Select Committee on Home Affairs Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 520 - 539)

TUESDAY 7 JULY 1998

MR GEORGE HOWARTH, MRS GAY CATTO AND MR STEVE LIMPKIN

  520. Are you aware that they do anything about it, seriously?
  (Mr Howarth) Mr Limpkin is champing to get in here, so I will bring him in, in a moment, but I think arrangements are made with the Prison Service to remind those who are on remand or unsentenced of their rights; whether or not that has been effective, perhaps Mr Limpkin would like to say a word about it.
  (Mr Limpkin) There is a standard procedure in advance of each election whereby my section in the Home Office notifies colleagues in the Prison Service and the Prison Service then issues a general circular. It is, in fact, the responsibility of wing officers to bring that notice to the attention of relevant prisons, and to assist prisoners, if they need assistance, in identifying to whom they should apply both to register and to obtain a postal vote. Wing officers are not supposed to assist prisoners to cast their vote but there are procedures within Prison Service Standing Rules which require that postal votes should not be opened on their way out, as part of the normal censor checks. So, yes, there is a standard procedure, which kicks in prior to elections, of notification between ourselves and Prison Service.

  521. The Prison Reform Trust, Minister, with my support let it be said, has been arguing that convicted prisoners should be eligible to vote; is this something you are looking at, or not?
  (Mr Howarth) No.

  522. British overseas voters, if we may move on to there, the figures for this are quite astonishing. Last year, just 23,583 people living overseas registered; that was extended, about 1989, I think, from memory, from five years to 20, on the grounds that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, panting around the Commonwealth to keep casting their votes. The evidence runs totally counter to that. Are you contemplating reducing that qualifying period from the present 20 years?
  (Mr Howarth) No. We will look at it, if any significant pressures to do so emerge, but at this stage I do not believe there is any pressure in that direction. Just to confirm some of the figures, we believe that there are about three million British citizens overseas, and 17,315 were on the 1998 register; as you say, that was the lowest since the 20-year rule was introduced in 1991. There was a drop of 6,000 from 1997. And the highest ever was 34,454 in 1991, and we think that probably it will decrease over time. We have not got any official figures as to how many have voted in any one general election. I suppose it would be possible to make an educated guess on them, on a constituency-by-constituency basis, but we have not undertaken to do that. Twenty years, frankly, is an arbitrary time limit; some will maintain links for 20 years, others will not. And, certainly, I do not think any money has been spent aimed at overseas electors, for example, on advertising there, and certainly not in recent years, to my knowledge.

  Mr Corbett: If it is any help to you, Minister, I think about five overseas voters exercised their vote in my constituency.

  Mr Cranston: For you or against you?

Mr Corbett

  523. I do not know. Finally, Minister, double registration. For reasons we understand, people can be on two distinct registers. Do you think there is a case for requiring them to declare in advance, as far as Parliamentary elections are concerned, in which constituency they are going to cast that vote?
  (Mr Howarth) It is an issue we want to look at in the process of examining how we implement rolling registration. For example, students, who are those mostly affected, although it is not exclusively students, could change their registration from term to term. But it is certainly something we need to ensure against, whilst it is perfectly legitimate to double register, it is not legitimate to double vote and we need to ensure that that is made as difficult as possible. But I think it is difficult to get round the fact that some people have a legitimate claim to register to vote in two areas, I think probably many of us in this room are in the same position, and I do not see why we should remove that right from people, it is a matter of their choice as to which area they choose to vote in.

  Chairman: Thank you. Now we are going to just skip ahead for a moment, because Mr Malins has to go, to candidates who use misleading descriptions, but we will come back to one or two other matters in a moment. Mr Malins.

Mr Malins

  524. Minister, I would like to talk to you about party labels and descriptions at the moment. In the last general election, the Returning Officer in Woking accepted a nomination from a man who used his correct name but described himself as "Official Conservative Party Candidate", which he was not. Can you firstly confirm the Returning Officer was entitled to accept that, at that stage?
  (Mr Howarth) Yes.

  525. Secondly, could you say whether or not, under proposals put forward by the Government, and hopefully to be made law, the Returning Officer would be, I use the word with care, entitled to do so next time?
  (Mr Howarth) I do not think he would be entitled.

  526. On what basis would he not be entitled?
  (Mr Howarth) If, as I assume they will, the Conservative Party were to register—well, there are two aspects to it. One is that I think, I am almost certain, that the parties represented in the Committee will choose to register under the procedures laid down in the Bill itself, but even if they did not, if the Returning Officer considered that to be a misleading description then he would be in a position where it would be perfectly legitimate to rule that candidate out.

