Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill Debate
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Mark Harper
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Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Mark Harper Excerpts(14 years, 1 month ago)
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Gavin Barwell
In my experience of council elections, most people cast votes in accordance with the number of vacancies that there are, but some people do decide that they want to vote for only one or two candidates, perhaps because there are not three candidates on the ballot for whom they wish to vote, and that is their democratic right.
I believe the Government have chosen the right system. If it were ever used, it would give maximum choice to my constituents. Therefore, with respect, I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch that his amendment is misplaced.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
It is a great pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell), whose remarks have been very supportive.
The amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) is very interesting, but I fear that it does not do what he seems to think it does. As he is an experienced Member, I say with some trepidation that his amendment is defective. He seemed to be explaining that, in effect, it delivers a supplementary vote system under which only the top two candidates are capable of winning the election and all the other candidates are eliminated, and therefore voters only express two preferences. That is not what his amendment does, however. It limits the number of preferences to be expressed to two, but that does not have the effect he was hoping for. Under his amendment, it would still be possible for a candidate who had come third and been eliminated to win the election if they were the recipient of many second preferences. I therefore fear that his amendment is technically defective, because it does not do what he clearly outlined he wished it to do. Given that, I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw it.
In choosing the form of AV that is proposed in the Bill, we were very clear that we wanted the optional preferential system as we did not want voters to be forced to vote for candidates they could not stomach. We thought it was not right to force voters to have to express a preference for a British National party candidate, for instance, when they think that the views that that candidate espouses are repugnant. However, we also thought that voters should be free to vote for just one candidate if they so wished. There should be maximum choice for the elector. That is why we chose the system that is in the Bill as the one to put to the electors, and I recommend it to the Committee.
Mr Chope
It appears that my hon. Friend will not address the following question: if my amendment does not achieve the purpose of introducing, for the sake of consistency, the London AV system, would he be in favour of an amendment that did achieve that being brought forward on Report? If not, can he answer this question: why does he believe we should have more than one AV system operating in this country—the London AV system plus the AV system he is introducing through the Bill?
Mr Harper
I will try not to stray too far outside the terms of this debate, and I will not get into a debate from the Dispatch Box on the merits of different electoral systems. The Government are proposing this referendum with the choice between first past the post and AV, and the Government are neutral on those two electoral systems. That is a matter for the yes and no campaigns, and for the Members campaigning in them. The Government will not express a preference from the Dispatch Box. I will, however, take my hon. Friend through both his argument and the reasons why we support putting to the voters the system proposed in the Bill.
If I have rightly understood my hon. Friend’s argument—I am sure he will correct me if I am wrong—he was putting forward the supplementary vote system used in London. That has two features. First, voters have only two choices: they can express only two preferences, which is also what his amendment proposes. Secondly, if no candidate gets over 50% of first preference votes—I think I am right in saying that no candidate has done so since the system was put in place—only the top two candidates stay in the race. All other candidates are eliminated, and the second preferences of those who voted for those eliminated candidates are redistributed, and we then discover which of the top two wins. That is the piece that my hon. Friend’s amendment does not insert into the Bill, however. My hon. Friend’s amendment could lead to a situation that I think he said he would find undesirable, in that it would still be perfectly possible for a candidate who had not finished in the top two to be the winner if they received a significant number of second preference votes from those who were first eliminated.
The Second Deputy Chairman
Order. The Minister is addressing very clearly a number of complex points, and I realise that he is looking behind him because he wants to be as helpful as possible, but we need him to face forward so that Members in all parts of the Chamber can hear his comments.
Mr Chope
Can my hon. Friend answer clearly whether he believes the London system—which I have described as the London AV because that is how it was described by Professor Dunleavy—should be applied nationally and therefore should be put in the referendum, or does he believe the referendum choice should give people the chance to have both a supplementary AV system and his version of AV? If so, we could end up with two different forms of AV in this country’s electoral system.
Mr Harper
We have put a version of AV in clause 7, so that is clearly the system the Government believe the voters should have a choice on. They should choose between that system or the existing system of first past the post. We considered the London supplementary vote system, but we did not choose it because we wanted to give voters the maximum amount of choice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central set out, we wanted to give voters the opportunity to select from the range of candidates instead of just giving them two choices.
