Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Williams Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
8. What discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues and others on increasing the accessibility of educational institutions in Wales to students from overseas.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
10. What discussions he has had with his ministerial colleagues and others on increasing the accessibility of educational institutions in Wales to students from overseas.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)
A thriving higher education sector is vital to our economy and I recognise the significant contribution that overseas students make to the sector. The reforms we have introduced have tackled abuse of the student migration system while protecting universities, to ensure that they can continue to attract the best and the brightest.
Stephen Crabb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Welsh higher education institutions attract a greater proportion of overseas students than similar institutions in England, Northern Ireland or Scotland; they are at the forefront of attracting overseas students. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State visited the new campus at Swansea university recently; it illustrates the strong offer that the university now has.
Mr Mark Williams
Notwithstanding the Government’s necessary direction of travel on immigration policy as set out in the Queen’s Speech, may I ask my hon. Friend to endorse the work of Aberystwyth university, which plans to treble the number of its overseas students by 2017? That will be essential for the local economy, and for building links with emerging economies throughout the world.
Stephen Crabb
Aberystwyth is another university with an extremely strong track record of attracting overseas students. In fact, in an international survey of students, it was voted the best overseas university for student satisfaction and the best place to live. It is front and centre of our efforts to attract more overseas students.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Williams Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
This Government are committed to broadband, but does the Secretary of State share my bewilderment—and that of many of my businesses and farmers in the Ceredigion constituency—at the Welsh Assembly Government’s curious prioritisation, which means that some rural and hard-to-reach areas of Wales will not benefit from broadband initiatives for two years?
Mr Jones
It is good to see my hon. Friend speaking up for Ceredigion on Ceredigion day. A number of colleagues have commented on the choice of areas for the first roll-out. Suffice it to say that Broadband Delivery UK is keeping a close watch on how that develops, and I will speak to it on that very issue.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Williams Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Stephen Crabb
I thank the hon. Lady for that question. We are already there; we are already pestering the Department for Transport. It is a good example of the collaboration now between the Wales Office and the Welsh Government. We are working closely to help to build a business case for electrification and further improvements of the north Wales lines.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Visit Wales may well be the responsibility of the Assembly Government and there are issues of concern about the marketing of Wales overseas by that organisation, but in those discussions with VisitBritain will the Minister argue confidently for a robust Welsh approach, Welsh identity and resources for Wales, because hitherto that has not always been the case?
Stephen Crabb
On the tourism marketing of Wales, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that those decisions lie with Welsh Ministers. I know that some Members are puzzled about some of the decisions they have taken about how they deploy those resources, but it is a matter for them. The Wales Office is keen to do whatever it can, including with VisitBritain, to see that Wales excels in the tourism sector.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Williams Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Miss Smith
I think the right hon. Gentleman is misrepresenting some of what the report says. The evidence from the report is that continuous registration is working for the majority of the population in Northern Ireland. The report notes that many of the key lessons from the experience in Northern Ireland have already been addressed by the proposals. It also states:
“The findings from this research do not undermine the principle of individual electoral registration or mean that the introduction of this system in Great Britain will necessarily lead to similar declines in accuracy and completeness.”
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
5. What assessment he has made of the work of the Commission on Devolution in Wales.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
6. What assessment he has made of the work of the Commission on Devolution in Wales.
The Deputy Prime Minister (Mr Nick Clegg)
On 19 November, the Commission on Devolution in Wales delivered a thorough and clear analysis of the options for fiscal devolution in Wales. The Government welcome publication of the Commission’s report and will respond formally in due course.
Mr Williams
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, and I welcome his welcome for the work of the Silk commission. We have an opportunity to enable our Assembly to be truly accountable—not just for the money that it spends by way of the block grant, but for the money that it raises through taxes, through a partial devolution of income tax. Surely that would be an important facet of a strengthened and accountable National Assembly. Will my right hon. Friend guarantee that part 1 of the Silk recommendations will be enacted in legislation during this Parliament?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I can certainly confirm that we will respond in full well before part 2 of the Silk commission proceedings is concluded. We aim to provide our full response to part 1, about the fiscal aspects of further devolution to Wales, by spring this year.
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend’s praise for the report, which is thorough and thoughtful. It is radical; it suggests devolving up to about a quarter of total money spent in Wales to the Welsh Assembly itself. It actually goes further in important respects, notably on varying income tax rates, than the Calman-like process on which it was modelled.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Williams Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
5. What steps he plans to take to implement the recommendations of the first report of the Commission on Devolution in Wales published in November 2012.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)
I welcome the publication of the commission’s first report. It is an important piece of work that is thorough and wide-ranging, and I am giving each of the 33 recommendations my full consideration in consultation with Treasury and other Cabinet colleagues. The Government will respond formally in due course.
