that 83% of voters in Northern Ireland found it

“very easy to participate in the elections”

as opposed to 78% in Great Britain.

I trust that that sets out some of the underlying principles, but when developing this policy we of course completed all the required impact and equality impact assessments. A team of analysts produced detailed cost and benefit modelling, published in the impact assessment, as is typical for such a government programme. They incorporated high and low ranges to account for uncertainty and conducted sensitivity analysis to test the most sensitive and impactful assumptions, such as the percentage of the electorate requiring a voter card. If any noble Lord would like to explore details of the impact assessment with officials who have been involved in doing it—I know the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is interested in that—I would be very happy to arrange for them to meet the Bill team to discuss it.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I do not need to meet the Bill team. The impact assessment that the Minister signed off on 20 January this year says very clearly on page 30, paragraph 18, on this specific policy, on Clause 1 on mandatory photo ID:

“The analysis does not assess the impact of the policy on voter turnout.”


There has been no assessment in the impact assessment of the voter turnout and this clause.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord does not wish to meet members of the Bill team and I am very happy to repeat that offer.

So far as the noble Lord’s point is concerned, my noble friend answered that point explicitly—indeed, the noble Lord referred to it. An impact assessment is an economic assessment. It did not deal with turnout. As the noble Lord well knows—he has campaigned often enough, as I have—turnout is affected by a very large range of factors. I will give way once more to the noble Lord.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I think it is important for the Committee to understand this because the noble Lord has said something at the Dispatch Box which they will find is slightly different when they look at the impact assessment. The impact assessment looks at non-monetary and non-economic issues to do with policies all over this Bill. It specifically says about this policy that it has not looked at voter turnout. This is not just an economic assessment—it is an assessment of the monetary and non-monetary effects of the Bill, including voter turnout.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it covers economic, equality and other assessments. If I misspoke, I apologise. I say for the third time what my noble friend said last week and I have said—the Government did not cover turnout. I have not sought to hide that fact because the factors that affect turnout are very wide and cannot be distinguished. Of course, analysis should not remain static, and I take that point. As we move towards implementation, I say to the Committee that we will continue to make sure that the evidence base remains up to date in terms of costings and will refine the modelling and assumptions. This is standard practice and will address the economic points.

I repeat that year-on-year turnout comparisons cannot be accurately estimated due to the volatility of the electoral cycle. As I have said, a huge variety of disparate factors play a part in whether someone chooses to vote in any particular election, from the appeal of candidates standing to personal circumstances on the day. An attempt to draw conclusions would be difficult.

In this vein, I note Amendment 142 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on post-legislative scrutiny, which has not been addressed in this group yet. I appreciate that she has not had the opportunity to speak to it, but I will reply to the amendment. The Bill already provides for an evaluation of the impacts of voter identification at the first two general elections to which it applies and the first stand-alone set of local council elections. I am pleased to say that we intend to go further and produce a process and impact evaluation of the programme and its implementation across all policy measures. I hope that this reassures the noble Baroness that our aims on this are aligned. However, I repeat what I said in an earlier group: I remain open to further conversations on this point in relation to post-legislative scrutiny. I give that undertaking to the Committee.

Finally, in the same spirit of increasing participation in our democracy and empowering those eligible to vote to do so in a secure and effective way, Clause 2 introduces an online absent vote application service and an online voter card application service. As it stands, there is no facility for electors to make an online application to get a postal vote or proxy vote. Electors must have a paper form which they complete and submit to the electoral registration officer. Here the Government are seeking to encourage participation, because in an increasingly digital world, providing an online service for applications must increase accessibility. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, that his fears are unfounded. It will certainly be possible to apply for the voter card and the registration at the same time, just as one can in applying for a postal vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

No—we do not believe that the amendment is necessary, but the noble Lord is anticipating the next group. I am replying to noble Lords and assuring the Committee that I am advised that the noble Lord’s fears are entirely unfounded and that voters will be able to apply for both at the same time.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

That is very well and good but coming back to the impact assessment, on applying for absent votes, paragraph 117 says:

“The requirement for identity verification as a part of the online application process for absent votes could deter some voters from voting … This may impact the integrity of the elections as it may lead to lower turnout”.


Why would such a policy be implemented, with that in the impact assessment?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I repeat that we believe that, in an increasingly digital world, where the introduction of digital services can be done securely, providing an online service for applications increases accessibility. That is our submission, and I think that would be regarded as logically correct by most people who turn on their internet in the morning.

These powers will enable the identity of applicants using the new services to be verified, as well as identity checking for other absent voter applications.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I shall speak first to my Amendment 66A and, in so doing, I draw the Committee’s attention to my entry in the register, particularly my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I see this as what I call a “two Ps” amendment: a probing amendment about the practicalities of what the Government are suggesting. I thank Solace, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, for the wide and helpful briefing that it sent about this. It is important that we consider this briefing, because many of those chief executives are the returning officers in constituencies up and down the country.

The briefing talks about the impracticality of suggesting that the voter ID card can be applied for and supplied if people apply by 5 pm on the day before the poll takes place, which, as it points out, is inconsistent with every other form of voter application—whether it be for a postal or a proxy vote—unless it is a medical emergency. We talked about the practicalities of Northern Ireland and it is also inconsistent with Northern Ireland, where this is not allowed to happen until 5 pm on the day before the poll.

It is impractical because it places extra burdens on those administering an election at their busiest time: the week before the election. Anybody who has seen what happens in an electoral office a week before an election will understand that the administrators are already under great pressure to ensure the security and integrity of the election. To suggest that people can turn up until 5 pm on the day before the poll to seek one of these voter ID cards is impractical. The Government’s impact assessment suggests that 50% of people will apply by post and 50% will apply in person. It states that the closer you get to an election, the more people will apply in person. So people could be trying to sort out postal votes and ensuring that the ballot boxes and everything else are in place with queues of people seeking this ID.

In this respect, the Government’s impact assessment is detailed. It suggests that the cards will take approximately five to 10 minutes to produce, assuming that everybody has the things that they need to produce one. It suggests that there be one machine per constituency, which I think works out at just over two on average per local authority.

It is inconceivable that this requirement is practical. So I ask the Minister: why was the stipulation of 5 pm on the day before the poll selected; why is it not consistent with Northern Ireland; and, specifically, what discussion took place with Solace and other returning officers, who would have pointed out that this was impractical? If the Government did consult those who administer elections, what advice came back on the practicalities of delivering this?

