Elections Bill (First sitting)

Nick Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Chloe Smith]

Q Thank you very much indeed. I have a brief question for both Gillian and Assistant Chief Constable Cann. Gillian, thank you very much for joining us; it is good to see you again. We have done some work together, because Peterborough was part of early pilots on how to tackle electoral fraud, and you took forward measures about postal and proxy voting. With reference to the measures in the Bill—for example, clause 6, introducing the requirement of secrecy for postal votes—could you explain to us the problems you encountered, how you tried to deal with them and how you think the Bill will affect that?

Welcome and thank you to ACC Cann, as well. Given that electoral law can be a relatively niche area within policing, can you tell us how the wider profession works to ensure that the right knowledge, training and capacity are in place in local forces to enable them to play the role that is needed from the police?

Gillian Beasley: I will start by saying that we have a very close relationship with the police in Peterborough and our electoral integrity plan is co-produced between us and them. Our police, as well as our electoral services team, have a really good and detailed understanding of the electoral offences in law. There is a lot of co-operation there, which has helped us to home in on where integrity is at risk.

First, I would say that we have seen less personation in polling stations in the recent past. Probably our last prosecution was some years ago, and that is because there are some tight measures not only in polling stations, but around ensuring that we have a good electoral register. We go through our electoral register very carefully, removing duplicate names, and we visit a lot of premises where there are a number of people registered or where we are told there is an empty property, to ensure that they are the right people and that they are real people. Of course, the individual voter registration division has helped tremendously with that.

Where we have issues, as the Minister knows, is in postal voting. That is where our concerns are. The allegations we tend to get are around harvesting. They are allegations of people going into properties where people live—they are proper voters who have applied for a postal vote—and getting that person to make a declaration and signature with date of birth, but not fill the ballot paper. Those are then taken away and the proxies put against the relevant candidate. Those are the allegations. We get allegations about those being taken from properties, and where we get those allegations, we work together with the police in joint operations to visit those premises and make it absolutely clear that there is no tolerance for that and that those properties will be raided. We have never had any prosecutions for that, but we have made a clear statement about not tolerating that kind of behaviour.

The provision on not handing your postal vote to a campaigner is welcome. We will use that as a good communications tool to say to people, “Your vote is your vote. It is important that you post your vote or take it into a polling station.” The restrictions on how many postal votes can go into polling stations is a good provision, and documenting who is going in with those postal votes is important. Harvesting those votes will now be an offence, and although it will be difficult evidentially to get people to make those allegations, to stand by them and to go to court, nevertheless as returning officers we can do some important publicity around that fact: “This is your vote, you must keep it and it is a criminal offence if somebody takes it from you.” I see some strength there, and I support those provisions.

The other area I think is interesting is around undue influence. That is by far the most difficult; we hear allegations, but it is difficult for people who are subject to whatever form of undue influence or intimidation it may be to feel confident to come forward, give evidence and take that through to a court process. We encourage people to do that, but it is still difficult for them.

The change in the provision on undue influence, where you induce or compel somebody not to vote at all, is important; that covers the point that was made about collecting votes where they have not even been marked. My issue as a returning officer is that I send out thousands and thousands of postal votes, and we get them carefully delivered to the correct premises, but what happens behind those closed doors? It is about getting people to confidently give evidence if they are subject to undue influence or somebody comes and tries to take their vote. As I say, we have a really good relationship with the police, who are prepared to take forward and understand the offences. There is a joint communications plan between us and the police telling people that we will take it seriously, take cases forward and investigate every single allegation that is made, but it is still very difficult to get people confident enough to come forward with those kinds of allegations.

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: In terms of developing police knowledge and capacity, I like the description of electoral law being a niche area. I think that is accurate. The RPA is not a widely known piece of legislation among police officers.

One of the reasons that the national portfolio that I lead was created was to raise awareness through some degree of central co-ordination and training across police forces. One of the first things that we recognise is that we are not on our own with this. Gillian has spoken very well about the importance of partnership working between the police, the Association of Electoral Administrators, administrators more locally, the Electoral Commission, the CPS, the parties themselves and Royal Mail. We form strong partnership relationships with a whole range of people, which helps to build capacity and capability within the police service generally.

More specifically, we have established a network of officers, one in every force. We have SPOCs—single points of contact—who are the lead for that force for electoral-related matters. They are knowledgeable in electoral crime and procedure. They usually sit within economic crime teams, but not always. We have created a bespoke training course that is run through the City of London police, which holds particular expertise of its own in this regard. We hold an annual conference for all those single points of contact and a number of other people. There is a very strong, successful partnership from that conference particularly with the Electoral Commission, and with people such as Gillian and other electoral administrators.

We have developed the scope of the portfolio over the last 10 years or so to cover matters of policing the election itself—not just preventing and detecting any fraud, crime or malpractice, but policing the election, so matters of public order and wider security. We have developed guidance in relation to policing elections, which is available on the College of Policing’s website. It is called “Authorised Professional Practice”, and it is about the way police doctrine is expressed and made available to officers up and down the country.

I like to think that, certainly over the last 10 years or so, we have raised the consciousness in the service of electoral malpractice. It is taken extremely seriously and we have some extremely capable and knowledgeable people involved in the work, but it is fair to say that it is something of a niche area. Most officers will not come across it, and in any event the law is slightly difficult to navigate, even for those who have a particular interest and specialism.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Q Good morning to the witnesses. I have two questions to ACC Cann. Do you think the penalties for those committing electoral fraud are sufficient to deter the bad actors?

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: I think the penalties vary, because there is a blend of a civil and a criminal regime at play here. I do not know, because I am not an elected person, a candidate or anything like that, but I imagine that the harsher sanction will be around matters such as being disqualified from holding office or taking part in future electoral matters, rather than a specific fine or a direct sanction. In that regard, there is some significant deterrence there. Generally speaking, when matters go to the courts, it is generally felt that the courts are quite keen to address the seriousness of the matter before them and hand down a suitable penalty.

[Nick Smith]

Q Thank you for that. My second question is this. Mr Mawrey, one of our earlier witnesses, said something like, “Voter ID at polling stations isn’t necessary because there is very little personation.” What is the incidence of personation at polling stations, do you know?

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: I think it is right to say that we have relatively small numbers of those offences coming through to us so, in that sense, it is not a major issue in terms of workload or demand for policing at election time. I imagine that in any case, part of the motivation behind the proposal for voter ID is an element of deterrence. In that regard, if it were to be brought in, we would see some value in that and would broadly welcome that proposal, notwithstanding the fact that, as I say, we do not tend to prosecute or get asked to investigate a significant number of personation allegations.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

Q Councillor Golds, you gave some examples earlier today about behaviour in polling stations. Had there been a voter ID regime in place in Tower Hamlets previously, do you think the behaviour that you saw in polling stations might have been different?

Councillor Golds: I certainly think it would have improved. We had a byelection as recently as 12 October, where in one polling station—the Sundial Centre in Shipton Street—the police were called on two occasions to disperse unruly crowds outside the polling station intimidating voters. That is one polling station in one byelection held this summer. I have to say that Assistant Chief Constable Cann’s description of the police activity is positively Panglossian in its optimism; I just wonder whether any of this has percolated through to the Metropolitan police.