Mr Chope
If the Minister is saying that the coalition Government are against the AV system used to elect the London Mayor, is he also saying that the coalition Government are minded to change that system to the AV system proposed in the Bill, if that system is supported in a referendum?
Mr Harper
That is not what I said, and my hon. Friend will know that we are discussing the system for electing Members to the House of Commons. The choice of systems that the coalition Government want to put before the electors in a referendum is the choice of either sticking with first past the post or using the alternative vote system that we have put forward. The reason we thought it important to put in the Bill the version of the alternative vote system that will come into effect if there is a yes vote in the referendum—the debate has brought this out—is that voters are clear about what they are voting for. It is also so that the two campaigns—the yes campaign and the no campaign—can look at the Bill and clearly explain to voters the system that they are voting for or against, and the consequences of that system. Voters can then make an informed choice.
Austin Mitchell
Perhaps the Minister can help me with a further point. It is good to see the Government being so nice and sensitive, in that they will not force people to vote for the whole slate; they will allow people to choose how many candidates they vote for—that is the essence of what he is saying, I think. But will that not produce unpredictable results, in that if someone votes for the whole slate—for a first, second, third, fourth and fifth preference, or whatever—their vote counts more heavily than that of someone who votes for just one or perhaps two candidates under the London system? Does that not open up the possibility of the donkey vote, which we all know applies in Australia, whereby less-informed voters simply list the candidates in first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth place according to where they are on the form? There is therefore a great premium on having a name beginning with A. For that reason, when the system comes in, I will change my name to A1 Austin. The donkey vote will count more than legitimately calculated and thought-out votes.
Mr Harper
It is difficult to start to get behind what is on ballot papers, and to analyse the amount of thought that voters put in to what they write on them. I am sure that all of us, when we have looked at the results of elections in our constituencies and council elections, have sometimes wondered what thought processes voters used in casting their votes. We have not always agreed with the result, but democracy is a wonderful thing; we give everyone who is over the age of 18 and who is eligible to vote the chance to do so. In a democracy, we have to take the results that we get and make the best of them, regardless of the amount of thought put into them. I will not try to psychoanalyse how voters will express their preferences and how much thought they put into them.
Mrs Laing
I appreciate that the Minister is trying to be very fair in how he and the Government draw up the system that might, if the referendum succeeds, come into force, but has he seen the carefully compiled scientific evidence that shows that alphabetical preferences do matter? The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) is possibly joking—or perhaps not—about changing his name to A1 Austin. If that was his name on the ballot paper, and if I became Mrs Aardvark—nobody named Aardvark has so far asked me to marry them, but you never know—[Hon. Members: “Aah!”] Thank you. There is a distinct possibility that the alphabetical weighting would have an unfair, undemocratic effect on the result of the ballot.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. I have seen the odd piece of analysis that says that even under the existing first-past-the-post system, it makes a small difference which end of the ballot paper one’s name is on. It really comes down to the point that I made to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby: I am not going to analyse how people reach their decisions. Some people reach them after careful, considered thought, and some people do not. We just have to live with the results of their decisions in a democracy.
Austin Mitchell
I shall not change my name back to Haddock, at any rate. My point was simply that if somebody uses all their preferences, their vote has a greater weight because it is redistributed more than that of someone who votes for only one or two candidates. Is that correct?
Mr Harper
Well, no. That is a common misconception. A person’s vote is counted only once at any one time, but clearly, if someone lists a number of preferences, it is more likely that the vote will still be in the count later in the process. It is up to the voter how many preferences they express, and the voter can take that into account when they cast their vote.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if somebody chooses to vote for only one candidate, that is a matter for them? It is not for us to decide whether they should list five, six, seven or eight preferences. Whoever is voting, there will be anomalies; I do not know whether he agrees. Perhaps Aaron Aardvark will be first on the ballot paper—I will introduce him to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing)—but none the less, I honestly think that the matter should be left to the people.
Chris Bryant
The Minister is absolutely right. In the present system, in multi-member wards in local government elections, if there are three seats to be filled, voters can put three crosses, if they want. Quite often, they do not use all three. That may be because they do not know that they are able to use all three, or it may be that they choose not to use all three—who knows? It is not for us to guess, but allowing voters a degree of freedom is a good idea.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
I am conscious, Mr Gale, that the Chair will permit a stand part debate, so I will conclude my remarks on the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch. As I say, I fear to point out to him that it is technically defective—it does not do what he intends it to do—so I request that he withdraw it and allow us to debate the clause as it is; we can then see whether the House is content to let the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Chope
This has been a useful debate, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister for what he said. I thank everybody who has participated; we have had some interesting insights. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr Syms) because he brought up important points about the need to give equal weight to votes and the way in which that principle is undermined by the principle of the alternative vote system.