I will now speak to some of the other amendments, particularly weighing in with my support for those to which my noble friend Lord Rennard has put his name. I will talk specifically about Amendments 64, 68, 78 and 80.

On Amendment 64, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has mentioned on a number of occasions, it is absolutely vital that when people register to vote, they should be able at the same time, as an automatic right laid down in the Bill, to apply for the voter ID card. I see no practical reason why that should not happen. There is no practical reason why returning officers, Solace or anybody else who administers elections would say that is not consistent. So what would stop the Government allowing that to happen as an automatic right and including it in the Bill?

Amendment 68 is important because it comes back to the powers of the Secretary of State, which we have talked about a lot. The Secretary of State could, by decree, by the stroke of their pen, decide what documentation is or is not available. I shall come in a second to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, which is really important. I see no reason for that provision.

Amendment 78 is also important. The noble Lord, Lord True, has on many occasions referenced Canada having voter ID. It is absolutely not true to say that to vote in Canada, you have to have voter ID. If you turn up without voter ID, there is a system called vouching. Somebody can vouch for you, if they have some ID, to say that you are the person who you say you are and they vouch for your identification.

I see no practical reason why that should not happen if this clause stands part of the Bill. It is sensible, it is not unknown across the world, it is practical and it happens. In Canada, it does not happen significantly, but it happens. As many people have said, if somebody turns up without their voter ID at 9.55 pm with their spouse, friend or loved one, I see no reason why that person could not vouch for them.

The Minister mentioned people turning up to a polling station and being asked to return, as he was. For some people, that is impractical. If you work 12-hour shifts and are going just before you start work, you cannot turn back. For people with childcare responsibilities, it may be impractical or impossible to do that. That is why, if you turn up without your ID but with somebody else who has some ID, vouching on the Canadian system should be allowed. I see no reason why it should not. It does not undermine the integrity of the ballot. Somebody who has the appropriate ID could vouch for somebody who has not whom they know. There is then a way of checking, if there is personation by the second person, who the person has vouched for—but there is no evidence in Canada that that actually happens.

I come to the most powerful and important intervention in the debate on this group, which was from the noble Lord, Lord Willetts. He made it very clear as a member of the Conservative Party who sits on the Conservative Benches exactly what was in both the 2017 and the 2019 Conservative manifestos: that voter ID would be required. Neither manifesto used the word “photographic”. That is key in terms of the Salisbury convention and the Conservatives being able to carry out their manifesto commitment. In terms of providing extra ID, the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, showed a practicality and pragmatism that I would expect his Front Bench to replicate. If not, the cat is out of the bag. The noble Lord, Lord Willetts, is trying to make it as easy as possible, if this provision comes in, for people to exercise their democratic right to vote.

If the Government, from the Front Bench, refuse to accept that mandatory photographic ID is not required to vote, then they will be saying that they will be making it as difficult as possible for people to exercise their vote. This is the litmus test. We must all listen to the answer to this particular set of amendments.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, not just for his amendment but for making it very clear that the Conservatives would be carrying out their manifesto commitment without introducing photo ID.

[Lord Desai (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I shall make a very short point about Amendment 80. The noble Lord should look carefully at whether many of these indicators are male-oriented. Women do not have their names on documents such as mortgage statements and utility bills. It would make more sense to have one particular card, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, suggested. It would be personal, in the name of the man or woman.

I want to add that I have my Freedom Pass in London. It is a very good thing. I could show it around.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

Certainly, I would hope and intend for that to be the case. I am not writing the regulations personally. I am not the Minister in DLUHC which administers this. I shall certainly pass on the views of the Committee. I reassure the Committee that this is absolutely in the spirit of making life simpler for registration officers. It is certainly the Government’s wish that people should be able to do this. It is not necessarily their intention that everyone should get a voter card—only those who need one. All the other types of identification currently listed in the Bill will be accepted.

Of course, we have undertaken extensive engagement with the electoral sector about this, including with Solace, with civil society organisations, and with those representing the kind of groups to which the right reverend Prelate referred. This is a rolling engagement in order to inform them of the proposals, to gather feedback on the plans and to identify ways to ensure our implementation plans are clear, comprehensive and inclusive for all electors. This engagement continues as officials refine implementation plans. They will be listening to what is said in your Lordships’ House, with a focus on exploring many of the aspects that noble Lords have raised, such as the needs of particular groups and the best ways of communicating.

New Section 13BD is worded specifically so that a person does not have to wait until a registration application has been determined before applying for the card. They can do both at the same time, but they have to be on the register first. In practice, this means that the applications can be put in at the same time.

I turn to the specific amendments. I have partly addressed Amendment 64. I understand precisely where the noble Baroness is coming from. I fully accept that she was quite right to raise that point. I hope that I have been able to give some reassurance.

We do not believe that Amendments 65 to 69 are necessary. They provide for powers that are already in the Bill and make suggestions that are already part of the policy, although not ones requiring legislative definition. I set out some of the policy intentions earlier. They were clearly stated in the voter identification policy statement, published on 6 January.

On Amendment 65, new Section 13BD(10)(a) enables the Government to make provision about the form of a document, including digital. I note that this probing amendment says that it should be in digital form.

On Amendment 66, new Section 13BD(4)(b) enables the Government to make regulations about how cards will be issued, including by post and so on and so forth. We will make sure that this is in the record. I fully accept that these things need to be covered.

Amendment 67 asks about date of issue. The card would have a date. New Section 13BD(9) is about the power to make regulations on what information will be on the document. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, is not in her place. The additional kinds of information referred to in that section of the schedule is precisely to allow for something like the date or name of the issuing local authority. They will have different local authority names, so one cannot have a single card. These are the kinds of additional points. In reply to Amendment 68, spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, it is certainly envisaged that the date of issue of the card will be on it.

I thank the noble Baroness again for putting forward Amendments 70 to 73. For noble Lords who are not sure which amendments I am talking about, these are probing amendments concerning the arrangements that will be in place for anonymous electors. I can certainly confirm that officials have carried out extensive engagement with various civil society groups that highlighted their interest in anonymous voting arrangements. This is important. In developing the clauses, an extensive consultation has also been carried out with the AEA on how we could make the provision work effectively for anonymous voters.

I assure the noble Baroness that we share a joint aim. There may be a relatively small number of people here but they are very vulnerable, important people. We share a joint aim that those who rely on anonymity—including some people who have been subjected to the most vile abuse and violence imaginable—will not be negatively impacted by the changes. The Government recognise that there are electors who need to register and vote anonymously for a variety of reasons; I have referred to the kinds of circumstances in which other vulnerable electors may not wish for their name or location to be available on the register.

