Overseas Electors Bill

Mark Tami Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 23rd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sandy Martin]

That is an interesting point and I am sure we could have a very long discussion about it across a table. I would be very interested to be educated in all those matters by the hon. Lady, but the Bill is itself extremely simple. It would extend the franchise to every British citizen everywhere in the world for ever. I think that that is fairly simplified and certainly not particularly nuanced towards the individual cases she is talking about.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend not find it a strange paradox that a party that has made registration in this country as difficult as it can make it, and which is against votes for 16 and 17-year-olds, is in favour of extending the franchise to everyone throughout the world?

[Sandy Martin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is clearly an issue. There is a certain amount of double standards going on here. I will come to that issue later.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Tami]

Certain countries, such as Portugal, give people the incentive of not paying tax for a period if they move a certain amount of their wealth over there.

[Sandy Martin]

My hon. Friend makes the point that we are not just talking about people moving to other countries. We are talking about significant amounts of wealth moving to other countries, too, and mostly moving to countries where taxation is paid at very low rates or, indeed, not at all.

Why should people who have decided to move to another country so that they do not pay taxes in this country, so that they do not support services in this country, have a say not only on tax and services in this country but on whether the Government of this country do something through our relationship with those countries and overseas territories to ensure that such people do pay their taxes? We have a situation where people who are deliberately avoiding paying taxes in this country—I think “avoiding” is parliamentary and the other one is non-parliamentary—are making decisions about who will represent them, who will govern our country and who will make decisions about how easy it is for them to avoid those taxes.

Conservative Members have also raised the issue of voting on behalf of our children. When people move abroad, their children often do not move with them—their adult children may well have families of their own, and they may well be making lives of their own in this country. It is a point, but not a very good one. If I had a child living in Scotland, I would not expect to be able to vote in a Scottish election in the constituency in which my child lives, as well as voting in my own constituency. I would not expect my vote to count towards the polity in which my child lives, and I see no good reason why people who have decided to live in another country should expect to be able to vote in elections in this country to reinforce the value of the votes of their adult children. When people vote, they should be voting for themselves, they should be voting for the services that they get, they should be voting for the taxes that they pay and they should be voting for the society in which they live—the society that levies those taxes and delivers those services.

I understand that the substance of this Bill, although it is a private Member’s Bill, was indicated by a promise made by the Conservative party in its 2017 general election manifesto. I surmise that there are people within the leadership of the Government who do not particularly want this to be a Government Bill, because it might be a little embarrassing to show that they are giving the vote to people who have chosen not to pay their taxes in this country, so they have decided that it should be a private Member’s Bill instead.

Quite a lot of other issues addressed in that manifesto last year have also not come up and show no indication of coming up in the next year or two, such as the dementia tax, the vote on foxhunting and reintroducing grammar schools. It is a little disingenuous of the Government to urge their Back Benchers to introduce Back-Bench Bills that they have previously promised in their manifesto but which they have now decided are too embarrassing to introduce themselves. I hope we do not get more of these embarrassment Bills. I have not looked through the list of all private Members’ Bills, so I do not know whether it contains one on bringing back foxhunting, on reintroducing grammar schools or on introducing the dementia tax. I suspect it does not, but this would not be beyond the bounds of possibility. I hope that any such Bill would be dealt with by a House that has already shown and an electorate who have already shown this House that they did not have any truck with such proposals.

The Bill’s promoter said in summing up that he wanted British citizens who had made a decision to live abroad and had been living abroad for more than 15 years and their children to be able to continue to vote until “whenever it is reasonable to do so”. I suggest to him that there has to be a cut-off point and that “reasonable to do so” is, to a certain extent, a qualitative decision, whereas 15 years is a very reasonable amount of time. I cannot believe there are many places where it makes sense for somebody to not do something for more than 15 years and still have the same rights over that thing as the people who have been doing it constantly. If I were to walk out of this House for 15 years and not come back, I would not expect to be able to speak in such a debate in the way that I have. I would dearly love to be able to go on for 15 years, but, unfortunately, I have pretty much run out of things to say.

In conclusion, I do not believe there is any justification for a Bill that encourages people to move to other countries, to stop paying taxes in this country and no longer to have any interest in whether or not services are delivered in this country and that yet allows them to vote for the Government who levy those taxes and deliver those services. Any reasonable person looking at it from that point of view—from the point of view of practicality and the argument of what a vote is for, which is to create a Government and a polity that govern taxes and services—would say, “Yes, it doesn’t make sense.” I can only guess that certain powerful and wealthy people desperately want the Government to give them the right to vote forever more—we should resist it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

I fully support my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill. I hope that Members across the House who want a more inclusive democracy where every eligible voter is on the electoral roll will continue to support her Bill. She raises an interesting point about why this matter is before us on a Friday as a private Member’s Bill. It is deeply concerning that this measure has been put into a private Member’s Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, that is being used to push Government business.

