Scotland Bill
Debate between Wayne David and Graham Allen(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Wayne David
I am glad that the SNP accepts the point I am making.
It would have been better if, instead of putting nationalist sentiment first, the SNP considered harsh economic reality and the wellbeing of the Scottish people, but no—it decided to press ahead. As SNP Members are well aware, rail passengers are suffering badly as ScotRail has adopted an approach to industrial relations that the Scottish TUC’s Graeme Smith has described as “nothing short of shambolic”. Few would disagree with that comment.
Yesterday, ScotRail cancelled a third of its usual Sunday services after pay talks with train drivers’ union ASLEF stalled. Abellio ScotRail has written to staff to offer voluntary redundancy, even though the franchise was supposed to guarantee that that would not happen. In the light of these developments, it is important for us to say clearly that Abellio’s workforce planning and industrial relations are shambolic—and that is an understatement.
Why on earth is what is happening on the Scottish railways being allowed to happen? Surely what is needed is in-depth scrutiny and a review of the previous tendering arrangements. In tabling amendment 158, our desire is not merely to put the spotlight on the foolish behaviour of the SNP Government in Scotland, but to ensure that they learn the lessons so that their mistakes cannot be made again. I hope that Members on both sides of the Committee will feel able to support our amendment on that basis.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
Before I deal with the amendments and new clauses in my name, I should like to address a few words, through you, Sir David, to the other place. The way in which we are considering this Bill means that a large group of new clauses that try to give real life to the Smith commission proposals will not even be discussed this evening. They would give Scottish local authorities the general power of competence already enjoyed by English local authorities. They also refer to subsidiarity and to devolving power genuinely not just to the Scottish Parliament—of which I am one of the biggest supporters—but to Scottish local government. The new clauses would actually allow local government in Scotland to be constitutionally defined so that no one, either in this place or in the Scottish Parliament, could ever take away the rights and liberties of Scottish local government.
It is a flaw in our legislative process when we are not even allowed to debate those very important issues in our own Parliament. They have not even been dismissed. I very much hope that colleagues in the other place will note that those issues have not had a hearing. I think that many people—democrats from all parties—who were excited about the possibilities of what arose from the referendum and the Smith process will feel that this House has cheated them out of a proper debate on some of the wider issues of devolution.
This is going to happen again on another day, when the English version of devolution will be debased and devalued by a mere rearranging of the EVEL deckchairs in the House of Commons. I think people will live to regret that day, too.
Mr Allen
Yes, but I think 6% of the United Kingdom electorate voted for the SNP, so if we get into statistical battles—[Interruption.] We are in the federal Parliament now. Those who get annoyed must understand that this is not Holyrood and MPs are not entitled to do to local government in nations outside Scotland what has been done to local government inside Scotland. That writ, where what the SNP says goes and we must do, does not extend to the federal Parliament. So I would say to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey that in the rough and tumble of debate on the Union, there is a fundamental question. Some people wish to have devolution and some people wish to separate—I regard that not as pejorative but as accurate—and those debates must be heard here, even if the electoral system has handed a large number of seats to one particular party. It is a matter of respecting the views of everyone else. If that is done, that party might be able to claim that it represents the people of Scotland. But it cannot claim to be the exclusive voice of Scotland when so many people did not vote for that party and, of course, a large majority rejected the fundamental platform on which the SNP stands—separation from the Union.
Wayne David
We have heard a great deal about the fact there are 56 SNP Members. We are debating the Scotland Bill, so where are they? There are fewer than a dozen SNP Members in the Chamber. So much for being the voice of Scotland! [Interruption.]
Scotland Bill
Debate between Wayne David and Graham Allen(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Wayne David
I rise to speak to amendments 39, 4 and 41 on the Sewel convention. As Members will know, the convention is quite well established. In the debate on the Scotland Bill in 1998, Lord Sewel, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Scottish Office, said that
“we would expect a convention to be established that Westminster would not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters in Scotland without the consent of the Scottish parliament.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 21 July 1998; Vol. 592, c. 791.]