Mr Mark Williams
The Silk Commission makes a compelling case on the devolution of partial income tax to the Assembly. How swiftly does the Secretary of State believe that we can proceed on this, given the apparent reluctance of the First Minister to countenance reform before full Barnett reform, despite a very good agreement that was brokered in October?
Mr Jones
The First Minister’s position is a matter for him, but Paul Silk makes it clear that the commission recommended the devolution of income tax-varying powers within different bands, subject to agreement between the Welsh and the British Governments on issues such as funding. That matter must continue to be looked at.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Williams Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Academic research and development and its commercialisation are key ingredients in inward investment. I am heartened that the Secretary of State is meeting UKTI later today. Will he impress on it at that meeting the excellent work that is being undertaken in Bangor, Glyndwr university, Aberystwyth and Swansea? We have a good message to sell and we need UKTI to help us to sell it.
Civil Service Reform
Mark Williams Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Maude
I am extremely grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of view, which I think most people who have been Ministers would recognise and respect. As Ministers we come to the House of Commons and, more or less cheerfully, take responsibility and are held accountable, sometimes in very robust terms, for what our Departments deliver and how they perform. The relationship between a permanent secretary and a Secretary of State is the most important one in a Department, and it is not reasonable for a Secretary of State to feel that he or she has no real choice in the appointment of that permanent secretary.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Will the Minister reiterate that one of the great strengths of the reform agenda that he has put forward today is that it responds to the demands of ordinary civil servants themselves? History shows that if the Cabinet Office acts in isolation, the project is doomed to failure. We require much wider leadership of the reform agenda, right across the civil service.
Mr Maude
My hon. Friend makes the point very well that it would not work if we tried to impose reform that went against the grain of the hard-working majority of civil servants, who come to work to do a good job and serve their fellow citizens, and who want to go home at the end of the day feeling that they have been able to make a difference. The plan would not have a chance of being successfully implemented. We need to call on the leadership of the civil service, but also on those throughout the civil service who see a need for change and want to be part of it.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Mark Williams Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr David
We are asking for a formal appeals process. The relevant legislative base is sufficient for the current system, but we are looking to the future and would like things to be spelled out crystal clearly so that the Bill explains the Government’s desired process.
Amendment 20 highlights our concern about the carry-over arrangements, to which we have already referred. The amendment would maintain the carry-over arrangements that the Government proposed initially and would delay the introduction of the fully fledged new register beyond December 2015. That is important because, as has been mentioned, we are concerned about the impact that a depleted register would have on the parliamentary boundary review. We are all aware of the legislation that resulted in the current boundary review, that a boundary review will take place every five years, and that the 2015 review will be conducted on the basis of the new electoral register.
The Opposition and many others, including a number of academics, have expressed concerns. Moreover, the Electoral Reform Society recently circulated a briefing expressing concern to all Members. It is very important from a democratic point of view that the parliamentary boundaries have the greatest possible support among all sections of the electorate. That can happen only if those boundaries are based on the largest possible number of electors being on the register so that the process is entirely legitimate. It would be nothing short of a negation of democracy if boundary reviews were conducted and boundaries redrawn when significant numbers of individuals who thought that they were entitled to vote were kept off the electoral register. Various estimates have been made of how that might affect the political geography of the country. On the basis of all the evidence provided, we could well see a shift towards more parliamentary representation for rural areas at the expense of inner-city areas. It is important that a simple principle is maintained.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that certain sections of the community, such as the student community, are relevant in this regard? I think we will discuss them in relation to later amendments. I represent a constituency with up to 12,000 students and it is essential that we get the arrangements right.
Mr Mark Williams
I raised concerns about that point on Second Reading, as did the hon. Gentleman. Does he take some comfort from the fact that the same organisations he mentions—Mencap, the RNIB, Scope and Sense—have also welcomed the Government’s constructive approach to engagement on these proposals? They have recognised that the Government are talking and are listening to the concerns that I think he is about to raise.
Mr David
Earlier, I made a point of saying that I congratulated the Government and commended them, as the Minister acknowledged, on their pre-legislative consultation and on their rethink on a number of key issues. However, with all due respect to the Government, that is not enough. There are still real concerns and I hope that the Government have listened not so much to the Opposition but to the legitimate concerns expressed by people outside this place, with whom they have been engaged for some weeks and months. Those people still have concerns, which I have expressed. Let me quote specifically what they said in one of their circulars:
“The need to ensure that the requirement for absent voters to be registered under the new system does not inadvertently disenfranchise disabled voters who rely on postal voting to mitigate the inaccessibility of polling stations”.
That is from the response from Mencap, the RNIB, Scope and Sense to the publication of the draft Bill in May 2012.
