Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

I agree. The most important thing is that people who have arrived at the polling station well before the time deadline and have formed a queue and are waiting for their ballot papers to be issued should be allowed to register their vote.

We are not only talking about general elections. In 2014, for example, there will be European and local elections, probably on the same day. There are often multiple elections, and further problems can arise in such circumstances. In a general election, turnout tends to be high, of course, but these problems can occur even in local elections, when turnout is lower. We, as democrats, must seek to ensure that people are given the optimal opportunity to register their votes.

It is often not appreciated that we have huge numbers of differentials in elections, in that different people are entitled to vote in different elections. In the 2010 elections, in my constituency 10% of the voting population were from eastern Europe and were not eligible to vote in the general election but were eligible to vote in the local elections. That caused substantial confusion at certain polling stations, particularly later in the day. People were arguing about whether they should have a ballot paper. That can add to delays in issuing ballot papers to others, so people who have left sufficient time to cast their votes can find that they are not issued with ballot papers. That is fundamentally wrong. I want us to give a strong steer in law to returning officers about what they should do in such circumstances, and there should be the minimum of discretion for interpretation.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Sadly, in the 6 May 2010 elections my constituency was seriously affected by events that were similar to those that unfolded in other constituencies, and people were, understandably, very upset. I am a strong supporter of new clause 4, therefore. As there is cross-party support for it, I hope the Government will agree to add it to the Bill.

Three elections were taking place in Hackney South and Shoreditch on that day. Our elected mayor was up for re-election, and we had the local council elections and the general election. As a result there were three different ballot papers, each of a different type. One required electors to vote for three individuals, the general election was a first-past-the-post election with one vote to be cast, and there was a preferential system for the mayoral elections. That sometimes required some explaining. Hackney has learned lessons from that experience, which I shall discuss later.

The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) suggested that general elections should always be held as stand-alone elections. I disagree. Although we are all democrats and are fond, especially in this House, of people voting, we have seen in respect of the timing of the European elections, which are usually held a month after the May elections, that it can be difficult to persuade people that it is in their interests to come out and vote twice in quick succession. There is also a huge additional cost attached to holding elections at separate times when they could be doubled up. There is therefore much sense in holding elections at the same time.

Of the six polling stations that were affected in the borough of Hackney five were in my constituency: the Ann Tayler children’s centre, which experienced some of the worst problems, the Trinity centre, St John the Baptist primary school in Hoxton, the Comet day nursery, and Our Lady and St Joseph Roman Catholic primary school in De Beauvoir. Those polling stations did not have a huge number of electors, however. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) suggested some polling stations were over-optimistic and covered a larger number of electors than they could cope with, but that was not the case in Hackney. In my constituency, in each instance the total number was less than 2,500, which falls well within the tolerance levels.

In some polling stations there had been queues at other times of the day, but by about 9 o’clock—and certainly by 9.15 or 9.30—there were serious issues. One extra staff member was deployed at the Ann Tayler centre at 9 pm, where there were particular problems, but, a whole hour before the close of polling, that was not enough to deal with the scale of the difficulty or the queues. That is why I will discuss what Hackney council has done more generally to try to solve this problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Angela Smith]

In Sheffield Central, which fortunately did not have a problem even though all the other constituencies around it did experience problems, the majority is only 165. That totally underlines my hon. Friend’s point.

[Meg Hillier]

I thank my hon. Friend for that. We need to ensure that we tighten this law now to make it fairer for electors. They would be upset that, having gone to the expense of another election and having come out to vote again, the election result and the will of the people could be affected by such a situation. That is indeed a serious concern. Rather than repeat the excellent arguments made, I rest my case there. I hope that the Government will introduce this change in this Bill to ensure that electors in my constituency never have to have this terrible experience again.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on tabling the new clause. She explained clearly that what we need to do is include in this Bill—we have an opportunity to do it—what is “reasonable” and “practical”, as she put it. We are not asking for any major changes to the system we use for elections in this country, but it was quite clear in 2010 that large numbers of people in some constituencies were denied the right to vote even though they intended to wait in queues to get into the polling stations, as the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said.

One issue that needs to be clarified is that the new clause would help returning officers to know exactly what the law is, as there were different responses in different parts of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) mentioned Sheffield. In the Sheffield Hallam constituency, long queues of students waited to vote for the now Deputy Prime Minister. I doubt they will have that problem at the next general election, but if they have such problems when they turn up to vote him out, those who have turned up to vote in reasonable time should be able to cast their ballot.

One issue mentioned by the hon. Lady, with which I agree, concerned the preparation for elections. For nearly 11 years, I was a councillor in Newcastle upon Tyne and in 2010 I went back to help with the general election in my old ward of Walkergate. I was shocked by what the Liberal Democrat administration had done to that ward by reducing the number of polling stations. Not only did people have to travel large distances to get to the polling station, as I mentioned the other day, but there was a capacity problem in trying physically to deal with the number of electors. Making the law clear would be helpful. As I understand it, in one polling station in Newcastle the returning officer took what was referred to afterwards as a “practical” and “common sense” step by allowing people into the polling station if they had arrived at 10 o’clock, locking the doors and allowing them to vote. If the law was clear, it would, as the hon. Lady said, be quite simple to know where the end of the queue was.

The new clause is long overdue and would help not only returning officers but the many thousands of constituents who were denied their vote in 2010. As we have said on numerous occasions during the passage of this Bill, that vote is the core of our democracy.

[Mr Heath]

I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Evans, and am grateful to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for tabling her new clause. We have had a valuable debate involving the hon. Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), for Harrow East (Bob Blackman), for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and for North Durham (Mr Jones).

It is simply unacceptable that significant numbers of electors are unable to cast their vote due to the organisation of a polling station. It should never happen again and we must take steps to ensure that it does not. Those Members who have expressed their concern and even anger on behalf of their constituents are perfectly in order to do so, as such things should not happen.

I should also point out that only a small number of polling stations were involved: only 27 out of 40,000 across the country. That is not a representative sample of electoral arrangements in this country, and there were not many large queues at polling stations at close of poll that left people unable to cast their vote. That in no way reduces the impact on those who were affected, but it at least puts it in context.

The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), has made it clear in everything he has said on this issue in Committee and in this House that the primary cause of the problems was a lack of effective planning by returning officers. That will be effected not by legislation but by administrative action to make sure that they do the job better in future to avoid those unacceptable scenes. They should ensure that enough polling stations are provided to accommodate the electors in each area. It is not acceptable for there to be too few polling stations. They should ensure that polling station staff have sufficient time and training to manage the flow of electors well, as they generally do in most parts of the country and in most elections. In some ways, the firm closure of the poll at 10 pm should concentrate returning officers’ minds to ensure that, given that it is hardly news that the poll will close at 10 pm, they have the right arrangements in place to ensure that a complete and smooth passage for those arriving seeking to vote is effected at that hour.

[Meg Hillier]

I am concerned by the tone of the Minister’s remarks. If this was simply an administrative error, why did we see it across the country in such a widespread way? There had not been problems before in my constituency but there were on this occasion. The council acknowledged that there were things it could do better but this could still happen again. I cannot see what the Government would lose by backing this new clause.

[Mr Heath]

I am sorry that the hon. Lady asks why this happened in such a widespread way given that we have just established that it happened at only 27 polling stations out of 40,000. I do not think we can say it was a widespread problem. It was a significant problem but not a widespread one.