That was accepted, and the Sewel convention became a reality.
As the Law Society of Scotland has said, it is true that since the enactment of that Bill there is agreement that the convention has been successful, and it has been adhered to by successive Parliaments. The Smith commission gave a firm commitment:
“The Sewel Convention will be put on a statutory footing.”
That was a clear and unambiguous statement. On the face of it, the Government’s draft legislation honoured the commitment that had been given, but I suggest that there are weaknesses in what the Government have proposed in this Bill.
I want to refer to the excellent work done by the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. It has been pointed out that the Sewel convention has been distilled in the Government’s interpretation of it. Clause 2 refers only to the convention’s applicability in respect of devolved matters, and the convention also applies to legislation affecting the competences of the devolved institutions. We are concerned that, in some ways, what has happened in practice is not quite recognised in the Bill.
We are also concerned about the way in which the convention is to be placed on a statutory footing. Students of British constitutional history will recognise that, according to Dicey’s principle, this British Parliament has ultimate sovereignty. Such a statutory footing recognises that constitutional reality, but does not challenge it or take it forward in any way whatever. That is somewhat unfortunate and certainly worthy of debate. The statutory footing, in reality, does not count for anything because what we have is essentially a summation of the Sewel convention that is little more than a political statement. Indeed, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee quoted academics as saying that the clause was “legally vacuous” and
“like a bowl of jelly”.
We should be concerned about that.
It is noteworthy that the House of Lords Constitution Committee, which is highly regarded by many people, said, in its rather more sedate way, that
“it can be said that the new provision will recognise the existence of the Sewel convention rather than turn it into a legally binding principle.”
That is an extremely important phrase. Although those of us who are committed firmly to the Sewel principle recognise that there is no challenge to the convention, who knows what will happen in the future? That is why it should be legally binding, not just on this Government, but on all future Governments of any political complexion. Those issues need to be aired fully in considering the Sewel convention, because they are important and fundamental to the Bill.
Mr Graham Allen
This is not some constitutional nicety; it is about the circumstances in which the UK Parliament is allowed to legislate on a matter that is covered by the convention, without the consent of the Scottish Parliament. I hope that my hon. Friend will press the Secretary of State very hard on this matter. The Secretary of State might want to take it away and look at the wording. As my Political and Constitutional Reform Committee said:
“The presence of the word ‘normally’ in the Convention is clearly problematic when it comes to giving it the force of a statute, and we recommend that this be addressed in any redraft of the clause.”
As well as pressing the Secretary of State on this matter now, perhaps my hon. Friend will return to it on Report so that we can all be satisfied that the Scottish Parliament’s sovereignty is not in question.
Wayne David
My hon. Friend has put his finger on another important issue that was considered carefully by his Committee. When the word “normally” is used, I ask, “How long is a piece of string?” It is legally imprecise, which is a cause for concern. That reinforces my earlier point.
The Secretary of State gave evidence to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, but I suspect that his response was not wholly acceptable to its members. I therefore hope that he has refined his response and will give more robust answers to the questions that I have put to him. We wait with interest to hear what he has to say.
Finally, new clause 5, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), refers to the application of the Human Rights Act 1998 to Scotland. It is extremely important constitutionally that devolution has, to a large extent, been underpinned by human rights legislation, in particular the 1998 Act. That is certainly the case as far as Wales is concerned, it is extremely important as far as Northern Ireland is concerned, and it has an important bearing as far as Scotland is concerned.
In the past few years, the Scottish Parliament has taken a number of initiatives with regard to human rights. I commend those initiatives. It is easy to take them forward in Scotland because it has a different legal system from England and Wales. The Scottish Human Rights Commission has published “Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights”. Whatever one’s political allegiance, those positive measures should be welcomed.
