Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

The only part of the comments I made when we debated this matter previously that I want to repeat is that I have had the pleasure—or difficulty, for that matter —of being on a panel abroad looking at international elections. That is a process which many Members of this House have participated in. I want the honour— I use “honour” deliberately—of being able to say to other countries, “Look at what we do. Follow that as closely as possible, because that is the best way to run your elections”. However, with these two clauses in the Bill, I am afraid that I could not do that.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on these amendments. We have had a very powerful debate from all sides of the House, and I suggest that we now ought to move towards the Minister’s response.

I remind the Minister of the constitutional context we are in and of his responsibilities as, in effect, the only member of the Government with responsibility for the constitution and constitutional propriety. Noble Lords may not be fully aware that, since the last reshuffle, there is no longer any Minister within the Government who has been given the specific responsibility of being Minister for the Constitution. The responsibility for this Bill has been moved from the Cabinet Office to the department for levelling up, communities, local government and various other things which provide a very extensive portfolio for Michael Gove. That leaves the Minister in some ways stranded, but in other ways he is the only member of the Government—apart from the Prime Minister himself—who specifically has responsibility for constitutional propriety among his major responsibilities.

The Minister will be well aware that the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, referred to issues of constitutional principle in his resignation letter and that, before him, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, also resigned on a matter of constitutional principle. I hope that the Minister will address the constitutional propriety of these two clauses in winding up. After all, we are in a wider constitutional crisis, both domestically—I have referred to the context of that—and internationally, given what is happening in Ukraine and the growth of autocracies around the world.

The noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, who sadly is not in his place, addressed Britain’s constitutional crisis in his article in the Times last Wednesday. He reminded his readers:

“The British constitution, because it is unwritten, is particularly vulnerable to its limitations being resisted at the top of government … It is the responsibility of parliamentarians, and in particular Conservative ones, to insist”


that constitutional rules and conventions are followed. I welcome the reaffirmation made by the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, of the Conservative Party’s proud tradition as the constitutional party—from Burke through successive Salisburys to the noble Viscount’s father, Lord Hailsham—and I regret our current Government’s failure to maintain fully that tradition.

I invite the Minister to explain to the House how he considers these proposals to be compatible with Conservative principles of limited government and parliamentary sovereignty. If he cannot reconcile the tried and tested principles of Conservatism—about which he has often spoken eloquently—with these proposals, he should accept that they should be removed.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, we very much welcome these amendments. We thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for tabling them and for his excellent and clear introduction on his concerns about the implications of leaving these clauses in the Bill. I will be brief, as he and many other noble Lords made excellent speeches today.

We have made it extremely clear on previous stages of the Bill’s consideration that we are extremely concerned about its intention to make provisions for a power to designate a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission, drafted by government. As other noble Lords have said, this would allow political interference in the regulation of our elections and calls into question the independence of the Electoral Commission from government and political control. This simply cannot be allowed to happen. It is a dangerous precedent. If we look at similar democracies such as Canada, New Zealand or Australia, there is always a complete separation between government and the electoral commission. It is essential that our regulatory framework strikes the right balance between upholding the independence of the Electoral Commission and ensuring it is properly scrutinised and held to account. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, made some good points about the fact that we need to look at how it operates, but this is absolutely not the way to go about it.

I remind those noble Lords who have said that this is not of any concern that new Section 4B(2) in Clause 15 says that:

“The Commission must have regard to the statement when carrying out their functions”—


“must”, not “may”. That is what really concerns us. We have had many excellent speeches, so I urge the Minister to listen very carefully to what has been said in the defence of our democracy. That is what we are talking about. We fully support these amendments and urge other noble Lords to do the same when this is put to the House.

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[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for their support. This amendment would prevent overseas electors donating to political parties in the UK. We had quite a debate about this in Committee so I will not go over all the points, but I want to talk about the reasons behind our concerns and to raise a few key things.

We are concerned that the change to remove the 15-year limit on registering overseas electors creates a loophole in donation law that would allow wealthy donors unlimited access to our democracy and the opportunity for unprecedentedly large donations. We do not believe that foreign donors should be allowed to financially influence our democratic processes; that right should be reserved for citizens who actually live in this country. The Electoral Commission recommended introducing new duties on parties to enhance due diligence and risk assessment of donations based on existing money laundering regulations, which would protect parties and build confidence among voters, so that sources of party funding would be thoroughly and properly scrutinised.

We are therefore disappointed that the Bill does nothing about this and does not bring in what is urgently needed—an effective regulatory and enforcement regime to ensure that foreign money and dark money cannot enter our political system through donations to political parties. We have tabled Amendment 63 to protect our democracy from this foreign money, which we know is already impacting our politics. Concerns about how our democracy is being influenced by malign foreign influences has been highlighted already in the Russia report. That was debated at length in Committee, so I will not go into that any further, but it provides a clear example and concern.

Our fear is that the Government have, potentially inadvertently, created a system vulnerable to overseas interference. It allows a person to call up any or every local authority to say they were resident in the area 30 or 40 years ago with pretty flimsy proof and then be able to be registered and donate enormous sums of money. That is our key concern. When this was debated in Committee, the Minister said that if you have the right to vote, you should have the right to donate. Although I understand entirely the principle behind this, it does not address our very real concerns. If I am not satisfied by the Minister’s response that there is genuine recognition of this concern and that action will be taken by the Government to stop this potential foreign influence on our elections and political parties, I will wish to divide the House.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on Amendment 63. I strongly support it and I trust the House will give it its support. The absence of any detail from the Government on how they will implement the idea of overseas votes for life is quite remarkable. There is nothing on how they would check the bona fides of expatriates claiming to be citizens and to have lived in particular UK constituencies, perhaps half a century ago, in contrast to the proposals to tighten domestic identity checks. There is nothing on new measures for getting ballots out to these new voters and returning them in the span of our short campaigns. From the hundreds of messages I have had from expatriate voters, that is one of the issues about which they are most concerned: how difficult it is to get the ballots out or get them back. There is nothing on the current distribution of overseas voters in constituencies or how the expansion might affect the current balance of our constituencies in terms of size and the equalisation of the numbers of voters in each. The Government do not know what the current distribution of voters by constituency is—at least, the Minister did not when I submitted the Written Question to him—or how overseas voters are distributed by overseas countries or how many would be likely to register.

In these circumstances, one has to conclude that the Government’s main objective in extending expatriate votes for life is to tap wealthy donors who long ago moved abroad to avoid paying UK tax to increase the structural advantages from which the Conservatives already benefit in funding electoral campaigns. All the amendments in this group address the huge question of how to maintain a level playing field in the financing of political campaigns. This is one of the many issues on which the Bill falls short. Noble Lords will recall that the Committee on Standards in Public Life published a substantial report on political finance last summer, just two days after the Government had published the Elections Bill. The Government have made no effort since then to incorporate its proposals into the Bill, in spite of introducing a number of other significant amendments.

We all recognise that uncontrolled flows of money into political campaigns can unbalance and corrupt democratic politics. We see the extent to which American politics has become the plaything of the super-rich. Noble Lords may have noted that in the last three months of 2019, in the run-up to our last general election, two-thirds of the money reported by the Electoral Commission to have been contributed to UK parties flowed to the Conservatives. Quite possibly, as much again flowed to the think tanks of the right, including from non-UK citizens in the USA and non-democratic states. We are drifting closer to the American situation, with the difference that only one of our major parties has easy access to large-scale donors.

As other amendments in this group suggest, we need a broader review of political funding than the Bill permits. Amendment 63 thus offers a stop-gap measure. Those who have moved to Monaco, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man or Caribbean tax havens to avoid paying UK tax should not be permitted to bias our domestic politics by funding political campaigns. Yes, we should allow them to vote as citizens. But we have learned from flows of money from Russia and right-wing foundations in the USA that the buying of influence over British politics from overseas undermines the level playing field that democratic campaigns depend on and that I hope the Minister still supports. It also corrodes trust in the integrity of our democratic process. I regard Amendment 63 as an important stop-gap measure until, perhaps, a different Government tackle the question of political finance and its regulation. I hope the House will support it.

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[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I simply say that I thought that that was a masterly exposition by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell. I would happily second all the questions that he is asking of the Minister on the absurd ramifications. The only thing that I would say by way of regret to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, is that we do not need an inquiry or further consideration. The simple solution is invariably the best one, and it is not to extend the ability to vote from overseas beyond the 15 years very wisely and fairly established by the Labour Government. This acknowledged that people might quite legitimately be going abroad for a while, and it would be wrong to disenfranchise them, but, by the end of 15 years, it is pretty well established that someone is unlikely to return and their connection with the United Kingdom diminishes by the day—and they are living with the consequences. I will certainly not repeat the argument, but, when you have a problem, look for the simple solution. Let us all agree that this extension of the franchise for life, virtually irrespective of residence, as the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, has declared, is absurd.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I should declare an interest. I have two sisters, one of whom left Britain 60 years ago and the other 50 years ago. They would be entitled to vote under this provision. I also have a nephew and a niece who left in infancy. They too would be entitled to vote under this scheme.

I also declare an interest in that my party has been in favour of moving towards overseas voting and has thought some of it through. It has looked at practice in comparable countries such as France and Australia. It is clear that we need to involve embassies and consulates abroad if we are to make sure that votes are returned in time. It is also clear that we should be moving towards overseas constituencies, given the different requirements of those who vote from overseas. This happens in a number of other countries. It could be done here. The Minister seemed astonished when I first mentioned overseas constituencies, as if he had not heard of them before.

I have had hundreds of messages about this, from people in France in particular. First, the local MP where they are still registered tells them it is nothing to do with them and they are not going to take up their case because they do not live in the constituency. Secondly, they would like to have overseas constituencies with particular MPs, or Members of the second Chamber or whatever, who would take their interests into account. France has a small number of overseas constituencies, with a much larger number of voters per constituency, and their interests are taken into account.

I hope the Minister will not mind my saying that, when I first went to discuss with him and his team the way in which this extension might be implemented, I was staggered by the lack of detail and what seemed to me to be a lack of interest in the detail. We have very little information on its implementation. It is not quite as bad as the Government’s proposal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, which appears to have had almost no thought as to how it might be implemented or costed.

There are a range of things that we need to consider. We know already that getting ballot papers out to foreign countries and back within the short time period is extremely difficult and very often fails. What do the Government propose to do about this if they are going to implement this expanded scheme? We have not yet heard anything on that. Will it involve embassies and consulates abroad? I asked a Question last summer and was told by the Foreign Office that it had not been consulted on this and did not expect to be involved to any degree. The Australians, the French and others clearly play a large role in managing and assisting with overseas voting. How therefore would this be carried out in practice when it comes? The Government also wish to shorten the campaigning period. At present, that proposal has been put off. If the campaigning period were any shorter, getting ballots out and back would be almost completely impossible.

This amendment says, “Tell us how you will do this. Demonstrate to Parliament that you have actually thought this through and that you have some way of identifying who are British citizens overseas, where they were residing in Britain beforehand and that, if they wish to vote, the means will be provided for them to receive ballot papers and to get them back—and do not implement it until you are able to answer those questions”. I have not yet heard the Minister or his officials be able to answer any of these questions, and therefore we have tabled this amendment.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, we are nearing the end of this debate on Report. I cannot say that this Elections Bill is one of this Government’s finest constitutional measures. Although it is late in the day, we have just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, a very clear exposition of some of the questions which have not been answered, and I think it is perfectly fair to ask the Government—even at this late stage on Monday night—to provide some answers.

