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Mr. O'Brien: I note that view, but I am bemused by the juxtaposition of the hon. Gentleman's claim and the action that he took. I also note that, at 5 pm, no Tory Back-Bench Members were in the Chamber and the hon. Gentleman held the fort for the Opposition by himself. He did it ably, but by himself. That says much about our earlier debate.
Mr. Evans: I shall be brief to allow other hon. Members an opportunity to speak. The Bill is an important, extensive constitutional measure, which transfers sweeping powers to the Home Secretary, not only to trial pilots, but, through clause 11, to change by statutory instrument the way in which we vote in several elections. We are therefore keen for the Bill to be properly scrutinised.
Last night was regrettable; yesterday was a bad day for representative democracy for two reasons. First, an important constitutional Bill was guillotined. Secondly, scheduling two important Bills for consideration after
Report and Third Reading was a grave error. Consensus is not an excuse for sloppy scrutiny, but a reason for hon. Members to examine a measure's minutiae more closely. We know that the Government want the Bill to be passed quickly, but let us get it right.
As the Minister said, the Government have accepted the thrust of some of our amendments. That is why we divided the Committee only twice. There is a great deal of consensus on the Bill, which aims to increase turnout at elections, increase registration and make voting easier. We support those aims, but we urge caution. In their hurry, the Government should not allow on to the statute book a Bill that has more holes than an Emmental cheese.
I trust that, when the Bill returns from another place, many of our amendments will have been accepted. Clause 9 could have important repercussions. The Government state that they do not want charities or businesses to be hit, but that will happen if the clauses remains unamended.
The credit implications for consumers may be wide. If that is so, the less-well-off will be hit. There is a problem that the head of the household could tick the relevant box on behalf of everyone on the electoral register in the household. If such people are excluded from the commercial register, their credit status may be affected.
Charities will also be adversely affected. The provision will not stop junk mail, but increase it, and charities will have to spend more money on mail than on good causes.
We are worried about the integrity of the vote when more people are eligible to register. We want more people to be able to vote and a relaxation of the rules on postal votes will help to ensure that. The days of the coach and horses have passed. We are in the 21st century and that should be reflected in the availability of postal votes.
The rolling register will be useful in easing registration, and I say again that it is a great shame that the by-election to be held in Ceredigion on 3 February will take place two weeks before the new register comes into effect. As many as 10,000 people in that constituency may be excluded from taking part in the by-election. I am sad that that has been done by the nationalists, and it is a matter of regret that many first-time voter students will be prevented from voting in that by-election.
We shall examine the Bill carefully when it comes back from the other place. The European elections, in which a 23 per cent. turnout was recorded, were the last real trial before a dramatic change in the voting system.
Mr. Barnes:
In legislation that failed at earlier stages, I have brought three provisions in the Bill to the attention of the House.
One important development is the registration of homeless people. Up to now, although technically homeless people could get on registers, the fact that they did not have a place of residence made that extremely difficult. Now that has been enshrined in legislation,
although there has been much debate about whether the Bill provides sufficient protection. Nevertheless, the provision is very much in line with a measure that I introduced in the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill 1997, and I am pleased that it has been adopted.
Another measure that I have pursued on numerous occasions concerns access for disabled people to polling stations. Although some progress has been made, much still needs to be done. I was disappointed by the Minister's response when we debated the matter. It is possible that, in future, access to polling stations for disabled people will be developed further. Perhaps there will be legislation ensuring the civil rights of disabled people, which the disability movement has called for. A great deal of work has been done by Scope and others. The amendment that I tabled was taken from my Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill 1994.
The Bill will be known chiefly for the establishment of the rolling register. That is important because it establishes a principle, even if there is some argument about the detail. Once the principle has been established that the register should take account of where people are at a particular time, further detail and improvements that new technology may make possible can be added later.
The first mention of a rolling register may have been in the context of the Representation of the People (Amendment) Bill, which I introduced in 1993. The Bill failed to get through on a Friday because I could not carry the closure motion. It was won by 78 votes to nil because the then Government merely put in tellers.
Among the 78 hon. Members who supported the concept of rolling registers were four who, by that time or later, were leaders of the parliamentary Labour party--Neil Kinnock, the late John Smith, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, and the present Prime Minister--and 12 members of the present Government, including my hon. Friend on the Front Bench tonight. Furthermore, the three Labour hopefuls for candidate for mayor of London were among the 78. There was support from other parties and the tellers were a member of the Scottish National party and the Liberal Democrat spokesman on constitutional issues. The matter has a long history, and I am pleased that we have established those measures.
In Committee, I went through the detail of what needs to be done. We have just started out on achieving a modern rolling register--sometimes it stands still and sometimes it moves forward a bit--but the key point is that it needs to be established and we have got ourselves on that road. I have been involved in these matters in the House for 12 years. In February 1988, when the timetable motion for the Bill that introduced the poll tax was tabled, I said that there was a problem--I later realised that there were many other difficulties--because millions of people would be missing from the electoral register. About 1 million people were cleared off the register by the operation of the poll tax, but we have put some of the damage right and started to set in place the processes that will overcome it.
Mr. Simon Hughes:
I shall be brief, as one or two other colleagues want to speak. As we said at the beginning of our proceedings, we support the Bill--at least where the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) proposed and the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland considered. The House is now disposing, which shows the benefit of sticking with a measure over a long period to win the argument and win the day. I pay tribute to those who made submissions to the working party, colleagues from all parties who took part and the Under-Secretary, who chaired it.
The Bill was intended to be the part of the electoral reform process on which there could be agreement. To that extent, it is worth while and has been supported from those on the Liberal Democrat Benches, as from elsewhere. We do not agree on certain issues, however, and want to introduce certain measures, the most obvious of which is electoral reform--certainly in local government and perhaps later in national government--but we have accepted that the Bill is not the correct vehicle for that. We shall return to that argument.
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