I would not like to see any piece of legislation that does not take those measures into account or that does not fully take into account how devolution in Scotland rests firmly on the principle of extensive and liberal human rights. I hope that the Committee agrees with the Opposition on that point. If any action is taken against the Human Rights Act by this Government, whatever form it takes, there should first be the express consent of the Scottish Parliament.
Mr Graham Allen
It is a pleasure to speak on this group of amendments. I will speak not about the Sewel convention, because that clause should be put right in a relatively straightforward way by the Secretary of State, but about the implications for the Human Rights Act 1998 of what we are considering.
New clause 5 would ensure that, were the Human Rights Act abolished, renewed, revived or changed by this place in whatever shape or form, the Scottish Parliament would be able to maintain the Act, as it would like to do. That is a principle of devolution that I would like to be applied to England, Wales and Northern Ireland within an overarching federal settlement, so that we can be sure that fundamental human rights are close to the people and cannot be dispensed with on the whim of a federal Parliament.
Whenever I talk about these things, people say, “Here we go again—dry constitutionalism”, so I want to say a little about this dry constitutionalism. This is all about defending the victims of crime, those who have disabilities, women who are facing sexual and domestic violence, and the victims of child trafficking. It is about fundamental human rights.
The rights that are listed were not written by some recent bureaucrat in the Commission in Brussels, but by an eminent group of Conservatives led by David Maxwell Fyfe, a former Conservative Home Secretary and, I think, a boss of the intelligence services, so no woolly liberal radical he. Having been affected by the appalling suffering of the second world war, he pulled together the European convention on human rights. I cannot commend him highly enough. It was drawn up not by Mr Delors or the current President of the European Commission, but in response to the plight of refugees and the torture and inhumanity of the second world war. David Maxwell Fyfe and a number of British civil servants drafted these human rights, which have been adopted across the European Union. The rights also arose out of the United Nations charter.
The rights that are listed include things that we take for granted: the right to life, liberty and security of person; the right to a fair trial; protection from torture and ill treatment; freedom of thought, conscience, religion, speech and assembly; the right to marry; the right to free elections; the right to fair access to the country’s education system; and the right not to be discriminated against.
There are many arguments about how the convention is enforced and used across the European Union, and about our interaction with the continental courts system. Is it perfect? Of course it is not. However, we should not dispense easily with something that has had a good 60 or 65 years’ service, and that has allowed people in this country who were struggling for their rights to pursue their cases, defeat the domestic courts and have things overturned in their favour. I do not want to use this just as a prelude to the arguments we will have on human rights later, but I will certainly do my best, if Mr Crausby is not listening too intently, to make sure we have a proper debate.
Scotland Bill
Debate between Wayne David and Graham Allen(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Wayne David
I think that it is important to recognise that meaningful constitutional change will require all sections of this House to unite wherever possible. I urge my SNP colleagues to recognise that this is not just a constitutional norm, but a way to make practical progress. I urge the hon. Gentleman to be gracious and generous in his comments, and perhaps we can have a discussion outside the House as well as in the Chamber.
When we consider this Bill in Committee, after discussions outside the Chamber as well as inside, it is important to take into account the work that the Scottish Parliament has been doing in this regard. I have been taking particular note of the Scottish Parliament’s Devolution (Further Powers) Committee and the work of the House of Lords, which was mentioned earlier. It is also important that we refer to the work that has already been done by the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. It is a great shame that the Government wish to do away with that Committee at a very crucial time.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend for his generous remarks about the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee and the excellent job that it did on pre-legislative scrutiny of the Smith commission proposals. On the excellent list of devolved powers that are going to Scotland, is there anything in the water in Northern Ireland, Wales or England that would prevent us from having a similar list of powers should those nations within the Union feel that that was appropriate?
