Wales Bill
Debate between Mark Harper and Mark Tami(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Harper
No. I was referring to the Labour party’s view, which, when I listened carefully to the debate, seemed to be its definition—not mine; its definition—that a minority party was any party other than Labour. It seemed to me that the effect, and I think the intention, of the change that it made, which this Bill seeks largely to reverse, was a partisan one that was designed to favour Labour and disadvantage all others.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
But does not the hon. Gentleman think it is a strange system where someone could lose their seat, only to get back in by being No. 1 on the list?
Mr Harper
I will in a minute, but I will answer the point made by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside first.
When one votes in an election—I had an exchange on this with the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain)—one puts a cross in a box on the ballot for a candidate. Now, I accept that part of one’s motivation may be that one thinks that the candidate is a wonderful person, but it might be dislike for the incumbent, or that one is making a range of judgments on whom one wants to govern the United Kingdom or, in the case of the Welsh Assembly election, Wales. I accept there is a mix of motivations, but even if one accepts the hon. Gentleman’s contention that if an incumbent constituency Member loses their seat—assuming that people’s motivation was wholly negative; that is, they voted for the incumbent’s primary opponent because they did not like the incumbent—and that Member subsequently gets elected on the list, the list simply reflects the party choice that voters made. It is the nature of the list that the person is elected not based on any of their individual qualities—the voter is not able to do that—but based on the party they represent. The fact that they may or may not have won a constituency seat is not relevant to the debate.
I think the hon. Gentleman is just throwing up chaff to obscure the fact that the previous change was a partisan change made by the Labour party, and the clause simply restores the position not to one that we created, but one that Labour made when it invented devolution.
Mark Tami
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, in most cases, the odds are that the person who is No. 1 on that list, even if they lose their seat, will hold a seat in the Assembly? Why is that a particularly democratic system? How does it tell people out there that it is worth voting if, whether or not they like that person, he or she will almost certainly get back in?
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman is not making a case about clause 2. He is making a case about whether it is sensible to have proportional representation on list systems. In such a system, someone who is No. 1 on the list is very likely, regardless of what electors think about that person—their particular characteristics—but based on their party, to get elected. We face the same problem in the European elections. I have heard the qualities of individual candidates being debated, but of course voters are not able to pass judgment on a candidate. If I like the Conservative party—I do, of course—and I vote that way in south-west England, I have no ability to make any judgments about the candidates. I will vote for the Conservatives and they will win.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman says that, but I do not see that having a mixed system in which someone may be elected on a list and not be elected for a constituency raises any more issues than having a list at all does. It may be that he does not like having a list system and he wishes we did not have one, but we do, so we should try to make it work as well as possible. I think that the changes in the Bill are sensible and I wholly support them. I promised to give way to the hon. Lady.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Debate between Mark Harper and Mark Tami(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Harper
If the hon. Lady lets me make the point on the canvass, I will then take her intervention.
All potential electors who appear on the returned canvass form but have not been verified individually will be invited by electoral registration officers to register. That canvass will include reminders and the extensive use of door-to-door canvassers. At the end of the canvass, the EROs will—
Mr Harper
No; let me finish this point, then I will take the intervention from the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who got her bid in first.
At the end of the canvass, the EROs will send personally addressed individual electoral registration application forms to individuals who appeared on the electoral register produced at the end of the old-style canvass, who have not been verified individually and whom electoral registration officers do not believe to have moved. That will act as a final check to ensure that individuals who are to be removed from the register understand what will happen if they do not make an individual application. That will be a robust process, because people will have to go out of their way to avoid being registered. The register that will be used for the 2015 boundary review will therefore be robust, complete and accurate. The relevant part of the Opposition’s reasoned amendment does not hold up at all.
Mr Harper
Let me make a bit more progress, then I will give way to the hon. Member for Sheffield South East (Mr Betts), who has been bidding to get in for some time.
The use of data matching to confirm existing electors will simplify the transition process for most people in the country. It will create a floor below which registration rates cannot fall, and importantly it will allow registration officers to focus their efforts and resources on electors whose details cannot be confirmed and eligible people who are not on the register.
Mr Harper
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, and he has indeed been greatly involved in making points on the matter in the House, for which I am grateful. In his constituency there is significant voter turnover each year, which presents challenges to his local registration officer. We are already working with groups that represent some of the categories that he mentions, but he also mentions a couple that we had not previously considered, such as high commissions. We will certainly bear them in mind, and I will discuss the matter with my officials.
Mr Harper
Not at this point.
I shall set out how we intend to fund the transition to individual registration. We have allocated £108 million over the spending review period to do so, including by meeting local authorities’ costs over and above the current cost of electoral registration. I can confirm today—this is new information—that we will fund local authorities in England and Wales directly through grants under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003. Those will be allocated grants for the purpose of paying for the transition, not just money buried in the revenue support grant. In Scotland, electoral registration is carried out for the most part by EROs who, barring two exceptions, in the city of Dundee and in Fife, are independent of each local authority. There, the additional costs of implementing the new system will be paid directly to them.
Mark Tami
The Parliamentary Secretary talked a lot about the canvass. Does he accept that the quality of the canvass is important, and that some local authorities are much better than others? I welcome his comments on the extra money, but will he ensure that it will be spent on that and not just ferreted away somewhere else?
