| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Trimble: On that principle, would the hon. Lady accept that on the constituency lists the names of the parties' candidates for those constituencies should appear on the ballot papers?
Miss Hoey: I favour the electorate knowing as much as possible about who will represent them at the end of process. It is a pity that we are not able to do that more. I would be happy for that to happen if it satisfies people, but I expect that the Minister will come up with some reason why it cannot happen.
We are getting more and more away from a system of elections that most people understand. This Parliament should not try to legislate against Northern Ireland parties calling themselves what they want. I hope that the spirit of the amendments will be accepted by the Minister so that the matter will not be decided by the votes of hon. Members who have not listened to the debate--few have been listening--and who will vote as their party tells them. I hope that the Minister will accept that parties represented in the House, which have already gone through the electoral process, stood up for the people of Northern Ireland and been democratically elected, should have the right to call themselves what they wish.
Mr. McNamara:
We are avoiding considering the position of the electors--the people who are being asked to make the choice. It has to be our duty to give the greatest possible amount of information to the individual elector and to seek to avoid confusion. There have been examples in Great Britain of how confusion has been deliberately caused by candidates. There was the famous case in the south-west of England which affected the Liberals.
Our duty must be to do what will most help the electors. In an ordinary election we have first the name of the candidate and then whatever party description he wants, so that people are generally not confused. However, in this particular case we shall have the names of the parties, some of which can be confusing. We have heard the list of six Unionist parties. All those parties could claim parts of the titles of the other parties. Depending on how they regard the British Unionist party, I am sure that the official Unionists would regard themselves as British and part of the British Isles--
Mr. Ken Maginnis (Fermanagh and South Tyrone):
There is no official Unionist party.
Mr. McNamara:
I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I am sure that the Ulster Unionists would object to the use of the word "British" as if it were a description that did not apply to them. I understand that. If we are to help the electorate, we must give them as much information as possible, particularly if we are theoretically electing parties and not candidates.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Miss Hoey) and the leader of the official Unionist party, the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. Trimble), asked correctly why people should not know who is the candidate in their constituency. That was the question that I intended to ask the Minister. If the names are not to appear on the ballot paper, what directions will be given to the electoral registration officer for Northern Ireland to ensure that there is sufficient information in the polling station so that people can be aware who are the candidates for particular parties? The selection of a candidate, especially if he is near the top of the list and may be elected, might be a reason why an elector may not want to vote for a particular party and may switch his vote. He may have a personal thing about the candidate. So it is important that the elector should be given the fullest possible information.
We cannot have the information on the ballot paper, so what will happen in the polling station to ensure that information is brought directly to the attention of the elector in a way agreed by the parties? How will we ensure that the information is not lost in the great mass of close black writing on white paper which people will have to spend hours going through? There is a duty on the Government to take sufficient time and effort to ensure that the individual elector has the fullest possible information.
To return to the point that was originally raised, it should be for the parties to decide the name by which they go. It should not be the decision of the Secretary of State. If sufficient information is readily and easily accessible to the electors at the polling station, in a form which they can easily read, they should be able to distinguish among the names of the candidates which party most meets their needs.
Mr. Ancram:
We have had an interesting and, on occasion, entertaining debate. There has been a large number of broad churches floating around the Chamber--rather more than usual--and some strange alliances have been formed. The question that the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) asked at the end of his speech will arise under amendment No. 43, and I would rather respond to it then than do so out of sequence now.
It is fair to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne who is not in his seat, made a strong case on why a Government should not decide who is a party--"should not license parties" was the phrase he used. The comprehensive nature of the list printed in part II underlines the fact that the Government sought not to prescribe or license parties but to put in legislation, for reasons which I shall come to, as comprehensive a list of potential parties as possible, so that people were not
prevented from putting themselves forward as parties because a Government had decided that they should not do so.
It was in that spirit that, on 1 April, I sent to a number of parties a consultation document. We also published it so that other parties were aware of it. We made it clear that we were trying to meet the sort of problems that my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne has outlined, and to do so in a way that would satisfy the need for parties, in the words of the hon. Member for Vauxhall, to have a say in how they would appear in the legislation, and, as a result--to answer the point made by the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady)--how they would appear in the election documentation and on the ballot papers.
