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Mr. Richard Ottaway (Croydon, South): The Home Secretary is no doubt aware that one idea that does not increase voter turnout is mobile polling stations. He will be aware that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions conducted an experiment in my constituency in the London borough elections in 1998. It placed a mobile polling station in a polling district in Purley ward. In that polling district, turnout dropped from the highest to the lowest in the ward. [Interruption.]
Mr. Straw: I did not hear that quip, but it may have been on account of the candidates.
Ms Claire Ward (Watford): Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of the innovative ideas require a national approach and significant investment in technology, and that local authorities, which would be required to cover the costs of pilot schemes, may not feel that they are a priority, given that they have to cover so many other
areas--generous though the Government have been to local government on these issues? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue is so important that the Government must take a lead, by saying what they can do nationwide, and perhaps even by considering the use of national lottery terminals? That would benefit my constituency, where Camelot and GTech are based.
Mr. Straw: GTech also owns an important company in my constituency, so we have a joint interest in that matter.
A great many of these changes would not involve any great cost. Weekend voting would involve some additional overtime. All-postal ballots would not incur a huge cost. Mobile polling stations might work. There was great concern in my constituency when a mobile polling station was removed, because that left the area without a polling station, so turnout certainly decreased there.
On electronic voting, it is probable that the commercial firms that are interested in selling equipment and software to local authorities may wish to loan them as part of the pilots. As ever, resources are limited, and I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) that we shall have to make hard choices. I dare say that, in the event, local authorities will not find that lack of resources is a huge impediment to running pilots if they decide to do so.
Mrs. Ray Michie (Argyll and Bute):
The Home Secretary mentioned weekend voting. Will he elaborate on where the pilot schemes will take place? Will they be run by local authorities? He should be aware that, in many areas, especially in my constituency and in the highlands and islands, Sunday voting would not be welcomed. We must be careful of going down that road.
Mr. Straw:
I am very conscious of that point. Piloting weekend voting will be a matter for local authorities. If weekend voting ever became part of the national arrangements, we would have to ensure that it took place on both days. There are members of the Jewish community who would not wish to vote on a Saturday and there are members of other communities, including the one that the hon. Lady represents, who have strong feelings about the observance of the Sabbath. Sunday voting would not be acceptable to them. I understand the point that she makes.
I wish to make progress and to draw my remarks to a close. I have mentioned some of the ideas that could form the basis of pilot schemes. However, let me make it clear that there is not a prescribed list. Local authorities are free to suggest any innovation that they want and all well-thought-out proposals will be considered.
Local authorities will need to demonstrate that they have made proper plans to run the pilots and that the integrity of the poll is properly preserved. They will also have to show that they have in place plans for a full evaluation of the pilot scheme. Such evaluations will need to assess the turnout in the authority where the pilot is running as compared with previous elections and with similar authorities where pilot schemes are not running. They will also need to seek views on the success or otherwise of the scheme from candidates, parties and, most importantly, the electorate.
Clause 11 provides for any scheme that has been successfully piloted to be rolled out nationally. Any such changes will be made by orders, which will be subject to
the affirmative resolution procedures in both Houses. It is, as I have made clear, the Government's hope that the Bill will receive a fair wind in its passage through Parliament. If it does, it should be possible to run the first pilot schemes at next May's local authority elections.
The Howarth working party was rightly much concerned with the problems faced by disabled voters. It made a number of recommendations on that subject, several of which do not require legislation. However, the Bill makes three important innovations. The first is that returning officers should be required to display a large print version of the ballot paper in the polling station. Secondly, blind and partially sighted electors should be able to vote using a template. Thirdly, in addition to blind voters having the right to be assisted in voting by a companion, we shall extend the facility to cover all voters with physical disabilities that are such that they cannot vote unaided and to aid those who are unable to read.
Finally, I should mention the one provision in the Bill that does not arise from a recommendation of the Howarth working party. However, I do not anticipate it to be controversial across the Chamber. It relates to the problems that arose in the European parliamentary elections earlier this year when allegations were made that some candidates deliberately gave false addresses on their nomination papers. I cannot comment on the substance of those allegations, but the legal advice that I have received is that people who provide false particulars are not, as the law stands, committing a criminal offence. That seems to me to be plainly wrong, so we propose to close that loophole.