Wayne David
I thought that my hon. Friend might respond to the generous but accurate remarks that I made about him and his Committee. I hope that other Committees of the House will be able, in one way or another, to take forward the effective work that his Committee has done. We are naturally focusing on Scottish devolution, but devolution is a process that must encompass, in different ways, all parts of the United Kingdom. It is a principle that is in tune with the demands of the age. Devolution is undoubtedly the way forward for Scotland. It was Labour’s Keir Hardie, a Scotsman who represented a Welsh seat—he was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Nick Thomas-Symonds)—who pioneered devolution, it was Labour that created the Scottish Parliament, and it is Labour that really wants to take devolution forward within the context of the United Kingdom and is determined to press for it, in different ways, for the whole of the UK.
First, to consider how devolution can be developed most effectively and appropriately for different parts of the United Kingdom, we need a constitutional convention, for which Labour has argued for some time. Such a convention would look at not only devolution but the interface between those sets of constitutional changes and the other consequential changes that need to be made so that we can have a modern democracy fit for purpose.
Where decentralisation has not yet come about, people throughout the country want it, and they are right. Devolution is necessary if we are to meet the challenges we face in the modern world. In the 21st century, decision making needs to be as close to the people we represent as possible. Local, regional, Scottish, English, Welsh and Northern Irish decision making needs to be at a level that is effective, that can engage with people, and that reinforces all our people’s diverse senses of identity. On that basis, we give our support to the Second Reading of this Bill so that this House, in Committee, will have a chance to make it much better and much stronger.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Wayne David and Graham Allen(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Wayne David
I am not here to answer for the Electoral Commission. Its emphasis has been on identifying the problem, and it is up to us as politicians to identify the solution.
Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)
I hope my hon. Friend does not dispense with that point too quickly. If we are in the business of accepting the views of the Electoral Commission—in light of comments made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), I feel we could accept one or two of its views—perhaps we should accept its views on virtually every other paragraph in the Bill, which, almost to a clause, have been disparaged in the most polite civil service language by the Electoral Commission. If the hon. Gentleman is in the position to make such an offer, I think my hon. Friend should negotiate and get a good deal.
Wayne David
That is a telling intervention from the Chair of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and to return to a point I made earlier, it is sad and unfortunate that the Electoral Commission, like everyone else, was not consulted about the Bill. That makes for bad legislation and poor electoral administration, which is worrying.
Wayne David
The honest answer is that I do not know. I asked the Electoral Commission if it would like to elaborate on its submission, and perhaps the Chair of the Select Committee can help in that respect.
Mr Allen
Just by chance, the Electoral Commission came to the House yesterday and offered its services, knowledge and advice to all Members. I am delighted to say that the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon) was present. I believe that the EC said it had 12 people—I will stand corrected if I am wrong. Although they have not been consulted, they will be required to police the provisions in the clauses that relate to freedom of speech. They may be required to act between contending parties. Let us imagine that there is a bit of a bust-up between the League Against Cruel Sports and the Countryside Alliance in the constituency of the Leader of the House—if he were to get wind of such a thing he would of course report it to the Electoral Commission. Presumably, the EC would have to get some big lads—I do not know if they have any—to take down the bunting, intervene in the debate and stop the bad things, as defined in the Bill, being done. If that happens, 12 people will not be enough to police even one constituency, so a recruitment campaign might be necessary.
Wayne David
I thank my hon. Friend for his informed comments. I am sure Members will appreciate that in the past few days my mind has been elsewhere, but he makes a valid point.
I refer Members to the Electoral Commission’s written evidence:
“The regulatory burden created by the Bill is likely to be significant. The Impact Assessment states that the estimated cost of compliance with the Bill changes for registered campaigners will be in the range from zero to £800. This assumes among other things that campaigners will need two hours to become familiar with the new definition of regulated activity since it is ‘a relatively clear and simple requirement’—
the Government are tabling an amendment on this, which might change things slightly—
“and that a day of additional information recording will suffice to deal with the new requirement. On the basis of our experience of the effort that campaigners need to make to comply with the current rules, and of our discussions with organisations that may be affected by the new rules, we do not think these estimates are credible.”
