Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

In God-like isolation, he may well. I suspect that even Mr Clegg, if it is before three o'clock in the afternoon, may well reach the view that he prefers other systems. There is a variety of systems and it is clear that the alternative vote is a totally orphan system. Certainly, the Conservative Party does not favour it. On the whole, it prefers the first past the post system. At the time of the last election, the Labour Party did, but clearly the public—

[Lord Tyler]

I wonder whether the noble Lord is aware that the leader of his party supports AV.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea]

That just shows the interesting way in which there are many rather odd bedfellows. If people were given an absolute choice, I do not think that they would put that first on their list. Certainly Mr Clegg would prefer another system; Mr Cameron would prefer another system; and, although I have not spoken to the leader of my party on this, or indeed on any other matter, I suspect that he also would prefer another system. So we come to the point that no one would presumably claim support for the alternative vote. I can imagine, on the other hand, a whole series of problems because if there were to be an umbrella organisation against the alternative vote, it would be a ragbag of views. There would be a great variety of views in that. To have a legitimate group on either side of the argument will prove extraordinarily difficult. Let us assume that eventually one can fund a group, an umbrella organisation, on both sides. Clearly, some of the arguments are likely to be omitted, hence the reason for the Electoral Commission to vet those drafts which have been put out by the other organisations. In seeking to be impartial, in seeking to reconcile and in seeking to bridge that gap and to be a Marxist synthesis following Hegel and Heidegger, clearly the Electoral Commission itself may have to play that role and seek to put forward a more objective middle way to the two groups if they can be found to work together.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Myners]

My Lords, I have sympathy with some of the sentiments expressed by my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours about where electoral stations should be located. There is clearly sense in using school-houses for this purpose, not least because, in the past, each village and town would have its own school. I speak with the experience of coming from a rural constituency in Cornwall, where the schools are getting bigger; local village schools are being closed and our children have to travel longer distances to school. This probably makes sense because we are able to give them a better education and ensure that the schools are better resourced with technology.

However, it means that people in rural communities who tend to use schools as voting centres will now have to travel a greater distance to the school. This has always been a problem in rural constituencies. My mother never voted until quite late in the day. At about nine o’clock in the evening people would knock on the door and say that she had not voted, and the Conservatives and Liberals would offer cars to take her to the voting station. She always went with the Conservatives because they tended to have rather big cars and she quite liked that. She always voted Labour but she felt that it was a part of the joy of the constitutional process to go in the kind of large car in which, no doubt, the Leader of the House is accustomed to travelling, both in his ministerial office and in his private life.

A school is not the obvious place to hold an election and there is an opportunity here which resonates with the big society. Like many people, I have been wrestling to understand the big society. It is like trying to put together a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, and I have now got 15 pieces on the board to help me work out what it is. I am not unattracted by creating a part of the complex of our social life which is not dominated by governmental or quasi-governmental institutions and where a sense of community is fostered. One of the things I suggest to the Leader of the House is that we should give real consideration to looking at nodal and communication points, where people cluster in communities, and see if we can put polling stations in those centres. People clearly now gravitate towards urban shopping centres and out-of-town shopping centres; perhaps we should at least experiment with putting polling stations closer to where people go in their day-by-day life. The local post office is the obvious place, for instance, to have a polling station in a village that has for many years not had a school-house. This observation tends to point me in the direction of supporting the sentiment expressed on this point by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours.

I wonder if I could also just delay the House for a brief moment to pick up a point made by my noble friend Lord Soley: why the application for a postal vote requires the date of birth at all. Can the Leader of the House explain this? We now operate in a society where it is increasingly regarded as inappropriate to ask people their dates of birth. Indeed, when you interview somebody you are no longer allowed to ask their date of birth; you have to deduce it from their education and their appearance. It seems quite extraordinary that this is a requirement of the postal voting form. There must be a suspicion that, perhaps if one misrepresents one’s age—one perhaps becomes accustomed to taking a couple of years off in polite conversation—you might complete the form incorrectly and in so doing prejudice your vote and conceivably the outcome of the whole election. I ask the Leader of the House if he can tell us why it is necessary that people should still be embarrassed by having to disclose their date of birth.