I do not believe, and I am sure that no Member of the House believes, that the Bill will arrest and reverse the decline in turnout at all levels of election. Whatever the electoral procedures are, people will vote only if they are interested in the body being elected and feel that it is worth while to vote. So long as we do not have compulsory voting, people in our democracy have the right not to vote as much as they have the right to vote. Nevertheless, this is an important Bill. We need to ensure that it is as easy as possible for the public to vote and that our electoral procedures are compatible with modern life styles.
We were elected with a clear mandate to modernise our constitution and the Bill forms an important part of that programme. The Bill may not appear to be as exciting as devolution, human rights or freedom of information, but I suggest that it is just as important. Fair and free elections are the centrepiece of our democratic structures, from which everything else flows.
Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale):
I beg to move, To leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
I should point out to the Home Secretary that the recommendations published by the working party on electoral procedures in July referred only to pilot schemes at local elections. The word "parliamentary" arises nowhere in those recommendations. It was only when we received the final report, which was published only a month ago, that the question of rolling out the changes to parliamentary elections first arose.
On top of that, the way in which the Government seek to implement some of the working party's recommendations increases the prospect of electoral fraud, impersonation and undue influence on the outcome of an election where it is conducted over several days.
There appears to have been no discussion with religious communities about voting on days of religious significance--a point raised by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) in an intervention on the Home Secretary a moment ago. Yet the Home Secretary will recall the debate a year or so ago, during proceedings on the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, in which many Members on both sides of the House said that they regarded with great distaste the prospect of voting on a Sunday in the European parliamentary elections.
Furthermore, although well intentioned, the proposals to restrict the legitimate use of the electoral register by businesses and others, including charities, political parties and, on occasion, Departments, will lead to increased social exclusion from financial services and increased cost to British business and commerce. The Government have completely failed to address that cost by neglecting to produce a regulatory impact assessment.
Only a few minutes ago, I was handed a copy of a written answer, received today, to a question tabled to the Prime Minister by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins). He asked the Prime Minister if the Home Office had been given an exemption from his instruction to all Departments to undertake and publish a regulatory impact study of the financial and other effects of all proposed Government legislation, with particular reference to the Representation of the People Bill. With characteristic clarity, the Prime Minister replied that he will reply to the hon. Member shortly. So, on Second Reading, the Government cannot even tell us when they even gave thought to the need for a regulatory impact assessment.
For those reasons, and others, we believe that, before asking Parliament to approve the measures, the Government should have initiated a comprehensive public
consultation on the working party's recommendations; that, in turn, would have allowed right hon. and hon. Members the fullest possible opportunity to discuss the implications of such far-reaching proposals with the people they represent: local government, local electors and businesses in their constituency. Over the past 10 days or so, since the Bill was published, I have asked colleagues on both sides of the House whether they realise what the Bill contains. It is fascinating to hear their short, sharp, clear answer: no. When they discover the Bill's contents, they will realise that its effects are more far-reaching than the Home Secretary has implied.
"this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Representation of the People Bill because the Government has failed to undertake a sufficiently comprehensive public consultation on such important and far-reaching changes to the conduct of elections and the publication of electoral registers, because Members of this House have had no time in which to consult with local authorities and
30 Nov 1999 : Column 174interested parties in their constituencies, because only one month has elapsed since the publication of the report of the Home Office Working Party on Electoral Procedures whose recommendations the Bill is designed to implement, and because more careful consideration of the costs and long-term implications of the measures contained in the Bill is required."
The Bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Its principles may seem benign and unobjectionable, but the devil is in the detail. The Bill could have far-reaching consequences beyond those intended by the working party whose recommendations the Bill seeks to implement. Indeed, the Government propose that the House should write the Home Secretary a blank cheque to amend the rules not only for local elections but for future parliamentary elections. The Bill could therefore pave the way for changes to the conduct of a general election about which there has been no discussion on the Floor of the House or in the wider community, which would be affected.
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