Anonymous electors who wish to vote in person at a polling station will be able to apply for an anonymous elector document, which will enable effective verification of identity while also protecting the voter’s anonymity. We believe that the changes proposed by Amendments 70 and 71 might undermine the objectives of the voter identification policy. Removing the photograph from the anonymous elector document, for instance, would make anonymous electors, often some of the most vulnerable members of society, potentially an easier target for anyone seeking to commit fraud.

Amendments 72 and 73 propose regulation-making powers relating to the application process for anonymous elector documents and to the exact materials used in the manufacture of those documents. The powers that Amendment 72 provides for are already in the Bill. I have not been advised on which particular clause but I will let the noble Baroness know; I did say to my faithful team, who are absolutely wonderful, that it would be helpful to the House if I were able to give details of clauses when responding. For the reason I have given, the Government do not think that taking an inflexible approach to the production of documents, as set out in Amendment 73, is desirable. With those assurances, I ask that those amendments are not pressed.

Amendment 78 would introduce an attestation process for those without necessary identification. This was given very considerable thought by my colleagues during policy development. However, there is a risk that, if someone brings another elector to the poll, these provisions could be exploited by unscrupulous individuals and might allow a ballot paper to be issued to a person who claims to be somebody else, or who is ineligible to vote in an election. The issues are balanced but we have concluded that any form of attestation would be an unacceptable avenue for this kind of fraud, undermining the core aim of promoting electoral integrity; so, after reflection, it is not something that the Government can support.

As I said earlier, photographic voter identification is, in our submission—and as agreed by the Electoral Commission—the most secure way to prove that someone is who they say they are. On Amendment 66A from the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, our aim is that electors without accepted photographic identification will, as he says, be able to apply for a voter card from their local authority until 5 pm the day before polling day. The noble Lord wishes to have a cut-off date four and a half days earlier. We do not, on the basis of our discussions, think that that is desirable or necessary. Given the great importance that the Committee rightly attaches to the ability to vote, we would like to be more liberal in our approach to making the voter card more readily available. Agreeing to restrict the amount of time for which it was available would not be a step forward; I therefore ask the noble Lord not to press that amendment.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Will the Minister clarify one issue? Why is the provision to allow an application up until 5 pm on the day before the election considered to be consistent with Northern Ireland? It is not consistent with Northern Ireland. when speaking to electoral officers, what factors suggested that having those extra four days would make it practical to deliver this in the way that the Government are suggesting?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, we believe on the basis of our discussions that it is, and should be, practical. Whether or not you agree with the policy, it should surely be desirable that the card be made available up to the latest possible moment.

Amendments 79 to 81 relate to the range of identity documents; my noble friend Lord Willetts came out with a very long list. As I said on the previous group, the list of acceptable documents in the Bill was drawn up against the widest possible range of documents that would meet strong standards of security. That is the conclusion that we have reached. The Electoral Commission said that photo-only identification had the greatest security value but, as I said on the previous group—and it is there on page 81, lines 24 and 25 of the Bill—other documents may be added. However, for the reasons of security that I gave on the previous group and give again, we do not believe that the list should be extended in the way that my noble friend suggests, and we therefore cannot support this amendment.

We also see little merit in Amendment 63—which I should have referred to—proposing an annual statement from the Secretary of State on numbers of documents issued. Only individual local authorities will have the complete set of cards issued, as they will not be issued centrally. When the Electoral Commission does the post-operative examination of what happened, I am sure that it will consider those figures.

On Amendments 83 and 84, I am pleased to say that, as set out in paragraph 22 of Schedule 1, we already intend that returning officers, through their polling station staff, will record and collate information on anyone who applies for the issue of a ballot paper and is refused. This will be set out in secondary legislation, and we are working on the details with the Electoral Commission and returning officers. Of course, the polling station will already have informed the person concerned that they have been refused a ballot paper and why, so we think that a letter is an unnecessary further step. As I said, secondary legislation will cover this point.

In the light of this, these amendments would ultimately either duplicate or extend processes which are provided for in the Bill—making them either unnecessary or unacceptable to the Government—while only increasing the administrative burden on the electoral sector; for example, an enormous list of documents might do that in itself. For this reason and the other reasons mentioned, I beg that these amendments are not pressed.

I gave a long response, as this is quite a large group. I hope that I have managed to address at least the main points that were made.

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Non-Afl)]

Before the noble Lord sits down, would he reflect on the fact that the last two hours have been about something to do with legislation affecting the Labour Party in particular? It would be intriguing to find a similar amount of time in a Bill looking at the Conservative Party in very similar terms.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Before the Minister answers that, could I gently remind Members that it is within the Companion and courteous not to intervene in debate when they were not here and did not come in until 10 minutes after the debate started?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I will not follow that. The House is master of its own procedures, but it is up to those who wish to intervene to do so when they wish to give advice to other Members.

What I would say with respect to the noble Lord, and indeed to all those who have spoken—whether they were here at the start or were not—is that I understand that noble Lords on the other side are here because they have a specific concern. The concern or perception that I have heard expressed is that they believe they may be unduly affected. Having heard what has been said, I will endeavour to provide further reassurances and to explore the matter further. If noble Lords opposite and in other parts of the House are ready to do so, I am determined to continue the discussion on these topics beyond today—and indeed imminently, as we move over the next few days.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I have listened to this debate with a sense of bewilderment and admiration, but I am still not clear what the imposition of compulsory voter ID is going to solve. As the noble Lords, Lord Grocott and Lord Woolley, made very clear, there has been one conviction.

While everyone has been getting passionate, I have been a bit of geek over the past couple of weeks and have read the impact assessment, so I want to go through why these amendments in the names of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman and Lady Meacher, and the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, are so important. If the Government decide to go down this path, even though they have not been able to determine that there is a need for it, the costings they are using must be absolutely watertight, otherwise people will find it hard, or sometimes impossible, to get this compulsory photographic ID.

The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said that we should not worry because it is £3 per person. She has clearly not read the impact assessment. That is not for every voter. Under the Government’s own impact assessment, it is for those who do not have the ID that is required who will need voter ID. According to the Government’s impact assessment that is 0.1% to 0.4% of voters. That works about at £150 per card, at the Government’s best estimate, to determine a problem that no one can quite work out what it is about.

