Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Mark Williams Excerpts

Monday 25th June 2012 Commons Chamber

The amendments relate to clauses 7, 8 and 10, as well as clause 6, and are all designed to strengthen the role of Parliament in scrutinising any proposal by the Minister to amend the annual canvass. For the reasons I have outlined, we believe that it is important that any decisions taken are exposed to the strongest possible scrutiny by Parliament. Moreover, we believe that the Minister should be able to proceed with pilot schemes related to changes in canvassing arrangements only with the written approval of the Electoral Commission, hence amendment 29 to clause 8. This is a matter of major concern to the Committee. Labour Members expect the Minister to make a full and considered response to the points made in the debate.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I concur with many of the sentiments expressed by the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), but as regards her quoting of the Deputy Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes), I think that the aspirations they alluded to are shared by everybody in the Committee.

As the Minister and others will be aware from the Liberal Democrat submission to the consultation on this issue, we believe that the annual canvass is important and that it should continue. I want to ask the Minister about his reasoning for the discussions that have taken place so far and what tests or standards will have to be passed before the annual canvass is abolished. I understand the point in the explanatory notes that in years to come the annual canvass may no longer be needed because of the online opportunities for registration, to which the hon. Lady alluded. I am a bit more of a sceptic about that because I represent a rural area where the internet is not universally available. It will also be difficult to deem the register perfect at any point as it is constantly changing. What test would have to be passed to deem the annual canvass no longer useful?

The Bill gives electoral registration officers a new duty to maintain the all-important accuracy and completeness, which I welcome. How will they fulfil that duty without a canvass? In other words, how will the Minister ensure that that duty on electoral registration officers is tested?

The Bill provides for the Electoral Commission to be consulted if the annual canvass is to be abolished. That is clear. However, I understand that the Electoral Commission has concerns about why it would not be consulted if the annual canvass were to be reinstated. The Government have said that it is conceivable that that might have to be undertaken in a short time frame. However, the Electoral Commission has said that it has often been required to respond to Cabinet Office consultations in a limited time frame and that it does not believe that the requirement to consult would delay the process unduly. More importantly, it is essential that there is a mechanism for external scrutiny of any step that is taken in a short time frame.

On Second Reading, I expressed concerns about the abolition of the canvass. I noticed my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House wincing slightly when I made that point. He said that there is an obligation, if it is necessary, to reinstate the canvass. That reassured me, but I am concerned about the mechanisms by which such a reinstatement would have the consent of the Electoral Commission. I also have questions about why the annual canvass may need to be abolished.

I am heartened by what Ministers have said about the data-matching pilots and by the aspiration for online voting. However, we have a long way to go and, in the interim, I believe that we still need the annual canvass.

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

The annual canvass has been, and for the moment still is, the principal method by which we keep the electoral register up to date and accurate, in so far as it is up to date and accurate. I do not think that anyone believes that the current situation is satisfactory, but what we want is improvement, not reduction.

My constituency is rather strange in nature, not simply because it has elected me in eight successive elections, but because it has a huge electorate. It numbered some 87,000 people at the last general election and I understand from the registration officer that the total is now 94,000 electors. That gives me 26,000 more electors than the Deputy Prime Minister and, remarkably, 26,000 more than the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper).

Equally different is the turnover of electors, which in my constituency is phenomenal. It has always been high, partly because of the large number of students and young people in the area. People arrive and get a job, and then they decide that they would be better off doing the same job in Lincoln, Scunthorpe or Bolton, usually because the cost of renting or buying a house would be much lower.

We have a massive turnover all the time, and the Government’s proposed housing benefit changes, which will be introduced at the same time as proposals in the Bill, will also lead to an increased movement of people—they will certainly move out of the area, but I am not sure whether they will come in—so the coalition’s social cleansing policies will have an effect on the need for the canvass. The Prime Minister’s latest essay—he wants to knock off housing benefit given to anyone under 25—is also likely to increase turnover in my area.

It is worth reporting that, last year, for the whole of Camden, the annual canvass added 27,000 electors, but also deducted 27,000 electors, which reflects the massive turnover in both my constituency and the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency. It also indicates that the annual canvass is important from the point of view not just of numbers, but of accuracy—it is the principal means by which people who are no longer entitled to vote disappear off the register. The Government and some outside the House who are fanatical about their proposals seem to ignore that.

The annual canvass is the bedrock of the current system—it is not peripheral; it is at the heart of it. Any other means that the Government propose to improve electoral registration, both so that the 6 million people who are entitled to be on the register get on it, and so that the register is accurate, must be introduced only to augment the annual canvass. The canvass still does an important task, and is likely—this is my opinion, and no more—to carry it out more effectively than the proposals.

It seems totally improper to suggest that the annual canvass could disappear before we know the overall effects of all the new changes. Even if the Opposition have tabled no amendment to that effect in Committee, we should perhaps table one on Report. I would hope all hon. Members agree that an annual canvass must be carried out if the numbers come down as a result of the changes, and that we cannot accept a reduction in the number of people on the registers.

Government Members have once or twice quoted judges who have said that registration is currently like something we might find in a banana republic. I suspect that most banana republics would like to give a Minister, without parliamentary approval, the right to end an annual canvass. Nothing should be left to the Minister’s discretion. If anything, the decision should come straight to the House from the Electoral Commission.

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The amendment will not place a burden on local authorities or electoral registration officers. It is already the practice of some local authorities to refer to the importance of registration in securing credit and mortgage facilities.

[Mr Mark Williams]

I welcome the tone of the hon. Lady’s remarks. She has talked about good practice by referencing credit agencies. How would she ensure that that good practice is disseminated across the country?

[Angela Smith]

I would ensure it through the amendment. Local authorities should be under an obligation to draw local residents’ attention to the fact that access to finance and mortgages might depend on whether they are on the electoral register. Some local authorities already do that. Southwark council makes it clear on its website, on the page referring to the annual canvass under the heading, “What do I need to do?”, that

“If you are not on the register you may find it difficult obtaining credit for a loan or mortgage”.

That is a simple, straightforward sentence making it clear that if someone does not register to vote as a resident of the borough, they might be denied access to finance.

To show that I am not being partial, I shall mention a Conservative borough. Basingstoke and Deane council makes it clear on its website that access to finance will depend on registering to vote. Not every local authority does that, but it is a straightforward, lost-cost option. Local authorities would simply have to make it clear when they send out the forms for the annual canvass that registering is important not just for the right to vote but for accessing finance. That can also be put on local authority websites. As far as we are concerned, there is no excuse for local authorities not making that point clear to its residents. It is a simple reference on a form or on a website page; it is a simple request, and I am sure that the Government will want to accede to it. That applies to all our amendments in the group, as not one of them involves extra cost or any significant extra burden on the work of local authorities or electoral registration officers.

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[Angela Smith]

Of course, but the system we have now and the one we want to put in place would provide safeguards on that score. Anyone applying for a passport has to prove nationality before being granted one. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point, but there should be sufficient safeguards in any registration system to ensure that only British nationals with the right to vote are allowed to go on to the electoral register. Indeed, that lies behind many of the issues that we are discussing today.

Many other legislatures across the world use such a method of ensuring that the registration of eligible citizens is maximised—the United States, for example. Once again, Opposition Members can see no reason why the Government would want to resist amendment 17 in any way, as it is perfectly sensible. It is a practical, common-sense way of extending awareness of registration and of the duties and responsibilities that go with being an adult citizen in Great Britain. It provides a perfectly sensible and practical way forward for maximising awareness of those rights and responsibilities. I look forward to hearing the Government’s response, particularly to hearing that they are ready to accept all our amendments in the group.

[Mr Mark Williams]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith). Her amendments specify the steps that local authorities should pursue to register more people. Amendment 16 specifically reminds applicants of their civic duties. This raises the key issue of what information should be included in the communication, and she listed some reasonable mechanisms and steps that should be taken. I guess the substance of the debate will be whether these provisions need to be written directly into the Bill or whether, as clause 5 specifies, they can be made by regulation. That will be the focus of my brief contribution.

I believe it is good that clause 5 allows the Electoral Commission to standardise forms, which is my reading of that particular clause and it applies to some of the issues the hon. Lady mentioned. We heard on Second Reading, as we usually do, from the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), who talked about the excellent experience in the county of Denbighshire. He mentioned the good work that had been undertaken there and the documents that had been created, which led to impressive rates of registration.

I would like to hear more from the Government about the onus they intend to place on the Electoral Commission—in preference to writing provisions directly into the Bill—in respect of the substance of those forms and the prominence in them of various messages, not least the civic duty and the penalty. The Bill as it stands says that the Electoral Commission should provide that information, but will the Minister ensure that it must provide it? We need additional clarity about the penalty and the implications if the application is not complied with. Will he confirm whether the Electoral Commission will be mandated to put information about the civil penalty on the forms? If we are to have good practice, will the usability of those forms be tested? Critically, if we are to rely on regulation rather than place these matters directly on the face of the Bill, when will those regulations be laid out? Critically, too, what detail will they specify? In short, what is the Electoral Commission’s role in these matters; what is its role in disseminating good practice; and what is its role in insisting on that good practice? The hon. Lady cited some good examples of good practice undertaken by local authorities from both political parties—I wish she had said from all political parties—but the reality is that that is not universal. I am interested—I suspect the hon. Lady and the Minister are, too—in ensuring that best practice is pursued.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I agree with hon. Gentleman, who makes a good point. I recall that Derwentside district council used to be responsible for registration in the Derwentside part of my constituency. It was clear from looking at the register that there were gaps of entire streets or parts of streets. That showed me that not a great deal of attention was being paid by the registration officer to information that could be seen just by flicking through the register.