It is semantics to say that people have only one vote, but some people’s votes may be counted more than once; that is the equivalent of saying that some people have several votes and some have only one, but if that is how the proponents of AV wish to try to campaign in the AV referendum, so be it.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell) for his intervention, and I notice that he has an amendment on the amendment paper that effectively seeks to introduce the French system. I must say that when he told the Committee and me that the noble Lord Plant of Highfield and the noble Lord Campbell-Savours supported my amendment, I immediately got rather cold feet about its wisdom.
The purpose of the amendment was to try to draw out a discussion and get from the Minister a justification—whether it is satisfactory is another matter—of why the AV system put forward in the referendum is different from the AV system in London for the election of the London Mayor.
Chris Bryant
The most important element of the clause is the fact that it turns an advisory referendum into an implementing referendum. In one sense, it is one of the most important clauses in the Bill. Indeed, if there is a yes vote, it will directly change the voting system and several elements of it. I have a series of questions that I hope the Minister will be able to answer.
First, subsection (1) of the clause, on page 5 and on the subject of how votes are to be cast, states:
“A voter votes by marking the ballot paper with…the number 1 opposite the name of the candidate who is the voter’s first preference (or, as the case may be, the only candidate for whom the voter wishes to vote)…if the voter wishes, the number 2 opposite”
and so on. In relation to the discussion we have just had, I wonder whether if somebody marked the ballot paper with a cross against their first preference, which would clearly be an indication that that was the only way that they were choosing to vote, that would not be counted as a valid vote.
Chris Bryant
Perhaps the Minister will be able to respond when he replies to the debate, because I have a few other questions in this vein. It would be my feeling that that should be the case, although I am not sure whether in law it is necessary for us to put it on the face of the Bill. I could not see it anywhere else in the schedule that pertains to this measure and consequently I presume that at some point we might need to put it into the Bill through some form of amendment. Obviously, it is important that we get this right now, because once the Bill has gone through, it will be far more complicated after the referendum—if it is successful and there is a yes vote—for us to go back to it.
Secondly, on page 5 it also says that if one candidate has more votes than the others put together, that is the determining factor, rather than achieving 50% plus one of the total votes cast. Will the Minister clarify why we are using that process? I presume it is because at each subsequent stage one would not be able to guarantee that anybody was going to achieve more than the 50% plus one of the total number of votes cast, including those that were spoilt and all the rest of it. I would be grateful if the Minister could reply on that point.
Iain Stewart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who clearly has a greater detailed knowledge of the Bill than me. My question is therefore answered and I shall resume my seat.
Mr Harper
Let me deal with the questions that I have been asked. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) was quite right to refer to paragraph 7 of schedule 6, which explains about the elimination of candidates. If they are equal number at the bottom and all the preferences are the same, they will be eliminated by lot. If the hon. Gentleman had read a little earlier in that schedule, he would have been able to answer his first question, which was about voters who have made a mark. As page 146 makes clear:
“A ballot paper on which the voter makes any mark which…is clearly intended to indicate a particular preference for a particular candidate, but…is not a number…shall be treated in the same way as if the appropriate number…had been marked instead.”
As long as the voter makes a clear choice, even if it is a smiley face, that will count.
Austin Mitchell
What if an elector makes two Xs; will that ballot be discarded?
Mr Harper
As in many of these issues, it is about whether there is a clear mark. If the elector marks the paper in such a way that it is not possible for the returning officer to work out what they intended, it clearly cannot count, so it comes down to whether they have expressed a clear preference. In the case that the hon. Member for Rhondda set out, it would be clear what they had done, so there would be no problem.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
The Minister talks about the voter expressing a clear preference. The practice in Northern Ireland under the single transferable vote has been that exactly—if a clear preference is shown by an X or a 1. However, new rule 37A(1)(a), in clause 7, says:
“A voter votes by marking the ballot paper with…the number 1 opposite the name of the candidate”,
so where does that flexibility come in if it is in legislation that the number 1 should be used?
