Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

Those figures highlight both the extent of the problem—cautioning against the timetable for boundary changes envisaged under the Bill—and what is realistically achievable. If some inner urban constituencies in Birmingham and Manchester can register 95 per cent of eligible voters, why cannot similar seats do the same?

[Lord Tyler]

I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord for giving way. I am finding it difficult to follow him. I think that this is the most important part of his amendment: the trigger to start the process. I should say that I sit on an informal all-party advisory group which the Electoral Commission consults occasionally. I really do think that his amendment imposes on the Electoral Commission a responsibility that it is not ready to take and would not wish to take. How can he suggest that there are criteria by which the Electoral Commission could certify that every local authority has taken all reasonable steps to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and accurate as possible? I cannot see how it can do that. The work done by his Government previously may have helped, but it certainly has not enabled the Electoral Commission to take the very subjective view that he suggests.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I do not think that it is a subjective view. The commission would not be asked to guarantee that everyone, or 95 per cent of people, was on the electoral roll; it would be asked to check that the local authorities had taken all reasonable steps. I envisage that it would set out what it would expect a reasonable local authority to do—for example, house-to-house inquiries if there were very high levels of underregistration; or getting the figure up to 95 per cent in certain sorts of area. It would not be difficult to identify the criteria that had to be satisfied before the commission could be satisfied. There are so many other areas in which public bodies certify that reasonable steps had been taken. I do not regard it as beyond the wit of man for the commission to do the same in relation to local authorities.

[Lord Tyler]

The noble Lord’s amendment says that every local authority has taken all reasonable steps, so presumably no Boundary Commission operation could start or any review be initiated until every local authority had been able to satisfy the Electoral Commission that it had taken reasonable steps. That is an impossible target. I am sure that, from his ministerial experience, he would agree.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

This new review could not start before every local authority had done that, but what would the excuses be? Why should one, two, three or four constituencies be prejudiced?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lipsey]

The noble Lord has led me to be even briefer, because I was about to refer to his Amendment 89C and to a similar amendment that I myself proposed. It is quite easy statistically to equalise notional electorates. It depends on, for example, the proportion of rented tenure in the given constituency. Perfectly good equations can be developed that pretty accurately project the notional electorate from the actual electorate. Equalise those within whatever limit the House may decide and you have a much more sensible approach than that which is in the current draft of the Bill.

[Lord Tyler]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Will he accept, even if some of his colleagues would not, that one of the disincentives to registration is that people—perhaps particularly if they are transient through the area—think that if it is a very safe seat, their vote simply will not matter? It is the correlation between safe seats under the first past the post system and the disincentive not just to register but to bother to vote even if they do register. I think that at least he will accept that that is one other reason. How does he propose to tackle that problem if, as seems to be his colleagues’ wont, they want to resist any improvement to the electoral system?

[Lord Lipsey]

I am proposing to tackle it in the very same way as I hope he is proposing to tackle it—by voting yes to AV whenever we get round to the referendum, whether on 5 May or, as I hope, a later date.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tyler]

If the situation is as dire as the noble Lord suggests in a minority but nevertheless presumably in a number of local authorities, I do not understand how the requirements of his noble friend’s amendment could possibly be met.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

That is precisely the point. The amendment says that,

“all reasonable steps to ensure”,

must be taken. We might well have to invest additional resources in the inner cities for canvassing teams to go around with forms to ensure that people are being properly registered. Unless there is an enforcement regime to deal with that problem, you will not get the electoral registration levels that are required.

Furthermore, the problem is escalating. I intervened on the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, last week on when the subsequent boundary review—not the next one—will take place. It will take place on the basis of a register that he has drawn up on individual registration. I see a much larger problem arising in the long term, in perhaps seven or eight years’ time—not at the next election, but at the election after—which Parliament has not even begun to consider. When we dealt with this matter during the course of the Bill on electoral registration, we did not consider it because we did not realise that we would be faced with the nonsense that we are being faced with today.

As I said, I do not believe that the resources are there. They must be made available to ensure that the electoral register is as complete and accurate as possible before the Boundary Commission can complete its work.