Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380
- 399)
TUESDAY 23 JUNE 1998
MR DAVID
GARDNER, MR
MIKE PENN,
THE RT
HON THE
LORD PARKINSON
AND MR
CHRIS RENNARD
380. I take the point. I have not got the figures
in front of me, but in 1974, with two very close elections, it
does not quite hold up.
(Lord Parkinson) That is the odd one out, but I think
with two elections in a year people get pretty fed up. They do
if they have an early by-election which they think is caused by
unnecessary reasons. They do not turn out.
381. I will not press you on that particular
point. It is generally accepted, although I am not sure if it
is a matter of political party controversy, that the amount of
political education and, indeed, literacy, is not all that high
in this country. Do you think more could be done, and would political
parties encourage civic education in secondary schools and for
students in higher education? Or do you think the danger would
be political indoctrination?
(Mr Gardner) I think there is a tremendous amount
that could be done in this field. There are some electoral registration
officers that have taken this in their hands and go out to schools
pro-actively and positively—and sometimes go with the candidates
of the parties as well. That needs to be encouraged. At the moment
it is very much down to local initiative. The actual budget to
encourage people to register is something (it is in the Home Office
evidence) like £700,000 a year, which is negligible, and
the budget at election time to inform people about postal voting
is also quite small. There is no national budget to actually encourage
education on voting. I know it is something that the Secretary
of State for Education and Employment is very interested in promoting
and I think there are some examples of good practice around—certainly
there are many examples overseas of good practice. It is something
that does need to be urgently addressed.
382. When you say the Secretary of State is
aware of this, is the Labour Party having an on-going dialogue—if
that is the right description—with the Secretary of State
to see what can be done in schools?
(Mr Gardner) David Blunkett has got a civic education
programme and he has, I think, established a task force on it.
I am not sure of the details, but we are obviously liaising with
him on it.
383. Mr Rennard, would that be your wish?
(Mr Rennard) Yes, we think there should be a civic
education programme. I feel, really, we see the same attitudes
towards it as we had when the school leaving age was 14 or 15
and the voting age was 21. There was such a large gap between
leaving school and voting that there did not seem much point in
it. I think if we are concerned about turnout, we are particularly
concerned about the turnout of young people. Young people tend
not to vote but older people still tend to, and I think that is
a worrying sign for the future. If young people feel disengaged
from the political process, they are less likely, I think, to
respect the institutions and laws of the country than if they
feel they are taking part in it and calling politicians to account.
I think there is a very strong case for improving the quality
of political and civic education in schools, and I am sure that
can be done in such a way that you are not encouraging bias from
teachers to pupils. I am sure that could be done in a satisfactory
way and would educate people about the political process.
384. Lord Parkinson?
(Lord Parkinson) Yes, I think it might help. I could
not help thinking (perhaps it is something to do with my age)
that young people do get older and older people who are turning
out in numbers are the young people who were not voting some years
ago. I think people do value the vote more as they appreciate
the consequences of it, but if you can, through the education
system, bring home to people the importance of voting and the
importance of taking part in a democratic process, I am all in
favour of it. I think it would be marginally helpful but it would
help.
385. You are satisfied that can be done without
any question of accusations being made about political indoctrination
and all the rest?
(Lord Parkinson) I think it could. I think teachers,
in the main, are very responsible people and they educate people
about the system rather than about their own political preferences.
I am sure they would.
386. The last question I put to you is, really,
just a brief comment. Do you think it is undesirable that newspapers
have stopped reporting the proceedings of Parliament—except
for a sketch? Do you think it would help if more people—certainly
readers of the serious newspapers—were able to know what
is going on here?
(Lord Parkinson) I was going to add—thank you
for giving me the opportunity—that I think civic education
and education in schools is like trying to—I cannot think
of a suitable simile. Against the background of cynicism which
is preached about politics and a lack of information about Parliament,
and the BBC being told to find a slot where they can take it out
of the mainstream and tuck it away somewhere, I think that is
creating a river of disillusionment, and civic lessons would be
a very fragile dam to try to erect in the face of that. I think
it is going to be quite hard to counter disillusionment with the
political process which is preached and a lack of information
about the activities in the House by education in schools.
Mr Winnick: You will be pleased to know, Lord
Parkinson, when it comes to the way in which the BBC is treating
Parliament there is all party agreement on that issue that it
is quite disgraceful. The responsibility belongs to those who
run the BBC and not the reporters who try and do their best here.
Chairman
387. It does not belong to this Committee, either.
Mr Gardner.
(Mr Gardner) Just for the record, in relation to the
last question, the DfEE Advisory Group on Teaching Democracy and
Citizenship—which is the group I was referring to—publishes
its report next month, and the speaker is on the Committee. I
think we will see many of these ideas coming out of that group.