I find myself sitting here thinking back to the time that John Stonehouse disappeared, which some noble Lords may remember. When he disappeared, it became clear that there was no provision under British electoral law to remove him from his position as a Member of Parliament. Even though he was arrested and imprisoned in Australia, his constituency went unrepresented, because there was no way of getting rid of him. So things that might appear to you to be unlikely, such as those outlined by the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, might still one day actually occur.

The only thing I would add is that, over the Easter Recess, I met a British citizen who left Britain 55 years ago. He has been living in an EU country. I can report to the House that he was astonished to discover that the Government were now planning to give him the vote. He asked me a number of questions, such as “Where would I cast my vote?”—which brings me to the questions mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire. Some countries, France being one of them, have overseas constituencies. After decades of inaction, the Americans finally made it possible for Republicans and Democrats abroad to vote while living in the UK. I am sorry to say this at such a late stage, but this is an area that has not been as fully thought through as it should have been. That is exactly what this House is here for and I look forward to the Minister’s reply.

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In addition to potentially removing the rights of people who would never have been convicted under the UK justice system, creating a specific ban on British prisoners abroad would be unworkable and unenforceable. How could you ascertain with any degree of certainty whether someone living in any country in the world was in a prison? It is impossible. Some British prisoners imprisoned outside the UK may in theory qualify to vote, but there would be significant barriers to their participation, not least because they would have to manage to register to vote, apply for an absent vote and then cast that absent vote, all potentially from the confines of a prison cell.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

May I remind the Minister that it is part of the responsibilities of our consuls abroad to look after the interests of British citizens when they are in foreign prisons? So it is not the case that we will not have information on these. Our consular network should have the information relevant to this, but perhaps the Foreign Office has not been consulted.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

Then we come to somebody who was born in the UK and has been here only a short time. The current system allows citizens who have left the UK while still too young to vote the ability to register based on their parents’ or guardians’ previous registration, but this is subject to an arbitrary 15-year limit from when they left the UK. The Government want to remove this arbitrary time limit placed on British citizens who have resided here, and we have no intention to replace one time limit with another arbitrary time limit requiring a British citizen to have been resident here for a certain amount of time before they can register.

The Bill will permit children who are UK citizens and who have resided in the UK to be eligible to vote based on their previous residency here. They would apply in respect of their last place of residency. This approach is consistent with the principle of individual responsibility, which underpins individual electoral registration and ensures that voting rights are not conditional on choices made by others in the past.

Additionally, British citizens born outside the UK must have previously resided in the UK to become eligible to register to vote. In practical terms, someone who left the UK at a very young age or who was present in the UK only for a short period will find it difficult to demonstrate their residency at a particular UK address to the satisfaction of a registration officer. I would also question whether anyone who lived in the UK only for a very short period would have any interest in voting in our elections. I hope that gives a little more substance to my letter.

I now turn to the amendment as tabled. The purpose of this amendment would be to delay the commencement of Clause 13 of the Bill for two years, and the extension of franchise for parliamentary election for British citizens overseas. The amendment would require three conditions to be met before regulations could be laid to bring into force the provisions. The Government have set out much detail on the intended registration and voting process in their policy statement Overseas Electors: Delivering ‘Votes for Life’ for British Expatriates. Referring to the condition whereby the Secretary of State must publish guidance for EROs on determining residentiary requirements of overseas electors, further detail on residency requirements will be set out in secondary legislation.

Electoral registration officers will require British citizens who have been resident, but not previously registered, to demonstrate to their satisfaction that they were resident at a specific address. Section 5 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 already lays down the general principles regarding residence for electoral purposes which a registration officer must consider and apply in deciding whether a person is resident at a particular address for those purposes. The same approach to residency must be applied within these boundaries and, as now, registration officers will be supported in this by guidance from the Electoral Commission, with whom the Government will work closely.

As for reporting on documentary evidence, the Government intend to align closely with the existing exceptions process for those domestic electors for whom an ERO considers that additional evidence is required to verify their identity. This is a system that administrators are already familiar with, and we will continue to work closely with stakeholders to develop this process. It will be set out in secondary legislation and be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and to parliamentary approval.

The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, brought up the issue of how we will help expatriates—the people who want to vote from abroad—to actually be able to vote. I think we had a discussion on overseas constituencies, and it was made very clear that the Government are not supporting that idea. However, the Government have already improved the delivery and return of ballots to overseas electors by working with Royal Mail and the British Forces Post Office, expediting dispatch abroad, and funding the use of the international business response licence that expedites the return of the ballot packs from overseas in a large number of countries, as well as covering any postage costs that might otherwise be incurred.

This Bill will also introduce an online absent vote application service that will allow overseas electors more easily apply for a postal vote.

Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

3rd reading
Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

I thought it was. I thank those noble Lords for their constructive interest in and engagement with these measures. We have not always agreed—sometimes we have—but I have been grateful for their willingness to work with this side and our Bill team on these matters. As a result of this willingness to reach compromises around the House, the Bill leaves your Lordships’ House improved and strengthened.

On our Benches, I thank my noble friends Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, Lord Holmes of Richmond, Lord Hayward and Lady Noakes for their input, which has led to amendments that I also believe have enhanced the legislation. I am astonishingly grateful to my noble friend Lady Scott, who seems to step into every breach when I fall or, if you like, am not sufficient. She has such an impressive capacity to pick up the technical issues and work at pace, and I have been so grateful to her for her good humour and tireless work. It is much appreciated. I also thank my noble friend Lord Howe, who is not here, for stepping into the breach when I unfortunately had my lights punched out by a Covid headache and worse. I fell short then of a promise to all noble Lords that I would be here every hour of every debate. Of course, that could not be helped, but I assure your Lordships, as someone who likes to live up to his word, that it will be a source of annoyance when I look back on this.

Finally, we all want to go, but I cannot let anyone go—I know that people on all sides of the House understand this—without mentioning the extraordinary hard work of the Bill team and the policy officials behind the Bill, many of whom have worked for what may seem like half a lifetime to them on preparing it and putting it together. There are so many of them that it would be invidious to name them all, but many of your Lordships have had direct personal contact with them. They have been enormously professional, good humoured and patient—which you have to be if you work with me—and have lived up to the very highest standards of the UK Civil Service and the quality of public service that we all admire. So, my final thanks are to them.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, perhaps I may remark to my noble friend Lord Rennard and the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, that in the process of this Bill I have appreciated that it is possible to be quite astonishingly, nerdishly expert on the details of elections to the degree to which the two of them and one or two of our colleagues on the Labour Benches are. That goes far beyond my limited experience, having fought only five elections in my life. They really understand the details in all sorts of ways. I have done some of my electioneering in some of the more difficult parts of the United Kingdom.

I thank the many pro-democracy organisations that have helped and advised us and lobbied about the Bill as it has gone through: Best for Britain, Unlock Democracy, the Electoral Reform Society, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Democracy Defence Coalition. I particularly thank Elizabeth Plummer in our Whips’ Office, who has done superb work with others around the House to make sure that the amendments are there on time.

It is difficult to welcome this Bill. It came to the House accompanied by a number of very critical reports, including one from the constitutional affairs committee of the House of Commons, which said that the Bill in its current form was not fit for purpose. We have improved it a little—we now face ping-pong on some of those improvements—but it is still not entirely what is needed.

As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, said, rather powerfully, this is a constitutional Bill on which there was an absence of cross-party consultation or consensus on the fundamentals of our constitutional democracy—that is a worry. We will have to return to this. The next Parliament, whenever it comes, will have to undertake the job of simplifying and clarifying electoral law, which is what we should have been doing—and have failed to do—with this Bill. Perhaps there are some improvements, and there are certainly some necessary changes in this Bill. There are a number of other areas which we on these Benches bitterly regret and, for that, I can make only moderate thanks to the Minister and the Bill team for what has been achieved.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by saying that I agree with the noble Lord the Minister that this Bill is improved and strengthened having gone through this House. This Bill is a clear demonstration that your Lordships’ House can really prove its worth when a Bill comes that is not really good enough. I thank the Government and the Minister for bringing forward some important changes and concessions which have improved the Bill considerably.

I also believe that your Lordships’ House has sent a very clear signal to the Government about concerns around, in particular, photographic ID and the independence of the Electoral Commission. I thank my colleagues, my noble friends Lord Collins and Lord Khan, for their support and all the work that they have done on this Bill. I also thank Ben Wood, in our office, who has worked like crazy on this Bill and others, providing really important support.

I thank the many noble Lords who have taken part in debates on this Bill and who have contributed to making it the better Bill that it is today. In particular, I thank the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, for his important work demonstrating our concerns around the Electoral Commission. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord True and the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, for their time and consideration of our concerns. They have given us a lot of time and some of the concessions that we have had are extremely gratefully received and have made the Bill much better. I also thank the officials, because they also gave us that time to try to improve things in this way. I join the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, in thanking the many organisations that have provided time, briefings and the detailed information that has helped us to understand some of the complicated areas of electoral law.

I just end by saying that I hope that we can continue to work together constructively to address the outstanding areas where we believe we can still make more progress.

Civil Servants: Reduction of Numbers

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether the proposals set out by the Minister for Government Efficiency to reduce the number of civil servants by 65,000 will require either (1) a reduction in government functions, or (2) the increased use of outsourcing companies and consultants.

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

My Lords, there was a significant increase in the number of civil servants employed to manage the temporary requirements of Covid-19 and preparations for leaving the EU. Given that the spending review committed departments to reducing Civil Service numbers to pre-pandemic levels, work is under way to ensure that the functions are working as efficiently as possible, to reduce the use of consultants and to manage the use of outsourcing companies.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that it is a little surreal to have made Jacob Rees-Mogg Minister for Government Efficiency, and that his explicit view that civil servants are time wasters who do not work hard enough does not help morale in the Civil Service or, indeed, Civil Service efficiency? Does he recognise that one of the major areas of government waste over the last three or four years has been the excessive employment of outside consultants? Is there now also a target for a reduction in the use of outside consultants, who cost twice as much or more per head as civil servants?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I reject the first part of the question. I am absolutely delighted that my right honourable friend is bringing his insight to the Cabinet Office and I look forward to working with him. As far as consultants are concerned, yes, the Government are seeking to reduce consultancy spend. Central government and arm’s-length bodies spent approximately £1.5 billion on consultancy in 2021; that is why the consulting hub was set up last year to lead the consultancy reform programme. I can certainly assure the noble Lord and others that much attention will be given to that.

Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

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

[Lord Lipsey (Lab)]

My Lords, I put my name to this stand part debate. When I was in journalism, people used to say of me, “He may be no good, but at least he is quick.” I will try to follow that precept this afternoon.

The first thing I wanted to say will cheer the Minister. Like him, I do not think much of single transferable votes—I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours on that. The immense defect of STV compared to its obvious alternative—the alternative vote, which is an exhaustive ballot—is that it does not produce a candidate who commands a majority of the electorate. AV infallibly does, which is why we so sensibly use it for the election of hereditary Peers. It seems very basic that, for mayors in particular, and perhaps police commissioners too, we want somebody who commands a majority of the electorate, and that STV does not do.