Mr Harper
Local authorities will have legal obligations to deliver those measures, and I will consult them over the summer about the precise details of the timing of and approach to grant allocations so that they get the money to pay for transition when they need it, and ensure that there is clear accountability, showing that they are taking the steps required by law to prepare for the transition to the new system.
Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill
Debate between Mark Harper and Mark Tami(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
Before we move off the subject, a person applying for a postal ballot might automatically assume that by doing so they will get one for all elections. Is that so, or must they apply separately for a postal ballot for each poll?
Mr Harper
I do not want to anticipate the debate that we will have on the proposals of the hon. Member for Rhondda, but we have said that someone’s standing postal vote application for parliamentary elections will trigger their postal vote for the referendum. It is the same franchise, and we thought that that was a better way around the problem than insisting that all those with a standing postal vote application for a parliamentary election apply for a new postal vote specifically for the referendum. We wanted to maximise the opportunities for people to take part rather than have people who miss out because they did not realise that they needed to apply for a new postal vote. We have ensured that if people already have a standing postal vote for a parliamentary election, they will get one for the referendum.
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman said that he wanted to ensure that these issues had been discussed, and they have been raised and discussed at the JMC. The devolved Administrations probably still disagree with the Westminster Government’s decision, but the matter has been discussed. He is not making a very sensible point.
Mr Harper
It certainly does have that experience, which is why we looked closely at the conclusions in the Gould report. In an earlier debate I made it clear that although Ron Gould—he of the said report—said that combination would not have been his first choice, he was clear that combining a simple yes/no referendum and the Scottish parliamentary elections was likely to be a much more straightforward proposition than what happened in the elections to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Ron Gould did not believe that the same problems would occur.
Mr Harper
No, we have added one extra vote to what would otherwise have taken place, and it will have a simple yes or no question rather than a complex electoral system. Like the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar in an earlier debate, the hon. Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern) is doing his fellow Scots a disservice by suggesting, albeit obliquely, that they are not capable of making a decision in the referendum as well as voting in the very important Scottish parliamentary elections.
Mr Harper
No, I do not think there is, actually. People are perfectly capable of laying out the prospectus on which they stand and the important issues on which they are campaigning in the elections to the Welsh Assembly, Northern Ireland Assembly and Scottish Parliament, and also joining the yes or no campaign on a voting system for this Parliament. That is not very complicated at all, and our voters will show us that we are underrating them if we take that view. Incidentally, next week, Americans will vote in an extraordinary number of elections—I shall pursue that thought only briefly, Mr Evans, for fear that you will rule me out of order—and they are perfectly capable of doing that, in the same way as voters here are perfectly capable of voting in two or three sets of elections next year.
Mr Harper
All that I can say is that we can examine the comparative records. In the last Session under the Labour Government only four Bills had pre-legislative scrutiny. We will end up with twice as many, so our overall record will bear comparison.
I am not sure whether he meant it, but the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) accused us of putting the horse before the cart and proceeding at a gallop. I represent a rural area, so I think I have got this right: putting the horse before the cart seems to be the right thing to do, as does proceeding at a gallop. I do not see any problem with that.
Mr Harper
I will not, but I will of course correctly assign the comment to the hon. Member for Rhondda. It perhaps demonstrates that he needs to learn a little more about horses and carts before he makes such allusions.
The hon. Member for Rhondda mentioned combined elections and said that the Government had chosen the date of other elections for the referendum. I cannot help but observe that in both 2001 and 2005 the previous Government specifically chose to have general elections on dates when county council elections were already planned. They knew that in advance, and the elections were combined. They ran perfectly well and passed off without incident. I do not have any complaint about that, but for the Opposition to complain about our choosing to have a referendum on a date when there are other elections seems a bit rich.
Individual Electoral Registration
Debate between Mark Harper and Mark Tami(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Harper
It seemed a bit churlish to point out in my statement that if there were problems with the state of the electoral register, it was not the parties on this side of the House that had been in government for the past 13 years, which is, I think, the point that my hon. Friend was making. Let me make it clear that we want to improve the state of the register, but the fact that it is not perfect should not mean that we cannot continue with the boundary review. The last Government conducted a boundary review, and we are conducting the review of the register on exactly the same basis.
It is worth pointing out that our electoral register contains the names of about 91% or 92% of eligible voters. In that regard, we compare very well with other comparable democracies. However, we are not complacent, and we want to improve our registration levels still further.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
My right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) gave the example of Northern Ireland, where individual registration saw dramatic falls, especially in poorer areas. What extra resources will the Minister give local authorities, and—this is very important—will he ring-fence those resources to prevent authorities from spending them on other things?
Mr Harper
The hon. Gentleman has raised two issues. The fact that individual registration was implemented overnight in Northern Ireland led to that sharp drop, not all of which was accounted for by the removal of people who should not have been on the register because they were not eligible to vote in the first place, which is one reason for introducing individual registration. It is because we do not want to see a similar dramatic fall here that I announced the safeguard that we would not remove people from the register immediately, and certainly not before the next general election.
As for the hon. Gentleman’s second point about resources and ring-fencing, it is a difficult argument. Local authorities generally take exception to central Government’s giving them ring-fenced amounts and micro-managing what they do. I know that it can be argued that central Government should say that this is a different area, but that is not a view that has been taken so far. I will think about the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion, but I do not think that the Government will pursue it.