Mr Harper
I hesitate to jump forward, Mr Gale, because we are going to debate schedule 6, which is linked to this clause. Schedule 6 clearly sets out what to do if the voter does not use numerical marking. It works in the same way as current legislation, which asks the voter to make a cross but provides that if they make some other mark on the ballot paper that shows a clear preference, the returning officer can count it. The example that we had yesterday, which I have seen, was that if someone puts a smiley face, but only one smiley face, which shows a clear intention, it can be counted.
Chris Bryant
The difficulty is with the way in which the Bill has been constructed to have some elements of the provisions in the schedule and some in the clause. What will happen if someone puts a cross against a name and puts a 1 against another name?
Mr Harper
We cannot put in a piece of legislation every single possible scenario; that is not done in existing legislation. We have set out what we want voters to do and we have made provision for some common issues. Ultimately, as with today’s elections, the returning officer has discretion to judge whether the voter’s intentions are clearly expressed. If they are, the returning officer can take them into account, but if they are not, he cannot. That is how existing legislation works.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
It is quite clear which people have not had the benefit of National Union of Students’ training, as they are struggling with how AV, or even STV, would work. What estimation has the Minister given to the cost of documentation to help voters to understand, and from which budget would that material come?
Mr Harper
I am not entirely certain whether the hon. Gentleman wants to know about the information that is required to ensure that we have a good referendum campaign, so that when voters cast their vote they know what they are voting for, or whether he is asking about if there were a yes vote—
Mr Harper
So he wants to know what will happen if there were a yes vote and the system were brought in. Clearly, if that became the electoral system in this country, the Electoral Commission would, in the same way that it educates people about the existing system, explain how the system worked. There is provision in the legislation about which forms would be used.
This is a good opportunity to explain to the hon. Member for Rhondda something that I was going to clarify later. He is concerned about the order-making power in clause 7(4), but it is not, as he fears, a power that allows the Bill to be amended. Indeed, I would be uncomfortable with that; I am sure he knows my views about the powers of Parliament versus the Executive. If there were a yes vote in the referendum and the new voting system in clause 7 and schedule 6 were brought into effect, a number of consequential changes to other legislation would be required—for example, a number of the forms used in parliamentary elections would need to be amended—and this order-making power would allow the Minister to make those consequential changes. It would not allow the Minister to change the electoral system other than through what is in this clause and schedule 6 if brought in by the electorate.
Thomas Docherty
Before the Minister moves on, let me ask my last question again, as he began to answer it and then moved on. As we saw in Scotland with the elections and the STV system, there was a great deal of voter confusion and it was accepted after the event that not enough money had been spent beforehand on making sure that voters understood the system. Will he assure us that either his Department or another Government Department will provide sufficient funding so that every voter in the United Kingdom is given materials to explain how to fill in their ballot paper under the AV system?
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is rather jumping ahead; we have not even passed the legislation for the referendum, let alone there having been a yes vote from the voters. He will know that the right body to carry out the education process he describes would be the Electoral Commission, which does not receive its money from the Government. It makes a request about the resources that it needs to the Speaker’s Committee which puts a motion before the House, which then decides what resources to give to the Commission, so it is a matter not for the Government but for the House to decide.
Mr MacNeil
It was not the STV system that created the difficulty in Scotland, but the way in which the lists were drafted for the first-past-the-post and additional member systems. The new STV system did not create as much confusion as is imagined; it was the lists for parliamentary voting that did so.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification, but he will forgive me if I do not want to get into what happened in Scotland a few years ago.
The final question that the hon. Member for Rhondda asked was why the Bill does not refer to a candidate getting 50% plus one of the votes. The drafting is designed to work not just in the first round but, as he suggested, in subsequent rounds. As came out in the debate on the amendment from my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), although someone who wins under the alternative vote system has to have 50% of the votes that are still in the count, they do not necessarily have to have 50% plus one of the votes cast in the election, because if all voters do not express a preference, someone can get elected on a smaller share of the original vote.
It is important that I run briefly through the details of the clause, because, as the hon. Member for Rhondda has pointed out, if there is a yes vote next year, a Minister will have to lay an order before the House and the system we are debating will be the electoral system that is used in this country to elect Members to the House of Commons. It is therefore worth the Committee spending a little time considering what the rules would be.