The second thing I want to say is about haste. More than 20 years ago, on the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform chaired by the late Lord Jenkins, we were as quick as we possibly could be. People who have served under Lord Jenkins as chair know he was not a man who permitted excess words or allowed discussions to meander. Even so, it took us about 12 months to come to a conclusion. It may or may not have been right, but it took us 12 months to get there. The complexities are enormous. At that time, I could have distinguished between three varieties of Sainte-Laguë system for the distribution of majorities, but now I can hardly remember the words, and I certainly cannot remember what those were. But these are immensely complicated matters of immense importance, and they can affect the results of elections, which are the expression of our democracy. To do this by introducing an unheralded amendment in Committee in the other place is, to use a word much used by my old boss Tony Crosland, frivolous.

The third thing is that different places need different electoral systems. It does not follow that because first past the post may be felt by some to be right for the House of Commons it is right for every election. It clearly is not. Parliament legislated for different systems in Scotland and Wales—the AMS system. A whole set of desiderata attached to electoral systems apply differently in different elections, and this is a very poor reason for having first past the post.

It is particularly poor because the winner can have a very tiny share of the vote, not much more than 20%; I can cheer the Government up for a moment by citing one such perverse result in an East Anglia PCC election in 2012. The winner on the first ballot was one John Prescott, known to many in this House. John Prescott’s lead—he had just over 20% of the first ballot votes—was soon got rid of, and his votes transferred, to elect Matthew Grove. Where is Matthew Grove now?

We cannot openly countenance a system where candidates with 20% of the vote rule over our big cities and order our police. I use the word again: this is a frivolous approach to constitutional reform in general and to electoral reform in particular. This House should have nothing to do with it.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, my name is on some amendments in this group. As Members of the Committee will know, I am extremely disturbed by this Bill as a whole and by the way it has been introduced. Of all its provisions, I think Clause 11 is the least justifiable, introduced as it was after a Written Statement by a middle-range Minister last September after the Bill had already begun its Committee stage in the House of Commons, and pushed through for clearly partisan reasons.

On Monday, the Minister was asking us to look at the practice on voter ID in other countries as a justification for what the Government propose. I am sure he recognises that in the Irish and Danish constitutions, any change in the voting system is a constitutional amendment and therefore has to go through exceptional procedures. That is also true in a number of other countries. In this respect, of course, he will probably say that we should pay no attention to other countries. I deeply respect that, privately, the Minister knows this clause is impossible to defend, and I recognise that he nevertheless has to stand up for it as best he can in the circumstances that this was a Conservative pledge in 2017 and someone up there has not forgotten that.

Yesterday, I read a very good article in the Political Quarterly of 2019 entitled “The UK Politics of Overseas Voting” by Susan Collard; I will return to it when we get on to overseas voting. One of the things that struck me about the introduction was that it talked about the package of measures that might have been agreed among the parties in 2016-17 about voting reform. It was discussed among the parties in the Commons that we could have moved towards automatic voter registration to reduce the number of people not on the register—by and large, the young and the marginal. We could have had a major effort at citizen engagement to encourage people to go to the polls. We could also have included votes at 16, which would almost definitely have helped the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and others. In that context, overseas voting and the extension of overseas voting would have been part of the same package. That could have been negotiated as part of a—

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Were these official interparty discussions or informal exchanges?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

These were exchanges on and off the Floor of the House of Commons.

That would have been a major set of changes to voting rights that might even have included some form of examination of our voting system. I draw attention to Amendment 140, which suggests that we need a citizens’ assembly on methods of voting for different elections in this country. That would be highly desirable, encouraging an intelligent approach and taking out of the control of parties the question of whose advantage is most looked to in this respect.

This Government have mucked about with local government over an extended period. I am not a great fan of metro mayors—certainly not metro mayors without the scrutiny of elected assemblies—but the Government have them. The Government have reduced the number of local councillors, and now they want to muck about with the system, partly because what Michael Gove and other enthusiasts thought they wanted—independently minded people like we saw in New York and Chicago—has not yet emerged very strongly. But some of those who emerged are rather good, or not so good, Labour candidates, who do not please the Government. Be that as it may, we have a current system for elected mayors.

The only argument, in effect, that the Government can make in defence of this change is that the voters of London and other cities are not as intelligent as their counterparts in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere and are not capable of understanding a complicated system such as the supplementary vote and therefore we have to go back to the first past the post. That is not a good argument, and I look forward to hearing what alternative argument the Minister may wish to produce.

One of the problems with the first past the post system is that it works really well only when there is a clear two-party system and the two-party system has broken down in almost all democratic countries in recent years, except for the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United Kingdom and the United States, factionalism within both major parties has almost wrecked our politics, partly because the extremists —or less moderate—in both major parties have done their best to take over their party rather than going off and forming their own.

I was very struck by an argument made by the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, during our previous day in Committee, which was that you need to be very careful about how the selection process for candidates works because in most constituencies in Britain the selection process decides who will be the MP. The attraction of any form of alternative voting, supplementary voting or proportional representation is that it gives the voter some choice among candidates.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

In European elections, for example, if you are top of your party’s list, it is pretty close to being a safe seat.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

The noble Lord and I will have conversations about list systems and non-list systems off the Floor of the House.

On Amendment 144C on proportional representation in local elections, I recall very clearly many years ago that the borough of Rochdale had all-out local elections and thus required three candidates for each ward rather than one. What was most striking was that that was the point at which Rochdale ceased to have overwhelmingly white male councillors because if the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives each had to choose three candidates, they tended to choose one white man, one woman and one Asian. That gave people a choice and in some wards people voted for the woman or the Asian in greater numbers than they did for the Labour or Conservative candidate, which you might think is not a bad thing as a matter of choice in elections.

I remind the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, who is deeply committed to the idea of the constituency, that until the first five years of my life the tried-and-tested constituency system in the United Kingdom included a large number of multi-Member constituencies. The last double-Member constituencies were abolished in 1945. I know I am older than him and that was not in his lifetime. We had a number of three and four-Member constituencies in counties and large boroughs, so if we are talking about things that are un-English, English history—the tried-and-tested systems referred to by the noble Lord, Lord True—includes multi-Member constituencies and different forms of voting in return.

Now is not the time to have a full debate on methods of voting, but I commend to the Committee the idea that we should move towards a citizens’ assembly. I hope that whoever makes up the next Government will indeed move forward on this, but I also say as strongly as I can that now is not the time to introduce into a Bill at a late stage, as Clause 11 does, a proposal that the Government have introduced solely because they think it will advance the Conservative Party and disadvantage others.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I will allow the noble Lord on my right to speak first.

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[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, arguing for consensual politics in a characteristically aggressive speech—and it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, as well. There must be a misprint on the Marshalled List, because the noble Lord told us that he did not want to discuss proportional representation. But there is an amendment tabled here, with his as the lead name, proposing a new clause with the heading, “Proportional representation for elections to the House of Commons”. I do not know whether he wants to discuss that—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I said “at length”. I assure the noble Lord that I can discuss proportional representation at very great length, but I fear that might tire the Committee.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

I shall certainly follow the injunction not to speak at length, but I cannot resist responding to arguments about proportional representation. Oddly enough, I think I am the first the noble Lord so far to speak passionately in favour of first past the post, which shows once again how unrepresentative this House can be of British public opinion. On two specific occasions, it has been the subject that dare not speak its name. There are two issues that have not been mentioned, either by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace—and I do not blame him—or by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones. One is the small matter of an opinion poll, and I shall call it that to be a little contentious, held in 2011, which consisted of 19.2 million voters, who the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has told us probably represent something that is dying out and departing. That opinion poll was in a referendum which the Liberal party made a condition of its membership of the coalition—and at any stage, if the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, wants to interrupt, of course he can. He was a Minister in that Government.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for the invitation. He will remember that this was the first occasion on which Dominic Cummings managed very successfully to make the argument that it would be much too costly to change the electoral system and that the money would be much better spent on the National Health Service instead—an argument that he also used in the Brexit referendum. In neither case was the money spent on the NHS.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

Well, to bring Dominic Cummings into it sounds like a good argument to a point that I was not discussing and do not intend to discuss.

The referendum was a condition of the Liberal Democrats’ membership of the coalition Government; they said that there should be a referendum on the voting system in this country. Some 19.2 million votes were cast, 6 million in favour of the alternative vote system and 13 million for first past the post, as specifically referred to. There was a 2:1 majority for first past the post, and a widely held debate right across the country. I am pretty shocked that, having demanded that referendum and having rejected the result, which is not an unusual characteristic, the noble Lord wants, by means of an amendment to a Bill, to change the electoral system away from first past the post, not by another referendum—because referendums keep giving him the result that he does not want—but by an amendment to a Bill. I find that a very unsatisfactory way of proceeding, but I am afraid that it has become a behaviour pattern. I am sorry, because I agree with the Liberal Democrats on a lot of aspects of this Bill, but not on this. It is a very similar pattern to what was followed in relation to the European referendum, whereby they voted for the referendum, did not like the result but knew that it was too big a risk to put it back to the people—so, instead of having another referendum, they proposed to change it without one and back to the original situation.

I am afraid that this approach of no compromise with the electorate that seems to be being offered by one party to this discussion is really not a satisfactory way for democrats to proceed. Of course, people can change their mind; people might decide, at some future date, that they want to change the electoral system. But, again, I have noticed—and this is why I both enjoy but am frustrated by discussions about the voting system—that one thing that people who are in favour of changing from first past the post always manage to do, whenever you criticise them for anything that they are proposing, is to say, “Oh, that’s not the kind of proportional representation that I’m in favour of—it’s completely different.” In fact, of course, they will even argue, although it was more proportional, that the proposal in the 2011 referendum, which was for the alternative vote system, was not proper proportional representation. It is not, but it is much more proportional —and I am quite certain that they see the electoral systems for mayors, police commissioners and everything else just as a stepping-stone towards proportional representation.

I am the first noble Lord to mention the referendum. The other thing that proponents of proportional representation always avoid mentioning is the test bed that we had for quite a long time—thankfully, no longer —for elections to the European Parliament. They were done on the basis of proportional representation. I remind supporters of the system of the arguments that are tediously repeated about the great merits of proportional representation, the principal point of which is that it reaches parts of the electorate that are ignored at present. It is said that there are tens of thousands of Labour voters, say, in the south of England and tens of thousands of Conservative voters in the north of England who never have their voices represented, and that if you released all that potential by proportional representation, the public would be energised.

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[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, it has been a lengthy debate. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Stunell, that I have not presented any amendment. I am presenting to your Lordships’ House a Bill which has been passed by the elected House, and your Lordships are expressing opinions on it. It is certainly not the Government who have sought to Christmas-tree the Bill with a generalised debate on proportional representation. The actors in that are elsewhere than at the Dispatch Box.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, the amendment which was introduced in the Commons and is now Clause 11 was a Christmas-tree addition to the Bill by the Government.

[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.

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[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I am speaking to what is before the Committee at the moment. As far as the Scottish and Welsh elections are concerned, the noble Lord knows very well that there is devolution, which this Government respect.

I will respond to what the noble Lord said about the London Assembly. It involves rather more complex issues in terms of the Assembly’s potential make-up. We will be considering further how these principles could be applied to the London Assembly and perhaps promoting the use of first past the post, but we are open to representations on how that could be implemented. For the moment, the proposition is on these specific elections, against the background I have described: the Government committed to first past the post, the Elections Bill and the evidence of problems in 2021.

I turn to the broader amendments—which I must because they are before the Committee—from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. It is always the less popular parties which clamour for PR. They want to introduce a new clause abolishing the use of first past the post at parliamentary general elections held more than six months after the passage of the Bill. For the reasons I have already discussed, we cannot accept that. First past the post ensures a clear link between elected representatives and constituents in a manner that other voting systems do not. The noble Lord, Lord Murphy, was compelling on that point.

