Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500
- 519)
TUESDAY 7 JULY 1998
MR GEORGE
HOWARTH, MRS
GAY CATTO
AND MR
STEVE LIMPKIN
500. Is that your view or the Government's view,
if I may be so bold as to ask you?
(Mr Howarth) Mr Chairman, as you well know, my view
is entirely the same as the Government's.
501. It is a somewhat disappointing answer,
but I work on the basis that governments can be influenced, and
who knows what may happen. As regards education and publicity,
and the rest of it, you said that is more the job of political
parties than the Government's. Can I put it to you that when the
European elections take place next year PR will be used, as obviously
you know because the Home Office pushed that through, and the
list system; is the Home Office intending to undertake any advertising
to explain to people what is involved?
(Mr Howarth) There is no money available in the Home
Office at all for any kind of publicity campaign. If I did mislead
you, I should correct it. I did not, I think,—no, I will
let that pass. There are a number of organisations which are running
campaigns and encouraging support; indeed, a couple of weeks ago,
the Home Secretary himself spoke at the launch of "Get the
Vote Out: Europe 1998", which was organised by the Institute
for Citizenship, and they are running a series of events regionally
in the autumn, and I am personally taking part in one in the North
West of England. I understand that the London Office of the European
Parliament also has a small amount of money available and has
produced a video to encourage people to participate. And we also
hope, to reiterate a point I made earlier, that political parties
and the media will want to play a part in explaining to the electorate
the changes that are taking place and how they will affect people.
The point I did want to correct a moment ago is that what I said
was not that it is a job for the political parties but that they
had a role to play in it, and I think that is self-evidently the
case. If political parties are putting forward their lists in
each region, obviously they will want to use their influence in
the regions to explain to the electorate how those lists will
work, and indeed who their candidates on the list are. So I do
not think it is exclusively the job of the parties. I do accept
that a change of this nature is going to be complex, but there
is a series of organisations and bodies that are doing that, and,
as I think the Committee, from other investigations you have had,
are well aware, the Home Office, their budget is stretched very
tight at the moment.
Mr Winnick: I see. Thank you very much.
Mr Cranston: I just have a couple of points
really, in terms of compulsory voting. I think there is an argument,
in principle, that, as the Home Secretary was saying the other
day, there are obligations as well as rights in our democracy,
and one might well argue, as other countries do, that there is
an obligation to vote; one does not have to actually vote, one
can deface the ballot paper, or whatever, but there are obligations.
I was just going to say as well, earlier, that I was pleased that
you have not ruled out some legislation on referendums, because,
again, in other jurisdictions, there is legislation. There has
been some controversy about the publicity associated with referendums,
and some countries say, well, there should be a dispassionate
case, putting both sides, produced and then available to all households.
I was going to make that point earlier, but there we are.
Chairman: It sounds like a submission of evidence,
to me, Mr Cranston. Mr Linton.
Mr Linton
502. Can I say, Minister, how pleased I am that
the Home Office have set up this Working Party, because I think
we all agree it is an absolutely vital issue and that your own
figures have shown, for instance, that a turnout in our latest
local elections of 40 per cent, and in, I think it is, Danish
local elections, no compulsory voting, not on the same day as
general elections, it is 80 per cent, so, clearly, we have a long
way to make up. But my questions relate specifically to the accuracy
of the register, and they are fairly detailed. The first one is
about a rolling register. I was glad to see that, on the consultation
of local authorities, 151 were in favour and only one was against,
so, clearly, there is a strong ground swell in favour of this;
but do you see any problem in standardising information technology
systems, which is clearly a precondition for this to work? Would
you need legislation to do that, could you do it quickly?
(Mr Howarth) It might be helpful if officials added
to what I am about to say. I think there is a case for greater
co-operation, sharing of information, between electoral registration
officers, and, indeed, they started to issue far more guidance
and seek far more standardisation between what they do, and we
have encouraged that. Whether or not it would be technically feasible,
I suppose it must be, to have one package for the way the register
is compiled, I think basically what you are saying is one computer
system should be totally consistent with another.
