Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 119)
TUESDAY 2 JUNE 1998
PROFESSOR ROBERT
BLACKBURN AND
DR DAVID
BUTLER
100. But you see there is another argument,
and clearly there is a difference of view between the two of you.
Dr Butler in his evidence to us argued the case for increasing
the deposit to a vastly increased number of nominators as needing
consideration. So it is a different emphasis entirely. What would
be your argument to the view that extremist parties are to a large
extent deterred by the fact that they would have to raise a good
deal of money because the chances of keeping their deposit would
be very slim indeed? Is that not desirable from a democratic point
of view?
(Professor Blackburn) I think it is rather dangerous
to be telling people they should be excluded from a democratic
process. As I say in my memorandum: "by obstructing such
groups from participation in the electoral process extremist politics
may be fed by a legitimate sense of grievance and be driven in
the direction of extra-Parliamentary tactics."
101. Where is the evidence for that? If you
take the racist parties, let's be blunt about it, the BNP, National
Front and other gangster outfits, who are to some extent deterred
by the financial aspects, where is the evidence that because that
is so there has been trouble on the streets?
(Professor Blackburn) It is a matter of historical
observation, whether we are talking about the Suffragettes early
this century or environmentalists today taking direct action,
and also political commonsense.
(Dr Butler) Common sense leads me in the direction
that you have got to limit choice. In India they had a ballot
paper with 420 candidates in one constituency where they had a
negligible deposit. Candidates were not serious. They wanted to
get their thugs and goons into election counting and certain other
privileges. A very long ballot paper is inimical to democracy
it seems to me. After all, you get your deposit back if you get
five per cent of the vote. I would not mind if the deposit was
two to three per cent. But something that deters enormous numbers
of people using the electoral process as an advertising gimmick
is desirable. There is a splendid story of a candidate in the
West Midlands who stood in a by-election in the 1950s saying "Don't
vote for me but I can build a house £1,000 cheaper than anybody
else in the West Midlands." The man, I am told, was sent
to prison for false pretences later on but meanwhile he got nearly
ten per cent of the vote, an extraordinarily high vote, and was
using the election as an advertising gimmick. I do not think that
is what we want when we are choosing people who have a serious
chance of becoming representatives.
(Professor Blackburn) At the 1992 General Election
the Green Party fielded 253 candidates which represents a capital
investment of £126,500. Every single candidate lost his or
her deposit by falling below five per cent of the local votes.
Do you think therefore that the Green Party should be penalised
in this way?
(Dr Butler) Yes.
(Professor Blackburn) As a result they virtually bankrupted
themselves and could not stand at the following election.
Chairman
102. Was that when the requirement was five
per cent of the vote?
(Dr Butler) Yes, five per cent
103. I appreciate Professor Blackburn is against
in principle any kind of financial deposit but if we were to reduce
the percentage would that go half way to meeting you?
(Professor Blackburn) Yes and if there was limited
funding of political parties that might have some bearing on this.
But in principle I think that the requirement of having to put
down a lump sum in order to participate in the electoral process
is objectionable.
104. We have established you are against that.
What I am seeking to see is if it was reduced to three or two
per cent whether that would go some way to appeasing you?
(Professor Blackburn) Not really. It would be an improvement
on the status quo but still an unsatisfactory state of affairs.
(Dr Butler) It would not go very far to meeting his
point because in the last Election, if we leave out the Referendum
Party, I think that only about 14 people got between three and
five per cent of the vote, independents, minor party people.
105. Why are you leaving out the Referendum
Party?
(Dr Butler) Because I did not have the figures in
my head frankly. Most of them got less than three per cent. They
would represent a much bigger tranche than we ever had before.
The Referendum Party is a different phenomenon which does raise
questions where if you do get somebody taking a big cause and
there is some money behind them they obviously can make an impact
on the electoral scene in a way we had no serious precedent for
before 1997.
Mr Winnick
106. Of course you yourself Professor Blackburn
point out on page 20 of your memorandum that: "Parliamentary
candidates have rights, privileges and advantages conferred upon
them (such as the right to free postage of election addresses,
the right to free use of publicly maintained buildings for public
meetings . . ." and so on and so forth. So if there is no
manner of deposit they get all these privileges and they can be
totally fringe or racist candidates (unlike the Green Party) and
not be deterred in any way whatsoever.
(Professor Blackburn) I think the state should be
prepared to fund genuinely democratic elections. If there is a
serious candidate who wants to stand for election or wants to
participate in the political discussions that take place at General
Election time then I think the state should be prepared to underwrite
the costs involved. Again I think the answer to the situation
is that you have a requirement for a number of nominations and
if that person has got some level of political backing then that
should replace the requirement for a financial sum.