Chris Bryant
Let me ask a brief question. If there were a by-election for a parliamentary seat next year, after a yes vote, which system would pertain?
Mr Harper
The first thing for me to do is draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention to the part of the Bill that talks about the order-making power. If there were a by-election, it would not be practical for different Members of the House to be elected by different electoral systems. The new system would come in at the general election so that every Member of the House was elected by the same electoral system. It would be invidious to do otherwise.
The clause sets out the key amendments to the parliamentary election rules, which are the conduct rules for parliamentary elections. It inserts two new rules—37A and 45A—which concern how votes are cast by voters, how votes are counted and how the winning candidate is elected. Further amendments are set out in schedule 6, which will be considered later. Of the range of voting systems, each has its advantages and disadvantages. As I have said, the Government are going to put before voters either the first-past-the-post system or this version of the alternative vote. In developing the provisions in the Bill, we have taken into account legislation and practices used elsewhere in the UK where preferences are used, as well as the experience of voting systems in other countries, such as Australia, where AV—albeit not the same version as we have proposed—is used in elections to the House of Representatives and in a number of state legislative assemblies. We have developed provisions that we think are best suited to the House of Commons, drawing on UK and international experience.
Chris Bryant
I think we have discovered another problem in the clause, have we not, in relation to what the Minister just said. He said that the Minister would not be bringing AV forward so that it affected any by-elections next year. However, clause 7 is the implementing element of the Bill and it hangs on clause 6, which says that the Minister must put all of this into operation by virtue of an order; and he is now saying that it is not stated anywhere in the Bill that that would happen at the next general election, rather than immediately. Let us say that there is a yes vote in May 2011 and there is a by-election at the end of May or in June or July, which is perfectly possible—or for that matter several by-elections—the Minister’s decision as to whether or not to bring in the order would almost certainly end up being challenged in the courts, because it is nowhere explicit in the Bill. So I am afraid that I do not find his answers sufficient. For that matter, I know he is relying on the word consequential in rule 45B(4), which states that the amendments have to be consequential. However, I know from our own time in government that the word consequential can be something of a weasel word, and some people try to slip larger things in than perhaps they should. I agreed with him when he used to condemn such matters.
Mr Harper
To return to my previous point, the hon. Gentleman should read clause 6 more closely. It states:
“The Minister must make an order bringing into force section 7, Schedule 6 and Part 1 of Schedule 7 (‘the alternative vote provisions’) if—
(a) more votes are cast in the referendum in favour of the answer ‘Yes’ than in favour of the answer ‘No’, and
(b) the draft of an Order in Council laid before Parliament under subsection (5A) of section 3 of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act…has been submitted to Her Majesty”.
In other words, this system will come into force, if there is a yes vote in the referendum, once the order has been brought in implementing the new electoral boundaries. If by-elections were to be held, they would be for constituencies with the old boundaries, not with the new ones, so I think I was accurate in the way I set out the position.
Chris Bryant
No, I do not think the Minister was, because he is relying on what happens in the rest of the Bill. Anyway, we are not convinced by the Minister’s presentation of his case on the clause, so we will be pressing the clause to a vote.
Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Committee proceeded to a Division.
The Temporary Chair (Mr Roger Gale)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Government amendments 199 to 202.
I understand that there may be a consensus to hold a slightly broader debate about these Government amendments and to obviate the need for a stand part debate, and I am content with that process.
Mr Harper
These Government amendments—following our debate yesterday—genuinely fall into the technical category. Their purpose is to set out the procedure in the parliamentary election rules for determining which candidate is to be elected when only two candidates stand at an election under the alternative vote system and they receive the same number of first-preference votes. The amendments would provide for the returning officer to decide by lot which of the two candidates was to be elected.
Under the current first-past-the-post system, a tie between candidates is resolved by the returning officer drawing lots. Under the alternative vote system, the situation might arise whereby during the count either two or more candidates at a particular counting stage had the same number of votes or at the final counting round the two remaining candidates had the same number of votes. The provisions in paragraph 7 insert new rules 49 and 49A into the parliamentary election rules to deal with those circumstances. If the tie were at the first counting stage, on first-preference votes, lots would still have to be used to decide the outcome. If the tie occurred at a later counting stage, under the alternative vote system the use of preferences would allow the returning officer to refer to previous stages and use those preferences to make the decision.