503. Absolutely, throughout the country.
(Mr Howarth) Whether or not that would be necessary
to do it legislatively, or whether or not simply that can be achieved
by good practice, I would not like to take a view at this stage.
I do not know whether there is anything you would like to add
to that.
(Mr Limpkin) I think it is fair to say, the position
amongst the electoral registration officers is that they all use
different sets of hardware and different sets of software; because
it is a local authority function, they piggy-back on the back
of their own authority computer systems. We have it clearly in
mind during the summer to look at the question of whether or not
there is advantage to producing a standard data format for the
register; whether that will require all of those pieces of kit
to be replaced with new pieces of kit, both at the hardware and
software level, or whether or not it is possible, as it has been
suggested to me, that programmes can be written which will convert
existing data, is something we will need to look at. And I have
to admit, I am afraid, my understanding of IT systems is very
limited and we depend on our own IT experts for those sorts of
inputs.
504. Surely, it is essential, not only that
everybody has the same system but they are all on a national database?
To take a very simple parallel, political parties over the last
few years have all switched to national membership, so that means
that if you move within the same party from Halifax to Hendon
North a simple, one-key operation on the national computer can
transfer your record from one constituency to another. Surely,
that argument would apply all the more to the electoral register,
where people are constantly moving, and if one can make it a single
computer operation to move a voter from one register to another
then we cut out the problem of waste, of losing people off the
register completely?
(Mr Howarth) Speaking as, some time ago, a local authority
finance chair, I know that each local authority has a slightly
different set-up. I know, my own local authority, in Knowsley,
they have changed it since, I think, but we were with ICL. And,
to amplify the point Mr Limpkin has made, I think it might be
difficult, given that they have all bought into different systems,
to say that we want one standard system right across the range.
For example, things like Housing Benefit, I know it took many,
many years to get one common system right across the country that
could be made to work, because each local authority has its own
different hardware and software packages that complement them,
and I think that is the sort of problem that we would probably
be up against; even though the desirability of it is incontestable,
the practicalities might prove such that they defeat any attempt
of that kind. What I do believe is, I do not know if you want
to go on to this, but I will say it by way of an opener, that
there is a case for national minimum standards which would provide
some measure of standardisation, although you might consider that
to be a separate subject, but if you wish I am quite happy to
move on to that.
505. I do want to come on to national minimum
standards, but, by way of just closing, the question of the latest
date at which you can put your name on the register, because,
presumably, with a system like that, it would be possible for
new names to be put on a register until the closing date of the
nominations; would you agree with that?
(Mr Howarth) It is technically possible, but I think
there has to be a cut-off point prior to that, you literally have
to set a cut-off point somewhere, and there may be practical difficulties,
for example, if the electoral registration staff simply could
not cope with a flood during the last 24 hours. But what we do
accept, and what the Working Party wants to see, is as late as
possible, given all the practical considerations that have to
be taken into account, and that is one of the issues that we have
explored in some detail and will return to, to see if we can find
a solution that is both practical and would enable people the
best possible opportunity. I might say, I am sure we have all
had similar experiences, those of us that have to stand for office,
I did notice, during the last general election, the number of
particularly young people who were surprised not to find themselves
on the register, and also found themselves beyond the date when
they could do anything about it. That, presumably, was mainly
because the head of the household, usually one of their parents,
simply neglected to put them on the form at the appropriate time.
I think we do have to try our best to accommodate people who find
themselves in that position, and whatever their intention want
to be on the register.
506. Can I take you on then to national minimum
standards and ask your views about that, because you referred
earlier to electoral registration being a local authority responsibility,
but surely it is also a Home Office responsibility at a national
level, and is it not important that the Home Office should be
able to impose national minimum standards and some element of
co-ordination between local authorities?
(Mr Howarth) I am personally and, indeed, the Working
Party are taking the view that to have some kind of approach to
national minimum standards is a useful thing to look at, and we
have commissioned a piece of work from Mr Pat Bradley, who is
the Chief Electoral Officer for Northern Ireland, to look precisely
at that point. I think the Committee, Chairman, will understand
that Mr Bradley has been somewhat otherwise preoccupied over the
last few months, but he is going to do that work and we are hoping
that we will get some indication, some early paper from him, over
the course of the summer. It also, I think, needs to be said that
electoral registration officers are, in fact, already adopting
a wide range of fairly good common standards and good practice,
which is building on ONS research and the AEA good practice notes.