Many councils, for example, have established young people's Parliaments,
which go some small way, I think, towards trying to involve young
people in the process. Of course, turnout among young voters at
the last election was only 50 per cent, which is very worrying
indeed. In relation to the media, I think the greater problem
is with not the broadsheet media but the popular media. The academic
evidence will show that readers of broadsheets have much more
of a propensity to vote than the readers of tabloids. I think
there is a responsibility on the publishers of tabloids and, also
,on our broadcasters—particularly local radio stations and
regional television—to ensure that political affairs and
Parliamentary affairs are covered in an attractive and relevant
fashion for their viewers and listeners.
Mr Winnick
388. Do you have a brief comment at all about
the reporting of Parliament?
(Mr Rennard) Yes, I think broadcasting is rather important
than the broadsheet newspapers, as Mr Gardner was just saying.
I do think that the particular way in which the BBC is moving
in this direction may actually be quite healthy in terms of Internet
access and those with Internet access, although that tends, of
course, to be the young and more affluent. The fact that they
are reducing the amount of time in major news programmes for Parliamentary
coverage and, indeed, reducing the accessibility of programmes
like "Today in Parliament" must have an effect in the
long run on people's willingness to participate in the elections
and to choose their representatives.
Ms Hughes
389. Just to follow up on a couple of points,
Chairman, within the overall objective of trying to increase participation
rates, and given that some of the evidence we have had has differentiated,
really, between different groups of people and demonstrated that
in the overall rate there are much lower rates in certain groups
of people—the lower socio-economic people, young people
and ethnic minority groups, or geographical areas—how far
would you think it would be legitimate to have a strategic approach
which adopted particular measures to try and increase participation
amongst certain groups where participation rates were particularly
low? Do you have any suggestions as to those kind of measures?
We have touched on young people and civic education, but what
about people in deprived areas where participation is very low?
What kind of measures could we introduce to excite them about
Parliamentary and local election processes? What about people
from ethnic minorities? Firstly, would it be legitimate and, secondly,
what measures?
(Lord Parkinson) I think we can all agree that the
problem is a problem and there is low turnout, but I think it
would be quite difficult for government to start pinpointing areas
where it started trying to encourage a bigger turnout, because
you would be open to the charge, for example, that in socially
deprived areas it might occur to the Labour Party that they are
likely to get a bigger vote than the Conservatives are. So you
could be luring the government into—
390. If I may interrupt, I am not talking about
government but if there was an entreaty upon whoever assumed responsibility
for, for instance, Registration Officers to increase their registration
rate and participation rate, then they would have to make decisions
strategically about where their efforts need to be targeted and
how, for example.
(Lord Parkinson) Yes, as I said, I think if you start
identifying special socio-economic groups and saying "We
are trying to get those people to vote in larger numbers you could
be influencing the politically process politically. I think we
must not under-estimate the role of the political parties in trying
to encourage their likely supporters to turn out and vote. That
is one of the main jobs of the party machine as is, to try and
get the vote in the areas which support you.
391. You do not think it would be legitimate?
(Lord Parkinson) I would like to see more people participate
but I can see the problem of any sort of statutory or elected
body being charged with spending funds—which it would have
to do—to encourage people in particular socio-economic groups
to use their vote.
392. Not particular socio-economic groups to
use their vote but to adopt some strategies to increase registration
and participation amongst groups where votes are particularly
low. If we take people who are in the lower socio-economic groups,
is that not also part of a wider responsibility, because we see
those people represented more in terms of high unemployment and
in poor health—in other words, in a kind of marginalisation
from many processes in our society? Would it not, therefore, be
legitimate to have an objective of increasing registration and
participation amongst those groups particularly?
(Lord Parkinson) Certainly I would be all in favour
of registration. Anything that smacks of trying to press people
to use their vote in certain areas would, I think, be interfering
in the actual political process, which I do not think civil servants
or local civil servants would wish to do. I would be very much
in favour of trying to increase registration so that people have
the right to vote, even if they do not use it.
393. People from ethnic minority groups, where
these rates are also very low?
(Lord Parkinson) I would be enthusiastic about finding
ways of involving people in the process. As we know, in certain
areas there are suspicions that you are getting involved in some
way with the government if you get on the register. People have
reasons for not wanting to: some people do not want to do jury
service so they do not want to register. But I would be in favour
of getting the optimum number of people on the register and using
measures to do that.
Chairman
394. Do the other two witnesses want to respond
briefly?