That is strong language. The Electoral Commission recognises that it will have a huge new burden, and that there will be a huge new burden on voluntary organisations, charities and campaigning organisations. To say that the estimates are not credible is a strong use of language: it does not say that they are underestimates or not correctly thought through, but that they are not credible. It worries me that the governmental body, the impartial organisation charged with the implementation of the Bill, says that the Government’s estimates of the costs and burdens on voluntary organisations are not credible. In the interests of democracy, the Government need to swallow their pride and recognise that more work needs to be done. That is what new clause 3 seeks to do.
The Electoral Commission’s written evidence goes on to state:
“The Impact Assessment also estimates that the changes to registration thresholds will lead to between zero and 30 additional campaigners needing to register in 2015 compared to 2010. It is difficult to estimate the likely level of additional registration…but again this appears likely to be a severe under-estimate on the basis of our recent discussions with campaigners.”
Not only is there a lack of credibility, there is now a severe underestimate.
The uncertainty and the burdens the Bill will place on campaigners could be mitigated by recasting the definitions of what is covered, and the Government are making some—only some—attempts to do that. That is not a straightforward process, however, and the complexity of the situation is, if anything, being made worse and the legal uncertainty greater. It will require careful testing for those potentially affected by the definitions.
The shame of the Bill is this: many of us suspect that the level of burden and complexity will be such a disincentive for campaigning organisations that they simply will not bother. If campaigning organisations absent themselves from the democratic process, democracy will be the loser. In the run-up to all elections—in devolved elections, as well as general elections—civil society increasingly plays a positive role in asking candidates where they stand, putting political parties on the spot, asking the difficult questions that us politicians sometimes do not want to answer and raising issues that the general public might not have thought of.
Wayne David
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point and refers to the Senghenydd disaster, in my constituency, of October 1913. I will not speak at length about it, but the point is that historically all civil society organisations have been able to campaign on issues of concern to them and their members, and today’s health and safety legislation came about through the active campaigning by men and women in places of work. As a direct consequence of what happened in Senghenydd in 1901, when 81 men lost their lives, legislation was introduced, but unfortunately it was not implemented by the coalers and so there was another horrific explosion in the same colliery a few years later, when 439 men and boys lost their lives. Of course, things have improved enormously since those days, but the point is that many great social advances come about not because politicians decide in an ivory tower that something is good for people, but because in a democracy people have the ability and wherewithal to campaign for measures that will improve their and their communities’ lives. Our fundamental concern about part 2 is that the encumbrances created are so great that a raft of civil society organisations might think that things are far too complicated and onerous for them to bother to engage in the democratic process.
Mr Allen
It is arguable that the Labour party itself would not have been created had these measures been in place. It is the only party created outside Parliament, rather than as the product of splits among those already in Parliament. It was created by people who we might say today were part of the big society. The Labour Representation Committee—a joint committee of the kind covered by the Bill—created a new political party in order to do certain things in Parliament, and I would speculate that while legislation in the 1900s made the birth, funding and advancement of the Labour party incredibly difficult, even with the help of our good friends in the Liberal party—perhaps we could reinvent that pact in the near future—this Bill would have made its creation impossible. We should take that into account, in view of the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis).
Wayne David
I am sure that my hon. Friend makes a good point—and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon, who is a professional historian, is smiling and probably agrees. It is not just about the Labour party, however; other parties have been formed recently as well, and who knows what the future holds? The point is that society has changed. The Labour party might have been the precursor to a new kind of politics in this country, but increasingly we are seeing politics from the bottom up, rather than the top down, which is to be encouraged in society.
I do not want to stray from the point, Mr Speaker, and talk about the nature of democracy. [Interruption.] You are nodding that I should, Mr Speaker. In this day and age, it is of fundamental importance that democracy should not be seen as something involving just the highest echelons of society or handed down on a plate for consumers to accept or reject. Politics is about the creation of a healthy democratic society, which is why the involvement of the third sector is fundamental to the health of modern Britain. We hope—we have seen it in Northern Ireland—that this can be a permanent, developing and organic future for British democracy.