Chairman
107. What figure would you go for in terms of
number of nominations?
(Professor Blackburn) 200.
Mr Winnick
108. It is easy for anyone to collect 200 signatures
I would point out to you, Professor. You say in order to qualify
that the registration number should be given so someone would
have to find out their registration number. In practice what would
happen is that those collecting the signatures would find out
beforehand the registration number which is public knowledge and
fill it in accordingly and ask the person for their signature.
The person concerned would not have to go to any great homework
in order to get the number.
(Professor Blackburn) Well, it is a better indication
of their political eligibility to stand for election than whether
they can afford to lose £500. No doubt any system you had
would be open to a certain amount of mischievousness.
109. Is £500 such a large sum in this day
and age? If the £150 1918 figure was indexed it would be
over £4,000, as you know.
(Professor Blackburn) Clearly the Green Party would
say it is. If you have a party fielding a wide number of candidates,
yes it is.
Mr Winnick: The only example you can give is
the Green Party. Of course the remedy would lie, would it not,
in the Green Party getting more votes?
Chairman
110. Dr Butler, would Professor Blackburn's
solution of 200 nominations—
(Dr Butler) I have no objection but there are considerable
bureaucratic difficulties about this and the local authority people
would complain if you did. You might say, "Too bad, you will
have to do the checking", but they spend enough time on checking
the nomination papers and their validity and they get cross about
that. They are working flat out at that particular time. My objection
is not the amount of money wasted by Screaming Lord Sutch because
those candidates do not usually use that postage to send out letters.
I think you can make a discrimination between four or five candidate
but making a discrimination between 16 candidates is not so practical.
It is not possible to have joint meetings. The local churches
want to have meetings and they have to play fair and have all
the candidates and it makes the meetings impossible because if
you have too many loony candidates the public is going to get
bored and it just makes the meeting an impossible thing. It seems
to me to have something that clears the decks so that citizens
can chose from serious candidates is a desirable goal. The deposit
is one way of doing it. I would not object to having it done administratively
by signatures. I suspect that 200 might be a little too few to
have an effective screen. To have some way of winnowing the numbers
down to a small number, where fair play can be given to them on
television and in public meetings, is basically a democratically
desirable thing to do.
111. Do you acknowledge the strength of Professor
Blackburn's point about the Green Party?
(Dr Butler) It has obviously got the strongest case
but the Greens could make a break through as they did in the European
elections in 1989 when they trounced the Liberal Democrats in
all but one seat. They were getting 15 per cent of the vote nationally.
I think £500 is not a great deal of money. If you say you
want to take this on, it does not seem very much. I would be quite
happy if it went up to £1,000.
Chairman
112. It is a lot if it is being multiplied by
650.
(Dr Butler) If you cannot raise £500 locally
you have not got the backing. That is £1 from 500 people.
It is not an impossible sum.
113. If you cannot raise 200 signatures locally
you have not got sufficient backing.
(Dr Butler) Signatures are gettable in a slightly
different way. One or two very energetic people can do this. In
America you will get firms who charge so much for collecting signatures.
If you are wanting to put someone to a ballot you go to one of
these firms and they go and collect signatures.
Mr Winnick
114. Though we will not mistake Professor Blackburn's
views, are you in favour of indexing the figure?
(Dr Butler) Yes I am because I think it has been a
nonsense. After all, we had relatively few minor party candidates
in the 1950s. It is only a recent phenomenon that these people
come in in by-elections. There were an extraordinarily large number
of straight fights, absolutely unencumbered straight fights. The
number of candidates has gone up from under 2,000 in the elections
of the 1950s to something over 4,000 in the last General Election.
It has enormously increased. In by elections it has increased
exponentially.
115. Would £800 be a more realistic figure?
I know Professor Blackburn does not agree with that.
(Dr Butler) I would not mind indexing.
116. If one updated the £500 from 1985—
(Dr Butler) I think that gets you to over £1,000.
Chairman: £825.
Mr Winnick: That would be far more desirable
in my view.
Chairman
117. Let's move on: ballot secrecy. It is possible,
is it not, for the state to discover how the people voted?
(Dr Butler) In theory. It has not been done in any
situation as far as I know.
118. That is quite a brave statement.
(Dr Butler) It has not been done as a public fact.
We have not had a scrutiny of votes. You can find out whether
somebody has voted because that is available and it is very useful
for academic research. You can find out from the records whether
people did vote. That is in a sense in the public domain.
119. What I am talking about is if the state
wished to know, and perhaps they do, who voted for Sinn Fein in
Northern Ireland they could discover that, could they not.
(Dr Butler) How?
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