The Government also say in the impact assessment that the degree of certainty on the final scope of all the costs—the £180, the £230 and the £1 million that have been determined—is so unknown that the costs are preliminary and further work will be needed. Too true that further work will be needed. If you get down to the details, the costs just do not stack up. On basic things, the Government are saying that the poll card that we all get will have to go from A5 to A4, yet they say that the postal cost is 80p. A4 is a large letter—so the costs have not been worked out. If these costs were presented by any person doing a basic business studies degree, perhaps at Cambridge with the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, they would get F or F-minus.

The Government have assumed this from one study in Woking. I have no problem with Woking—I am sure it is a very nice place—but it is not demographically made up of the rest of the country, and you cannot work out that what happened in Woking is going to happen in every community across this country. The Government have taken the average cost in Woking, taken it across every constituency in the country and averaged it out.

So let us look at some of the costs and resources. The Government have worked out that every constituency will need 1.64 machines to print these things. What nonsense is 0.64 of a machine? They have worked out the cost of 1.64 machines for each local authority. A number of people have said, quite rightly, that extra polling station clerks will be needed. The Government’s impact assessment says that: one for every two polling stations. I worry about the poor polling clerks in my city of Sheffield and in my ward who are going to have run three miles between polling stations. This is absolute nonsense.

PACAC has been really clear on this. A survey has been done by the Government. It is referred to in the impact assessment, but it does not give the results. The Government say that only 4% of people will need these, but, when asked, 31% of the public said that they would need them, want them or ask for them. PACAC is right to say that, for every 1% extra of the population who asks for one, it is a £10.2 million cost. As PACAC says, 31% takes it up from £150 million to £450 million.

I know that the Minister will say that it will all be guaranteed under the new burdens process. Under that process, there is meant to be a new burdens assessment with the impact assessment. I ask the Minister where that is, because I have not been able to find it. It does not seem to appear. I speak as a former leader of a council and declare my interests as a vice-president of the Local Government Association. If this kind of nonsense accounting is going to be the basis of the new burdens, I can tell you that you will have polling clerks running between polling stations and 0.64 of a machine. It does not stack up.

That is why these amendments are vital. We need proper accounting, proper costs and proper assessments, and then, and only then, will these cards be introduced—if they are to be introduced—speedily and in a timely way, with councils having the resources to deliver the very things which the Government say are required.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

My Lords, there is a great temptation to stray into clause stand part issues, which we shall debate later, and it is unavoidable in the context of these amendments and of our first discussion of this issue. I was struck, as I think all of us were, by the speeches by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. Both spoke in favour of greater participation and greater involvement. I say “hear, hear” to that.

What we are discussing is an additional requirement to vote. At Second Reading, a number of noble Lords—for example, the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—reflected on voting in jurisdictions which have identity cards and said that this was no big deal: you go along with your identity card, you vote, and it is all quite normal. Of course that is so, because that is not an additional requirement to vote; it exists in the society in general for other purposes. What we have here is an additional requirement—an additional impediment to the participation which the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, seek.

That additional impediment will inevitably reduce participation—by how much we can debate. There have been a number of studies, including the evidence which the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, cited and the study by the Rowntree trust, as to the degree to which participation may be reduced. We can disagree as to which study is the more accurate and the more satisfactory, but it is impossible to argue that this will not reduce participation. That is the true cost of these measures—not the financial cost so much, but the true cost.

In what I call his precautionary mode, the noble Lord, Lord True, at Second Reading—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for that long, thought-provoking and interesting debate. I am sorry my noble friend Lord True is not answering on this issue, but this was much more of a stand part debate than one on any specific amendments.

I sincerely thank the noble Lord, Lord Woolley of Woodford, and my noble friend Lady Verma for what they have said today, and indeed for coming; the noble Lord has come from Cambridge today, and I know my noble friend has a really painful foot. I thank them both for coming because, as noble Lords have said, their passion on this issue really shone out.

I think the issue is connected. It is about making sure that as many people as possible take up their democratic right to vote, and we always have more work to do on that. I totally agree with the noble Lord about citizenship in schools—I was a huge supporter of that for the many years that I was leader of a large council—but we also have to listen to my noble friend Lady Verma and the communities that she comes from about the issues in play at the moment that prevent some of her community using their democratic vote. We are going to try, through citizenship in schools and other measures that the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, is taking, to make sure that people can do that. I thank them both for coming and for their input.

Most of what we have talked about today is about communications. Having worked for many years with electoral officers in local authorities, I know that they are very good locally. I thank them for everything they do in targeting their communities; they know those communities and are very good at making sure that they get the message out.

However, when this Bill goes through, the communication of the new way that the electoral system will work as a result of it will be down to the Electoral Commission, which has agreed to deliver comprehensive and targeted communications about the new system. I hope it will work with those local electoral officers—we will make sure that it does—to make sure that it is a joined-up approach so that everyone understands how it will work.

The top line on this issue is that in our manifesto the Government committed to protecting the integrity of our democracy by introducing identification to vote at polling stations. The noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said that we won a majority of 80 seats. Yes, we did, and we won it on that manifesto commitment. That was part of what we offered the electorate at that time.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Can I be clear? The House has heard three times from the Government Front Bench about their manifesto. Did the Government’s manifesto commit to compulsory voter ID?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

It was photo identification—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that any good electoral system can always be improved and that is exactly what we are doing.

Many countries are doing this; we are not the only one. Italy, France, Spain and Norway—all our European friends, which I am sure the Liberal Democrats will be very pleased about—already have voter identification. Canada, which is not in the EU, also does. But as many noble Lords have mentioned—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

It is really important that we have a level playing field here. Of the countries that the Minister has just outlined, how many do not have mandatory ID cards?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not know about mandatory ID cards. All I know is that they have to use voter identification when they vote and that is the important issue—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Can we now move on, please?

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The Minister might have inadvertently misled the Committee from the Dispatch Box in the figures she has just quoted from the Electoral Commission’s survey of 2019. The Government’s own impact assessment, on page 42, paragraph 83, refers to that, saying that satisfaction in the pilot areas was 69% of the poll in 2019, whereas it was 83% in those areas where there was no photo ID pilot.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I am quoting from the 2021 Electoral Commission winter tracker, which was clear that the majority of the public, two out of three voters, 66%, say a requirement to show identification at a polling station would make them more confident in the security of our elections. That was 2021.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The pilot was done in 2019. These are people who actually had the photo ID. When there was photo ID against a control group of no photo ID, the people who were more satisfied with the ballot, post the election, were the people who did not have photo ID. The Government’s own impact assessment says that, and that was signed off by the noble Lord, Lord True, on 20 January this year. Is the Government’s impact assessment correct?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

The noble Lord is conveniently ignoring the experience from Northern Ireland, which is better than the pilots, as one would expect, because they have had it for a very long time. To keep quoting from these pilots as a way of trying to discredit the rollout is a pretty ineffective approach when there is clearly a lot of experience from Northern Ireland which shows a high degree of satisfaction.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I will answer the Minister directly. The Northern Ireland experience shows that between 2% and 3% of people, after the introduction, did not vote. If we extrapolate that over here, that is 1.2 million people who would probably be less likely to vote. It has taken 10 years to get back to the equivalent before photo ID was introduced. The noble Baroness shakes her head, but that is the evidence, because I have read it. I have read it and I have seen what the effect in Northern Ireland actually is: it has taken 10 years. The noble Baroness shakes her head, so I ask her to show me the evidence that shows that what I am saying is not correct. What is more, for one conviction, is it worth, for 10 years, 1.2 million people being discouraged from voting in England?

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord’s back, after seven hours, recovers. I was one of some Members who were in this Chamber at 2 o’clock this morning debating and voting on another important Bill.

In view of the lateness of the hour, I want to put only one point to the Minister. The Government understand that their proposals in this area are controversial. They are controversial because they are making a very considerable proposed change to the way in which we conduct elections. Yet at the same time, on all sides of the House, we are agreed that we want to see the maximum possible voter registration and turnout. Looking at this group of amendments, which I rise to support, does it seem unreasonable that the Government should be required to provide a statement on the estimated impact of these provisions on voter turnout? That seems to me a very reasonable request.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, listening to this debate, it is quite obvious that some groups of people are less likely to have access to the voter ID that will be required. We should know much more about the potential consequences of such a major change to our tried and tested system at polling stations before introducing it for a general election. As the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, said, let us press the pause button on this. A single survey commissioned by the Cabinet Office is not sufficient to show that compulsory voter ID will not have many of the same problems that we see with electoral registration, which effectively excludes many people from their right to vote.

We should look in some detail at the report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights on this issue. It drew attention last September as to how:

“The Government must do more to demonstrate the need for voter ID”.


The committee said that the Government must also

“mitigate the potential barriers to voting its proposals may create.”

The Government’s response spoke about making elections “accessible”, but they failed to justify any additional barriers to voting or to show that they were proportionate to what is shown to be an extremely low level of electoral fraud and one conviction. The Joint Committee on Human Rights said that

“it is estimated that over 2 million people will not have an acceptable form of ID and so will have to apply for a free voter card or lose the ability to vote at the polling station. These proposals are aiming to reduce fraud at polling stations, however the recorded instances of such fraud are rare.”

Having taken expert advice, the committee warned that:

“The impact of the proposals may fall disproportionately on some groups with protected characteristics under human rights law. Older people and disabled people are less likely to have photo ID and some groups such as Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities may be hesitant to apply for the Voter Card. The Committee calls on the Cabinet Office to produce clear research setting out whether mandatory ID at the polling station could create barriers to taking part in elections for some groups and how they plan to mitigate this risk effectively.”


It is worth noting that this is what the impact assessment says about this policy in terms of its effects on voting:

“The analysis does not assess the impact of the policy on voter turnout.”


The Government’s own impact assessment has not even looked at what the effect will be on voter turnout. Why was this not done?

It has been mentioned that some countries have voter ID. To answer the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, certain states in America do not have compulsory voter ID, and the effect on turnout is that those who are more economically affluent will vote while those who are least economically affluent will not, because they do not have access to voter ID. So there are international comparisons showing that this is a problem.

Because of the lateness of the hour, I will say just this: there will be roughly 2.1 million people for whom mandatory voter ID will be a barrier to exercising their vote. If that is the case, why are the Government pursuing this policy, and why have they not carried out an impact assessment to see its effect on voter turnout?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I thank all noble Lords for an interesting debate. I shall respond to a couple of things straightaway. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, raised some issues from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I have agreed with the Minister that if she does not mind, we will write to the noble Baroness and send a copy to anyone who has taken part in the debate.

Due to the lateness of the hour, and because we are going to have a stand part debate on this same issue at our next sitting, I will be much briefer than perhaps I would have been, because I am sure all these issues will get brought up again. The Government strongly stand by the importance of public participation and engagement, which has come out from many noble Lords today. It is important to us. I reassure the House that we share a joint aim on that front. We all want participation in a strong democratic election system.

Turnout fluctuates from election to election; I think we all know that. If we look at national elections versus local elections versus parish council elections, they all have fluctuating turnout, for many reasons, so it will likely not be possible to isolate the impact of the measures in the Bill on that. It would be quite difficult. I hear the concerns that have been raised but, as I said earlier, the impact of the measures in the Bill have been considered in great detail. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, I will get her a list of the consultees that we worked with because that is important.

With regard to making sure that all groups, particularly minority groups, engage with the electoral system, register to vote and vote once they are registered, I go back again to the importance of the local electoral teams in all our local authorities. They are the people who have the experience of the communities that they serve and work within. I myself have a particular interest in the Gypsy, Romany and Traveller communities. If those local electoral teams understand a community locally—I have seen this working locally myself—then they are often the people who can speak to them, find out the barriers for those communities and work through them. I am sure that is same for many other communities across the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

We will write to the noble Lord. We have met, but I shall make sure that we give the noble Lord a clear response on that.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I know that it is very late, so I shall be quick. The Minister skipped over this, and it is quite key. There has been no analysis of the impact of this policy on voter turnout. The Electoral Commission will do it retrospectively but I am talking about before it comes in. Why have the Government missed this key issue? They keep telling us from that Dispatch Box that the policy will not have an impact on voter turnout, yet they have done no detailed analysis in their impact assessment.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I can confirm that we have not done that impact analysis. The important impact will be after.

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

My Lords, when I first came into this House I got involved with the Trade Union Bill, like a number of other noble Lords. I did so because I was seriously concerned that it was unbalanced and partisan legislation that worked against the interests of one political party in this country. I fear that Part 4 of this Bill has much the same effect. We should be aware that, despite the complexities of this issue, the impact could in effect well be the same. The Committee should be very concerned about that.

Clause 25 adds to the imbalance, with the addition of executive power. It is a pity that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, is not in his place, because he would be very strong and vocal on this issue. Before we could possibly agree this additional power for the Secretary of State, we need to understand the reason for it and why it could not be dealt with in some other way. We should not lightly give additional powers, and I would like to hear from the Minister precisely why this is necessary and why it could not be dealt with in a different fashion; otherwise, we should not agree to it.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to follow the themes that the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, and other noble Lords have alluded to. I came to this Bill slightly worried but with open ears to hear where it was going. As we have got more into Committee, the more worried I have become about a level playing field for elections. Regardless of the colour of a political party, a level playing field is what is required. With Part 4 and Clause 25 along with other clauses, it is becoming more worrying.

If you were to say to an ordinary person outside this House that the Bill would put the Electoral Commission more in the pocket of the party of government, regardless of its colour; to limit organisations, which at the moment can campaign 12 months out from a general election and spend £20,000 before they have to register, to £700; and that the stroke of the Secretary of State’s pen—that is what we are talking about—decides what type of organisation or individual is deemed to be allowed to campaign, I think most of the British public would say that was not a fair and equal way to carry out an election.

I come back to the central question that a number of noble Lords have asked: what is the problem that this clause is trying to deal with? How big is that problem? As someone who has been involved in elections since the age of 15, I am not clear what the problem is that requires my third question: what is it that requires the speed and the secrecy of the Secretary of State’s pen to deal with it? Those are the three questions that I ask the Minister. I hope that he will give detailed and, as he normally does, reasoned answers to what the clause is trying to solve, how big the problem is and, if he can explain the first two, why the only option is a Henry VIII power for the Secretary of State to decide what type of organisation or individual is deemed legal to campaign in such a way.

[Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws (Lab)]

My Lords, I too express my deep concerns about the ways in which the Bill contravenes the Human Rights Act and indeed our constitutional commitments. I have canvassed the views of human rights lawyers and constitutional lawyers, and I am afraid I find it very difficult to see where the Government’s advice has come from that this complies with our commitments and obligations under our own legislation and constitutional commitments. When people say, “Let us think twice”, it is a reminder to this House about our role in causing hesitation when something of such significance in our democracy is going to interfere with the fundamentals. I call upon us to hesitate before going down this road, and to question what its purposes really are.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to contribute to Committee on the Elections Bill, rather than take part in the “Lord Balfe Down Memory Lane Amendment (No. 2) Bill”, which I, like other Members, have enjoyed. We are discussing in this clause the powers of the Secretary of State, yet this is the same Minister who will pilot the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill, which, as we know, will restore the position where, in effect, a general election might be called at short notice.

Will the Minister explain in responding how the clauses we are discussing—the powers of the Secretary of State to add or remove from a list—would be exercised in the event of a very sudden general election? Would it be possible for the Minister suddenly to say, after an election has been announced, that such and such will or will not be allowed to take part in it, with the expenditure limits that follow? I would be very interested to know the answer to that and how they fit together. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Will the noble Viscount take that a bit further? It is not just after the general election has been called; the Prime Minister will now have the sole power of calling the general election and knowing the date. It could be that, a few months before the general election, in a couple of marginal seats in which organisations are particularly difficult, the Government could, at the stroke of the Secretary of State’s pen, proscribe those people from campaigning. Does the Minister—I apologise, the noble Viscount—accept that that could take place?

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

First, I thank the noble Lord for promoting me to a position that I am unlikely ever to hold. I do not disagree with him. As I said, it is the relationship between what is being proposed in the Elections Bill and the fact that we are moving to a situation where, if a Prime Minister so decides, we can have an election at short notice. These areas, including those raised by the noble Lord, deserve a bit of exploration. I would be ever so grateful if the Minister could add that to the list of things he intends to cover in his reply.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Amendment 48A has been grouped with the stand part debate. I thought about degrouping it, but having seen the lie of the land and the way that the debate was likely to go, it seemed easier to join the noble Lord, Lord Collins, in this group. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for his support.

This is about third-party joint campaigning. It is not unusual for charities and voluntary groups, especially smaller ones, to try to increase their impact by gathering together in a joint campaign. That could be focused on a policy area, such as animal welfare, or it could be attacking a particular event. When I was doing the review—I have referred to this before—HS2 construction was an important issue, and a number of groups and communities affected by it joined together to campaign to try to change public opinion about the desirability of building HS2 at all. Just those two examples show that this is a very complex area, and finding the appropriate degree of freedom and transparency is hard.

The current rules governing joint campaigning are pretty complex, burdensome and hard to understand, especially if the individual participants are quite small organisations. The present rule is that joint campaigning expenditure bites only when total expenditure by third-party campaigners reaches £20,000—the level at which registration under the Electoral Commission rules is required under Part 6 of PPERA. However, under this Bill there will be a new lower threshold of £10,000. It is true that the lower threshold—the £10,000 to £20,000 level—will be subject to a lower level of scrutiny, but joint campaigning expenditure will still need to be recorded and accounted for. This adds yet another complication to an already complicated arena.

My amendment, complex as it is, seeks to remove some of that bureaucratic burden. How would it work? Let us suppose that charity A has spent £7,000 on its own account and £3,500 as part of a joint campaign with a number of other charities or voluntary groups. That will have taken the total spend to £10,500—above the lower limit. If the amendment were to be accepted, the £3,500 would not be included, so the charity would not have to register. However, if it were to spend £10,000 on its own account and still spend only £3,500 on the joint campaign, it would have to register, because it would have hit the lower level on its own account. Finally, if charity A were to spend £5,000 on its own account and £16,000 as part of a joint campaign, thereby spending £21,000, it would have to register, because it would have infringed the higher level at which full registration is required. That is provided for in proposed new subsection (7B), in my amendment.

The purpose of the amendment is to avoid sweeping a range of pretty small organisations into the regulatory net, thus releasing them from the need to undertake ineffective registration, but at the same time to avoid creating loopholes that could be used to undermine the effectiveness of the regime as a whole.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak in this relatively short debate to say that these Benches start from the same point as the noble Lord, Lord Collins: we do not understand what problem the new £10,000 lower threshold is trying to solve. Again, I genuinely ask the Minister what the problem is. Could we have examples of that problem from previous elections, and be told the size of the problem, the methodology and why the lower limit was chosen? That would give us some assurance that the proposed new lower limit has not been plucked out of thin air, and also some evidence base showing why it is required—if, say, for some reason, in previous elections the £20,000 limit somehow tilted the level playing field.

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Tuesday 15th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the proposal on Clause 24 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, to which I added my name. I think most of the points that need to be made have been made very well. I have some sympathy with the proposal from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson; I think four months is a great improvement on a year as a bar on campaigning that might possibly be understood to be electioneering by small voluntary organisations—a very great improvement, actually. The real thing is whether we need this at all. I am very conscious that Clause 24 actually creates an offence. A small, rather vulnerable voluntary organisation could be setting out why its cause is so important and subsequently find it has done this within an election year; and it may be fined, I suppose, for this breach and for committing an offence.

So many bits of this Bill seem contrary to the whole essence of our democracy. Civil society contributes so very much to our political life through its work drawing attention to vulnerable groups and so on. I worked with the Child Poverty Action Group, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Lister. I was there for some years. When you are trying to draw to the attention of political parties just what really poor people are going through, how on earth could you be committing an offence if someone later calls an election?

I have a lot of worries about Clause 24, particularly because it creates that offence. It is a bit strange to me that Clause 24 stand part and Clause 25 stand part have been split because a lot of my concerns about Clause 24 are in fact deep in Clause 25—so much is left to regulations and Ministers can determine all sorts of things in relation to this provision. We will get on to that next time. I think that Clause 25 compounds the worries about Clause 24; I hope very much that the Minister will take this seriously and that the clause ultimately will not stand part.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I wish to speak in support of the probing Amendment 35 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. We have to ask what my noble friend asked. What is this trying to solve? In the regulated period of one year and at a figure of £700, we are saying that an organisation that spends £1.91 a day for 12 months before a general election could be committing an offence. That is the amount that would have to be spent per day by the organisation or £13.46 a week or £58.33 a month. The very simple question I would like to ask the Minister is: how was that daily amount of £1.91 calculated? Why is it deemed to be illegal if an organisation exceeds that amount and exactly what problem does it solve?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, may I ask the Minister a question? I do not entirely understand this clause and the unincorporated association element is the least clear to me. I googled “unincorporated association” this morning and came away more confused than when I started. I think we would all be very grateful if the Minister’s office could circulate a letter explaining why this is there, what sort of organisations they have in mind, whether there is a history or problems with unincorporated associations and, if so, what they were, so that we have some idea of why this is necessary. I get a sense from others who have spoken that we are puzzled by where this clause is coming from, why it is there and what it is intended to do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Before the Minister sits down, on the £700 limit, have the Government done any assessment of how many UK-based organisations that spend between £700 and the existing amount of £20,000 will be affected by the potential change in this legislation?

[Lord True (Con)]

The change refers to foreign or otherwise ineligible third-party campaigners. I do not know how many foreign organisations there might be that might want to be caught, but if I had such information, I would gladly share it with the noble Lord. As I have said—if I could just complete the explanation—the Section 88(2) organisations are not caught by this provision.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Organisations which at the moment spend below £20,000, which will now go down to £700, will be affected. My question is: how many UK-based organisations that will spend between £700 and £20,000 will be affected by the change? I accept what the Minister says vis-à-vis foreign interference, but there will be organisations in the UK that spend between £700 and £20,000 within the 365-day period that will be affected by this, that are not registered. How many organisations have the Government assessed will be affected?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, there are other provisions in the Bill in relation to lower-tier and upper-tier spending, and in relation to the £10,000 and the £20,000. It is not specifically related to these provisions. I repeat my undertaking to the noble Lord that I will try to give him the advice he is asking for. Whether my officials, or the Electoral Commission, have a full list I cannot tell him at this hour. I understand that he might be concerned, but I urge noble Lords to understand that this clause is intended to apply to foreign entities.

Elections Bill

Lord Scriven Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Tuesday 15th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

We do not really need to say much more, but I think I might try. I want to add a little layer of shame if I possibly can. I would like to know from the Minister why the Government are denying democracy to a section of society. That is exactly what is happening here. If blind and partially sighted people cannot see to vote properly or cannot vote in privacy, that is denying them democracy. My question, first, is: why? Secondly, why did the Government not put something like this in the Bill anyway? We have an ageing population—this section of society is going to get much bigger—so it is absolutely necessary.

The last thing I will say is that, if the Government insist on bringing forward these awful Bills, we will insist on trying to amend them. It is down to the Government. If they do not want to listen to us, they should bring us better Bills.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, it is slightly disappointing that the Committee is having to debate this issue in this way. Will the Government listen? This is not a party-political issue; it is an central issue that is vital for all, so that all are afforded a secret, independent vote that is accessible and inclusive. It is interesting that a number of noble Lords, such as the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Low, and my noble friend Lord Thomas have spoken about their experiences. That is more important to listen to than issues to do with what a returning officer might or might not see as reasonable.

We on these Benches support the amendments, particularly Amendments 20 and 119, because they are about providing a prescribed piece of equipment across the country. It does not matter whether you are in Southend, Sheffield or Sunderland: there should be prescribed equipment, as now, that leads to independent, accessible and inclusive voting.

The impact assessment that the Government have provided points out that the Electoral Commission will provide a list, but it goes on to say that returning officers do not have to buy from that list. We could be left with a situation where some returning officers—I hope not many—see it as reasonable not to provide equipment, and there would be a legal argument that it was not reasonable to provide any extra equipment.

It is really important that there is something about prescription in the Bill. As other noble Lords have said, that could be written into secondary legislation. Amendment 122 from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is really innovative because different equipment will be needed as technology moves on, but the fact that it is prescribed means that it can be changed quite easily in secondary legislation and then prescribed for every polling station across the country.

I ask the Minister, first: what would prevent it being seen as reasonable for no equipment to be required in a polling station? Would that be deemed illegal in the way the Bill is written? Secondly, if you are partially sighted or blind, what would the difference be, whether you vote in Southend, Sheffield or Sunderland, in having different equipment? It should be prescribed, it should be the best and it should be on the recommendations of civil society, in consultation with the independent Electoral Commission, to determine what is required.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, this has certainly been an important debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his extremely comprehensive introduction to his amendments. It is really important to this debate for those of us who are not blind or partially sighted to hear exactly what the situation is for some noble Lords. We on these Benches are very happy to support his amendments. I also thank the RNIB for its time in meeting me to discuss the situation and for its very helpful briefings. The noble Lord also mentioned the RNIB’s work on this.