There has been work on canvass effectiveness, which we commissioned
between 1987 and 1996, which identified factors that do have an
influence on registration and the effectiveness of canvass methodologies.
There has been ONS research on compiling a register from 1996,
and electoral registration officers have been increasingly adopting
the approaches set out there. They have also produced some `good
practice' notes, which build on the practical experience of their
members, and there is a new edition of that due to be published
later this year. One particularly welcome development has been
the introduction of a Certificate of Electoral Administration,
which is promoting good standards, and, indeed, I was invited,
and was happy to accept the invitation, to present the first of
these Certificates at their Conference in February of this year,
which took place in Plymouth. So there is a great deal to be done
but there is a great deal being done, and, without being complacent,
I am quite heartened by the amount of work that electoral registration
officers are already doing, but we recognise the scope for more.
507. Can I just come on to the question of how
you are going to deal with these two or three million people who
should be on the register and are not, and the two possibilities,
obviously, there; one is, because it is against the law, pursuing
them through the courts for non-registration, and another idea
which has been floated recently is that, like so many other things
in life, rather than fine people, we should give them an incentive
if they do it. For instance, £5 off council tax if you are
registered might be a more effective means of increasing registration
than a £50 fine if you are not?
(Mr Howarth) These are all things that can be looked
at. My own view is that the most immediate priority is to use
the media, political parties, the education system, and any other
means that anybody might sensibly suggest, to make people feel
more inclined to want to register and more inclined to want to
take part in the democratic process. And I think some of the problems
that, frankly, we are confronted with, particularly amongst young
men, the group that is normally mentioned, young men between the
ages of 21 to 26, 27, is something that we are going to have to
address. And whether or not to have electoral registration officers
or local authorities chasing around, using the law, to get people
by legal means to register, it would be a fairly costly process,
and I would personally rather see us invest more time and effort
into the whole process of trying to get people to realise that
they have these obligations, I think it is, on the one hand, rights,
and, on the other hand, responsibilities. I know that sometimes
sounds a bit cliche«d, but in this case I think it is an
absolute perfect fit and some notion that we have got to get across.
At the risk of going on at too much length about this, I do not
want to pretend, however, that that is an easy task. For a period
in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I taught in a further education
college, and the penance that all of us who taught in that particular
medium during that period occasionally had to endure, I do not
know if anybody has read the book by Tom Sharpe "Wilt",
but I had the pleasurable experience of teaching Cammell Laird's
welders Liberal Studies, between 5 o'clock and 7 o'clock on a
Friday afternoon, when, you will understand, Mr Chairman, they
might have had other priorities to occupy their time. And that
experience, delightful though it was, leads me to believe that
there is not necessarily a hungry group of young men out there,
waiting to be told how to vote and how important it is to vote.
So we do have to find innovative ways of getting that message
across.
Chairman
508. Perhaps we should start in the primary
schools rather than wait till they become Cammell Laird welders?
(Mr Howarth) There are none of them left now.
Chairman: If that species still exists, yes.
Mr Corbett: They have done away with the welders.
Mr Linton
509. Talking about innovative ways, what do
you think of the idea of £5 off the council tax if you register
or if you vote?
(Mr Howarth) It is an interesting idea, and one which
I would not want to rule out. On a previous occasion, another
alternative that has been put to me is that registration should
qualify somebody for entry into a lottery across the whole of
the local authority area, which could be a rather large prize
for somebody but a smaller prize for others. I am not entirely
clear that that is in keeping with the rather sombre traditions
of our democracy, but I simply use it to illustrate the fact that
there are a number of ideas about, and I know people are addressing
that. Whether or not a small incentive of the kind which has been
proposed is appropriate, it is certainly something I am willing
to look at, but I would not want to be too firm on either rejecting
or accepting, at this stage.