(Mr Rennard) I would agree very much with the distinction
between registration and participation in these respects. I think
for a government to be spending government money trying to encourage
particular groups, if they were to do so with the groups they
chose to target, they could be open to accusations of partisan
advantage. In relation to young people and ethnic minorities,
it seems the work done by Rock the Vote at the last General Election
is entirely legitimate for campaigning, but that must be done
by non-governmental organisations to try and encourage participation
rather than the government itself choosing potentially targeted
audiences to their advantage. However, on the registration side,
I mentioned earlier, in particular—and I was not referring
to people who do not speak English at all but people for whom
English is not their first language—that canvassers going
round areas where a lot of people do not have English as their
first language is, really, very important in terms of the compilation
of the electoral register. Therefore I really think we should
be doing everything possible to encourage the right to vote and
to participate in elections, but it will be very difficult for
the government to target areas or groups of people. So we must
get those people to participate.
(Mr Gardner) There is certainly a lot of evidence
in relation to the success of targeting strategies on registration.
If you look back particularly at the work of councils like Leeds,
Liverpool and Plymouth in the late 1980s and early 1990s where
they targeted under registered wards which tended to be inner
city wards with some success, they quite significantly increased
the levels of registration and that is built now into the code
of practice that goes out to electoral registration officers and
I think is accepted on a cross-party basis but not universally
applied. The Conservatives in their evidence draw attention to
the fact that the registration of Westminster, for example, is
the lowest in the country. In terms of voting I think all councils,
all local authorities should be under a duty to try to increase
election turnouts in local elections. I think local government
draws its legitimacy from the level of turnout and the turnouts
therefore last month were particularly disappointing. I accept
the reservations of my colleagues in relation to that needed to
be done very much on a non-party, non-partisan basis « I
think that is extremely important—but I think it is quite
clear that there are measures that can be taken particularly in
relation to promoting voting, all postal voting for instance,
wider access to postal voting and just promoting people's choice
that will have some beneficial impact.
Mr Linton
395. I just wanted to establish more precisely
the attitude of the opposition parties to the problem of low turnout.
Can I take up Lord Parkinson on his comment that our turnout compares
favourably. How does he reconcile that with the fact that, as
I understand the latest figures, it is the second or third lowest
in Europe with 12 million non-voters? Even if you take other elections
in this country at 77 per cent you have still got countries in
Europe that do not have compulsory voting that regularly achieve
88-89 per cent. Surely it is more than just one or two per cent?
(Lord Parkinson) As I say, I think that the vote reflects
the importance that people attach to the institution they are
being asked to vote about. So with the same system you get 40
per cent in local elections and 77 per cent in national elections.
People just do not feel that the local council matters as much
to them as Westminster does and I think the vote reflects the
fact that people in this country perhaps at the moment have been
rather more disillusioned with Parliament. At the last election,
as I say, our research suggests that a large number of Conservatives
were the people that stayed away. I suspect in 1983 it was the
opposite and a large number of Labour voters chose not to vote.
396. I am asking you to compare these with other
European countries.
(Lord Parkinson) First of all, as you mentioned, there
are a lot of European countries that do have compulsory voting
and we compare reasonably I think with the others.
397. Six million here or there.
(Lord Parkinson) Yes, but people do not feel motivated
to vote. We can improve the registration, we can do a whole range
of things, but I do not think if we did it is going to take the
level up to the level of some of the other countries.
398. Can I just ask Mr Rennard specifically
on the question of compulsory voting or compulsory balloting to
give it its more accurate title. You say that you would be against
a system that involved fines on people for not voting. What about
a system that turns it completely the other way round and gives
people a bonus if they do vote? For instance, £5 off the
council tax if you have voted. It rewards people for positive
action rather than punishing them for an omission.
(Mr Rennard) That has not been actively considered
and I need to consult back about our view on that but I think
there is something rather attractive in the idea. Basically polling
evidence suggests that people regard voting as an unpleasant civic
chore, something they would rather not do, and if you gave them
a reward for doing so and it did boost turnout I cannot see there
would be any reasonable objection to that.
(Lord Parkinson) It is to an extent bribing people
with their own money!
(Mr Rennard) The BBC guide to local elections this
year did include an extensive comparison on voting at sub-national
level between European countries and Great Britain and Great Britain
was almost bottom of the list, very very different to other countries,
the distinction partly being in a small number of countries compulsory
voting but by and large being whether or not those countries had
proportional representation or a majority system and where there
was a system of proportional representation voter participation
is very much higher. If you think voter participation is a good
thing to encourage you will no doubt draw your own conclusions.
Mr Winnick
399. You have got no party interest!
(Lord Parkinson) May I just draw the conclusion that
the high turnout we saw in East Germany with proportional representation
means that 16 Nazis are now sitting in the lander. A lot of people
who would not bother to vote in our elections because they are
extremists and know their party is not going to get elected but
think it is worthwhile in a proportional representation system.
Chairman: We are not going down that road for
the moment, interesting though it is. Mr Howarth next on ways
of improving the accuracy of the register.
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