Private Members’ Bills serve an important function in our parliamentary process by enabling Back-Bench Members of Parliament, rather than the Government of the day, to initiate legislation. Indeed, private Members’ Bills have made significant changes to the law over the years—for example, the Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act 1965 and the Abortion Act 1967. However, with limited time available for consideration of private Members’ Bills, we cannot allow the Government to disrespect an important part of the parliamentary process and an important power that our Back Benchers have.

The Opposition are committed to building a political franchise that works for the many, not the few. However, it is also vital that we maintain the integrity of the electoral process. Unfortunately, it has been undermined by the Government, who have pushed local authority election teams to the absolute limit, damaging their ability to deliver elections effectively. The introduction of individual electoral registration added significant cost pressures by making it more expensive to compile the register. Election administrators have criticised the Government for massively underestimating the scale of the task at hand.

[Mark Tami]

My hon. Friend is making an important case on registration. Experience, particularly that from Northern Ireland, has shown that it is poorer areas where registration drops by the largest amount.

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. That is the context of local government funding being reduced significantly over the years, which has forced local authorities to review their electoral services. That has led to significant reductions in core service funding and staffing levels, with a growing number of skilled professionals leaving local authority elections teams.

The impact of austerity was recently evidenced by the University of East Anglia, which found that 43% of local authorities experienced real-terms funding cuts to their budget for running elections from 2010-11 to 2015-16. According to survey responses from 254 local electoral authorities administrating the EU referendum, only a quarter of electoral officials said they had enough funding to support their work on the electoral register.

[Cat Smith]

The report that my hon. Friend raises is very worrying and should be of concern to Members across the House. When 43% of local authorities agree that they do not have sufficient funds to administer a poll, we should all be worried about the integrity of our electoral system. The Government fail to understand that cuts to public services can have devastating consequences.

Last year, the Electoral Commission report on the general election warned of

“wider risks to the administration of well-run elections,”

which it stated were “becoming increasingly apparent.” Problems in some places have caused some voters to receive an inadequate service. That was evidenced most recently in Newcastle-under-Lyme, where two council officials were suspended after almost 1,500 people were unable to vote in last year’s general election.

[Mark Tami]

It has been estimated that probably more than 7 million people in this country are not registered to vote. Should we not be concentrating on them and making sure that they are on the register, rather than what we are talking about today—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Gentleman has intervened several times. He must talk about the Bill, not about other matters.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

Let me return to the Bill. I want to ask the Government three questions. Have they any indication of how many of the estimated 5 million Britons living abroad would apply to be overseas electors in the run-up to a UK parliamentary election or national referendum if the 15-year rule were removed? How do they intend to fund EROs for the additional costs incurred by these proposals? What steps will they take to ensure that election teams have the resources and the capacity to manage the increased volume of electors?

The devil is also in the detail, which the Government have failed to provide. According to the Bill, an overseas voter will qualify as a resident if

“the person has at some time in the past been entered in an electoral register in respect of an address at a place that is situated within the constituency”.

However, many questions remain unanswered.

If an overseas elector was registered at a previous address but then moved to a different address before leaving the UK where they did not register, at which address should they register to vote? As time goes by, potentially over several decades, it could be very difficult for EROs to check previous revisions of registers owing to ever-changing localities. Problems include local government reorganisation, polling district and ward boundary reviews, the demolition or redevelopment of properties, street renaming, house renumbering, and limited availability of local authority records. Can we seriously expect someone who has not lived in this country for 40 years to remember the exact date on which they were last registered to vote, and the precise address at which they lived? I think not.

I also question whether the current deadline to apply to register as an overseas elector and make absent voting arrangements is sufficient, in the context of abolition of the 15-year rule. The Association of Electoral Administrators has urged the Government to consider bringing forward the voter registration deadline for overseas electors to allow sufficient time to process and check previous revisions of registers. What steps will the Government take to address those concerns?

Not only is the likelihood of error extremely high, but we are leaving our democracy wide open to potential fraudulent activity. In response to the Cabinet Office policy statement about overseas voters, the Association of Electoral Administrators warned that scrapping the 15-year rule would increase the potential for electoral fraud. Under the Government’s proposals, applicants who cannot provide a national insurance number or UK passport could have their identity verified by another registered overseas elector using an attestation. That would be a signed written statement from another British citizen who was registered to vote in the UK. Can we honestly expect this to be sufficient security to prevent fraudulent applications? When the attester as well as the applicant live abroad, what is the likelihood of a false declaration resulting in prosecution proceedings? My guess is, very low.

There is also no way of checking whether an overseas voter is living at the stated address abroad. Overseas voters who owned and lived in more than one home could register more than once and we would have no way of knowing whether people were registered multiple times.

[Mark Tami]

If there was a concern, would there be people in Spain or whatever country who would go to see whether those addresses existed?

[Cat Smith]

Given the overstretched nature of elections offices up and down the country, I suspect there would not be the capacity for such a check. Given that the Government are this May planning to trial requiring ID at polling stations, it seems that the requirements to prove the identity of an elector living in the UK are far greater than—