Objective comments on the proposals have been made by such organisations and by outside academics, but a Select Committee of this House also gave a trenchant criticism of the Government’s proposals. The Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform’s report on IER states:
“We recommend that the Government look closely at applying the same carry-forward arrangements for the 2015 General Election to postal and proxy registrations as to other registrations, to avoid inadvertently disenfranchising vulnerable electors.”
That is a succinct and apt way of putting that very important point.
The Government made legitimate changes to their position—I do not like to use the word “concessions”—before the final draft Bill was published and I hope that they will listen to the cacophony of reasonable opinion expressed beyond the confines of the Palace of Westminster and change the Bill.
Dan Rogerson
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark.
Members who followed the discussion on Second Reading and in the Opposition day debate on individual electoral registration that we had some time ago will not be surprised to hear me talk about voting and electoral registration among those fortunate enough to own multiple properties.
I welcome the concept behind the Bill, as do Members across the House, except the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), who is no longer in his place but has been outed as a sceptic on individual electoral registration. However, it is absolutely right for us to take every opportunity to strive for accuracy and look at any ways in which we can generally improve the process. It strikes me that while we have the Bill in front of us, there is an opportunity to consider the issue of multiple registration by individuals.
If we are to have a system based on one elector, one vote, and a system that allows them to register for that vote, we need to resolve the position whereby people are entitled to more than one vote. If they are so entitled, we should look carefully at the reasons for that and make sure that the electoral administrators, who have to decide whether someone should be added to the register, have all the information to hand.
Mr Mark Williams
My hon. Friend highlights an important issue in many parts of the country, but is not the real issue the fact that electoral registration officers, were they so minded, do not have the mechanisms to cross-reference and check the situation?
Dan Rogerson
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I shall come to that point a little later.
We have a residential qualification. Many who own property in my constituency, elsewhere in Cornwall and the south-west and in other rural areas will have other property as well. The same may apply in urban areas such as Tower Hamlets—around the Isle of Dogs, a large number of properties will be owned by those in the financial sector who occupy them in the week and return to their families at the weekends—so this issue covers many parts of the country.
People who own multiple properties have been writing to me saying, “No taxation without representation”—a great rallying cry. However, we do not have such a voting system. Those who pay business rates in my constituency but do not live there are not entitled to vote; they were once, but that was scrapped a long time ago. Those people writing to me have a nice soundbite, but it does not apply in this case. Our electoral system is based on people’s residency in a particular area, their affiliation to the community and their desire to have a say in its future and that of the wider country through their registration on the local electoral register.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) said, it is right that we give electoral administrators the tools to do the job. When they are called in, as they increasingly are, to adjudicate on whether a person should be on the electoral roll, they need to have a basis on which to make that decision other than just the determination of that person to be admitted on to the roll. The data-matching exercises that the Government have undertaken offer one route to this. As I said on Second Reading, there may be other sources of data that have not been looked at, such as someone’s registration for tax purposes with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, to determine which is their principal residence. We have famously seen some examples of people who have sought to move, or flip, that qualification around a little. If someone is registered for tax purposes with a particular place as their main residence, and is thus saying that that is their main residence as regards the state, then that is the place where they should be voting.
Mr David
I will say a few words about the process of verification, because clause 2 gives significant powers to the Secretary of State to make secondary legislation; to determine what evidence should be on an application form for registration; to determine the form of those application forms; over the role and functions of electoral registration officers; and over local authorities and the Electoral Commission.
One of the most significant issues is the evidence of identity that individuals will have to provide. Paragraph 19 of the explanatory notes says of subsection (3):
“The required evidence may be specified in regulations or be determined by the Secretary of State, and such evidence may for example include a person’s date of birth and national insurance number.”
My concern is about the lack of specificity in the words “may for example include”. My understanding was that the Government had all but decided that a person’s date of birth and NI number would be the two specific pieces of information that would be required. I am therefore worried that the Bill will give the Secretary of State the power to make broader decisions on other information.
Mr Mark Williams
I endorse what the hon. Gentleman said about national insurance numbers. As he will be aware, at the briefing that he attended in which we talked about online registration, we advanced the debate beyond that matter because we were concerned about the access issue over people obtaining their national insurance numbers.
Mr David
I recall that briefing. That is an interesting point. I am sure that there will be an opportunity later in the Committee to talk about how online technology may be effective in some areas and problematic in others.
Returning to our reservations, the amendment proposes that there be specific references to the date of birth and the national insurance number, and that the extensive power for the Secretary of State to come forward with secondary legislation be removed.
My concerns about verification increased a little while ago when I read the Cabinet Office publication, “Individual Electoral Registration: Privacy Impact Assessment Report”, which indicated what information a potential elector will be asked to provide by the local electoral registration officer. If Members will bear with me, I will go through what it says. An individual will be asked to provide:
“Full name (first name, middle name or initial(s), Family name)”,
“Full residential address including postcode”,
their nationality, and a
“Declaration of truth—declaration that all information provided is true and correct.”
That is the same as at the moment. They will then be required to provide their date of birth and their national insurance number “where possible”, which are new requirements. There would also be new requirements to provide their
“Immigration status—if non-British or non-EU citizen”,
and a
“Declaration as to whether they are/have been registered elsewhere in the last 12 months”,
as well as any
“Previous address where registered in the last 12 months (new requirement – currently requested but not mandatory on annual canvass forms)”.
What is envisaged goes far beyond the bold headline, which states that there should be a requirement for the date of birth and the national insurance number.
Mr Mark Williams
I agree entirely with the hon. Lady about the huge importance of the annual canvass—she is quite right. I wonder whether she has had the time to consider the Electoral Commission’s comments about the timing of the annual canvass. It has complimented the Government’s measures removing the 15 October date as an opportunity for greater flexibility and greater completeness, because the gap between the canvass and the election could be reduced. I appreciate what she says about the rarity of those elections, but the Electoral Commission seems to be saying something different from what she is saying.
Angela Smith
I appreciate that point, and I have read what the Electoral Commission has said about it. However, the key point is the one I made a few moments ago, which is about the importance of getting it right. Secondly, the Electoral Commission has a certain perspective on this. A different perspective would understand the importance of stability at a time of radical change in the registration process. It has to be said that for as long as most of us can remember the culture of this country has seen us running an annual canvass in October every year. That is what people have come to understand, and under the new system there will still be a requirement for the head of the household, or someone in the household, to supply the information to the ERO to enable the sending out of the invitations to register. We will still have that culture of a form being filled in for every property, completed for every residence and returned to the ERO. Opposition Members feel it is important to continue the culture of running that exercise every October, not least because it is the time of year when further and higher education colleges enrol their new students.
In what is often a five or six month gap between the completion of the canvass and the establishment of the new register and the election, the chances of that register being grossly inaccurate are reasonably small. The risk of that is smaller than the risk of a drop-off—a fall—in the number of registrations because we have messed about with the time of year when people will register. I do not think that any hon. Member feels that an annual canvass should be run in July, Easter or post-Christmas. Is there any point in the year, other than October, that makes sense? There is a reason why October is the date, and we think we should stick with it. Amendment 6 would reinstate the requirement that EROs run an annual canvass in October of every year.
Amendment 8 seeks to strengthen and improve the process; this is the belt and braces approach that I talked about earlier in relation to amendments 9, 10 and 11. The gazetteer is a very complete and up-to-date list of any property in a local area. We believe that EROs should write once a year to every property listed in the gazetteer, supplemented by those properties that they know to have been built in the past two years, when registration forms have been returned in the past 10 years and when a property has been involved in the charging of taxes by the local authority in the past five years. In all those circumstances, we believe that the ERO should send a form to the property concerned to ensure that we do everything we can to guarantee the highest possible level of completion of each new register.
Earlier we argued for the need to glean information from university institutions, sheltered housing providers and private landlords in order to aid the process of building a high quality and highly complete register. We also believe, however, that such an approach should be supplemented by our using the soundest possible sources of information about which properties are occupied in any area when the local authority qualifies as an electoral registration authority. If the House agrees to those requirements, that will mean that we have done our best to guarantee that the new individual registration process succeeds rather than fails. That is the key point that Opposition Members are trying to make.
Amendment 7 deals with house-to-house inquiries on which, in our view, the Bill is far too weak. It gives EROs the power possibly to conduct a few house-to-house inquiries, stating that they “may” do so, but in our view they must carry out house-to-house inquiries, particularly when citizens have constantly and repeatedly refused to register to vote. Given that we have included a penalty in the Bill and reinstated the principle of enforcing the requirement on citizens of this country to register to vote, it makes sense that we should require EROs to do their utmost to ensure that the law on electoral registration is complied with. “May” is only one word, but it is very important and saying to EROs that they may, rather than must, conduct house-to-house inquiries represents a watering down of the commitment in the Representation of the People Act 1983.
I am convinced that not only Opposition Members but Government Members are fundamentally democrats at heart who believe in people’s right to vote and in the importance of their registering to vote. Let me make a plea to the Minister, who I know to be a man of logic and reason. The replacement of the single word “may” with the word “must” is a small concession to make for the sake of this House doing its best to ensure that democracy in this country is properly served and is as legitimate as it possibly can be. I call on the Minister to concede this amendment and to put hon. Members’ minds at rest on this point.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Amess, for the opportunity to comment, particularly on amendment 6 on the annual canvass, and the issues that it raises in relation to young people’s engagement in politics, and that of students in particular. I recognise that not all students are young people, but the vast majority are. Sadly, according to a million+ report produced recently, there are declining numbers of mature students as a result of the Government’s policies on higher education.
I represent a city where, as Members are aware, voters were turned away in large numbers at the general election. It is an issue which new clause 4 deals with later. Those voters were largely students or others who were affected by a surge in student voting, and those students were whipped up to vote by the fairly relentless campaigning of the Deputy Prime Minister on both our campuses, which are both in my constituency. Members will remember the “trust me, we’re different” initiative during the general election—the promise that
“We will resist, vote against, campaign against, any lifting”
of the cap on tuition fees, with a plan to abolish tuition fees within six years. I notice Members on the Liberal Democrat Benches looking a little bit embarrassed, and understandably so. That was no subscript in the manifesto. In constituencies such as mine, it was at the very heart of their party’s campaign, as the president of the Hallam university union, Caroline Dowd, said at the time:
“We could not get”
the Deputy Prime Minister
“out of our union before the general election.”
Afterwards, when she was being held to account, she pointed out that they could not get him in.
The broken pledge on tuition fees has not simply damaged the Liberal Democrats’ party; it has damaged trust in politics for a whole generation of young people. All the people who were persuaded to vote, queuing in Sheffield Hallam because they believed the pledge, they believed in a fresh approach, they believed that when people signed a solemn promise, they would keep it, feel betrayed by the trust that they put in politics. So many of them whom I have spoken to are now saying, “Why should we vote?” I have knocked on many student doors during subsequent local elections. This is precisely the time when we should be making extra efforts to engage students, not reduce their participation. Amendment 6 and the annual canvass in October specifically address that issue.
Mr Mark Williams
On a more positive note and with reference to amendment 7, which refers to the importance of face-to-face dialogue with students, will the hon. Gentleman endorse the comments of his hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on the Front Bench that simply sending communications to students, many of them in halls of residence, and getting post through to students is a particular difficulty, and face-to-face dialogue is extremely important in building trust and building students’ confidence to sign up to the electoral register?
Paul Blomfield
The hon. Gentleman is right. It is necessary to complement an annual canvass in October and support that process with face-to-face contact. It is a point that I will come to in a moment.
My city is associated with steel and still produces steel and engineering products, as it always did, but it is now also a major student city. As I said, both of our great universities are in my constituency. At the last count, 31,800 students live in Sheffield Central, and they are very much part of the place. They live there for at the very least 31 weeks a year, and many for 52 weeks on full accommodation contracts. For all of them, it is their main place of residence. They contribute to the economy and the life of the city and they have a right for their voice to be heard in elections.
At the university of Sheffield there is a block registration scheme for all eligible students in university accommodation, which will end with this legislation. The Government claim that individual electoral registration is about preventing fraud. I assume that they do not think the university of Sheffield is guilty of electoral fraud. Therefore, one wonders why the Government think it necessary to remove the opportunity for block registration in this legislation. But they are pressing ahead, so I think that amendment 6 and the need for an annual canvass would go some way towards mitigating the damage that will create.
Mr Mark Williams
The hon. Gentleman might have guessed that I share an interest in higher education; I, like him, have two universities in my constituency. Might not an alternative approach be to have the students register to vote when registering for their college courses? Is that not an opportunity to maximise student participation in the electoral register?
Paul Blomfield
I think that that is an opportunity; there might be innovative ways to combine the registration process with other processes. However, there are certain difficulties because, as the hon. Gentleman will know, many universities now have fairly sophisticated online registration processes at the point of joining the institution, rather than the face-to-face contact to which he refers, so there are potentially some difficulties. In essence, we need to look creatively at every opportunity, and that would indeed be one of them.
The point the NUS makes is that, if we are to avoid a fall-off in registration, considerable information, communication and investment are needed. I must say that I think it would be simpler all round if we retained block registration, but the Government, whether or not they think that universities are guilty of electoral fraud, are pressing ahead. When I raised that issue on Second Reading, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) challenged me, suggesting that I underestimated the ability of students to complete forms, but that is not actually the point. I have been lobbied strongly by students on the issue. Only today the newly elected officers of the University of Sheffield students’ union met me in Westminster, along with their outgoing predecessors, and made the point again. One of them, Harry Horton, summed up the difficulty—the hon. Member for Ceredigion will appreciate this—and explained that when students first arrive at university and live in halls, among all the other things going on in their lives, registering to vote is not necessarily a priority, so it is comforting for them to know that it is done automatically. If that changes, registering becomes another form to fill in during the first few whirlwind weeks away from home when their whole lives are being turned upside down. As a result, the fear is that some students, particularly those who do not come with a commitment to engagement in democracy, will not register.
Oral Answers to Questions
Mark Williams Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Mr Maude
I will look into that, but the hon. Gentleman might like to bring some of those suppliers to me to talk through the difficulties, because we want to make the process as easy as possible. Suppliers tell me that bidding for public sector contracts costs them typically four times as much as bidding for private sector contracts. The changes that we are making will radically reduce that, but we want to make sure that the process works, so I should be grateful for his help.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
According to the Federation of Small Businesses, 40% of businesses still say that the tendering process is too complex. There are some very good messages in the procurement pledge on the website that the Minister mentioned. What steps is he taking to encourage people to adopt the principles of the pledge?
The Prime Minister
I have not tried one of those delicious-sounding beverages. If it is all right with the hon. Gentleman, I will wait until after tomorrow before doing so. I understand that there is an issue with HMRC, and I would be very happy to arrange a meeting between him and a Treasury Minister so that they can look carefully at this issue.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
Unprecedented levels of flooding hit the north Ceredigion communities at the weekend, causing untold damage to households, businesses and infrastructure. I thank the Prime Minister for his words of support to my constituents, and I know that he is aware of the speed with which Ceredigion county council, the emergency services and many in the local community rallied to ensure that there was no loss of life. Will he urge all the insurance companies to act on this matter now, with renewed speed, so that we can get the communities back on their feet as quickly as possible?
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Mark Williams Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Harper
Section 31 grants are specific grants, and the hon. Gentleman needs to be aware of an interesting point: local authorities already fund about one third of the cost of electoral reform, so if we insisted on a specific amount being spent on electoral registration, it would be easy for local authorities that wanted to do so to evade that. They could use the money that we gave them to pay for their business-as-usual electoral registration and not do any of the things that we want them to do. We will give them money directly; we will consult about the mechanism so that we have some accountability; we will recognise that some local authorities have bigger challenges than others so that all the money is not dished out in the first place—we want local authorities that face the biggest challenges to be able to bid for extra funding—and we will try to ensure that we have a workable system that is not too bureaucratic. I am confident that local authorities and electoral registration officers will welcome our announcement about not allowing the money to be swallowed up in the overall revenue support grant by paying direct grants under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003. They will have the confidence that they have the money to deliver the programme.
We consulted widely on our proposals for individual registration, which have undergone pre-legislative scrutiny. We have worked closely with the Electoral Commission, the Association of Electoral Administrators and groups of front-line staff on our plans. We will begin publishing draft secondary legislation for IER in June, and we will continue to add to the package as the summer progresses, aiming to conclude publication before Parliament returns in the autumn. We will talk to those key groups about the detail of the proposals as we go along.
There will be some matters for which we do not intend to publish draft legislation—for example, those for which we have no current plans to use the powers. There will be other matters on which we want to seek stakeholders’ views about the approach. In the amendment, Labour Members deplore our not publishing secondary legislation and it is therefore worth saying that, for two similar measures—the Electoral Administration Act 2006 and the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009, both of which contain significant powers to be made by regulation—no secondary legislation of any description was published at any stage during their passage. It was all made and published after the Bills had received Royal Assent. On that issue, therefore, the Labour party is very much in the mode of “Do as we say, not as we do.”
The Government’s approach is to treat the House much more seriously, to publish Bills in draft, to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny, and to publish draft legislation while the measure is still going through the House. May I pick up the point that the Chairman of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee made? Members can see what is proposed while the Bill is undergoing its parliamentary passage. I will take no lectures on that from anyone on the Labour Benches.
So far, I have discussed the measures that we are taking to mitigate the risk of the transition to the new system. There are also several opportunities to do better. The Bill will facilitate online registration, whereby an individual will complete the end-to-end process without having to fill in a paper form. That will make it more convenient for individuals to register to vote, more accessible for, for example, people with visual impairments, and more accessible for young people. It is our intention that the online system will be fully operational when the transition to individual registration begins. As I said yesterday during Deputy Prime Minister’s questions, that is a genuine opportunity, certainly for disabled people.
For example, Scope said that it
“supports the change to a system of IER, and warmly welcomes the Government’s commitment to ensure that disabled people’s needs are taken into account”.
It agrees with our assessment that
“the introduction of IER should improve access for voters with disabilities. The current arrangements do not adequately allow for disabled people’s access needs to be taken into account”,
and that the introduction of IER offers an ideal opportunity to put in place a more accessible system. We intend to do that.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for sharing the information about the online system with some of us last week. He will know that one of the concerns that some of us have is about access to national insurance numbers as a means of taking part in that system. There is some difficulty in that people do not readily have access to their national insurance numbers. What suggestions has he for improving that?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I know that the Parliamentary Secretary is trying to be extremely helpful to the House, and he has taken lots of interventions. However, perhaps he will bear it in mind that he has been speaking for more than 40 minutes, that many Members wish to participate in the debate, and that there will be winding-up speeches.
Mr David
That is a good point, and I shall refer to it later in my speech.
As I was saying, the Government have made positive concessions, but they have not listened on other matters—indeed, they have refused to listen to those who have expressed legitimate concerns about the Bill. Foremost among the Opposition’s concerns and those of many outside the House is the Government’s intention to press ahead with individual elector registration at a breakneck speed. The concern that there will be no carry-over for many postal and proxy votes in the move to a new register has been expressed by a range of disability charities, including Mencap, Sense, the Royal National Institute of Blind People and Scope.
Mr Mark Williams
I have read the Scope briefing and share that concern, but is the hon. Gentleman not reassured by what the Minister has said? He said that a very small group of people will not be carried over and that there will be a carry-over of existing absent voters to the new list.
Mr David
I am not entirely reassured by what the Minister has said. In fact, I found his comments contradictory and confusing. It is a straightforward matter, and I hope that he provides in his winding-up speech the clarification that the Opposition and organisations such as the Royal National Institute of Blind People want.
There is also a worry that moneys for EROs to support transition have not been adequately ring-fenced. I listened carefully to the Minister. He provided more clarity, but has specifically not stated that the money will be ring-fenced so that it is spent on the purpose for which it is intended, which was a key Political and Constitutional Reform Committee recommendation; I pay warm tribute to the Committee’s work.
Many other concerns are referred to in the reasoned amendment, one of which is the power that the Bill gives to Ministers to cancel annual canvasses. The Government’s argument is that we might at some point no longer need annual canvasses, when registers are complete. The Opposition argue that an annual canvass is needed even if we eventually have high registration levels, because we must always guard against, and be diligent about, any deterioration of the electoral roll.
The Government have made much of their U-turn on civil penalties. I do not want to belittle their volte face, but before the House can make an assessment of the civil penalty that the Government propose, it needs to know exactly how much the penalty will be. The Minister has said in other exchanges that the penalty will be like a parking fine, but the size of parking fines varies enormously across the country. Here in Westminster, they can be as high as £130, but in Rhondda Cynon Taff in south Wales, they can be as low as £25. Nobody wishes large numbers of fines to be issued, but if fines are to be an incentive for people to register, they need to be fixed at a reasonable level, and yet we do not know what that will be.
Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott). She approached this subject in a constructive manner, and I hope to do the same while offering some suggestions as to how the process could be improved.
It would be churlish not to celebrate the differences between the current proposals and the Government’s original announcements in the White Paper and the documents that went to the Select Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny. That demonstrates that the Government have taken account of the consultation and have listened to what representatives from a range of organisations have said. They have made a lot of significant changes to the Bill as a result. Among the most welcome are the changes to ensure that we get as full an electoral register as possible. The negativity of Opposition Members astounds me. This should be an opportunity to enhance the electoral list, and build a bigger list. I am shocked by some of the comments I have heard.
Many of the issues raised in Labour’s Opposition day debate have been addressed. The opt-out provision has been removed from the form. There was a great deal of controversy about that, but the Government listened and responded. The Government have also yielded on the civil penalty issue, and there has been action on the question of the canvass in 2014. As the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) said, the new individual voter registration scheme enables individuals to register and be responsible for their own vote, rightly taking responsibility away from the head of the household for registering everybody in the household, which was an outdated notion. I understand the point made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) about the importance and significance of mothers, but we must all reach a point in our lives when we can make a judgment on these matters ourselves.
Registering to vote is a civic duty, and having a penalty for those who fail to do so serves to reflect that. That has been in place for almost 100 years, since 1918, when the last Liberal-Conservative coalition introduced a £20 fine, a sum that is equivalent to about £3,500 in today’s money. Since then, with all-party agreement, the House has agreed to maximum fines of £50 in 1969, £100 in 1983, £400 in 1986 and £1,000 in 2001. I welcome the fact that the Government are moving along those lines in respect of civil penalties for individuals. Having no offence would also have meant there was no incentive for local authorities to follow up on hard-to-reach voters, who have as much right to be enfranchised as anyone else.
The Government have also listened to the concerns about the boundary changes, and concessions have been made. The Government are as keen as anyone that we should have a complete and responsive electoral list.
Mr Williams
The Opposition have been wallowing in conspiracy theories in this regard. The Government have made a huge number of concessions in order to ensure we have a complete electoral list on which to base the new boundaries. The Government have responded to the concerns expressed about the use of the register for the jury service pool, and about credit check companies and mortgage providers using it to check an individual’s background. Again, those considerations have been reflected in the changes made by the Government.
I look forward to hearing more from the Government about the level of the penalties that will be set. I share the impatience of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) in that regard, but the Government have assured us that during the Bill’s passage, we will have the relevant draft secondary legislation. The hon. Gentleman is right: we need to hear what penalties the Government have in mind and what discussions have taken place on this issue. I will welcome the speedy emergence of that draft secondary legislation.
I am also pleased that the Bill states that the money raised will go to the Treasury, so that local authorities cannot be accused of using the failure to register as a money-making venture. I wonder whether the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), can say whether the fine will be on the scale of a parking fine, for example. Will it operate in a similar way—I hesitate to use that example; there are many disreputable car-parking companies in our constituencies—and will the fine increase if payment is not received within two weeks, as happens with some parking fines? If, after one month, the person fined still has not taken any action to register, will the fine be repeated? These are legitimate questions, and we look forward to the speediest possible emergence of that information.
I am very glad that the Government have decided to move the annual canvass from 2013 to 2014, so that the gap between it and mass mailing is shorter. Hopefully, there will therefore be fewer significant changes. I remain a little concerned, however—in the spirit of consensus, this is perhaps another area of agreement between me and the hon. Member for Caerphilly—that clause 6 allows the relevant Minister to abolish the annual canvass. I have heard the rationale behind this provision—that future data matching will be sufficiently developed to ensure that an annual canvass is not necessary—and in that regard the example of Northern Ireland is often cited. I would like clarification of that rationale, but I do note that clause 6 also gives the Minister the power to reinstate the annual canvass.
I am pleased that there will be the opportunity to register online, a positive step that will appeal to a lot of young people. Like the hon. Member for Sunderland Central, I saw the presentation, which was impressive; however, there is a great deal of work to be done. The point has been made—I made it myself in an intervention—about the ease or otherwise with which people can access their own national insurance number. I was surprised to hear the Minister say that only 5% of people could not readily access their NI number. A quick survey of my office in this place revealed that I was the only one out of four people who knew their NI number. I doubt whether most of our constituents study their NI number on their payslips; perhaps they are more inclined to look at the other numbers. We need clarity here, and to develop seamless ways in which people can access their NI number.
As I have said before in this House, it is all very well talking about accessing Government services on the internet in parts of the country where it is easy to do so: for those in west Wales—Ceredigion, for example—the situation is very different. I am afraid that at the moment, 20% of my constituents cannot access anything on the internet—the Government do have the worthy aspiration to roll out broadband across the country—so there are limitations. That is why the traditional method of the annual canvass is so significant in the registration of voters.
I was pleased to learn from the Government that funding will be set aside for each local authority to implement the changes associated with IVR, and that extra money will be available through bidding. We can all envisage places in our constituencies where that extra money would be put to good use.
Ceredigion may not be characterised in the same way that inner-city constituencies have been, but I represent two universities. Students are traditionally hard-to-get-at voters at election time and before. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) speaks from a sedentary position; I have no difficulty in speaking to my student voters, but registering these people is challenging. I am well used to seeing the piles of electoral registration forms heaped up in student pigeonholes in halls of residence and in houses in multiple occupation, of which there are a huge number in my constituency. Huge numbers of forms sit there untended as the months go by. They will require extra resources but, again, the Government have made those resources available and intimated that they will be available.
I reinforce what the Minister said about the value of education. I used to be a teacher, and I believe there is great merit in using the education system, as we have heard has happened in Northern Ireland, to promote the registration of voters from sixth forms. That is a practical way of engaging people in citizenship and assisting local authorities in registering new voters.
I would also like to hear a little more about the dissemination of best practice and the standardisation of electoral registration forms across the country. As the Minister knows, some very good examples are available. We have heard about Sunderland Central’s good record in these matters. In order to please the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), I wish to mention the example of Denbighshire, which has sent out some extremely effective forms and follow-up forms. We need to disseminate the practice from Denbighshire across other areas of the country. Crucially, such forms need to be bilingual in Wales.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) is concerned about the issue of second homes and the prominence of items on electoral registration forms for people who own two residences. I want the civil penalty and the possible penalties that may be levied to have real prominence on those forms.
I also wish to highlight the concerns voiced by Scope, and I await the response from our Front-Bench team on the issue of the carry-over of voters from 2014 to 2015, and on whether all postal and proxy voters have to re-register. I was heartened by what the Minister said about this applying only to those people who have not yet been dealt with through the data-matching pilots. If that is not the case, the prospect of so many people who have been used to having a postal or proxy vote for so many years, election after election, not being included is very alarming. That needs to be addressed.
I sum up by saying that this Government have made huge progress on this Bill. There are still matters that need to be ironed out and that we need to reflect on in Committee, but compared with where we were at the time of the Labour Opposition motion before, the Bill is vastly improved. That is why Government Members will be supporting it tonight.