I am about to resume my seat, but I will first refer to human rights. It is my understanding that the Joint Committee on Human Rights, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon is the Chair, is considering the human rights implications of the Bill, and its report will be concluded in time to be properly considered when the Bill goes to the other place. When talking about democratic engagement, we are talking about human rights in the broader sense of the term. A number of people have drawn my attention to the severe reservations of people who rightly believe in the importance of human rights and who think that the Bill might infringe the human rights of many people in the third sector, which is another reason we are making our case so strongly. For goodness’ sake, let us pause and properly assess all the Bill’s ramifications and implications, and let us do it before it is implemented.
Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill
Debate between Wayne David and Graham Allen(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
What a mess! In 12 years in this House I have never seen such an incoherent, poorly thought out, badly drafted Bill. The whole Bill is confused and contradictory, but I have to say that part 2 is woeful.
In this group of amendments to clause 26, we see a wide range of concerns that highlight the genuine breadth of concern with the proposed legislation. Let me remind the Committee that the Bill has had no pre-legislative scrutiny and that there was no attempt by the Government to consult the many organisations that will be affected. There was no prior consultation with the devolved institutions or even the Electoral Commission, which will have the unenviable task of ensuring that the Bill is implemented properly. Like the Electoral Commission, we believe there is a need to review and update the UK’s party and election finance laws. The Electoral Commission has made 50 proposals for change, but have the Government had any dialogue with the commission? The answer is no. They have simply pulled out of a hat these half-baked, ill-thought-out proposals.
Mr Allen
We have just heard that the Government will bring forward new wording on clause 26. It would be helpful if my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) encouraged the Minister to get to his feet and tell us whether he will do this time what he failed to do the last time, which is consult those affected before the wording is put before the House. Will my hon. Friend also allow us to correct the misapprehension, I am sure, of the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who said that the NCVO is now satisfied with the discussion it had on Saturday. If he reads the briefing that has been sent to Members today, he will realise that that is far from its position. It still has many anxieties regarding clause 26, let alone the even more important clause 27, which we will come to shortly.
The Temporary Chair (Jim Sheridan)
Order. May I say that interventions are becoming somewhat long? To make sure that every Member is accommodated, I will cut the length of interventions.
Wayne David
My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Not only is the Bill a burden on individual organisations, it is a burden on them collectively. When organisations co-operate and co-ordinate their plans, the total spending of those organisations would count against the individual spending limit of each organisation. I have heard the Minister chuntering that that is already the case. It is not. The Bill seeks to modify, reinforce and extend what is currently the case and new clause 6 seeks to simplify reporting arrangements to the Electoral Commission. I hope that when the Government look at redefinitions, they also look at other aspects of the Bill such as this.
I want to give one further example of the incoherence of the Bill. Clause 26(6) says that if a person is charged with an offence of making an unauthorised expenditure, they will be able to defend themselves by referring to a code of practice issued by the Electoral Commission. Fair enough. That code of practice will be issued under paragraph 3(2) of schedule 3. But the Electoral Commission, of course, has not produced a code of practice. Indeed, as I said, the Electoral Commission has not even been consulted. Can you believe it? Talk about putting the cart before the horse. We are debating a Bill that, in part, has not even been drafted, let alone consulted on.
This is an inhibiting piece of legislation. It seeks to restrict and curtail civil society or, if hon. Members prefer, the big society. Its impact will be felt especially in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Mr Allen
The Electoral Commission is a very well-respected, impartial and apolitical body. It was not consulted about the Bill until very close to publication. The Bill contains a number of items that change the terms of reference of the Electoral Commission. It was not consulted about those changes. The Bill makes a group of respected civil servants, in a sense, responsible for policing the measure—perhaps by going in and tearing down bunting and signs, or arresting people who are breaking the provisions. The commission is deeply uncomfortable with being given this role.
