Constitutional Law

Mike Weir Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[David Mundell]

The hon. Lady makes a valid point about postal votes and how they will be dealt with, and we will speak to the Electoral Management Board about that. It is already clear that counts for the Scottish Parliament constituency and regional elections will take place ahead of any count for the alternative vote referendum.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

One problem with joint elections is that some papers are inevitably put in the wrong ballot box. Will not all the ballot boxes have to be opened on the night for all the elections so that the papers can be sorted out before a count can take place?

[David Mundell]

Indeed, the verification count will be done first, and it will be exactly the same as in 1999 and 2003, when local government elections were held on the same day as the Scottish Parliament elections.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr MacNeil]

The SNP would have treated the Scottish people with more courtesy than the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, who have treated them with disdain by parking their tanks on the lawn of the date of the Scottish election—the first Thursday in May in 2011, a date that had been scheduled for many years.

This Government have ignored the strongest point of the Gould report into the 2007 Scottish election, which stated that, among other things, there should be a six-month period between the statutory instrument coming into force and polling day. We are already within the six-month period for the Scottish parliamentary elections and are thereby in violation of the strongest recommendation in the report. Why do we need six months? The report states:

“Throughout this report, we have pointed to problems that have arisen because the passing of electoral legislation has been unduly delayed. To avoid these problems, we would recommend a practice found in the electoral laws in other countries. These laws provide that electoral legislation cannot be applied to any election held within six months of the new provision coming into force.”

Even without the report, that is surely common sense. We have international practice and the Government are indeed fond of citing international examples. It is beyond me how they can fail to note that other countries use the six-month electoral law. When electoral legislation is rushed through at the last minute it is the voters who suffer.

I want to discuss the new ballot papers, which do not adhere to Electoral Commission recommendations and have not been properly user-tested. Forms J and K on the order do not exactly correspond to the form on page 20 of the Electoral Commission report, “Making your mark”, which was directed at Government policy makers. The Scotland Office says that it has used that information in drafting the forms in the statutory instrument, but the form on page 20 of the report is plainly far superior to what the Government have offered. Specifically, I am concerned about the spacing of the lines separating candidates and parties, which do not extend over the page. Also, the spacing of the words and emblems are not closely matched to the box. Those points might seem trivial, but if only 5% of voters make an error we have a serious problem, as we discovered in 2007.

The average voter is, perhaps, too busy with shopping, picking up the kids and the stresses of work to make absolutely sure that they are complying with what the Government intended. People are not going to have rulers ready to discern which line applies to which candidate and party. Surely, it is the job of this place, for now, to make such things as easy as possible for the voter and to remove potential bear traps.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the lining up of candidates and party affiliations. Does he recall that in the disputed American election of 2004, with the famous hanging chads in Florida, one problem was the design of the ballot paper on which the candidates did not line up with the designations?

[Mr MacNeil]

To be absolutely honest, I do not recall that, but I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising it. Presumably, when those ballot papers were being designed someone thought that would not be an issue but lo and behold it did become an issue in Florida and other areas.

The problems I am highlighting could have been avoided if the Government had followed the Electoral Commission’s suggestion of user-testing the new ballot papers. That has already been mentioned. As far as we can tell, the Government have not made any attempt to get the new ballot paper checked. Even the ballot paper in the ill-fated 2007 election was user-tested by at least 100 people. That number was small, given what happened, but better than none and better than what is happening now.

Without independent evaluation, we cannot be sure that the ballot paper will be easily understood and will not lead to confusion. In addition, we will, or could, have an AV referendum on the same day using a slightly different ballot paper and a different design altogether. As none of the ballot papers has been tested independently, we cannot assume that the vast majority—towards 100%—of people will understand these ballot papers, just as I cannot assume that the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) would understand me if I started speaking in Gaelic. It might make sense to me, but countless others, including the hon. Gentleman, might be left in the dark.

This is not the first time that the Scotland Office will have heard our concerns. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman asks me to translate—he probably assumes that I am speaking in Gaelic already. [Interruption.] It is time he learned some.