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Mr. Robert McCartney (North Down): Recently, I was the senior counsel for the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Dr. Hendron) when he was faced with an electoral petition, and I therefore had cause to peruse in great detail the electoral provisions as they then stood. I can endorse entirely everything that the hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) has just said.
It is not just a question of it being difficult for a layman: I can assure the House that, for a senior counsel of20 years' standing, the problems then presented by the representation of the people legislation were immense. Now that this new batch of legislation has been added, those problems will be far beyond the ken of any layman, and will strain the resources of many trained lawyers.
Mr. Ross:
We have just heard one of the most eminent barristers in Northern Ireland--a man who has acted in the courts on this very issue--explaining how difficult it is for lawyers. I would say to the hon. and learned Member for North Down (Mr. McCartney)--meaning no harm to his general profession--that the only defence that any defendant in such a case could have now is the fact that he is not a lawyer. He might plead ignorance, which, although it is no real defence, might make the judge look more kindly upon him.
No civil servants--either from the Home Office or the Northern Ireland Office--were present at the Committee last night to answer questions, and the Committee did not
take kindly to that. I hope that the House will realise that the Committee members were in some difficulty, because we knew that the legislation was necessary, and that the elections could not be held without it.
We therefore adopted the device of publishing immediately an extract from the Committee's 18th report, which sets out our opinion. This has been available in the Vote Office today. The Committee members point out in the extract their regret that a full text of this legislation has not been published so that people could see the whole electoral law for this election set out in a single and cohesive structure. Even at this late stage, the Government should go down that road.
The Committee says in its paper that it does not wish to draw the attention of both Houses to the instrument. But the object of having the paper in the Vote Office is to draw the attention of this House and the other place to the failings that we find in the legislation. I therefore hope that the Minister will take on board the views of the Committee, and no doubt we will hear more about this later.
As an annexe to the paper, the Northern Ireland Office memorandum of 26 April has been published. It is labelled in the paper in the Vote Office as a memorandum from the Home Office, but that is a humbug that we are prepared to put up with in this place sometimes to give information to hon. Members and to the world outside.
The Committee's view was that there should be a full text for the benefit of those who have to operate within the legislative framework created by the original legislation, as modified by the order. That is not so much a view as a vital necessity if we are to avoid the possible consequences of getting the whole process wrong.
Even when the order has been sorted out, the problems will not be over. The timetable for elections is always tight, even in an election where the rules have long been in existence and are well understood by those participating in and organising it, and by the lawyers who usually deal with any thorny problems that come up. But on this occasion, we do not have that advantage of time.
This stuff appeared only within the last few days. We simply do not know what will be acceptable. If we wind up in the courts, we could find, far too late, that a whole party has been disqualified. People could be chucked out if they get it wrong--I do not think that I am going too far in saying that. That is a possibility. I hope that the Government have taken that on board, or perhaps they are deliberately refusing to do so. This is a serious matter.
We also have all the hullabaloo about application forms for postal votes. They are to be available only to the individual applying to a central point. Why should that be so? That has never been the case before. It was possible for someone to go along to the electoral office to get a form for themselves and their neighbours.
The application form is not a postal vote; it is only an application form. It is up to the chief electoral officer for Northern Ireland, formidable man that he is, and his assistants, to determine whether an application is correct and should be granted. It has been the practice to give a number of forms to the parties and the candidates. People should find it easy to vote. Surely it is part and parcel of our democratic standards and procedures that we should not try to make it difficult to vote.
But in Northern Ireland during the past 20 years, there has been the hullabaloo about getting the forms, the problem of identification whenever we arrive at polling stations, and the difficulty sometimes of getting to polling stations because of security arrangements. Voting has been made incredibly difficult for people. It is all right for those of us who run elections and are being elected--we know what we can and cannot do--but the ordinary citizen votes once every four or five years, and, if they are refused a vote because they do not have the correct documentation, they go away and do not come back.
During the Bill's passage last week, I asked the Government to take on board the necessity of keeping a record of the people who were refused a ballot paper, and the reasons for it. I fear that that has not been taken on board. Why are the chief electoral officer and his officials so anxious not to get the facts? This is a matter about which we have complained in this place and in Northern Ireland for years, but no one wants to know.
No one wants to know why fewer people vote in Northern Ireland. The answer is simple, and glaringly obvious. Sometimes it is hard to lay one's hands on the necessary document. Some people do not have any acceptable document.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Sir J. Molyneaux) pointed out this evening that this election takes place at the end of the month. The old-age pensioner will be trotting along with her pension book. If it has no valid payment order, it will not be good enough. That might be the only document that thousands of people have. There will certainly be some who will not have a valid pension book, and that may be the means by which they are denied the right to cast their vote. That is not acceptable. It is about time that the Government got their finger out and found out how many people are refused.
Above all, it is about time that the Government got their finger out and had a single document, such as a proper identity card, with a photograph on it in Northern Ireland. If there was a photograph, even of the standard that one sees on passports and driving licences, it would at least give some idea. Photographic machinery has improved enormously and most of us recognise ourselves even if we are not too pretty. If we had that, everyone would know that they had to take it with them, and everyone would know that, if they presented it, they would be given their ballot paper.
We know that there are those who practise intimidation and others who have been stealing the document known as the medical card, which we were told by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Dr. Hendron) is so easy to forge. All that would disappear. There seems to be no desire to make life difficult for the evildoer, only for the law-abiding.
In his opening remarks, the Minister said that the nominations for candidates would be submitted at different places. He did not make it clear, at least not to me, whether the nominating member from each party had to be present, or whether an agent, the candidates or somebody else could hand in the paper on his behalf. What we have seen so far is not good enough.
Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down):
This is the third time in as many weeks that we have dealt with the election in Northern Ireland. The only motivation driving my party in that respect is the hope that we shall have a full complement at the all-party negotiating table. We knew that an election was unnecessary to enable parties and groups to come to the table, but because of certain requirements and self-imposed obstacles of other parties, we are in this position.
We have an ad hoc position, an ad hoc proposal, ad hoc legislation and now an ad hoc order. Like many hon. Members who have already spoken, I believe that it would be dishonest to pretend that we have had anything other than a superficial look at the document--superficial not only in terms of what is before us, but in terms of what is not before us. As has been said, it would need several constitutional and electoral lawyers to give us any idea about the quagmire in front of us.
It is in that context and with tongue in cheek that I tell the House that I obtained a copy of the order yesterday and tried to pick out one or two things that were perhaps obvious, but I am sure that there are many subversives in it that will not surface until they hit us hard during the election campaign.
I must refer to the order by page numbers because it is difficult to know what section we are talking about. On page 13, there is a reference to section 144(2C) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which deals with the validity of an election. It states:
I am not sure that I understand that. I understand what it says, but I am almost frightened of its implications.
It appears to be saying that, if a nominee of a party in any constituency for some reason transgresses the complexity of this and other legislation--ignorance of the law being no excuse for good or for evil--and he is declared a void delegate, the entire party in that constituency is declared void. His colleagues will be deemed not to be delegates because of his illegal act, even though they have not committed a wrongful act. Is that the right interpretation of the order? It seems to be confirmed in section 157(2B), which states:
The party groupings will be dependent on the absolute integrity and validity of every candidate in every election. This is a huge and complex document and it has huge ramifications. Perhaps the Minister can answer that point in his reply.
I refer to rule 1 and to the timetable. The nomination papers will be submitted to the chief electoral officer--he is required to validate nominations within one hour for other elections. Is rule 1 telling us that, if we allow for
various bank holidays and the like, two days are to elapse before the candidate or series of candidates will know whether they are validly nominated?
The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr. Ross) said that there is some concern about the practicality of the administration of the election and the centralisation of almost everything to the chief electoral officer. There is no hint that the normal devolution of authority will take place through the deputy electoral officer and other officers. It appears to me that the validation of postal applications--as well as the issuing and researching of them--will be centralised. That is totally at variance with our normal practice. It is administratively clumsy and will lead to all sorts of complications and challenges.
Rule 29, on page 20, relates to the information that will be given at polling stations. During consideration of the Northern Ireland (Entry to Negotiations, etc) Bill the Minister said that there would be a simple electoral process for the voter--that he or she simply had to put an X on the ballot paper. He then succumbed to pressure that a lot more information would be required regarding all the candidates and parties, both for the constituencies and for the regional listings. It was decided that the booth, as opposed to the polling station, should contain that information.
Can hon. Members envisage a voter going into a booth--which is usually a small, square box--and having a number of posters around him with up to 135 names on them? Would it not be simpler to have that information in the polling station, in a much more legible form than could possibly be contained in a polling booth? The Minister made the distinction between a booth and a station. I should like that to be clarified. Will he emphasise the party aspect of the electoral process rather than the candidature of the various persons?
I should also like clarification of rule 32, which relates to the candidate and/or his agent having access to the polling stations. Will the Minister explain, in simple terms, how many agents would be appropriate in a constituency, according to the legislation? Would it be one for each party, or one or more for each named person on the party list?
Rule 57 is simple: it refers to the layout of the ballot paper, and the possibility of vertical columns. At this point, however, the mind begins to boggle--the mind, that is, of the straightforward, honest-to-God voter coming in to put an X on the ballot paper. Throughout his voting life, he has been used to reading a list and then putting an X against the name of the appropriate person or place. Now he is to be confronted unexpectedly and, I think, unnecessarily--that is my point--with a columnar ballot paper. That may be all right for the sophisticated, but I do not think that it is all right for many people who make a great effort, and a great sacrifice, to go to the polls and do their best according to their conscience. I ask the Minister to reconsider. Such complexity should not be brought into play, especially in constituencies in which only five or six parties, not 30 or 31, will participate.
"Where the election court determines that the election of a delegate or delegates of a particular party was void but that the election as a whole in the constituency to which the petition relates was not void, the return of delegates under paragraph 14 . . . shall be calculated again and the votes given for that party in that constituency shall be disregarded."
"Where the election court determines that the election of a delegate or delegates of a particular party was void but that the election as a whole in the constituency to which the petition relates was not void, the court shall not order a fresh election."
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