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Mr. David Taylor: My hon. Friend must have joined the party when she was in playschool.
Caroline Flint: If my hon. Friends want to make interventions they should stand up and do so; I should be happy to take them.
Hon. Members, whatever political party they represent, will all have met constituents who had moved into their area but could not vote because they had missed the magic point at which the register was drawn up. Furthermore, how difficult do we make voting for people who were registered within a borough, constituency, ward or European boundary, but moved house in the period between registration and polling day? They have to go back to a polling station in the area in which they were living when they went on the register. Such things happen not because people do not want to vote--I hope that the hon. Member for Blaby is taking note of this--but because they are prevented from voting or obstacles are put in their way.
According to Home Office studies, there are huge inaccuracies in our electoral registers, with up to 7 per cent. of names wrongly allocated to particular addresses, duplication of electors and registers being out of date before they are even in force. The provision of a rolling register is a very welcome innovation and I look forward to the day when a family can move into my constituency and register to vote as easily as it can sign up to pay council tax or set up direct debits to pay electricity, gas and water bills.
On pensioners, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) gave a most poignant illustration--I send my condolences to her on the loss of her mother--and there could be no more vivid illustration of the situation. Many pensioners rightly say that they do not want a postal vote because they want to vote at the polling station. I understand that, but regardless of pensioners' desire to
vote in person, we are locked into a system that does not take account of circumstances--caused by infirmity, increasing age or sudden illness--that can prevent them from taking up that choice.
We should give every pensioner two options on postal votes: they should all be sent a postal voting form that they could either send in or relinquish at the polling station. That would ensure that those who cannot rely on having good health from one year to the next could vote. It would be quite simple to put such a provision in place: those over a certain age could tick a box on the registration form and it would automatically come into force. There is no reason why that should not happen. I have met many pensioners who want to vote at the polling station, and if they were given those two options they would not feel that they had to make a concession to advancing age by having to apply for a postal vote. Considering any measure that would make the postal vote application system simpler--not only for pensioners, but for the many people who do shift work or take holidays at election time--would be very worth while indeed.
I am particularly attracted to the opportunity provided by the Bill for establishing different pilot schemes for helping to increase participation in voting. It is right to establish such schemes because there is as yet no evidence to suggest that holding elections on Saturdays or Sundays or using different ways of voting will make a difference. That is why I am pleased that each of the pilot schemes will have to report back to the Secretary of State. Not only that, they will have to publish in their locality, so that the public have access to it, clear data and information on turnout, problems that came up and how any innovation was received by the general public.
My submission to the working party proposed an extension of the polling period from one day to a week. I shall explain that in more detail. In each ward, the returning officer could designate a popular site that is accessible to the whole community in the week running up to polling day. It may be a supermarket, a post office or a library. On polling day itself, people would be able to vote in the normal polling stations in every district. That would enable people to vote in the traditional way on polling day at polling stations in their residential area, but would also give them the chance to vote during the rest of the week at their supermarket, library or wherever is easily accessible.
It is extraordinary that it is easier for people to buy a weekly lottery ticket than to vote in an election. Technology offers a host of ideas that are worth considering. For example, people could vote electronically at the polling station, and when the polls close it would be easy to take the information from the electronic booths and get a result within a short time, instead of having countless council officers counting papers at the town hall.
During my own count at the general election, we used a computer to ascertain the result to within a couple of votes at least four hours before the tellers did so, at 4.30 in the morning. It may be more cost effective to use such technology than it is to use tired people who have served at polling stations all day and go on to work at the count throughout the night.
Mr. Grieve:
I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady in mid-flow, but I am concerned that she may move on to something else. She has made many interesting points, which will need to be investigated. The pilot schemes will be very important. She said that one of the merits of those schemes is that a report will have to be given to the Home Secretary, and I fully endorse that. As it is ultimately for the House to safeguard democratic rights in this country, does she think it a good thing for the Home Secretary to decide that a particular pilot scheme appeals to him and for it to be implemented by resolution of the House, without its being the subject of a Bill?
Caroline Flint:
The Committee will have to give that point further consideration. I am sure that there will be extensive discussion as the pilot schemes publish their reports. There will be plenty of opportunity inside and outside Parliament to discuss the relative merits of the schemes. We must make progress on these issues, and I hope that the Home Secretary will ensure that any directions he gives will be based on a proper evaluation of what has been shown to work in the pilot schemes.
Low turnouts in elections are not just the fault of the system: political parties carry a large measure of responsibility. We must all take responsibility for the decline in interest in politics over the past 20 years. The political system must be open, transparent and confer genuine power on the public. To that end, I support discussion and technological innovation. My only proviso would be that we should ensure that the means of using new technology provides equality, so that the technology is available to a majority of people. We could make a case for the telephone, but only a small, though significant, number of people feel confident about using the internet and computers, even for games, and most homes do not have access to a computer. We should ensure that there is equality of access to the technology before we decide on a particular route.
I should like the Minister to consider a case in my constituency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) gave a similar example. The count for the Rossington parish council in my constituency was held on the Friday after the local elections. I have no doubt that the candidates who attended were, like the local authority staff and the returning officer, a bit jaded after the previous late night. Unfortunately, a mistake was made in the result.
There were 22 candidates seeking one of the 12 places available, and by a simple error a candidate was awarded the 12th place, which a Labour candidate, Barry Johnson, should have won by 11 votes. When the error came to light after the result was confirmed, the returning officer conceded the error. The other candidate could raise no argument, because it was a pure error and the count had been conducted properly. There was no question of the count being improper.
Mr. Johnson, however, had to go through the whole palaver of drawing up a petition to the High Court, retaining solicitors, sending notices to all other candidates and coming to London for a costly High Court petition that was uncontested. He won the petition, and he is now duly serving on the Rossington parish council.
Mr. Dominic Grieve (Beaconsfield):
I want to avoid repeating some of the comments that have already been made. Broadly speaking, there is much to welcome in the Government's proposals. There is much we can do to improve the way in which voting is carried out in this country. I am all in favour of experiments and pilot schemes, and I welcome those aspects of the Bill.
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