The new clause proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, is not clear even on what sort of electoral system he wants to introduce—that is the most bizarre thing about the amendment that he is asking your Lordships to agree with. He wants to get rid of the present system within two years, but he does not say what would happen if an election came along before that or in the period where there was uncertainty because a new system would require further primary legislation to enact it. There is a real risk, if we went down the road proposed by the noble Lord, that we might not have an established legal method as to how Members of the other place were elected. To be confronted with this question mark of an amendment when the Government are charged with being frivolous—I think the proponents of this amendment are frivolous. All we know from the noble Lord’s amendment is that he wants a system that would have had, over the past five parliamentary general elections, a mean average Gallagher proportionality index of less than 10—that will get them jumping around in the pubs in Saltaire and Moulsecoomb, I am sure.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I am sure that the Minister knows that this is copied from the SNP amendment in the Commons. One may talk about umpteen different proportional systems—and no electoral system is perfect, of course—but there is a choice to be made, putting it simply, between the Irish and the Scottish and Welsh systems. I prefer the Irish, but I think it would be appropriate to have some consultation among parties before a decision was finally taken. The point that a number of us have been making throughout the Bill is that, on constitutional matters such as this, it would be appropriate to aim for some consensus among the parties, rather than have each party—as in our aggressive two-party system—changing the rules to favour itself.

[Lord True (Con)]

The noble Lord has completely failed to answer the core question. He has thought about this amendment and tabled it, it is here on the list and in it he says:

“The simple majority system must not be used for any Parliamentary general election after the end of the period of six months beginning on the day on which this Act is passed.”


Who knows when the end of the Session will be, but let us say that this Act is fortunate enough to get on to the statute book, that means that for any election in 2023 or 2024, we would not be allowed to use first past the post—if your Lordships agreed to the amendment that the Liberal Democrats have put before the Committee, supported by the Green group—but would have to flounder around to find some other system, which the noble Lord will not specify, which would have a mean average Gallagher proportionality index of less than 10.

I am accused—the Government are accused—of coming to this Dispatch Box arguing for first past the post, which people understand, while the people on the other side come forward with a kind of canard of nonsense, such as in the noble Lord’s amendment. We are also asked for citizens’ assemblies, but I can only repeat what the noble Lord, Lord Grocott said, with much greater eloquence than mine, that we did have a big citizens’ assembly of nearly 20 million people who decided this in 2011.

I am not convinced by the arguments that I have heard on proportional representation; I do not believe that this is the appropriate Bill in which to try to change our system from first past the post within six months, as is proposed. But, returning to the core of the question, I do believe that it is reasonable to have a simpler system than the system that proved so confusing and led to so many wasted votes in the London elections and that we should go for first past the post, as the Government have maintained very clearly. I ask the House to reject the amendments that have been tabled.

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Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

137: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Voting from age 16 in parliamentary elections
(1) The Representation of the People Act 1983 is amended as follows.(2) In section 1(1)(d) (definition of voting age for parliamentary elections), for “18” substitute “16”.”Member’s explanatory statement
This new Clause would lower the voting age to 16 in UK parliamentary elections.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, Amendments 137 and 138 are grouped with Amendment 143 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, who will undoubtedly want to speak to that amendment.

We have just had a long debate on voting systems because the Bill contains a clause that intends to change part of our voting system. The Bill also has a number of clauses that add somewhere between 1 million and 4 million extra voters to the electorate by extending the overseas electorate. I declare an interest as I have two sisters who have lived abroad for 50 years who would now be able to vote in British elections, not to mention a niece born in Britain, so I am conscious of the problems with that.

That means that the discussion as to whether or not the electorate might also be extended to include those between the ages of 16 and 18 is within scope of the Bill. As I mentioned in my earlier speech, it would have been appropriate for that to have been considered together with the question of whether to extend the electorate by increasing the opportunities for overseas voters to register. I do not intend to rehearse all the arguments for voting at 16. I say merely that I was converted to this by going round schools and learning about, first, the lack of citizenship education; secondly, the lack of engagement by young people in politics; and, thirdly, our failure to get young people to register.

The proportion of people aged 18 to 25 on the register is, in some areas, as low as 40%. That is an extremely poor failure within our electoral system. It is also very bad for our politics that we have an increasingly elderly electorate, which votes. Parties recognise this and therefore produce policies that appeal to older voters. Young people do not vote, which therefore means that the parties tend not to produce policies that they think are particularly important for younger voters. Again, I declare an interest, as I have twice led the manifesto process for my own party and I can remember, in 1996-97, people saying, “William, that’s not terribly important; we have to produce policies that appeal to people in their 40s, 50s and 60s, not those in their 20s and 30s, because those are the people who really care about this.”

The two amendments on which I am speaking are for parliamentary and local elections. I raise these as probing amendments. I suggest that the Government ought at least to be open to the idea of opening voting in local elections to young people aged 16, because it would involve them in discussing local democracy. It would therefore help to educate them about local democracy and that is very important for the future of our country.

I will make just one further remark. The last debate was remarkably English, with the exception of the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Murphy and Lord Kilclooney. We have had proportional representation in the United Kingdom in two different forms in Northern Ireland and in Scotland and Wales. I am now talking about the problem of young people throughout the United Kingdom. I hope the Minister will at least address the problem of how we engage young people in politics. How do we get citizenship education back into our schools? How do we make sure the young do not switch off from politics, as there is substantial evidence that they have? I beg to move.

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 137 and 138, to which I have added my name, and oppose Amendment 143. Last November, the eminent professor of politics at Cambridge University, David Runciman, published an extended article arguing that children should be allowed to vote from the age of six. He cited a new book by John Wall which makes the case for no lower age limit on voting rights in the name of true democracy, and which addresses objections such as those based on competency. Wall suggests that parents and guardians should be able to cast proxy votes until such time as a child feels ready to vote on their own behalf. Runciman argued that

“if societies want to be truly democratic, they need to overcome their engrained biases and embrace the whole human community”.

I cite these examples not to make that argument but to show how modest and unradical the growing call for votes at 16 is. It is a step already taken by our sister Parliaments in Holyrood and Cardiff. Nevertheless, I acknowledge there is not a consensus in favour, as was clear from the evidence presented to the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement, of which I was a member and which was chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts.

Indeed, children and young people themselves are not unanimously in support, as I discovered in research I undertook into young people’s transitions to citizenship some years ago. The main reason given against the idea in that research and elsewhere was that the young people did not feel they had sufficient knowledge and understanding of politics to vote wisely. To my mind, the very fact they think that indicates a greater thoughtfulness about voting than some adults show.

That underlines the importance, as has already been mentioned, of citizenship education. As we said in our Select Committee report,

“Citizenship education is a crucial piece of the puzzle for thinking about the age at which people can vote.”


We noted that

“The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that if the UK should choose to lower its voting age it should ensure it is supported by ‘active citizenship and human rights education’.”


Unfortunately, the committee found the state of citizenship education to be pretty woeful, and I do not have reason to believe that it has improved much, if at all. But that is not a reason for not extending the vote to 16 year-olds; rather, it is an argument for giving much higher priority to decent citizenship education, as recommended by the committee.

There are instrumental arguments in favour of extending the franchise to 16. With decent citizenship education, 16 and 17-year-olds could be much better prepared for voting than older voters. They could be more likely to vote and then to keep voting as they get older. If they had the vote and used it, politicians might pay more attention to their needs and concerns, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, has argued.

For me, the overwhelming argument is that so many in this age group are already acting as citizens and have been taking the lead on crucial issues such as the climate emergency. In the study I carried out, those who wanted a reduction in the voting age felt that without it they were not being listened to or respected, and that the vote would help them feel that they belonged and that they had a say as full and proper citizens

In the same vein, the Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement heard from the young people we met that the lack of the vote was “a sore point”. Even if votes at 16 are not young people’s top priority, they pointed out to us that

“the Make Your Mark campaign coordinated by the UK Youth Parliament included … votes at 16 one of their core campaigns”,

voted for by over 950,000 young people. What better way to recognise these young people as full citizens than to extend the vote to them?

It is because of the implications for citizenship that I oppose Amendment 143, as tying the vote to employment and income tax status would create two classes of citizenship. In doing so, it would be divisive and exclusionary, which is the very opposite of what citizenship should be about and what we want to achieve by extending the franchise. From a practical point of view, it would be subject to annual decisions about the level of the tax threshold so young people on low incomes could find their right to vote fluctuating like a yo-yo, which is not conducive to them turning out to vote.

In the Commons, two Oral Questions on votes at 16 were met with a one-word answer: “No.” I have no doubt these amendments will be rejected also, but I hope not in similar peremptory fashion. I hope that the Minister will first give serious consideration to the case made, which is gaining more and more support.

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[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I will try to be brief. The Labour Party has supported and continues to support lowering the voting age. I would just say to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the last time we were in government and lowered the voting age, we lost the subsequent election. That was in 1970.

On civic education, in many of my contributions, I have mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, and his committee’s report. It is excellent and worth rereading. He is absolutely right about the Government’s failure to respond properly to it. But citizenship education in schools and lowering the voting age are not mutually exclusive. Speaking from personal experience, I joined the Labour Party in 1970, partly because we had organised a mock election in my school. As a consequence of standing as a Labour candidate in that mock election, I went out and campaigned for Harold Wilson, even though I did not have the right to vote. I joined the Labour Party at the age of 15—noble Lords can now calculate how old I am.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Too young for the Lords!

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

Well, there you go. I am still below the average age—just. The important point is that they are not mutually exclusive. This is about how we encourage people to participate in democracy and, as the noble Lord said, participation is not simply about voting. We want people to properly engage in civic society. That includes other groups which campaign and organise, because that is what influences our politics. Young people are certainly doing that, which is why we are very strongly in favour of this.

Of course, we have the evidence. Scotland and Wales now have a lower voting age, but they are not the only places. The Isle of Man and Jersey have it, as do Guernsey, Brazil and Austria, and it applies to some elections in Germany, Malta and Norway. There is strong evidence of how it can encourage participation and build this in, because when people start voting at a young age, they continue to vote. That is a really important point.

Picking up the point that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, made, the noble Baroness, Lady Davidson of Lundin Links, changed her mind through her experience in the referendum campaign. I read an article that she wrote for the Tory Reform Group as a consequence of that experience in 2016. She said:

“Those in favour of the status quo argue that while the referendum offered a clear, unambiguous choice, parliamentary elections present a more muddied, multi-layered decision which require a more mature electorate.


But having watched and debated in front of 16 and 17-year-olds throughout the referendum, I have found myself unable to agree. My position has changed. We deem 16-year-olds adult enough to join the army, to have sex, get married, leave home and work full-time. The evidence of the referendum suggests that, clearly, they are old enough to vote too.”


I agree with her. We should do this.

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, I fear I cannot accept these amendments, although, having been mildly disobliging on the previous group about those against first past the post, I will open with an area of agreement. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, my noble friend Lord Lexden and the party opposite that we must do more—as much as we can—to engage young people in civic education and understanding what it is to be a future citizen. We are also having other discussions on trying, we hope, to persuade more young people to vote. There is strong agreement there.

