European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Lord Swinfen Excerpts

Monday 22nd January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rennard (LD)]

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Lord Swinfen (Con)]

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

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, we should be told about that one for sure.

The Minister is having an exciting time. On Thursday, he welcomed the President of France to this country on behalf of Her Majesty the Queen. Today he is bringing forward perhaps the only coherent piece of European legislation we can expect from this Government over a long period. However, like the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, I remain to be convinced that it is entirely necessary.

As the Minister explained, under the regulations, when an MEP vacancy arises and it is not possible to fill it within the existing procedure, the party that holds the seat may instead nominate a person to be an MEP, so that a by-election is not required. I can see that, on the face of it, that seems a sensible provision, since a by-election in the short period between now and 2019 might be regarded as a pointless exercise. However, some points need to be made here.