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Mr. O'Brien: The hon. Gentleman should be aware that, whatever the size of the audience in the Chamber, there are many people who watch the parliamentary channel and ensure that they keep an eye on what hon. Members in the Chamber are doing, and so they should.
Mr. Evans: I am grateful for that contribution. Those people would have watched aghast at the Government's antics last night in curtailing discussion of this Bill.
Our amendments are not too onerous. We said last night that we were asking only that people making a declaration of local connection should say that they have had a connection for at least three months. That is not onerous, and it would help to plug some of the holes that unfortunately are appearing in the Bill.
The Minister scoffed at my remarks last night and made a joke about homeless people getting access to the internet so that they could scour the country and make a declaration of local connection in parliamentary constituencies where there was a small majority. The Bill is open to abuse, and although I do not believe that homeless people would do as the Minister suggested, others may make declarations of local connection.
I mentioned the internet because, as the Minister knows, the internet is widely used by groups who want to protest about many things, including the World Trade
Organisation meeting in the USA last year. On that occasion, many demonstrators turned up at Euston station, not because they were responding to an advertisement in The Guardian or another newspaper, but because they had talked to one another in chat groups and passed information via the internet.
Mr. James Gray (North Wiltshire):
Is not my hon. Friend concerned also about the activities of new age travellers? Last week, I visited the gypsy encampment at Middlezoy in Somerset, where over 1,000 people are camped. They could well abuse the provisions of the Bill if they wished to change the outcome of an election in a marginal seat.
Mr. Evans:
Indeed, one can envisage people making a protest in just one seat--I believe that a number of new age travellers turned up in Brighton--and, if a general election were called, they could easily decide to move into a particular seat and make a declaration of local connection. They could choose a Minister's seat; for example, in my region they could choose the Home Secretary's constituency of Blackburn.
We are asking not only for a three-month test to demonstrate that someone has a genuine local connection, past and possibly future, but for the electoral registration officer to be obliged to check that connection. I repeat that it is not an onerous duty. The Minister wondered how the ERO would be able to check that. He or a member of his staff would simply have to go to the area where the person has said that he spends most of the night or most of the day--Victoria street has been used as an example when we are discussing homeless people--and check whether the person is staying there.
If the ERO takes those precautions, that will help to prevent the Bill being open to abuse by people who will have in their minds not the extension of democratic rights and the enfranchisement of homeless people but the perversion of democracy by an attempt to unseat Members of Parliament--perhaps even Ministers.
I hope that Ministers will reconsider the amendment when the Bill goes to another place and that the Government will perhaps table their own amendment, which we would consider carefully when the Bill returns here. Meanwhile, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Mr. Evans:
I beg to move amendment No. 28, page 12, line 4, at end insert--
We return now to the problem of polling. As the Minister has already accepted that the problem exists, I do not intend to dwell on it.
If polling is extended over more than one day, a problem arises with exit polling. Under pilot schemes, a constituency may want to trial the opening of an early box in the town hall. Opening all polling stations would involve prohibitive costs--possibly thousands of pounds--for a constituency. I suspect that there may be an official polling day, but that a box will be opened early in the town hall in one or two places in a constituency, so that people will be able to cast their votes early.
If the early polling were concentrated in just one or two stations, it would be easier for polling organisations to man those areas. I am referring not to polling people as to how they may vote--the predictive element--but as to how they have voted. That means that the poll is more realistic, although we know that that is not always the case. I am happy to say that in the 1992 general election the exit polling was completely wrong.
Exit polls may sway people in their vote. Some will go along with the trend, but if the exit poll shows that one party might gain a large majority, some may be dissuaded from even taking part in the poll. Although such trends and behaviour may disadvantage one party at the moment, that situation will alter in future.
This is not rocket science. Such provisions already exist in other countries. To save time in Committee, I decided not to read out the full list of those countries and I shall not do so now. However, I know that the Minister is aware that the legislation in some countries bans exit polling once voting has already started. In some countries, such polls are banned even in the few days before the election takes place. We are not asking for that. We are merely suggesting that, if voting has begun in the pilot area, polling must not be allowed to take place.
In France, voting takes place over two Sundays. That means that there is no polling for two weeks during general election campaigns. Although such provisions are not part of the legislation in the United States, because of the time-zone problem, appeals are made to people on the east coast not to declare their results before people on the west coast have voted.
The Minister gave us an assurance in Committee. I hope that he will be able to reassure us once again that the matter will be considered carefully when the Bill goes to another place. Perhaps a Government amendment will be tabled. Such an amendment is necessary because local authorities in a pilot would not have the power individually to ban exit polling. The matter needs to be considered here and a provision must appear in the Bill.
Mr. Mike Hancock (Portsmouth, South):
On this occasion, Liberal Democrats will support the official Opposition. The hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) made it clear that there are several good reasons for the amendment.
I have some experience of what can happen when an exit poll is conducted in a city such as Portsmouth. The newspaper there publishes a lunchtime edition followed by several later editions. An exit poll of early polling between
6 and 8 am could easily be in the public domain by lunchtime. I know for a fact that a newspaper can have a marked impact on elections and it is to the credit of a newspaper that it can engage its readers with such well-informed comment. I, for one, was probably a beneficiary of that when I won a by-election to this place in 1984. Against the official poll odds, I was elected. It was interesting that the lunchtime edition of the newspaper on polling day suggested that I was in a very good position.
I am therefore, conscious that exit polls are a dangerous tool, in the sense that they can influence people during the election process. We shall support the amendment, and I hope that the Minister sees the sense of it and recognises the need for such a provision to appear in this clause and not as part of a schedule.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. George Howarth):
I hope that I can deal with the amendment briefly. As the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) suggested, the Government are sympathetic to it.
'(2A) Where a scheme makes provision for voting to take place on more than one day, any order under subsection (1) above shall include provisions that prohibit the publication of such material as
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