  527. That applied last time, Minister, as well, did it not?
  (Mr Howarth) No, but the difference there is, as I say, I assume that the Conservative Party will register the name "Conservative". That then gives them prior claim on that title, and anybody who chose to use some variation on that—we have debated this when the Bill was in its Standing Committee. For example, just to take it a step further, I would consider, if somebody, in any constituency, chose to describe themselves as the Tory Party, that should be then considered to be a misleading description.

  528. I asked if he would be entitled to, Minister, and the answer clearly is that he would, because you are giving the Returning Officer a subjective judgement?
  (Mr Howarth) Yes, but we are also giving him armoury, in the form of the Registration of Political Parties—

  529. He had it before.
  (Mr Howarth) To make a judgement against—there is a party known, in this case, as the Conservative Party and anybody who would describe themselves as The Official Conservative Party Candidate would, inevitably, be seeking to mislead the electorate, and in those circumstances it would be my view that any Returning Officer, assuming that the Conservative Party was registered, would be bound to rule that title out, not the candidate.

  530. The position is that, in my view, the Returning Officer still has rather an amount of discretion here. The Returning Officer is not qualified judicially or in any other respect to pass, in my view, an important judgement. Do you foresee the slightest possibility that the Returning Officer in a constituency could form a view which was unsatisfactory to one of the main parties, and if you could foresee that why not have some form of appeal against it?
  (Mr Howarth) In those circumstances—let me just add, you can, as somebody once famously said, never say never, but I do not envisage that that will happen.

  531. But if it did?
  (Mr Howarth) But, just for the purposes of argument, that if it did happen then I would think that any case that was put into the court system which—

  Mr Malins: No, forget the court system, we know the price, we know the delays, we know the problems; what is there, when the Returning Officer, perhaps for reasons that are not satisfactory, accepts a nomination which, in the real world, most people do not like because it is confusing, misleading, where is the appeal from him, apart from the law courts, at huge expense?

Chairman

  532. It would be a candidate for your Electoral Commission, would it not, assuming it ever comes to pass?
  (Mr Howarth) Indeed, Mr Chairman, but since at this stage we have not decided whether it will come to pass I do not think it would be appropriate for me to use that as a—

  533. It is a possibility, is it not?
  (Mr Howarth) It is a helpful comment, Mr Chairman. I think, that problem, that Mr Malins has just described, is precisely the problem we are trying to deal with. It is a fairly obvious case, where somebody uses the name of a party that they clearly do not represent, but there is also the use of deliberately misleading, the obvious case was the Literal Democrat candidate.

Mr Malins

  534. A similar question, yes; but I am on the Returning Officer. Have you read my brother's article in Bar Council magazine, I sent it to all the Ministers, it sets out a very, very good series of suggestions?
  (Mr Howarth) It has not reached me yet, but, as a result of you suggesting it to me, you can be assured that I will.

  535. Will you look out for it?
  (Mr Howarth) I will, yes.

  536. Confirm that you have read it, and what you think of his observations?
  (Mr Howarth) I will follow that up, yes.

  Mr Malins: Will you; thank you.

Mr Russell

  537. Chairman, I wonder if I could invite the Minister to further put Mr Malins' worries to rest, will you confirm that he will be secure next time in the knowledge that he will be allowed to have alongside his name and his party name his party logo?
  (Mr Howarth) It is a very helpful point. One of the things that it does enable is the use of party logos on the ballot paper; so, yes, that will be helpful. I might add, by the way, that I think one of the concerns we have, and discussed earlier, in which I think the use of logos is helpful, is people, for example, with partial-sightedness; whilst it might not be easy to read the print, it might be easier to pick out the party logo, and I think it will help in that direction as well.

  538. But still continuing with the point that was made earlier, the Returning Officers are still going to be left with this problem, because the Registration of Political Parties Bill already agreed does not exactly close all the loopholes, as has been indicated there?
  (Mr Howarth) Which loophole did you have in mind?

  539. The fact is that, because there is no common decision-making across the country, it is possible that a Returning Officer, rightly or wrongly, could allow through a name, that is what is being suggested?
  (Mr Howarth) Well, yes, but, my own view is that what Returning Officers have to work from is legislation. I think the legislation makes it clear. The problem in the past has been that it was not illegal, it was perfectly acceptable under law; it might have been wildly unacceptable for anybody to call themselves anything they wanted, in terms of party labels, and we have had repeated difficulties with the Literal Democrat candidates. In the most recent local elections in my own constituency, we have had people variously calling themselves Real Labour, New Labour, Old Labour, and The Labour Party Candidate; and all of them, in some way, apart from the actual Labour candidate, have sought to appropriate the name, a label, which has a specific meaning to most people in the electorate. That is the phenomenon we are seeking to deal with. I believe that the Bill itself and the system that it brings in will solve that problem, and I doubt very much whether Returning Officers will exercise their discretion, small though it is, in the way that you describe.


 
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