510. Leaving aside the young men for the moment,
what about the young women who feel, for instance, that they may
have a violent former partner who does not know their address?
There will be all sorts of legitimate reasons why people may be
worried about putting their name on a public register. Do you
agree with the idea of anonymous registration in particular cases?
I see the local authorities have come out strongly in favour of
it; is that something that you feel able to proceed on?
(Mr Howarth) It is not something that at this point
the Working Party, speaking on their behalf, have actually given
any consideration to. I know that certainly is one of the issues
that people are concerned about, and I understand the particular
concerns that you have just used to illustrate the point, and
perhaps we need to look at that; it is not something that we have
given any consideration to at this stage.
511. What about allowing registration officers,
this sounds like the most elementary step of all, to use other
public records, for instance, death certificates, to cross off
people who have died, council tax records, housing records, all
of these, that are already in the public domain, what about allowing
them to be used by the people who draw up the register?
(Mr Howarth) I think that, all of those pieces of
information, in principle, I do not see any difficulty in, for
example, communication between electoral registration officers
and the Treasury's Department who have records of council taxpayers,
I do not see, in principle, any difficulty between notification
of deaths. Indeed, I guess, again, probably we have all had the
experience of knocking on somebody's door and asking would Mr
Smith be voting also and being met with floods of tears, because
Mr Smith had died a few weeks earlier, and I think that kind of
sensitivity to those issues would be very helpful. We would need
to look at the practicalities of that, but, in principle, I think
it makes sense to use other public records certainly to encourage
and inform the canvass itself, and subsequent canvassing in the
process of compiling the register.
512. Just a final question on this business
of the register. Do you not feel that the fundamental reform which
would make a big difference is if there was a national register
which was the sum total of all the EROs' local registers, which
would mean that the business of transfer from one area to another
could be done automatically as soon as somebody notified a change
of address, and that would mean that once you were on one electoral
register in one part of the country then unless you actually died
you would remain on a register somewhere for the rest of your
life?
(Mr Howarth) It sounds fine, as an objective. Whether
or not it would—
513. Every organisation does this with its membership,
I do not see why the country cannot do it with its electoral register?
(Mr Howarth) With respect, I think it is a different—for
example, something like the Civic Trust, it is a less problematic
task to keep a reasonable list together of the members of the
Civic Trust, who by definition mostly are there because they want
to be, want to be kept informed, want to keep an involvement,
and would probably take some steps, if they did move, for example,
to inform the Civic Trust, whereas registration is a separate
issue. There are a lot of complications in trying to maintain
an accurate national list, which we would have to work through
very carefully. It sounds like a good idea, but we have a tradition
and a body of experience at local level of building up accurate
registers. I think the Committee, and certainly my Working Party
agree that there are improvements can be made on that.
514. Would it not save a lot of money, because
the idea of local registers was created at a time when the number
of people who moved was relatively low; now, with such a high
level of mobility, we are getting enormous wastage, removals,
people just disappearing, and the registers are having to be created
every year in every constituency anew, whereas the reality is
that if it was a national register and you just moved from one
constituency to another then a lot of the local work would be
saved?
(Mr Howarth) Again, I would want to look at what the
practical difficulties with that are. But I think the process
of rolling registration certainly will help with that because
instead of taking a fixed date and working from there, a rolling
register, you would probably still need that whole canvass procedure,
the timing of it is something that we need to look at, but you
can add to it throughout the course of the year and would, indeed,
encourage people to be added to it throughout the course of the
year, using various pieces of information to keep that as contemporary
as possible. But I think we should look at those reforms as being
the first priority rather than seek to build up a national register.
I am not entirely clear either that it would necessarily be cheaper.
Mr Corbett
515. Minister, there is general concern at what
can only be regarded as appallingly low levels of turnout at local
elections, and falling, and generally a falling turnout at general
elections. Now against that background, are you concerned that
the British Youth Council Survey last week indicated that, among
young people aged 18 to 24, four out of every ten did not know
how to register to get the vote?