The drafting of new rules 49 and 49A does not specifically cover the unlikely situation in which there are only two candidates at the outset who receive the same number of votes, but we thought it sensible to ensure that that possibility was clearly addressed to avoid any doubt. The Government have therefore tabled the amendments to ensure that rule 49A deals with the possibility of that situation and provides for the winner to be elected by drawing lots. I hope that Members are content with that.
We touched on this issue during our debate about clause 7, but it is worth saying that clause 7 deals with the two key aspects of the election under the alternative vote system—how votes are cast by voters and how they are counted. Schedule 6 sets out further amendments to the parliamentary election rules and other aspects of electoral law that would be required to hold a UK parliamentary election under the alternative vote. The changes reflect the fact that the election would be held under a preferential voting system. They touch on the ballot paper and guidance for voters; how we conduct recounts; how we decide whether the ballot papers are rejected; how we deal with candidates with the same number of votes—I have just set out our amendment on that; how the result is declared; a candidate’s deposit; and a number of other changes.
I am content for any member of the Committee to ask me questions on those measures, but I do not see anyone rising to their feet immediately. I urge Members to accept the Government’s amendments and to agree to the schedule.
Chris Bryant
In light of your earlier comments, Mr Gale, I hope that it is okay for me to stray into a debate about whether the schedule be agreed to.
The schedule makes a number of other very important amendments to the law that pertains to the election, and they, along with the other measures that we discussed in clause 7, will come into force when the Minister tables the order that follows a yes vote in the referendum. Some of the provisions are pretty straightforward. For instance, the notice that is normally exhibited on the ballot paper under the existing system says, “Vote for one candidate only”. Obviously, that would be thoroughly misleading if we were to adopt the alternative vote system, because it would point out precisely what the voters had not to do.
One relatively interesting point is that the guidance will make it clear:
“Do not use the same number more than once.’”
I presume that if a voter did use the same number more than once, that would invalidate a vote. I presume that if somebody voted 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, that would invalidate the vote at the point that one reached the second preference, because one would not be able to determine the second preference, even if there had been some other strange means of adding to it.
Chris Bryant
That is a good point, although I have not yet given up on the idea that the Government’s Fixed-term Parliaments Bill will end up with a five-year rather than a four-year parliamentary term, which would be more advisable and acceptable, I suspect, to this House and the other place. If there were to be a combination of simultaneous parliamentary elections in Scotland for this House and for the Scottish Parliament, and in Wales for this House and for the Assembly, operating under different electoral systems, both of which involved writing “1, 2, 3, 4, 5”, there would be capacity for confusion, and polling stations could be a rather complex area for voters to enter. Unfortunately, we are not able to have that provision in this Bill because the Government have decided to bring forward not a great reform Act but little tiddly bits of reform as they can be spatchcocked into Bills to appease both sides of the coalition.
Under paragraph 5, the system for recounts will be changed to allow for a recount to happen at any stage in the voting process. That is obviously a sensible measure. If, say, five candidates were standing and the person in fifth place is there by only two or three votes, they will want to have a recount to make sure that they really are the person who should be eliminated at that stage. I remember that when I stood in 1997 in High Wycombe—not traditionally a safe Labour seat; in fact, the Conservatives had a majority of 18,000—there was a recount in the ballot, and on a night when many Conservative seats fell, my friends thought, “Blimey, it looks as if Bryant has won High Wycombe.” In fact, I had not come anywhere near to winning; it was all about whether somebody else—the Green candidate, I think—had lost his deposit.
Under the schedule—it is also animadverted to in the clause that we have just debated—there is to be a public announcement at each stage of the process, so at each point where there is an elimination the returning officer gets everybody together to agree, “Yes, this is the person who is being eliminated, these are the votes that have been cast, these are the second preferences as they have been cast, this is the number of non-allocated ballots,” and so on. I am concerned about that, because there has been a growing tendency for the presumption of secrecy during the counting process to be completely ignored, with many broadcasters and journalists asking candidates on the night, in the middle of the count, to reveal what is happening in the process. That is a disturbing trend, particularly in relation to postal ballots. At some counts, the returning officer has decided not to validate the postal ballots separately but to put them in with all the others so that nobody can start doing what every political party does—the sampling process—and then say, “It was the postal ballots that won this election,” or otherwise. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that, particularly as it might apply in the process as it develops.