I tabled my amendment because the Bill provides an opportunity to make some much-needed improvements so that voting is more accessible for everyone. Although that is the stated intention in the Bill, the RNIB and blind and partially sighted Members of this House have raised concerns, as we have heard, that the wording in the proposed legislation is inadvertently—we hope it is inadvertent—reducing the legal protections for blind and partially sighted people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

No, my Lords; the reality is that the current position is confined and the Government are seeking to move to a future where a range of assistance is available. Again, in my submission, the noble Lord does not characterise the position correctly. As for his allusion to court cases, everybody who has some knowledge of these proceedings knows very well that there was a court case in 2019, which is a matter that the Government must address and are addressing.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

I must press the Minister here. Following on from what the noble Lord, Lord Harris, said, the impact assessment is very clear. Under this policy, there are no direct costs because returning officers

“will be able to buy the equipment they think best”

suits

“those with disabilities … by removing the requirement to buy a specific device.”

That is what the impact assessment says. There is no extra money: money will be moved from the prescribed equipment to what the returning officer sees fit.

[Lord True]

My Lords, we are seeking to move to a better, more flexible and more complete approach for blind and partially sighted people, and others. I repeat what I said to the House: if new burdens flow from these proposals, long-standing government policy will apply. We have heard, not from the Government at this Dispatch Box but from others who have spoken, that the specific equipment available today does not suit every circumstance. It is reasonable, therefore, to engage in the kind of open discussion we are having, and which I welcome. If I am allowed to make progress, I will say a little more about what the Government hope to do.

[Lord True (Con)]

I do not believe that was the case but I am not briefed on the specific point. I will of course give the noble Baroness an answer on that.

There are many things in the Bill on which we disagree, and I am conscious that there will be hard and difficult debates with the Government, and I will be very much in the dock on a number of things. I understand the suspicions and concerns that have been raised, but I beg to persuade the House, not only today in Committee but in further conversations I hope to have with noble Lords, that the Government’s earnest here is not to confine but to extend what is available to disabled people and to blind and partially sighted people.

The amendments as drafted would be prescriptive and would provide for specific equipment to be legally required in over 40,000 polling stations across the United Kingdom. This might ossify the position on equipment provided and could take away the opportunity to provide equipment that people want and need, which is the aim of the more tailored approach introduced by these measures.

Additionally, it is important to be mindful that, as my noble friend Lord Holmes reminded us in opening, being able to “vote without any need for assistance” can mean different things to different people, as the act of voting could be seen to include various actions, from knowing the candidates to marking the ballot or placing the vote in the ballot box. Identifying a device or combination of devices that would enable every single blind and partially sighted person to complete every step in the voting process securely and without assistance would be hard.

The Government are absolutely clear that we do not want the changes to be a postcode lottery of support. The new requirements—this is important, and I note the amendments put forward by my noble friend—will be supported by Electoral Commission guidance. That will be developed in conjunction with expert organisations representing a wide range of disabled people and will provide a clear and consistent framework for returning officers to follow. The Electoral Commission will also include this in its performance standards for returning officers to ensure accountability in the delivery of the new policy.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

Clearly, the Minister has not read the impact assessment. It makes it clear that the list will be provided but says:

“nor is there a requirement for”

returning officers

“to choose from this list specifically.”

Therefore, the list is not a guarantee of a minimum standard across the country.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I have said that the Government anticipate a very important role for the Electoral Commission. During our first day in Committee —a long day, which I welcomed—your Lordships expressed profound respect, which I share, for the Electoral Commission. I suggest that the role there should be for the commission in overseeing the development of this important aspect of policy should give your Lordships rather more faith in the future than the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, seems to have.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

It is not the Electoral Commission but the Government’s own impact assessment which says that the returning officers do not have to buy from the list which will be provided by the commission. This is a government impact assessment and nothing to do with the Electoral Commission.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the Government’s desire and wish is that all people who wish to vote and have voting accessible to them will have the best provision that fits them individually. I note, if I may continue, that the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Holmes relates precisely to this point of the support that the Electoral Commission will provide for the policy. As I have said, the Government are working very closely with the commission in this area and we are confident that it will be able to support the policy in a way that benefits all disabled people. That said, I am therefore sympathetic to the desire behind my noble friend’s amendment. Having heard what other noble Lords said, I would welcome further discussion, with a view to coming to a shared position on the role of the commission during the Bill’s passage.

Finally, Amendment 122 would require the Government to conduct a competition to identify technological solutions to support disabled voters. As the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, said, this is a challenging and interesting idea. I would say that this is absolutely in the spirit of the policy. We want to promote innovation and development in this area—something that has been all too lacking in recent years. Although it is not something we would instinctively want to require legislatively, a tranche of measures will support the ongoing implementation of the policy. I remain open to further discussions in this space also.

In conclusion, I have welcomed the debate and, as I have noted, we share a joint aim to improve the accessibility of elections. Therefore, I look forward to continued discussion on how best this might be done. For the reasons outlined earlier, we cannot keep the specific prescribed equipment we have now in legislation—nor would we want to do this, as it is not the best way to support all disabled voters—but we recognise the concerns raised and the sentiments behind the amendment and I remain open to conversations between now and Report. With that undertaking, I hope my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, I too rise to support the probing amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Collins. Things are moving fast and this Bill needs to keep up, particularly over sanctions. For example, last Thursday Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin was sanctioned by the UK. One of the Conservative Party’s biggest donors is an investor in this Russian state-owned oil firm. The energy firm Mercantile & Maritime, which has a UK subsidiary, gave the Conservatives £500,000 during the 2019 election campaign and is a co-investor in the massive Rosneft oil project. Rosneft is close to Vladimir Putin and has been supplying fuel to Russia’s troops in Ukraine.

The Secretary of State for Business made it very clear that he pressurised the British UK energy firm BP over a similar deal with this oil company, prompting BP to announce its exit from the partnership. However, the Government have been silent about the MME link. They say that this is because it is not a British company, but MME does have a British subsidiary, which clearly means that it can donate to British political parties, both at and outside election time. So, my question to the Minister is this: how would donations by subsidiaries such as MME be recorded, or the relationship between a sanctioned company and one of its subsidiaries be highlighted, in political party donations?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for initiating this debate, which has been interesting. One of the most memorable moments, perhaps, was when the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, suggested that the British people voted to leave the European Union because of Vladimir Putin. If that is the official view of the Liberal Democrats—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

I made no joke. I drew attention to the noble Lord’s remarks, and they will stand on the record. So far as this matter is concerned—and I have heard the cascade of innuendo ending with the remark that Ministers can be bought, which will also lie in Hansard—I move on to a serious response to a serious—

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

The Minister talks about inuendo; can he say which innuendo? What I spoke about is on the record: it is a clear donation and the links between MME and Putin’s state-backed oil company are clear.

[Lord True (Con)]

I stand by the remarks I made in response to comments from the Front Bench of the Liberal Democrat party. I would like to—