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9.2 pm
Dr. Julian Lewis (New Forest, East): It is a great pleasure to follow the excellent speech of the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), and especially to acknowledge his kindness and consideration in cutting short his remarks on a subject that is, evidently, very close to his heart in order to give other hon. Members a chance to speak. I shall try to follow his example.
In speaking now--unexpectedly, following a constructive and welcome meeting earlier today with the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien)--I am appealing to the House for cross-party support to help close a loophole in the Representation of the People Act 1983. That loophole is not yet addressed in the Bill, but I have some reason to hope that, if an amendment is moved in Committee, it may not be met with an entirely unsympathetic response from the Government. It relates to section 106(1) of the 1983 Act, which is concerned with the telling of lies about the character or conduct of candidates in elections by people intending to damage their prospects of being returned to Parliament.
I wish to use as an illustration my own experience, which led to a court case that exposed that loophole in the law in the age of the internet. I have previously, on 18 March 1998, mentioned in the House the problem caused by the publication of a scurrilous magazine called Scallywag, which specialised in telling lies about the private lives of public figures. It first became notorious in 1993, when it falsely alleged that the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), was conducting an adulterous affair with his caterer. A couple of years later, it announced that on a certain date Buckingham palace would be making a formal declaration that a senior member of the royal family was dying from the AIDS virus. Needless to say, that declaration was never made.
Eventually, in late 1994, the magazine turned its attention to me, and the nub of its accusations was that I was a secret promiscuous homosexual who frequented "male dens of iniquity" and that my girl friend was really a tart, hired from an escort agency to accompany me to constituency selection contests.
Recent events show the lethality of such accusations. Because the author and publishers were destitute, I could not sue them without running up irrecoverable costs.
However, I managed to uncover the secret network of printers and distributors, and I sued them instead. I gained £39,500 in damages and about £70,000 in costs. The accusations were then transferred to the internet, but, foolishly, to a British-based internet company, Demon, whereupon I sued it and gained several thousand pounds in damages and costs from it as well. However, I still could not go after the actual perpetrator because he was financially destitute. If I had, I would have run up irrecoverable costs, which I would have had to meet when he declared himself bankrupt once again, having been a bankrupt as recently as 1991.
The Representation of the People Act 1983 is relevant, because section 106 makes it a criminal offence to tell lies about the character or conduct of a candidate with a view to affecting his return to Parliament. I was able to confront the editor of the internet site at a public meeting to get him to admit that he was making these statements about my character and conduct to damage my vote, and I then reported him to the police under the terms of section 106.
That led to a trial in December 1998 in a magistrates court. After three days of cross-examination of myself, and a series of smears and lies put forward on behalf of the person on trial by Mr. Paul Bogan, his barrister, Mr. Bogan admitted on the last day of the trial:
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst):
Order. I would be grateful if the hon. Member could help me by demonstrating how his remarks are related to the Bill before us.
Dr. Lewis:
I am obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was encouraged by the meeting that I had with the Minister this morning and I was told that it would be germane to talk about this case with a view to tabling an amendment in Committee to close the loophole that I am about to explain. I have almost finished my remarks on the illustration, and, if you bear with me a few moments longer, you will see that it is entirely germane.
In the December trial, this gentleman was convicted on seven criminal counts. However, on appeal in the Crown court in June this year, those convictions were quashed. They were quashed because the material had been uploaded on to the internet before the opening of the election campaign, and thus while I was a prospective parliamentary candidate, not an adopted parliamentary candidate. The Press Association law reporter quoted the judgment as follows:
Dr. Lewis:
I was not aware that that Bill contained such provisions--I wish to be entirely honest with the hon. Gentleman. Had I been aware of them, I would have reconsidered the matter.
Mr. Fabricant:
My hon. Friend's memory, which is normally very good, has failed on this occasion. He did not vote against the Bill; he abstained.
Dr. Lewis:
Much as I appreciate my hon. Friend's attempt to assist me, I am aware of the passage of time and the importance of letting other Members speak, and we are moving into arcane considerations in which I have no wish to indulge.
The judgment made it clear that section 106 of the 1983 Act is deficient. As a result of the creation of the internet, people can upload lies about a candidate in an election, but, provided that they do so prior to the start of the election campaign, failure to shut down the website in question is not enough to establish that publication occurred during the election campaign itself, and thus to establish guilt under section 106.
I understand from the Minister that he has experienced something slightly similar to my case, although the allegations against him were of a different nature. Our cases show that section 106 of the 1983 Act is now worthless in respect of protecting candidates for election against deliberate lies told about their personal lives and character with the intention of damaging their chances of returning to Parliament.
Mr. Neil Turner (Wigan):
I am aware of the time constraints, so I shall limit my comments to two or, if time allows, three items. Most of the points that I would want to make have been made much more eloquently by previous speakers.
My first point relates to clause 13, which deals with people with disabilities. Obviously, I welcome any measure that will ensure that disabled people have the right to vote and are more easily able to vote than at the moment. However, the Bill makes the process an awful lot more bureaucratic than is necessary, and I hope that we will consider that clause in Committee and try to remove some of the bureaucracy.
Most of us who want to vote can go to the polling station, give our name and address or hand in our polling card, get our ballot paper and cast our vote. Surely we should seek the same provision for disabled people, with the addition only of provision for a helper. We should be
able to do without the bureaucratic nonsense of requiring disabled people to identify that helper and have his or her name recorded.
My second point concerns voter apathy and fatigue, which has been mentioned by other hon. Members but which is not dealt with in the Bill. It may not be appropriate for it to be covered, and I look to the Minister to say whether or not that is the case. It seems a shame that we might miss the opportunity to try to overcome the voter apathy and fatigue that occur when there are several elections in quick succession.
In the elections in June this year, one reason people gave us for not voting was that they had just voted in May and were being asked to do so again soon afterwards. We should take this opportunity to give the Home Secretary the right in future years to hold two elections on the same day. Surely that would overcome much of the apathy and fatigue and increase the turnout.
Wigan, unfortunately, has a record of low turnout. In May, the local council carried out a survey among voters. We gave those who were carrying out the survey the marked register, so that they knew who had voted and who had not, and they carried out face-to-face interviews on that basis. We got a far more accurate reflection of people's views in that way.
One of the questions asked was how voting turnout could be improved. It is interesting to note that the three main suggestions were not measures that Parliament or local councils could put into effect, but steps that political parties and candidates could take. They included issues such as doorstep canvassing and greater information about candidates. Of the measures suggested which the Bill addresses, the first was postal voting, so I welcome the introduction of postal votes being granted on demand.
"I accept that there is no evidence of a direct nature that Dr. Lewis was homosexual."
In fact, Mr. Bogan produced no shred of evidence of any sort, nor was a single witness produced.
"the judge said: 'Failure of the defendant to act to shut down the internet site cannot be properly described as publication in the context of this Act.'
here is the direct relevance of the case, Mr. Deputy Speaker--
He went on"--
"'We are aware that our decision means that there is a situation which is unsatisfactory if Section 106 (of the Act) is to continue to be effective legislation.
Mr. Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston):
The hon. Gentleman raises an interesting point in the context
We are not entitled to remedy any defect the wording of the section may have in light of more modern conditions.'"
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