(Mr Howarth) Yes; and I think, as I indicated earlier,
that area of work is something that I think we have got to develop
much more sharply and much more effectively, although I am not
entirely clear what the best way to do it is.
516. You were saying earlier, in reply to a
question about whether the Home Office was going to spend any
money publicising the change, big change, in voting on a list
system rather than the way we do it now, "We have not got
any money, somebody else is going to do that". Now there
may be among this group of people saying, "Well, if the Home
Office can't be bothered to explain that to me, why should I bother
to find out about actually registering to vote"; it could
be seen by some as complete indifference, let somebody else do
it?
(Mr Howarth) You may be right. I suspect the reasons
why young people tend to be less likely to register and to take
part are more complicated than that and have something to do with
the way they perceive the whole political process. One of the
most innovative things I have seen, there were claims made, I
do not know whether they can be substantiated, that that added
some considerable numbers to the register, or it certainly contributed
to more young people voting before the last general election,
was a video that was produced and shown, I think, in certain places
where young people gathered by The Ministry of Sound. And I do
not know if the Committee have had an opportunity to look at that,
I have, and the way it got the message across was by basically
setting up some stereotypes that they felt young people would
find unappealing and the catch-line at the end of each section
was that "He will be voting," or "she will be voting,
will you be?". And I think those sorts of techniques probably
need to be developed more in the future. Whether or not, because
the Home Office simply do not have large amounts of money to spend
on that, whether we should be encouraging other people who are
interested in this subject to develop that area of work is, I
think, a question we should all pursue.
517. Maybe you should raise it with the Minister
with responsibility for social inclusion? Although, it is fair
to say that this survey showed that, I think, 50 per cent of the
18 to 24s on the register did actually vote, so that is a positive
sign.
(Mr Howarth) Indeed, yes.
518. Can I just move on to, because we have
had a lot of evidence about this, difficulties that homeless persons
and residents of mental hospitals and hospitals have in registering.
Have you given consideration to homeless persons being able, for
example, to use a hostel where they are staying, and similarly
hospital patients to use a hospital address, where they know they
are going to be for some time?
(Mr Howarth) There are, as the Committee will be aware,
problems with those registering in temporary accommodation of
any kind, whether that is hostels or others, and CHAR, which,
the Committee will be aware, campaigns on behalf of single homeless
people, has estimated that, I think it is, 68,000 families and
100,000 single people were living in temporary accommodation in
the UK in 1992, so, clearly, there is an established problem.
Residence itself is not defined in any legislation and courts
have ruled that the quality generally of residence is irrelevant,
but certainly many electoral registration officers already register
rough sleepers at addresses in doorways, in railway arches, and
it seems to me that that kind of practice is supportable. There
are a number of solutions. Again, Harry Barnes had a Bill, people
may remember, on declarations of locality, which effectively gave
the option for people to register in an area rather than from
an address, and I think there are still some, frankly, technical
problems which arise out of that. One of the things I want the
Working Party to look at is whether or not a new definition of
residence will be helpful in this respect, and I think it is important
that we do that. As regards people in mental hospitals, the present
rules do disenfranchise people because they can only give the
mental hospital as an address and that is not acceptable for registration
purposes. Voluntary patients can register, and therefore vote,
but they must pass an extra test, which is that they have to make
a declaration without assistance. We have not researched this
but it seems to me that the rules are a carry«over from the
days of the old large asylums, where it was probably considered
that large numbers voting from one of the old-fashioned asylums
might have distorted the process in any one area. But the situation
has changed, we recognise that. I do not think there are any of
those old-fashioned large asylums of that kind left any more.
And we are consulting MIND, which is, I think, probably the foremost
advocate on behalf of people with mental health problems. I do
not know how we might end up approaching it, but we recognise
there is a problem and we do want to consult about how to do it.
519. Thank you. Can we move on to prisoners,
please; remand prisoners, unsentenced prisoners on remand, that
is, have a right to vote. Whose responsibility is it to assist
them to exercise that right, if they want to; the prison might
be miles and miles away from where their vote is registered?
(Mr Howarth) It is the responsibility of the Prison
Service.
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