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Mr. Straw: Of course I accept the right hon. Lady's assertion that she had not seen the letter--plenty of letters sent to me are received by the Home Office but not seen by me. However, the right hon. Lady might not know that my office phoned her office more than once to ask for a reply, only to be told that a reply would be forthcoming in due course. It was not that we wrote and simply left the matter at that; I was genuinely interested in the response.
Mr. Greenway: I do not want to labour the point. The purpose of mentioning the letter will become clear shortly.
Mr. Greenway: I shall tell the right hon. Gentleman in a moment--he must be patient. However, in response to his explanation, I should point out that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald says that her office asked the Home Secretary's office for a copy of the letter, but copy came there none, until the faxed copy was received last night. Overnight, we have examined the letter with some interest.
The letter merely restates the objectives and conclusions of the working party; it does not mention the detail of the Bill. Therefore, even had we received the letter, it would hardly have constituted a thorough consultation. The importance of the letter is that we can
deduce precisely from it the Government's intention of making changes to the conduct of general elections. That is clear where in the letter the Home Secretary states that he would like
Mr. Straw:
That is stretching it.
Mr. Greenway:
We are not stretching it at all.
Applications from local authorities will have to be lodged by 17 January. The measures contained in the pilots will then be extended to the general election in the following year. We do not need to pose the question why the Government are proceeding with such unseemly haste; their mind is already made up.
Ms Ward:
It is bizarre that the hon. Gentleman is objecting to sensible measures to move forward quickly. People are entitled to have every opportunity to vote as soon as possible. Only a Government who were not interested in increasing voter turnout and increasing opportunities for voters would delay any longer on those matters. If the hon. Gentleman had any sense of purpose as a member of the Conservative party, the previous Conservative Government would have introduced such measures a long time ago.
Mr. Greenway:
The hon. Lady has walked straight into the trap that my comments had set. At this juncture I intended to ask the Home Secretary whether he agrees with the letter that was sent to all hon. Members today by the Local Government Association, with a briefing. I am sure that all hon. and right hon. Members will have studied it with great interest. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the association that there should be
If we have misunderstood, perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us what time scale he has in mind for the implementation of some of the proposals at a general election. His letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald makes it abundantly clear that we are talking about giving him the power in clause 11 to extend to parliamentary elections within the next 18 months or so arrangements which were first proposed by a working party as being effectively for local elections, with no proper evaluation of what is required. In her earlier intervention on the Home Secretary, the hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward) said that local authorities have no money to carry out the pilots in any event, which adds to our concern about what the Government have in
mind. That explains why we are sceptical about the Government's unseemly haste. There needs to be more informed consideration.
Mr. Fabricant:
As for the evaluation of the pilot schemes, was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was to learn from the Home Secretary that no audit is carried out after a general election to ascertain whether there has been multiple voting in different areas? If no such work is done after general elections, given the importance of those elections, what can we expect from the pilot schemes?
Mr. Greenway:
I am delighted that my hon. Friend intervened because he makes a telling point. In a way, he has anticipated my next point. A much more important development to which the Home Secretary referred, which in our view should inform the attitude to the Bill, is the proposed creation of an electoral commission. In his belated response to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the right hon. Gentleman said that that would be the body
Another matter that we want to raise with the Home Secretary is his attitude to the Home Affairs Committee, which he mentioned in respect of overseas voters. He knows that the Bill is not entirely on all fours with the recommendations of that Committee. For example, the Committee recommended that electors with dual registration should be required to specify where they intended to vote. That could well be relevant to the proposal for a local declaration.
It does not need much imagination to work out that somebody could be on an electoral register with a fixed address in one part of the country, and subsequently end up on the electoral register in another part because of a local declaration, yet the Government remain to be convinced.
The Home Affairs Committee thinks that a rolling register needs improved information technology. We know that IT systems are not the Home Office's strongest point or its top-drawer performance. The Government's response, none the less, is typically woolly.
Because the Home Secretary has decided to adopt a piecemeal approach, and because the Bill pre-empts any work on those topics by the electoral commission, the process is wide open to hon. Members on all sides to advance amendments in respect of their own pet ideas.
The Home Secretary referred to the report that his hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) had one such amendment in mind, and he prayed in aid support
from the Home Affairs Committee in that respect. However, the Home Secretary must explain why he agrees with the Select Committee only when it suits him.
The Home Secretary was referring to the time limit for overseas voting. He stated in a letter, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald did receive, that he was considering reducing the time limit for overseas registration to just five years, which is what the hon. Member for Battersea has in mind. The Home Secretary said that if he was persuaded of the merit of such a measure--which still leaves the question open--he would introduce it in the forthcoming Bill on party funding.
We welcome the strong hint that the right hon. Gentleman gave at the Dispatch Box during his speech that he does not believe that this Bill is the right vehicle for such a measure. We urge him to make a firm pledge to that effect. I am sure that he would accept that including such a reduction in this Bill would undermine the attempts on both sides to reach a consensus on the proposed changes. I am delighted that we have that on the record.
Mr. Martin Linton (Battersea):
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. When he and his hon. Friends received the letter about the possible reduction for overseas registration from 20 years to five years, did they express an opinion? Did they oppose the proposal at that stage, or have they simply decided in the past few days to oppose it?
Mr. Greenway:
I shall come on to that. It is remarkable how the interventions anticipate my next point.
Before the Home Secretary finally makes up his mind, may I ask him to reconsider the attitude of his party when the 20-year rule was agreed in 1989? The Official Report clearly shows that the 20-year proposal was introduced not by Conservative Ministers, but by his right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling), who was then a shadow Home Office spokesman and is now a senior Cabinet Minister. He was supported, in the vote as well, by the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (Mr. Dewar), then shadow spokesman for Scotland and now its First Minister.
The right hon. Member for Gorton was shadow Home Secretary at the time. His recollection seems to be that the measure was forced upon the Opposition and was the best that they could do, but that is not how the Hansard report reads. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central said:
"the first pilot schemes . . . to be run in the May 2000 local elections. This would make it possible for any innovations which prove to be particularly successful to be in place nationally in time for the next general election."
The timetable for the next general election is clear. If we did not already know that the Prime Minister had already pencilled in the election for 2001 from his behaviour--standing down many aspects of Government policy that are proving unpopular with voters, from speed limits to the number of houses to be built in the south-east--the Home Secretary's letter certainly lets the cat out of the bag. He wants to have pilot schemes in place for May 2000.
" proper independent evaluations before experiments are rolled out to all authorities"?
That recommendation relates only to local elections, not to parliamentary elections.
"to highlight any deficiencies in electoral law and administration"--
my hon. Friend's point is valid--
"and to make recommendations for improvements."
Surely it would have been sensible to wait for the electoral commission to be established and allow it the opportunity to undertake a comprehensive review of all electoral arrangements, and not take the piecemeal approach that the right hon. Gentleman has adopted. As it is, if the Bill is enacted in its present form, many changes will have been made by the time that the commission is in business and the door will be closed after the horse has bolted.
"We believe that a period of five years was unduly restrictive, especially as it is now clear that a number of people will leave this country perhaps to take up work in Europe or in other parts of the world but will still maintain a lively interest in the affairs of this country."
He went on to say:
"I believe that 20 years is a sensible compromise".---[Official Report, 5 July 1989; Vol. 156, c. 411.]
I could not have put it better myself.
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