If we have public announcements at every stage, are we not letting the secrecy of the ballot run away with us? It has sometimes been difficult to get all the agents and candidates together for announcements, and it might take some considerable time to arrive at an election result if one had to go through the whole process at each stage. I understand, however, that according to the schedule there can also be a recount at the end of the process, as long as the final result has not yet been announced. If I am wrong about that, I am sure that the Minister will enlighten me.
I am glad to see this provision:
“A ballot paper on which a number is marked elsewhere than in a proper place shall not be deemed to be void for that reason alone.”
That mirrors provisions elsewhere in legislation. However, I wonder what improper place might be given as a reason why a vote might be declared void. In addition, the provision:
“A ballot paper on which the voter makes any mark which…is clearly intended to indicate a particular preference for a particular candidate, but…is not a number (or is a number written otherwise than as an arabic numeral), shall be treated in the same way as if the appropriate number (written as an arabic numeral) has been marked instead”,
is an important element of what we are guaranteeing. In the transition from the existing system to the new system, assuming that there is a yes vote, if a voter still has not quite understood the system, or, for that matter, is a conscientious objector to the new system and therefore wants to vote only with their first preference and chooses to do so with an X, a tick, or as the Minister frequently says—I am not sure if that is because he votes in this way—with a smiley face, then we should allow them to do so.
We are fully supportive of the Minister’s amendments, which seem to make sense in the way that he has described. I hope that he will be able to answer the questions that I have asked in the course of my comments. Otherwise, I see no reason why the schedule should not stand part of the Bill.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman seems to be mostly concerned about publicity in relation to the declaration of results. Rule 45B in clause 7 requires the returning officer to “make publicly available” specified information, so that information will be public not only to those at the count—the agents and so forth—but to the media and everybody else. He refers to an increasing trend for people to set out the partial results of elections before the result is declared. He will know that that is an offence. I shall not name the person, but there was a parliamentary candidate—a Member of this House—who did that on Twitter and was suitably chastised. However, I do not think it is a widespread situation that people are publicly making declarations or suggestions about the results of general elections. If they were to do so, that would be an offence.
Chris Bryant
I am not sure that that is right. I know about the instance that the hon. Gentleman mentions. Because of the practice of sampling, which happens when returning officers verify the postal votes separately, I have frequently heard people say—indeed, I have heard it in this House—that a seat was won or lost solely by virtue of the postal votes. I would have thought that that was an offence.
Mr Harper
I am not going to get into what may or may not be an offence. The hon. Gentleman may well be right. I thought that he was citing the situation whereby people have referred to results before the result was declared, which is clearly more significant. Because of the nature of the alternative vote, one cannot just wait until the final result but must say what is going on at each stage. The Bill makes it clear that that will be publicly declared so that everybody knows what is going on.
The hon. Gentleman alluded to the recount rules in the schedule, which make it clear that at any stage
“a candidate or candidate’s election agent…may request the returning officer to have the votes re-counted”.
In the same way as under our current rules, that would be not a demand but a request that could be made. It would ultimately be up to the returning officer to grant it, unless they thought it unreasonable. Of course, the returning officer themselves could choose to have a recount if they thought there were problems with how the count had progressed.
I think those were the only issues that the hon. Gentleman raised, unless I missed any. I therefore hope that the amendments will be accepted.
Amendment 198 agreed to.
Amendments made: 199, page 147, line 19, at end insert—
‘(b) in the case of an election with only two candidates who receive an equal number of votes.’.
Amendment 200, page 147, line 20, at beginning insert ‘Where paragraph (1)(a) applies,’.
Amendment 201, page 147, line 26, leave out from ‘Where’ to second ‘the’ and insert
‘paragraph (1)(a) above applies but the tie is not resolved under paragraph (2) above, or where paragraph (1)(b) above applies,’.
Amendment 202, page 147, line 28, leave out ‘remaining’ and insert ‘two’.—(Mr Harper.)
Schedule 6, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 8
Reports of the Boundary Commissions
Chris Bryant
I beg to move amendment 127, page 6, leave out line 35 and insert—
‘(a) within twelve months of Part 2 of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2010 coming into force in accordance with section 16(2) thereof’.