[Mr Williams]

I concur with the hon. Gentleman. I think we have nothing to be scared about in the Government’s legislation or in respect of the good practice that some local authorities are exhibiting. I am concerned that we spread good practice, and I believe clause 5 provides us with the mechanism to do that by requiring returning officers in the first instance to send the invitations to register and then by providing a secondary power to make regulations about the substance of the initial applications. Further to that, the regulations

“may confer functions on the Electoral Commission”.

I hope that the Minister can flesh out the role he believes the Electoral Commission should play in these matters.

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Weir.

Before I deal with this important clause and set of amendments, let me say a few words about the role of those who have served on my Select Committee, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I believe that it did an exemplary job in examining not just clause 5 but all the other clauses, and I fear that had it not done so, and had the Government not engaged with it as they did, this Committee stage would have been much more fraught. It is because the Select Committee managed to clear away a lot of the undergrowth—a lot of the detail—during its close discussions with the Government that the real, strong political issues that should be debated on the Floor of the House are being so debated. Not only the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), who is present, but other members of the Select Committee have participated in the first two days of this Committee stage, and will probably participate in the third.

I was surprised to see how many amendments the Government had accepted. I had thought that we had done a reasonable job, but that co-operation has taken the Select Committee to a better place in the way in which we should, responsibly, seek to amend Bills. There can be nothing more important than what we have tried to do in respect of the right to vote, the registration of the vote, and the invitation to vote. It may sound very dry and technical, but the truth is that those issues are fundamental to our democracy. If we get this wrong, all the high-falutin’ phraseology about our freedoms and liberties, and our right to create our own Governments and dispose of them, will be rendered useless.

We need only read the history books, such as those that deal with the Jim Crow laws in the United States, to know that, even when there is a nominal right to vote, if registration is not got right—if, indeed, it is deliberately twisted so that it is difficult for people to vote—everyone is denied their right to democracy. As Lyndon Johnson is quoted as saying in a famous book by Robert Caro, which I would recommend to anyone, if people are given the right to vote they are given access to the whole panoply of the power of Government, and can then exercise their ability to change law by whatever means they wish to employ: through their political parties, and through other organisations. We have seen how vital it is for registration to be exercised in a responsible and comprehensive way in countries such as South Africa, which, in recent years, has done a tremendous job in fulfilling that requirement.

However, we also need to look a little closer to home. When we talk about registration, I always think of the old Shire hall in the middle of my city of Nottingham. Three blocks can be pulled out of the steps of the hall, and that is where the old tripod gallows used to be. It was used at the time of the Pentrich rebellion, only six generations ago, to execute people who were demanding the right to vote—demanding the right, in our own country, to exercise the mandate that would decide who should be the Government.

I go to those stratospheric lengths only to demonstrate that we are debating an extremely serious matter. We are not merely discussing the dry technicalities that electoral registration officers, who are almost always extremely capable and conscientious public servants, put into law and into our democratic process. We are discussing a fundamental issue.

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[Mr Mark Williams]

I, too, welcome the Government’s direction of travel on the penalty. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that rather than becoming too hung up about the figure, we should consider how to communicate the fact that there is a penalty at all? It is about the size of the font and the prominence given to the wording in the documentation that is sent out as much as the scale of the fine.

[Mr Allen]

At the risk of summoning the ghost of my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), the hon. Gentleman makes that point far more articulately, and perhaps more often, than I do. If we can persuade people to vote because they have got this message clearly from the panoply of paperwork that we send out to get them to register, then that in itself is a good thing, and it will mean that the threat of deploying a fine is not acted on.

As the Minister said, members of the Select Committee are trying to be as good as we can in giving the Committee an explanatory statement of the amendments so that Members can wander into the debate and know exactly what we are talking. The statement is straightforward. We hope that the deterrent would be used only very sparingly and rarely, if ever, but it says, in effect, that the concept of registering to vote is not about marketisation or convenience but about values—the values of which we in this place must be the guardians at every conceivable opportunity. The amendment is about the right of every qualified individual in this country to vote for the governance of their choice, and we believe that it would safeguard and extend the possibility of all of us enjoying that right.