[Lord Tyler]

I will respond briefly to the noble Baroness, Lady Liddell, because she has a good point about the way in which the whole of these arrangements should be looked at on a non-partisan basis. However, I am frankly mystified as to why this debate is taking place at 9 pm in your Lordships’ House. That does not seem to be the appropriate place. The discussion that she is seeking would be much more appropriately done within a different context. I cannot understand from any of the contributions—

[Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke]

What context is more appropriate than your Lordships’ House? This is supposed to be the place where we scrutinise and give our—bearing in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Myners, has just said—greying hairs and our experience to how legislation should be conducted.

[Lord Tyler]

This is precisely what the noble Baroness was obviously trying to obviate just now. There has not been a single amendment making any changes to Schedule 2, precisely because Schedule 2 as it stands is a distillation of the experience that we have all had. She may be quite right that we need to look at some of these issues. However, not a single amendment has been suggested by noble Lords opposite on this. That suggests that this is the present situation, taking account of the new circumstances of this event. I frankly find it quite extraordinary, in the light of the undertaking given by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, yesterday that we were going to make rapid and sensible progress, that the last 19—before I spoke, 18—minutes seems to have been an attempt just to elongate the evening’s proceedings. That is very unfortunate.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I normally like to say that it gives me great pleasure to follow a noble Lord, but I am afraid I cannot in these circumstances. It always seems to happen in these deliberations of ours. There is not much toing and froing but there is certainly plenty of toing on our side to try and subject this Bill to scrutiny; and time after time the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, injects a note of acrimony into the proceedings. It really is quite unfortunate that should happen, because we are having a reasonable approach here, fully in line with the commitments.

I am particularly interested in paragraphs 13 and 14 of Schedule 2 on the provision of polling stations. Paragraph 14 says:

“The counting officer must appoint and pay—

(a) a presiding officer to attend at each polling station”.

I find these people very good, on top of their job and they know what they are doing, but occasionally something happens which is not clear. I am seeking clarification from the noble Lord the Leader of the House, if he is able to give that clarification; if not, perhaps he could point me in the direction where I can get it.

I am trying to find out the power of presiding officers and the extent of their power. Is it confined entirely within the polling station, or does it extend outside? The example I am going to give is relevant to polling stations and I will explain briefly the point on which I seek clarification. In a local election in 2007 in my former constituency, there was a bit of local rivalry—acrimony, even. An independent candidate was standing. Voting was by the PR system, which guaranteed chaos anyway, and there was further chaos because in an area about 50 feet from the polling station entrance the independent candidate had arrayed about six people in a sort of semi-circle. They were stopping people at that distance from the polling station and inquiring as to how they were going to vote and putting pressure on them.

Folk who are going to the polling station do not like being stopped and questioned. It is bad enough trying to shove a leaflet into their hands—we have all tried that, I think—when you have spent six weeks pushing the candidate’s name through the letterboxes everyday. People were being approached and they did not like it. Intimidation is the wrong word to describe what was happening, but nevertheless there was pressure. I spoke to the police on the door. Come election time, people have such respect for our democratic process here in Britain that they are very reluctant to get involved in anything that they have not had experience of before, or they do not have written guidance on. I then spoke to the presiding officer. It might not have been as bad as saying that people had been hindered going to vote, but it was not far from it. Presiding officers are good people—they have the best of intentions—but they are quite unsure. This went on for several hours and if he had remonstrated there could have been an unpleasant scene.

I am looking for guidance from the noble Lord the Leader of the House, if he can give it, as to what geographical area a presiding officer has control over outside the polling station. Is it entirely a matter for the police? How should it be handled? I find that contention at polling stations is getting more intense. Sometimes, unfortunately, it is between the political parties, especially in certain hard fought areas. Who exactly, or what procedure, is written in the Bill that would cover the ceasing of such behaviour, and if so what would be the proper channels to put a stop to it?