We cannot accept these amendments because the Government, having reflected on the matter, simply do not believe that a reduction to 16 is the correct course. My noble friend Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts made a very strong speech on this. There are many difficult questions, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, said, about what constitutes full adulthood, which society has to wrestle with. We think, in common with most countries in the world—although not, I acknowledge, the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales—that the current position is correct.

We made that very clear to the electorate; we were not trying to hide it, because it was and is a subject of discussion between the parties. We have been criticised for our manifesto not being clear, but it was absolutely clear on this point:

“We will maintain the voting age at 18—the age at which one gains full citizenship.”


That was very explicitly stated. You may not agree with that, but it is the position. I hope the Committee will respect that. Eighteen is widely recognised in the vast majority of democratic countries as the right age at which to enfranchise young people.

There are difficulties. For example, the very radical proposal by the Liberal Democrats to legalise cannabis was not for people below 18 because they were not mature before that age. In 2010, the party opposite raised the age for using sunbeds to 18. Other examples have been given on some more fundamental and difficult questions of peace and war. With respect to the arguments I have heard, the Government believe that the settled, present position is correct, in common with most other democratic countries.

My noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond’s amendment seeks to lower the voting age to 16 and 17 year-olds by linking the franchise to taxation. I fear I must disappoint him; taxation has never been the basis of democratic representation in this country. For example, an American citizen of voting age who works and pays taxes in the United Kingdom does not have the right to vote in parliamentary elections simply by virtue of tax. However, a British citizen of voting age who pays no income tax, such as a student, rightly retains the right to vote, as do those earning less than the tax-free allowance. In council tax there is a class S exemption—I think it is called that; it was in my day—for households of 16 and 17 year-olds precisely so that they should not pay council tax. The mixing of taxation and voting rights raises difficult problems. It would also potentially disfranchise people who could, for a range of reasons, be unable to work or find work or who may be working but not earning enough to pay taxes.

With respect to those who have a different opinion, the Government have reflected on this. Engagement is important; I was very proud when I was leader of a local authority—I know many other local authorities do the same—of the UK Youth Parliament and youth engagement through schools. I have similar recollections to the noble Lord opposite. These things are important. Let us work together across parties to try to do that, but I cannot recommend that the House adopts this principle in the Bill. I forecast to the Committee that, if it were proposed, because it was a manifesto commitment by the Government to maintain the present position, it would not find favour in the other place. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, in withdrawing this amendment, I point out that, if we are saying that there is a problem—which the Minister has admitted, but has said that this is not the answer—then the question of how we manage to get more young people on the register, which we will come to on automatic voter registration, is important. The very near collapse of citizenship education in our state schools is an urgent matter, which we should all address on a cross-party basis. I look forward to the Minister returning to that. I hope he will take back to his colleagues in the Department for Education how important many of us feel this to be.

I merely remark to the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, that the extensive coverage in this Bill of the extension of overseas voting is there because Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservatives Abroad and the Conservative Party’s international office decided that this would be to the Conservatives’ advantage. Surveys in the mid-2000s suggested that 68% of those voting overseas were voting for the Conservative Party. I was suggesting earlier that a little bit of balance and cross-party agreement on how one extends the electorate might be desirable. Sadly, I do not think this Government are in the mood for that. That is one of the many things I regret about the way this Bill has been introduced and is being handled. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 137 withdrawn.

Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

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

Relying on the services listed in these amendments would be costly and time-consuming. I am unaware of any single public service that, as part of its application procedures, captures all the data required to determine eligibility to register to vote: name, address, age, nationality and immigration status.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

The noble Baroness may be aware that there is an equivalent of a national register: Experian, which collects a great deal of data and is used by a lot of private and public authorities. If it can do that, why cannot the Government?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I do not know, but I will look into that with the team.

Automatic registration therefore risks not being truly automatic or adding ineligible people to the register. For example, under the EU voting and candidacy rights changes provided for in the Bill, very few EU citizens who arrived to live in the UK after 31 December 2020 will have the right to register to vote, but most will be issued with a national insurance number. Moreover, most national insurance numbers are issued before someone is 16, which is too young to be added to the register, even as an attainer, in England and Northern Ireland. Therefore, the Government have no plans to introduce automatic registration at this stage, and I request that this amendment be withdrawn.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, and a number of other noble Lords asked what we are doing to encourage registration. Since its introduction, the register to vote website has revolutionised the ability of electors to participate, with over 60 million applications to registers being submitted since 2014. In the last UK general election, a record 47 million people were registered. We continue to refine and adjust the way that the digital system works to improve its security.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, brought up accessibility. It is very pleasing to see that the register to vote service has the highest accessibility rating—AAA—under the web content accessibility guidelines. It is also the responsibility of the Electoral Commission to promote participation, and it runs an annual campaign to encourage eligible voters to register.

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[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 150 and on some of the broader issues. I was quite worried, listening to the last debate and the Government’s answer. They now seem to be saying that they are not interested in broadening the number of people who vote, filling in the gaps in the register, or in much modernisation of the system, because they are quite happy with the inconsistencies that we have.

I think that the United States and the United Kingdom are the two democracies with the largest number of people eligible to vote who are not on the electoral register in each state or local authority. That is a scandal. It suggests that some of those behind this Bill are concerned with voter suppression, or at least with discouraging people from voting who they do not think may vote Conservative. That should worry us all. I fear that we are heading towards a bad-tempered Report, because the Government will railroad this through without any consultation or discussion.

On these proposals, I strongly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, that modernisation and digitisation is where we should be going. When in government, I was concerned with the digitisation of Whitehall, and I agreed very strongly with Francis Maude, now the noble Lord, Lord Maude, on the efforts which he was making to push digitisation through a rather reluctant Whitehall and a group of largely uninterested Ministers. I much regret that, since 2015, the Government appear to have lost momentum on all that. There are ways of linking government databases without sharing all the information that could make life much easier for citizens on whom the Government hold a fair amount of information which is relevant to them.

I was deeply affected by what happened with the Windrush scheme, when all those people were told that they had no right to be in Britain, or that they had not been living in Britain for the last 20, 30 or 40 years. There was information in various Whitehall departments demonstrating that they had been here, but the Home Office did not look for it. In terms of modernising the electoral register, in terms of managing the vote and in terms of managing another couple of million applicants for overseas voting, who need to be checked properly when they come on to the register and need to have the chance to vote within a tight time scale, digitisation is clearly part of the answer.

The amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and my amendment, are saying that the Government should be looking at this. Other Governments are way ahead of us in this. Everything that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, said in Committee on a previous day about how astonishingly old fashioned our electoral process is, compared with many other democratic states, is absolutely on target. I hope that the Minister might at least give us a very slight indication that the Government might be just a little interested in this, even though it would be very dangerous for them to encourage more people to vote.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, for his introduction to his amendment. I thought what he said about the opportunities that are available for new technologies to drive inclusion in our electoral process is really important if we are looking to the future. We completely support his aim to encourage the Government to invest much more in technologies in this area. As the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, let us catch up with many other countries which are looking to do this and looking to invest more in this in the future.

One thing we do know is that electronic voting machines are often more accessible for disabled voters. I give the example of the United States, where visually impaired voters can use an audio interface while those with paralysed limbs can select candidates from a screen using head movements. There are all sorts of different innovations that we should be looking to investigate and see how we can bring them into our own system.

I turn to my amendment. The Government’s 2019 manifesto—I go back to their manifesto—included a commitment to

“make it easier for British expats to vote in Parliamentary elections”.

I also say, as part of that, they should be looking at the Electoral Commission’s research after the elections since 2015, which has consistently found that overseas voters have experienced difficulties in voting from outside the UK. This is mainly because many did not have enough time to receive and return their postal vote before the close of the poll.

I am aware that the Government are looking at ways to improve that, but it strikes me that as the Electoral Commission also recommends that the Government explore new approaches to improve access to voting and draws on evidence from other countries, there is an opportunity here, which is why I tabled the amendment. I hope that this will encourage the Government to consider more research into digital technologies and look at what is happening in other countries in order to drive inclusion and enable a quicker and more efficient system for those voters who live outside the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, overseas voting extension is an important part of this Bill, one of the many bits that is substantially changing the pattern of voting. It could add a couple of million extra voters and deserves better than the treatment it is getting at present. Some of us may wish to discuss whether we will oppose Clause 12 standing part on Report just to make sure we have a proper discussion. I have been struck, in everything I have read and discussed with Ministers and officials, by the fact that this has not been thought through and has been poorly prepared. If I were unduly suspicious, I would say that Ministers are more interested in getting donations from people who will then come on to the register than they are in really getting proper overseas representation.

We know where this comes from: the campaign that Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, when he was head of the Conservative Party’s international office, took to encourage overseas voters, particularly retired British expatriates in Spain and France, to register. Academic research that I found, which the Minister, when I spoke to him, appeared to be unaware of, showed that the distribution of votes—I do not know whether the Minister is listening to me; he may not be interested—in constituencies had been lopsided from the start. It was always concentrated in London and the south-east. Now, it continues to be very lopsided. The Minister said that he was unaware of the distribution of votes by constituency. I found it out quite easily, through the Office for National Statistics. I am sorry it was not available to him. It ranges from over 2,000 in several north London constituencies, to 25 or so in various Welsh constituencies. If we double that, the maldistribution of overseas voters in different constituencies will entirely undo the redrawing of the boundaries to make them more accurate, which is just going through.

The academic research in the mid-1990s suggested that two-thirds of overseas voters in 1992 had voted Conservative, but only in small numbers. After the introduction of individual electoral registration allowed Conservatives abroad to mount a registration drive on individual registration from abroad, numbers rose from 33,000 in 2010 to 106,000 in 2015. The Conservative Party International Office encouraged targeted donations from abroad to marginal seats in the 2015 general election, showing that donations were a very important part of this. After the referendum, the numbers registered surged to over 300,000, which perhaps suggests that the Conservative assumption that they are all going to vote Conservative may have been a little shakier than they had intended.

There are many weaknesses with the proposals as they currently stand. First, in a Bill that tightens identity checks for domestic voters, the identity checks for overseas voters are extremely weak. Furthermore, the Government do not know who the overseas citizens are, how many of them there are or where they live. I put down a series of Written Questions six months ago, and the answers I got to most of these was “We do not have the figures”. I asked the Foreign Office what information it had, and it said that it plays no role in the registration of overseas voters and it does not expect to play any role in assisting them to vote. If the Minister had looked at comparisons of the way in which other Governments handle overseas voting, he would have noted that embassies and high commissions play a very active role in this. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, reminded me that the largest polling station in Australia is at the other end of the Strand in London. The British Government apparently do not want to get involved in that, and it would be very complicated.

The problem we were discussing about digitisation and how to get the balance out and then get them back in a short campaign, remains and is already a grievance with overseas voters.

The absence of preparation, therefore, is absolutely clear. The problem of how you identify fraud is very considerable if the Government have such little information on where citizens are and who they might be. The identification checks are very weak, and the powers given to the Secretary of State to take whatever measures he thinks appropriate to provide information campaigns suggest that a particular Secretary of State might decide that Portugal, Spain, Italy or France are where he wants to concentrate their efforts, rather than on those who retired to Jamaica or southern Nigeria or Pakistan.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

Or Belgium.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Or Belgium: exactly. There are many weaknesses in this. We put down another amendment, which comes in the next group, suggesting that the appropriate answer is overseas constituencies. The idea that people should vote in constituencies in which they have not lived for 50 years is absolutely absurd. My conversation with my local ERO suggested that trying to check on whether they actually have lived there or not might prove an impossible task.

This is a very shaky part of the Bill. My conversation with the Minister and officials suggests that they have not thought this through; it seems the Minister is not interested in thinking it through any further. I suspect, therefore, that it is the donations that they are really interested in, and this leaves me very discontented with this part of the Bill.

[Lord Stunell (LD)]

My Lords, I want to ask some technical questions, without necessarily knowing what the correct answer is myself. I hope that the Minister, if he is not able to answer today, would be prepared to write to provide a further explanation.

I start by referring to some of the text of Clause 12. On page 14, line 13, under the new section “Extension of parliamentary franchise”, there are various conditions that a person has to satisfy. They have to be,

“not subject to any legal incapacity to vote (age apart)”

et cetera. I take it—perhaps the Minister can consult the Box to get an answer to this—that that is to make sure that nobody overseas registers who is under age. I assume that is the meaning of that. If I am wrong about that, then there might be a whole set of questions arising, but that seems to be the common-sense explanation for those two words in brackets.

I want to move on to the next page of the same clause. New Section 1B is headed,

“British citizens overseas: entitlement to be registered”.

The proposed new section sets out that, essentially, there are two ways in which one can qualify to be registered. The first is as a former elector in a United Kingdom constituency. There will be discussions about that, I am sure, but the second is what I want to focus on at the moment. The second condition is that you were a former resident in a UK constituency. We already know that there is quite a large number of people who are not registered, because we discussed earlier on that the Electoral Commission’s estimate is that in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, there are somewhere between 8.6 million and 9.8 million people who are currently resident but not on the electoral roll. There is, therefore, quite a large pool of people who, presumably in approximately equal proportion, will be overseas now. There is no special preference for people who have registered being the people who have migrated.

So my question is: does this legislation grant voting rights to someone who left the UK with their parents as a baby and moved to Switzerland, say, to claim their vote alongside their parents, once they reach the age of 18 overseas? If it does, I note that there does not seem to be any requirement for that baby to have been born in the United Kingdom; they need to establish only that they were resident here. As far as I can tell, there is no specified minimum period for that residence.

I will take a case that is not entirely hypothetical. Parents who came to the United Kingdom, having been working in Ghana, with a baby who was born in England, move to Switzerland six months later. It seems that nothing is set out in the legislation to prevent that baby from claiming their vote on reaching 18 while still living overseas. I want to check that I have not misunderstood what the legislation is saying there and that, by virtue of that brief period of residence, they would be eligible to vote and—I suppose I could add—to make a donation. If that is true, I know of two British nationals now in their 50s who will be very happy to take up the offer.

But I want to know whether that really is the extension to the franchise that the Government want or whether I have actually missed something and, in some other part of the RPA—or Schedule 9 or goodness knows where else—there is something that would prevent that absurd outcome.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

149: After Clause 12, insert the following new Clause—
“Creation of overseas constituencies
(1) Within six months of the passing of this Act, and prior to section 12 coming into force, the Secretary of State must lay a report before Parliament on proposals for overseas constituencies.(2) A report under subsection (1) must consider proposals on—(a) the most suitable deployment of overseas constituencies;(b) the ratio of nationals per MP;(c) the impact on existing UK constituencies;(d) the local administration of ballots;(e) the appointment of returning officers; and(f) the form of proportional representation best suited to electing Members of Parliament to represent overseas constituencies.(3) In preparing a report under subsection (1) the Secretary of State must consult—(a) the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Commons;(b) the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords;(c) the appropriate committees of the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and the Northern Ireland Assembly;(d) the Electoral Commission;(e) the Association of Electoral Administrators; and(f) any other person they consider appropriate.”Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment requires the Secretary of State to report on the creation of overseas constituencies.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, if the Government were in a mood to try to build any sort of consensus on the Bill, which they clearly are not, I would hope that they would be willing to consider accepting some part of this amendment; it does not say that we should necessarily create overseas constituencies but that we should at least consider them.

If I may anticipate the Minister’s comment that this would be an enormous innovation, I point out that the extension of the franchise to people who have lived abroad all their life is itself an enormous innovation. If I were to follow the line that he has argued on former subjects—that we should be looking at the practice of other countries—overseas constituencies are a practice in a number of democratic countries for very obvious reasons. If you are looking after your overseas voters, they have lost their links with their local constituencies, they are much more distant than they were and they have a different set of interests and it is therefore perhaps appropriate for overseas constituencies to be created.

It may be that we have not yet thought this through. I suspect that the Government have not thought about it at all because they do not have the numbers or any of the practice or documentation that the French, for example, have about their overseas citizens with support from their embassies, consulates and others. Nor have we looked into what we do about dual and triple nationals, an increasingly large and difficult category, as we have discovered in our relations with Iran and China in recent years, which takes us into the question of how we might redefine British citizenship as such in a much more global world. The question of how parties fund keeping in touch with overseas voters is the most sensitive one because we know that one of the underlying structural biases in our electoral system is that one party has two-thirds of the funds available for political parties and the others have a great deal less, so we know which party will be able to keep in touch with the overseas voters it wants and the others will not be able to do so.

Having said that, I hope the Minister will recognise that there is a case for looking at this. The current proposals will concentrate overseas voters, by and large, in London, Surrey and other home county constituencies. We do not know the implications of that. A Conservative Peer of my acquaintance told me that the one overseas constituency in France which consistently votes left is the one that includes London; he suspects that there might be some similar interesting differences in where people are living as opposed to where they come from, but at least we ought to be looking at that as part of the package. I therefore ask the Government not to close their mind to this and not to demonstrate that getting this done without thinking through the implications is all they are really concerned with. As part of approaching this major extension of the British franchise, they should look at this, as other countries have done. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I have very little to say other than that it is a very interesting suggestion and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, for bringing it forward and giving us food for thought. I had no idea that France had overseas constituencies until he tabled his amendment and I looked into it. It is an interesting suggestion.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I fear that at this late hour, I will disappoint the noble Lord. This amendment would require the Government to prepare a report on proposals for the creation of overseas constituencies. The Bill will allow overseas electors to continue to vote in constituencies to which they have a significant and demonstrable connection. This constituency link has always been and continues to be a cornerstone of our democracy. Creating overseas constituencies is therefore not something the Government are considering. To commission a report on the topic is unnecessary. Overseas electors will continue to register in the constituencies to which they have a significant and demonstrable connection.

As the amendment acknowledges, there are extensive and complex bureaucratic challenges to implementing overseas constituencies. There would, for example, be ongoing complexities regarding how constituency boundaries and their electorate would be determined and maintained with a constituency stretching across multiple countries and being affected by fluctuating migration. Furthermore, electoral administration for overseas constituencies would have to be done in a very different way from the current process, whereby it is undertaken by local authorities. We would need to address matters such as: who would be responsible for maintaining the register of electors and administering the polls for an overseas constituency. Overseas constituencies would not fit in with the existing arrangements for organising constituencies and delivering elections, and establishing them would require the consideration of a range of complex issues. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to reconsider this suggestion and withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, that is not at all surprising as an answer. I point out that the extensive and bureaucratic challenges to which the Minister refers are involved in extending the vote to overseas voters in the first place. Those challenges will be met by local registration officers in Britain, but if we are to have a different relationship with our 5 million to 7 million citizens abroad, we need to look at it in a rather more rounded way and consider how we manage it. It is not a question of just extending the vote and leaving it like that.

After all, we have got into some difficulty in recent years with the question of how we relate to overseas citizens, particularly our dual nationals when they are imprisoned in the other countries of their nationality—and these are not particularly friendly countries. That needs to be thought about.

What I hear from the Government throughout the Bill is that they are not interested in anything except their current agenda. They are not interested in thinking through the implications of some of their proposals. I have talked to Canadian Senators about how they cope with these voters. I am aware of the French system; I am surprised that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was not. The Britain, Ireland and Nordic constituency is one of its five overseas constituencies. Many people in London are French and therefore vote in French elections. In the last presidential election campaign, Macron came to address a large meeting in London as part of his campaign. If we were to move in that direction, of course British politicians would need to think about which other countries they would go to campaign in. There are some large implications of this which, if I may say so, the Government appear simply not to have thought through as they push this through.

That is the problem with an awful lot of this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord True, will be responsible for having assisted and enabled a thoroughly badly thought-through Bill to become law. That will be on his conscience and his responsibility. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 149 withdrawn.

Constitutional Reform

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

It is certainly a secret ballot. The noble Lord is well known in the House for his assiduous pressing of this point—he almost qualifies as the elder Cato on Carthage—but the system remains enacted by Parliament, and it will remain until Parliament decides otherwise.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, could the Minister tell us who is responsible as Minister for the Constitution? I looked it up this morning on the government website, and it said that Chloe Smith had been the Minister for the Constitution in 2020-21 but gave no successor. She was responsible to a Cabinet Minister, Michael Gove, who was then the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He is now, in whatever his department is called, also Minister for Intergovernmental Relations, and one of his junior Ministers, Kemi Badenoch, is handling the Elections Bill in the Commons, but I cannot quite see who is in charge of the constitution. Perhaps it is the noble Lord, Lord True, himself—in which case, I congratulate him. If so, to which Cabinet Minister does he think he is responsible for discussions and policy on constitutional matters?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, so far as the elements of constitutional policy that remain within the Cabinet Office, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is the responsible Cabinet Minister—and, yes, I report to him as Minister of State. Other aspects of the constitutional brief—for example, policy in relation to the union, elections and local government—lie with my right honourable friend Mr Michael Gove and DLUHC.

Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

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

Debate on whether Clause 1 should stand part of the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I shall wait for just a minute while those who do not wish to hear my exciting speech absent themselves.

Those who heard the remarkable speech by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, on Thursday will know that the case for this clause to be included in the Bill is very weak. He said it all, in effect. First, this is an extremely small problem; secondly, it will disfranchise the poorer and more marginalised elements of the electorate; and, thirdly, the larger problems of our electoral system lie elsewhere. The PACAC report, which has been much quoted in Committee so far, states:

“There is very limited evidence of personation at UK elections.”


These proposals represent

“a disproportionate response to a problem that appears not to be widespread.”

Paragraph 96 states:

“Introducing a compulsory voter ID requirement risks upsetting the balance of our current electoral system”—


that is a real constitutional reform in the wrong direction—

“making it more difficult to vote and removing an element of the trust inherent in the current system.”

The more urgent problems facing our electoral system include some things we will discuss later today, such as intimidation, of which I have experience, but above all the missing 8 million to 9 million citizens who are not on our electoral register. The Bill leaves to one side the issue of the incompleteness of our electoral register. As it happened, last week, I turned up in my pile of Cabinet Office publications one from December 2017 entitled Every Voice Matters: Building a Democracy that Works for Everyone, introduced by Chris Skidmore, then the Minister responsible. As we were discussing in Questions, there have been several changes of responsible Ministers since then, which has no doubt contributed to the incoherence of the Bill. Skidmore argued very strongly in that document for citizen engagement, greater participation and a more complete register.

Here is a major weakness in the integrity of our elections. Previous Conservative Ministers thought it important, but the Bill instead chases after other imagined problems—ones that US Republicans also chase for reasons not concerned with election integrity. The Bills that Republican-controlled state legislatures have passed under the title of election integrity have been concerned with pushing people—marginal, poor, black and others—off the register. The Minister will be well aware of the wide suspicion of the degree of Republican infiltration of the Conservative Party and of Conservative imitation of right-wing Republican enthusiasms and campaigns, most recently illustrated in the remarkable and awful speech which the chairman of the Conservative Party gave to the Heritage Foundation only two weeks ago.

Perhaps the Minister would like to argue that the absence of evidence of a serious current problem should not deter us from turning to the precautionary principle—introducing this in case there turns out to be a larger problem in future than there was—but he has told us that he does not accept the precautionary principle. After all, it is a European principle disliked by all true Anglo-Saxons.

The cost of introducing voter ID across the entire electorate could instead be spent on citizen education and engagement, to encourage more young people to play an active role in our electoral system and its campaigns. We could experiment with moves towards automatic registration—that is, automatic entry on to the register, which we will discuss later in Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

I want to make progress. I appreciate that not everybody has enthusiasm for these provisions, but I beg your Lordships to understand that they are part of a set of provisions—they do not stand alone. They stand alongside all the other measures in the Bill which are intended to secure the integrity of the ballot. On reflection, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, will feel able to withdraw his opposition to Clause 1 standing part of the Bill.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, this has been a long and often confused debate. I have to say that I am as confused at the end of it as to what the rationale for Clause 1 is as I was at the beginning.

We have touched on a range of issues which we will return to on later occasions. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward—for whose expertise I have the highest respect—talked about the uncertainties of our electoral system and the problem that, in many constituencies, local and national, the selection meeting is the important one because we all know who is going to be elected. That is actually a gross abuse of our electoral system, to which perhaps one might consider either the introduction of primaries or a change in the electoral system to give the electorate a wider choice. I mark that in passing.

I have much sympathy with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on the point about the failure to modernise the pencil on sacking style of polling stations and the very antique business of local registers and local registration, which is totally unsuitable to the digital age. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Desai, on that.

What we should have had here was what page 48 of the Conservative manifesto—which I think I know almost off by heart—refers to: that the time has come for a “broader” approach to our constitution. That is one of the aspects the noble Lord told us that they have now abandoned. We could have discussed some of these issues together.

The noble Lord, Lord True, said that all of us should want to do both things at once: security and engagement —and I assume, therefore, proper modernisation of our electoral system. The problem with the Bill is that it does not do both things at once. It does this but not the other things. That is why I find this such an unsatisfactory half set of measures. It is a Bill which does things that help the Conservatives but does not address some of the evident inadequacies of our electoral system and electoral campaigns, and does not modernise, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, rightly says. Therefore, it seems to me that the Bill fails the test of appropriate legislation. This is a disproportionate attack on one small part of the inadequacies of our electoral system, which leaves untouched many of its other inadequacies. On that purpose, we shall therefore wish to return to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw my opposition to Clause 1 standing part.

Clause 1 agreed.

Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

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

[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.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

My Lords, in answer to that question from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, keeping the numbers at four and not allowing anybody to have as many proxy votes as they like will help control this sort of behaviour. We all know that it happened in the past.

I will get an answer on why postal votes are to be in guidance and proxy votes are in the Bill, and write to the noble Lord, Lord Scriven.

I turn to the amendments concerning the measure in the Bill designed to strengthen the current arrangements for proxy voting. Currently, somebody can act as a proxy for up to two electors and for an unlimited number of close relatives in any constituency in a parliamentary election, or any electoral area at a local election. This can give rise to situations where somebody could cast an extremely large number of proxy votes, over which they could also exercise undue influence. This is where the issue of care homes and such like comes into play.

The Bill introduces a new limited of four on the total number of electors for whom a person may act as a proxy in UK parliamentary elections or local government elections in England. Within this figure, no more than two may be domestic electors—that is, electors who are not overseas electors or service voters. All four may be overseas electors or service voters. This approach will tighten up the rules on proxy voting, while also providing appropriate support for overseas electors and service voters wishing to appoint a proxy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

I shall move this amendment very swiftly because I was intending to spend most of this speech discussing what the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, said about his amendment, but I have missed my opportunity on that.

Amendment 106ZA is about expanding the list of activities which may constitute undue influence to probe whether causing or threatening financial loss to a political party should also be included. At the moment, it just refers to financial loss due to persons, but clearly undue pressure could be put on political parties, particularly the smaller political parties, around potential financial loss if they go down certain policy routes, for example. It is just to probe that, so I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 106A. As I have already said to the Minister, this is very much a probing amendment. Clause 8 is an important clause. We all recognise that it has to be in any elections Bill. I note that in various references to the clause the statement is made that there is a need to clarify the law on undue influence. One of the things I asked the Minister in advance was whether he could tell us how often there have been successful prosecutions for undue influence, because it is not that easy to prove.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

I will elaborate on the noble Lord’s point. There is a difference here, in the ordinary reading of the words, between pressure and intimidation. I took the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, to be referring to intimidation, which is clearly something that we want to guard against. But what constitutes spiritual pressure? As noble Lords have just said, would a sermon in a church constitute pressure? A reasonable person might think that it would; after all, it is not serving much of a purpose if there is no pressure. This is a lay man speaking, but I think there is a difference between pressure and intimidation. We want to guard against intimidation, but we absolutely do not want to curb freedom of religious speech.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True (Con)]

Yes, I had better write at this hour. I had it somewhere, but I have lost it in the folder. I will certainly write to the noble Lord. I tried to answer the question. If I have not, I will write; sorry.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I think it is the sense of quite a few of us that it might be wiser to remove the phrase “causing spiritual injury to” because that is, I think, the most difficult element of it. I think most of us would understand

“placing undue spiritual pressure on”.

I respectfully suggest that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, might be a useful person to consult on this. Some of us may remember the occasion when, as Lord Chancellor, he attended a requiem mass for a Catholic judge in Glasgow and was threatened with exclusion from his own church, very clearly threatening to use spiritual pressure. He has presumably thought all of this through extremely well.

I thank the Minister for explaining the efforts that have gone into defining “undue influence” rather better. I still feel that we are looking at something which we all know is there but we are not at all sure that the police, let alone the Crown Prosecution Service, are going to want to take on very much. This is an area involving the boundaries between campaigning, free speech, improper behaviour and downright offences which we will probably have to live with, unsatisfactorily, because that is part of the nature of democracy.

Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

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

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Haskel) (Lab)]

My Lords, if this amendment is agreed, I cannot call Amendment 44, because of pre-emption.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak on whether Clause 25 should stand part, which is grouped with these amendments in an attempt to improve Clause 25. I will begin with some remarks about Part 4 as we have so far examined it.

I came away from Tuesday’s Committee much more worried about the coherence of this Bill than I had been until then. We learned that Clause 18 is there primarily to reverse the court’s judgment in the Thanet election case, although the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, in her reply, attempted to persuade us that it does not really change the law; in which case, the clause is not necessary. We learned that Clause 22 was entirely about the threat to our electoral system posed by a body called Advance Together, which, on examination, fought five seats in the 2019 election and gained in total just over 400 votes. We did not learn the purpose of Clause 24. Indeed, after the Minister’s explanation, I and others were more puzzled about the purpose of this clause than we had been before we started, and worried as to whether there is some underhand objective that we have not yet uncovered.

When reading through Section 88 of PPERA last night, which defines “recognised third parties”, I could find no reference to unincorporated associations as recognised third parties. Can the Minister or his staff kindly inform me before Report whether the inclusion of unincorporated associations in Clause 24 is intended to bring these bodies within this category for the first time or whether they were already covered in existing legislation? I also found in the briefing a reference to permitting only overseas-based unincorporated associations consisting entirely of UK citizens, which is not the wording in the Government’s text.

The Minister gave us to believe that the small group of former Liberal Democrats who formed Advance Together, and then merged it into Renew, represented a major threat to the UK, but that foreign money and foreign interference, most evidently from Russia, do not present any serious threat. The Minister suggested that the paragraphs in the ISC’s Russia report and elsewhere that flag up the seriousness of that threat are little more than “innuendo”. It is astonishing that he can suggest that Russian interference should not be a serious concern to us as we consider this Bill—at this point above all.

Now we have Clause 25, which gives full power to the Secretary of State to add or remove descriptions of third parties from the approved list. I am grateful to the Minister for offering us a government amendment to delete the power to

“make such amendments of this Part as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”,

but this is only because the Government consider that PPERA already provides sufficient authority. As I wade through sections of PPERA to understand the provisions of this Bill, with the occasional reference to the earlier Representation of the People Act, I am repeatedly reminded of the CSPL’s declaration in its report on election finance that there is an “unarguable” case in favour of consolidating and simplifying electoral law.

The Minister must recognise, as he struggles to explain and justify this Bill clause by clause, that it totally fails to consolidate or simplify. The Electoral Commission’s briefing for Second Reading stated, accurately, that the changes in Part 4, including these clauses,

“would add new requirements to laws which many campaigners have said are already complex and hard to understand. The added complexity of these changes could deter some from campaigning at elections ... Voters could therefore ... hear from a narrower range of sources.”

It therefore falls to the Minister to justify the inclusion of Clause 25 and the powers that it gives to the Secretary State, and to explain, as we keep asking, what problem it is intended to resolve. If he cannot persuade us that it is necessary, we shall ask for it to be removed.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support the intention to oppose Clause 25 standing part of the Bill, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace. In so doing, I also support Amendments 41 and 42, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury.

Clause 25 introduces significant delegation of powers in relation to Clause 24, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, has indicated. We understood from the Minister last week that the purpose of Clause 24 is to protect the country from electioneering by overseas organisations. I am quite happy to support the Government in that purpose. However, the Minister was unable to assure the Committee last week that non-charitable civil society organisations in this country would remain outside the scope of Clause 24 and therefore also, importantly, of Clause 25. I hope that the Minister can clarify this significant point in his summing up.

I do not want to repeat my concerns about Clauses 24 and 25, which I expressed last Thursday, so will focus solely on the delegated powers in Clause 25, and in so doing declare my interest as a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.

It is concerning that, in Clause 25, the Government have provided wide-ranging powers for Ministers to amend Section 88 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to which Clause 24 applies. In a sense, it feels a little unnatural to be talking about Clause 25 when these two clauses are so very closely aligned and intertwined. The Government need a very good reason to introduce Henry VIII powers under which a Minister can amend an Act of Parliament.

I want to focus on Clause 25(1)(b) in that respect. I am sure that the Minister is aware that the DPRRC has particular concerns about this paragraph, which relates to the list of third-party organisations that can exceed the spending limits contained in Section 94 of PPERA. He may also be aware that, in its memorandum to the DPRRC, the department admits that preventing other categories of third party being able to campaign has the potential to impinge on freedom of expression under Article 10 of the ECHR and the right to enjoy a free election under Article 3 of the first protocol of the convention. The department has argued that it is important that, if a legitimate category of third party emerges, it can be added quickly to the legitimate categories to ensure that these restrictions on campaigning remain proportionate and no more extensive than is necessary to meet the aim of preventing campaigning by those with no genuine stake in the UK. As I said, I understand that objective, but this clause seems to go much wider and, with the delegated powers in Clause 25, we have no idea where it may go. The DPRRC is clear that the Minister needs to explain the need for Ministers to have Henry VIII powers to remove third parties. If Ministers are unable to provide a satisfactory explanation, these powers are inappropriate. That is the view of the DPRRC, not my view—I am simply a member.

I have brought this issue to the Floor of the Committee because if the Minister can explain the need for these Henry VIII powers in Clause 25 it may help noble Lords when deciding whether to bring back this issue on Report. I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that organisations based in the UK and which are not controlled from overseas will be clearly excluded by the Bill from Clauses 24 and Clause 25, thus taking fully into account the concerns of the DPRRC.