In paragraph 6 of the consultation paper, we said:
I had referred earlier to the process.
That was the rather shorter list. We continued:
As a result of that consultation paper, a number of representations were made to us, some from parties which did not appear in the original list and others from parties which did and wished to have the name altered. Everyone had the chance to respond. We made it clear in the consultation that we required the information by 10 April so that we could proceed to legislate.
The hon. Member for Vauxhall cannot accuse us of nit-picking, when we gave an open and public opportunity to parties to make representations to have the name altered or to be included in the process. Those parties which failed to do so cannot now sit in the Chamber and complain that they were not given that opportunity.
The hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney) took advantage of that opportunity and made representations to us about how he wished his party's name to appear. So I hope that the House will accept that this has been not a surreptitious exercise on the part of the Government but an open exercise, with full consultation and every opportunity for the parties to make representations.
It is true to say that the amendments reveal disquiet in the Committee about our decision to name parties that may participate in the election provided for in the Bill. I use those words advisedly, because all that the schedule does is allow parties to participate. It does not force them to participate. The fact that they are on the list will not mean that they will appear on every ballot paper. It does not mean that we are convinced that they are parties.
As the hon. and learned Member for North Down rightly pointed out, to be a party one has to have more than one candidate. I should be loth to argue that a political organisation that can pull together two or, in this case, up to eight candidates to apply for all the available representation in the forum and negotiations is not a party. So it is right to underline that fact.
We have done it in this way for a simple reason: we have no system of political party registration in the United Kingdom, as the hon. Members who tabled the
amendments know. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) said that that matter should be looked at urgently. However, that is the position at the moment. Therefore, it is not possible to legally define who is a party and who is not a party. On this side of the Irish sea, we have the advantage that we stand as individuals, and whether the Labour party decides to call itself the Labour party or new Labour is not a matter of legal challenge at elections.
When a list system is used, it is important that the names of the parties are securely registered in one form or another before an election takes place. It is simply not possible to say--as does the amendment of the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan)--that all parties should participate in the election, because the word "party" has no basis in law. Our task was to devise a method of getting those who wished to participate on to the ballot paper, if that was their desire.
The hon. Members for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) and for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) asked--I shall paraphrase their amendment--why we could not have provided for a party registration scheme under subordinate legislation. We closely examined that, but we could not introduce such a scheme without risking the close attention of parties that might simply be out to spoil the election.
I wonder what the hon. Members would think if they arrived at the place of registration to register their party and found that they were the sixth person to arrive that morning to register as the DUP. Under United Kingdom law, they would have no more right to that name at that point than any other group of individuals. Of course, the hon. Gentlemen would protest at the hijacking of their label.
The legal advice we received was that we could not have got that matter before the courts and resolved in time for the election. We were told that the poll would go ahead with whatever names had been lodged via the registration process, and there would have been a recipe for potential chaos had we proceeded in that direction. Reference has been made to the Liberal party and its experiences with the Literal Democrats. I should have thought that, rather than sympathising with the amendments, they would see the purpose in operating in the way we have.
A decision was taken to include in the Bill those who may participate. We sought to be as inclusive as possible in this elective process, and we opened up the inclusion procedure to consultation. A number of individual groups responded, and the names that appear on the list under part II are there as a result of the responses.
It is adequate testimony to our desire that the election should be as inclusive as possible that we have accepted those representations and left it to practical reality as to how parties put forward names to decide who are parties in terms of who will stand at the election. The list seeks to set out those who are eligible to be parties if they so wish to proceed.
6.30 pm
"The Government intends that the list in the legislation should be as inclusive as possible of parties likely to be able to attract a significant degree of support, and to contribute to that process".
"Subject to representations, the Government will incorporate in the legislation that is presented to Parliament the list of the parties in the form in which they appear in Annex 1."
"Names of the parties will be set out on ballot papers, and in other election documentation, in precisely the form in which they appear in the legislation."
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |