Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Debate between Lord Snape and Lord Stoddart of Swindon

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Snape]

My Lords, I fear that this is yet another amendment that may rouse the ire of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, because of its lack of suitability, but there is perhaps a more important point in this amendment than in the previous one. As I have said, and has been said from all quarters of the House, we are interested in increasing turnout at elections. This is one certain way to do that.

We are aware from previous debates that although only Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Australia have favoured the system of AV inherent in the Bill, lots more countries have a system of compulsory voting. Across all those countries, turnout has increased dramatically. One might argue that that is because of the punishments for those who fail to vote, but by and large those punishments are minimal, if they are enforced at all. Yet, in Australia, for example, which has the system of AV that we are going to wish on ourselves if this Bill is carried, turnout at general elections is consistently over 90 per cent, although the penalties for failure to vote are very small indeed.

My noble friend Lord Rooker pre-empted this amendment in his comments on the previous amendment by saying that he feels that compulsory voting is unacceptable in a democracy. Instead of having punitive punishments for those who fail to vote, why not have some sort of incentive if we are going to have compulsory voting? A voucher for £10, £15 or £20 off your rates bill, for example, would provide an incentive without the fear of punitive punishment if one fails to vote.

Interestingly enough, countries closer to us than Australia have compulsory voting. I had not realised until I researched this amendment that in France it is compulsory to vote in a Senate election, although I have no doubt that experts on these matters in other parts of your Lordships' House would have realised that. That compulsion is not enforced, but it is believed to bring about an increase in turnout for Senate elections. Although I have no doubt that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will say that this amendment is unsuitable in the Bill, I hope that it will bring about a dramatic increase in voter turnout at this and every other election for that reason in particular.

There is one other reason that I meant to mention: that additional voter participation in general elections would at least remove to some degree the exorbitant and enormous expenditure that political parties indulge in now at general elections. Something like £30 million was spent in advertising and promotional material at the recent general election. I will not go into the division of that money between the various parties. That money could be better spent elsewhere, and if we could guarantee a proper turnout under compulsion, that would be a better way of increasing turnout than throwing the sort of money that all the political parties have to throw at the moment in an attempt to bring about voter participation. I beg to move.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

My Lords, unusually, I disagree completely with the noble Lord, Lord Snape. I believe that forcing people to vote is eminently undemocratic. In a democracy, people should have the opportunity to vote or not to vote. If you want to say to people, “You must indulge in this democracy and you must go to the polling station or put a cross on a ballot paper and post it”, you are taking away their freedom not to participate in an election to elect people who you perhaps do not like or perhaps dislike completely. I am not at all sure that this is a good amendment in any sense at all. Although more people may very well turn out to cast their ballot, you will have to persuade them in some way that they should do so, and the only way you can do that is by imposing a fine on them. Indeed, that is another argument against trying to force people to vote when they might not want to.

It might also be difficult for people to vote. Indeed, polling stations in some constituencies are getting further and further away these days from the voters than they used to be so that it may very well be inconvenient, to say the least, for some people to go to vote in person. However, I come back to the general position that in a democracy people should be allowed to vote for whom they wish and should make the decision themselves as to whether they should vote at all. Anything other than that smacks of autocracy rather than democracy. If this amendment is put to the vote, I should be delighted to vote against it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Snape]

I am grateful to noble Lords on both sides of your Lordships’ House for their participation in the debate. I thought that the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, was a little cynical. Of course there is provision under the compulsive system of voting for a person to make any mark that they like on a ballot paper. I noticed that he exempted both our former constituencies on the grounds that we were so enormously popular that that situation would not have arisen in either West Bromwich or in Cornwall in his former seat. According to my researches, as far as they go, there has not been a recorded instance of “None of the above” ever topping the poll. Although that is not quite the answer that the noble Lord wanted, it is the best that I can do at present.

The noble Lord, Lord Stoddart, deplored the idea that in a democracy we should, as he put it, force people to vote. I do not think that France, Belgium and Australia—to name but three—are any less democracies because they have some degree of compulsion about voting. Without wishing to embarrass the noble Lord, I should tell him that I have his picture, among others, on a wall in my home in Birmingham. The picture is of the Government Whips’ Office in 1976 and was taken in No. 10 Downing Street with Jim Callaghan, who was then Prime Minister. I always thought that we were paid to force people to vote in those days, so he was not quite as scrupulous then as he obviously is now.

I am grateful for the partial support of the noble Lords, Lord Hamilton and Lord Norton. They were both against compulsion, but both thought that there was some merit in the idea of a voucher towards people’s rates, or whatever. Perhaps, in withdrawing the amendment, I can point to some degree of unity.

[Lord Stoddart of Swindon]

The noble Lord is right about the happy times that we had together in the Whips’ Office in the House of Commons, but he will recall that we did not have compulsory voting. We wished, sometimes, that we did have compulsory voting, but very often, when I went round my little flock of MPs and told them that they must vote, they told me exactly where to go.