Wayne David
My hon. Friend, the Chair of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform, makes a very good point. His specific points relate to a later part of the Bill but it is important, in this context, to reinforce what he has said. New powers are being bestowed on the Electoral Commission that it does not want because they will allow the commission to become judge and jury on a whole range of difficult and complex areas without a clear piece of legislation to rest on. Its concern is that it will be sucked into a legalistic quagmire, which is bad for electoral politics generally in this country. This is a recipe for chaos.
Amendments 168, 169 and 171, and my new clause 9, focus on the problems and uncertainty that the Bill creates in the devolved regions and nations. It has been said that the interface between this Bill and the currently existing rules is not straightforward. In essence, I would suggest that three things appear to be clear; the Minister can correct me if my interpretation is wrong. First, it is clear that clause 26 and schedule 3 will apply to all devolved elections, as well as to general elections. Secondly, it is clear that clause 31, which focuses on the registration procedures of the Electoral Commission, will also apply to devolved elections. Thirdly, it is clear that clause 27, with new registration thresholds, will also apply to devolved elections.
However, other aspects of the Bill, which I have not mentioned, will not apply to devolved elections. The application of the Bill to devolved elections is important because the conflict between the different aspects of the legislation will create enormous difficulties in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those issues are particularly important in those countries because the third sector plays a far greater role in the devolved institutions than it does in England. That is particularly so in Northern Ireland, where the impact will be greatest of all. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to be the president of the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services—I hasten to add that I am in receipt of no remuneration for that honorary position. I know that the relationship of the voluntary youth sector in Wales with the Welsh Assembly is healthy and positive. This Bill makes that relationship more difficult, yet there has been no consultation with any of the devolved Administrations.
Wayne David
I agree with the argument being elaborated by the Chair of the Select Committee. The Electoral Commission says it finds it difficult to understand the rationale behind the Government’s proposed changes. On clause 27, has my hon. Friend discovered the Government’s rationale for arguing for a reduction in the thresholds for third sector organisations so that many more are caught?
Mr Allen
I am afraid I must give the third negative reply in a row: we have not discovered that rationale, but the search goes on and I am determined that before the end of this process—before Her Majesty signs this Bill into law—we will have discovered it. Until then, it is the job of all of us across the House to try to make this Bill less hurtful, harmful and oppressive to the charities that we all care about. A small step has been taken today, which gives great cause for optimism, as does the fact that the Minister accepted an amendment from my Committee last night and even adopted it as the Government’s own. I was very grateful for that. It shows we can move forward.
We are engaged in an incremental process, and Parliament has an important role to play in it.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Debate between Wayne David and Graham Allen(12 years, 5 months ago)
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Mr Allen
The penalty is not the first but the last resort. People can do a range of administrative things, including visits, letters and calls, which hon. Members use within political parties to get people out to vote, before a fine is levied. The penalty will enable people to register. It would not be fixed in the sense that a bureaucrat will say, “I see Mrs Smith hasn’t registered. Send her a £500 fine.” It will be the last in a very long chain of events.
Wayne David
My hon. Friend makes the point extremely well. He mentions in passing his proposal for a £500 fine. The official Opposition are proposing a £100 fine. Both probing amendments were tabled because we are disappointed that the Government, despite the encouragement we have given them, have not proposed a figure for the fine. We are told that the figure will be in regulations in the not-too-distant future.
As I have mentioned regulations, Mr Weir, may I make a point in passing? The Minister referred a number of times to the draft regulations placed in the Library last Monday. I went to the Library after our debate last Monday and was told that the regulations were placed there at 4.1 pm, or 22 minutes before the debate began. As he well knows, it is impossible for any reasonable person to discuss such regulations with such access. In addition, the existence of the draft regulations is more theoretical than real—only two appeared, when the others would have been directly relevant to the debate. We must wait for the publication of the other draft regulations, but the communication placed in the Library was clear that there are no draft regulations in six important areas.
Mr Allen
The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr Shepherd) spoke of affronts to liberty, but does my hon. Friend agree that it is an affront to liberty that Ministers can set the level of the fine by diktat outwith the processes of the House? All Governments have introduced such provisions—I am not making a partisan point—but we should take that power by amending the Bill this evening. All hon. Members would understand that, and the Government would have the ability to adjust the fine over the years, because of inflation or because a different view is taken of the offence.
Wayne David
My hon. Friend makes his point very clearly. That is precisely what we would have liked: full parliamentary scrutiny, with the figure having been presented to us in the Bill or at least in regulations that we could have considered in parallel. In fact, we put that request to the Government months ago, so I am disappointed—not from a partisan point of view but in the interest of scrutiny and democracy—that it has not been possible. There are several gems in the regulations. I do not want to digress, but there is a reference to “agile methodology”. That is a new one on me. Perhaps the Minister could write to me about what it means with regard to verification.
Mr Allen
First, may I name-check another member of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), for her attendance and contribution? She made an epic contribution, and she was extremely helpful to me when I was indisposed, in making sure the Committee carried out its scrutiny duties effectively. Secondly, may I give credit to the Government, as they have moved on this issue? At the outset, there was not to be any fine whatever, and it takes courage, and some cost, to listen, and the Government should be commended in this Chamber and outside it for having done so. There is more to do, of course, but we are now in a position from where we can move forward.
There were a couple of references in the debate to Robert Caro’s mammoth biography of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who, from a very difficult position, became the leading promoter of civil rights, including civil rights legislation. At the beginning of those enormous volumes, the scene is set by a black woman in the south seeking to get registered to vote. We need to remember, particularly in discussing registration and clause 5, that she was prohibited from participating in the democracy of the United States not by being prevented from voting, but because she could not even register in order then to participate in the voting process. That is why this clause is important, and why I hope the Minister will listen to the arguments that have been made tonight. In order to ensure that he listens even more carefully than he normally does, I will withdraw my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Schedule 3 agreed to.
Schedule 5
Transitional provision to do with Part 1
Wayne David
I beg to move amendment 21, in schedule 5, page 27, line 21, at end insert—
‘(6) The Government shall report to Parliament annually within two months of the end of the financial year on what money had been made available to local authorities to meet costs of transition to the new register and what safeguards have been put in place to make sure the money has been spent on the specified task.’.
I will refer specifically to the amendment and then more generally to schedule 5. On the financing of individual electoral registration, our concern is whether sufficient finance is being provided. The explanatory notes that accompany the Bill indicate that:
“A total of £108m was allocated at the Spending Review in 2010…This includes £85m resource funding in 2014/15 to fund registration officers to make contact with each potential elector individually”
who hopes to be on the register.
The petitioners of individual electoral registration and those who work in the field have concerns. I cite in particular the comments of the chief executive of the Association of Electoral Administrators, Mr John Turner. I know there has been discussion between the Government and the association, which I welcome. However, Mr Turner made the following important point in his written evidence to the Select Committee:
“It is our view that the successful implementation of the new system will depend on the relevant funding going directly”—
I emphasise the word “directly”—
“to electoral services.”
This is critical. He continues:
“Any funding needs to continue post 2015 and should not simply be seen as one-off capital funding.”
Our concern is essentially in line with his comments. We are worried, for example, that there will be insufficient resources to provide electoral registration officers with the necessary new guidance and training, particularly in respect of data management. We recognise that it will be necessary to enhance the skills and knowledge base of officers, and we are concerned that money is not provided for that. In other words, a comprehensive training re-vamp is needed, along with a comprehensive skills analysis, in order to inform the appropriate provision of training and support for electoral administrators.
In addition, there is also the fear, as I said, that the money allocated by the Government will not eventually get through to where it is needed. We have tabled this amendment because, ideally, we would like these resources to be ring-fenced, so that the whole transition period and the implementation of a new system is properly financed with money that is guaranteed. The only way that electoral registration officers can plan effectively and do what is necessary is if they know exactly how much money is coming through.