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[Lord True (Con)]

All those bodies in the current list in Section 88(2) of PPERA are carved out, whatever their description. We will come on to the concerns raised about what is in Clause 25, but I repeat that assurance. In saying that, I understand some of the suspicions and concerns raised by noble Lords.

I do not wish to be adversarial in any way, but the other thing I would say in starting is this. As I have said several times in these discussions, I agree that, one day, ideally, a consolidation Bill would be highly desirable. I fully accept that. There are issues here that are relatively urgent, whether we are agree or not: for example, around foreign money, digital campaigning and so on and so forth. The Government are seeking to make progress on those, but it is not a zero-sum game. In presenting this legislation—by the way, as a Minister who has himself had to try to get his mind round all the various references and cross-references in the Bill—I am not in any way saying that a consolidation Bill, one day, is not a desirable end. Anybody involved in the political world would agree.

Clause 25 is really what this debate is about. The potential problems and suspicions—raised, for example, by the noble Viscount—arise from the perceived view of Clause 25 that has been expressed in this debate. Perhaps I could deal with the first part, which is about potentially adding new categories. We are conscious that, as the world evolves, new legitimate categories of third parties that are not currently on the list might emerge. Because they are not protected by the carve-out in Section 88(2), they might be significantly restricted in their ability to campaign by this provision if they could not be added to the list quickly. That is why Clause 25 makes provision for the amendment of the list of eligible categories of third-party campaigns in PPERA, to add a new category of campaigner that might emerge. That would allow any Government, not just this Government, to amend the list to enable new groups or styles of campaigners to take part. Parliament would have a lock on that, via the affirmative resolution procedure.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I simply wish to congratulate the Minister on following so very clearly the precautionary principle in legislating here for something that has not yet happened and might happen, because it would be useful to have this in place if it did happen. That is what I understand him to be saying.

[Lord True (Con)]

I am saying that there is a practical possibility that this might arise. I take it that, however expressed, that was assent from those Benches, and I am grateful for that.

These provisions will ensure that we can be responsive to the emergence of new categories of third parties, or changes to the legal description of existing categories of third parties—there is some legal language in Section 88(2) —so that they are not unduly restricted from campaigning and participating in our democracy in the future. That is added with a parliamentary lock.

I am grateful for the engagement on the points we come to next; I have heard the concerns of the Liberal Democrat and other Benches, most notably, as we heard again in the debate today, from the party opposite. I thank all who have spoken to me on this subject, and the noble Lord, Lord Collins of Highbury, for the points he made on Clause 25 regarding the power to remove—the specific subject of his amendment—or vary the list.

I hope that part of making progress on a Bill is making progress, but it is the person at the Dispatch Box who has the responsibility to listen—my job as a Minister. I hope we can go forward with that in mind.

The Government have listened to the concerns raised. I pay great respect to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recent report on the subject of Ministers having the power to remove entries from the list of eligible categories of third-party campaigners in Section 88(2). That is why I asked my officials to meet, as the noble Lord said, with the TUC and TULO on 7 March to discuss their concerns.

Although powers to update lists in legislation are not unusual—and indeed can be important where, either due to changes in legal definitions or oversight, Governments may need to respond quickly—we acknowledge the concerns that have been expressed. The Government have heard the concerns around whether the power in Clause 25 could be abused by a future Government. I reassure the noble Lord and others who have spoken that before the next stage of the Bill I intend to consider at the very least what further safeguards could be added to the clause, along the lines of, for example, Amendments 42 and 45 from the noble Lord, relating to the role of the Electoral Commission. I have heard the force of opinion in the Committee on these provisions.

Elections Bill

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

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

The second reason for tabling the amendment is that, as has already been said, it represents a better and fairer approach to third-party funding than that proposed in Clause 27. It would bring transparency, and it is based on recommendation 21 of the committee’s report, which, as others have said, builds on the Electoral Commission’s own 2015 report and the report by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson. It is a simple and, I believe, practical measure to increase transparency, and I hope the Minister will support it. However, the better, and the right, thing to have done was for the Government, if they needed, to pause this Bill and take proper account of the full recommendations of the committee’s report.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches hope that the Government will be willing not only to listen but to accept both of these amendments, either in their current form or in some reshaped form. They would be constructive and non-partisan additions to the Bill.

I recall that the review undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, came about as a result of what some people felt were the botched efforts of the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act, which was rushed through Parliament. Of course, if this Bill becomes law in anything like its current form, I should warn the noble Lord that he—and perhaps not only he but other Members of the House too—will be called on several more times to do post-legislative scrutiny on various aspects of it.

We differ from the noble Lord in one or two respects. We would have fought for Parliament against the executive prerogative of the monarchy in the Civil War; that is where my party comes from. We are therefore in favour of the Electoral Commission being responsible to the Speaker’s Committee much more than to the Secretary of State. We will want to consider and discuss between now and Report whether the Speaker’s Committee too needs to be further reinforced, and perhaps slightly reshaped. Apart from that, we strongly support where both amendments come from, and we hope that the Government will be willing to incorporate them in further discussions on the Bill.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, made a distinguished contribution, based on his great experience—although I fear that in identifying Conservative clubs he was thinking of Walsall North Conservative Club, which defines itself online as a pub that has gone out of business, rather than the neighbouring Aldridge Conservative & Unionist Club, which defines itself online both as a social club, which it is, and also as “community and government”. That rather makes my point about some clubs—not only Conservative clubs but also Labour and Liberal clubs.

I want to make one brief comment on Amendment 54B and what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, said, and will requote one of the principles he identified, which is clarity. In 1995 I was tasked with ensuring that the Labour Party and the trade unions stayed within the law, as it was emerging under the Nolan committee, to which I presented evidence with my noble and learned friend Lord Morris on behalf of all trade unions. Before the law changed, my experience was that clarity was critical. I was able to go to senior politicians—my noble friend Lord Blunkett was an exception because he was always exemplary on all financial matters, but not everyone was because politicians are often more enthused about their political campaigns than by exactly how they are funded—and one of my roles was to ensure that everything was within the spirit of the law and within the law we already had on trade union funds. Clarity was critical.

It would probably be a best seller if I cited some of the spectacular examples, but there were some ferocious rows. I explained to people that they were not having that money because the way they were trying to get it was not technically legal, despite the fact that the way they wished to spend it was clearly for social good. Politicians have a weakness when it comes to money, especially when it is to do with elections. Clarity is critical.

When the law changed, and treasurers were about to be elected in my local party, when I was a Member of the other place, I always used to say, “You’ll go to prison if you get this wrong.” That quickly weeded out those who wanted the position of treasurer for some kind of political enhancement and left a tiny number who were prepared to ensure that the finances were in order. They were awkward to me, because I kept saying “That’s perfectly legitimate”, and they would delay income or expenditure because they wanted to be absolutely certain.

That is the beauty of what the noble Lord, Lord Kerslake, is suggesting: a designated treasurer with a duty that they will apply with draconian consequences for breaching the law. I strongly commend this approach and this principle as one of the levers to ensure that transparency is delivered. I think this is rather a good proposal.

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[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

As I said, the Electoral Commission has agreed to do much of this. I will come to local authorities now. The noble Baronesses, Lady Hayman, Lady Pinnock and Lady Meacher, quite rightly talked about the costs of this to local authorities. The impact assessment presented a range of costs that could be incurred by the introduction of these measures in order to ensure that local authorities and valuation joint boards are provided with the funding to implement the changes successfully. We will continue to refine our estimates of the future new burdens required to reflect the design of the secondary legislation. Government analysts are engaging with local authorities and valuation joint boards as this model is developed. Work is being done by all those involved.

Any allocation would be subject to detailed consideration of the varied pictures across local authorities and the valuation boards and would seek to allocate funding according to need. As was the case with the introduction of individual electoral registration, new-burdens funding will be provided to cover the additional costs resulting from the changes.

The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, asked about the different needs of different authorities. We accept that. The administrative burden will be driven by a variety of factors across local authorities, including their existing capabilities. The allocation of new-burdens funding, including for any additional staffing required, is being modelled and discussed with local authorities and other key stakeholders, working with the programme team in the department. The allocation of the new-burdens funding will take into account the different requirements and characteristics of all local authorities. We are working with local authorities and with the Local Government Association, and we are looking at all the different characteristics of those individual authorities. As a local authority person, I understand this.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I want just to check on the question which has already been raised about the extra security costs. While preparing for this Bill, I went to talk to the Bradford electoral registration team. One of the strongest messages that came from them was that a significant number of poll clerks in Bradford were young women. We all know that intimidation is the most frequent election problem in parts of Bradford. When faced with rather aggressive men of one sort or another whose identity is being challenged, young women are going to feel very unsafe. This will require extra staffing and police. Has this been factored in?

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I cannot tell the noble Lord whether that has been factored in. I will ask the team and come back to him. The fact that local authorities are working with the team means that those sorts of issues will come up and be dealt with.

We have also already established a business change network covering England, Scotland and Wales, specifically to support local authorities with the implementation of the policy changes arising from the Elections Bill. The network allows the regular flow of information both ways between local authorities and officials in DLUHC, acting as a local presence with knowledge of the Elections Bill and supporting and engaging with administrators during the implementation. That is where these sorts of issues need to come up and I expect them to be dealt with in that way.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, brought up training for returning officers. This will all come out of the same network. We continue to work with local authorities to understand their needs and the needs of voters in relation to training on the new electoral system. I think that deals with all the points, so I will now get on to the actual amendments.

These amendments and those in the groups just after place a requirement on the Secretary of State to publish a wide range of reports, impact assessments and reviews, as well as to hold consultations on the impacts and estimated impacts of various measures in this Bill. Amendment 55 would prevent Schedule 1 coming into force until the Secretary of State has made a statement before Parliament on the estimated cost of the provisions, in addition to the potential impacts on voter turnout across different demographics.

This amendment is entirely unnecessary. A detailed estimate of costs for all the provisions in the Bill was published alongside it, as was an equality impact assessment. To suggest that the impacts of the measures in the Bill have not been considered in great detail would be a disservice to the many officials in the team who have spent considerable time modelling the various impacts and who are already working very closely with the sector to prepare for its implementation in a thorough and very considered way.

On the financial costs, we have worked extensively with the electoral sector to assess the impacts of the measures and have rightfully modelled a range of costs to account for a number of scenarios. We continue to work to refine these as the detail of implementation planning is settled. Our priority remains ensuring that local authorities have the necessary resources to continue to deliver our elections robustly and securely, and we have secured the necessary funding to deliver that goal.

As is usual for programmes of this kind, any additional funding required will be delivered to local authorities via the new burdens mechanism. Rollout of any funding will be timed to ensure that local authorities can meet the costs incurred. This is not the first time that the Government have delivered a change programme in this area. The Government have worked closely with the sector to deliver a number of national programmes, including canvass reform and the introduction of individual electoral registration, to great effect. This programme, while complex, is no different and we will continue to take the same open and collaborative approach to implementation.

When it comes to publications, the evaluation of and reporting on funding for programmes of this kind are already subject to publication requirements, particularly as this qualifies as a government major programme. Furthermore, we are developing robust evaluation plans and intend to produce a process and impact evaluation of the programme across all policy measures. Therefore, in light of the already published assessments for the Bill and the assurances that existing plans will provide ample transparency, I beg the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.