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3 Feb 2003 : Column 102—continued
Yvette Cooper: I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 3, line 10, at end insert—
'( ) persons who are registered but have not attained the age of 18 are to be counted as electors;'.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 20.
Yvette Cooper: I shall be brief on these amendments. The Electoral Commission pointed out to us that the Bill was ambiguous about whether people who were registered but had not yet attained the age of 18—16 and
17-year-olds who were on the register—should be counted as electors for the purposes of its work on the redistribution of MEPs. The amendments are intended to clarify the position. The attainers, as the electoral administrators call them, should be included on the register with their dates of birth. So that the Electoral Commission does not have to go through the electoral register and exclude or include people according to their dates of birth, the amendment includes all of them for the purposes of the commission's calculation. It will therefore simplify the commission's work. I hope that the House will agree that it is a relatively straightforward amendment that should be accepted.
Lady Hermon: The Minister will be aware that, under the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002, new identifiers were introduced last year, so that there is no automatic registration of those aged 16, 17 or 18. They have to complete a registration form. Will the Minister ensure that negotiations take place with her counterparts in the Northern Ireland Office to ensure that that provision is brought to their attention?
Yvette Cooper: I will ensure that there is no discrepancy and that all in Northern Ireland are included in the provision.
Mr. Cash: I have only one point to make. Is the Minister satisfied that the word "registered" means lawfully registered in this context? Does the word "lawfully" need to be included, because it is theoretically possible for a person to be registered but not lawfully so?
Yvette Cooper: The amendment will allow the Electoral Commission to make its calculation. It is unlikely to be able to distinguish between those who are lawfully registered and those who are not. The hon. Gentleman is concerned that a category of people are not lawfully registered and suggesting that they should be excluded. If the Electoral Commission discovers that people are unlawfully registered, it will clearly remove them from the register. It could become a vicious circle, so the amendment will ensure that the commission can make a very simple calculation. The amendment should not be controversial or difficult.
Yvette Cooper: I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 3, line 31, leave out 'supplementary, incidental'.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendment No. 10.
Amendment No. 23, in page 3, line 33, leave out 'any Act)' and insert—–
'such enactments only as are germane to the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002 and this Act)'.
Government amendments Nos. 11 to 16.
Amendment No. 37, in clause 17, page 9, line 26, leave out from 'regulations' to end of line 29 and add—
'may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament'.
Government amendments Nos. 17 to 19.
Yvette Cooper: We have only a few minutes available, but this large group of amendments is made up mostly of technical Government amendments.
Amendments Nos. 9 and 18 will remove the power to make "supplementary and incidental" amendments that appears in clause 4(3). We considered the points that were made in Committee about limiting the scope of the powers to those that were precisely needed. All the other Government amendments clarify and refine the powers to make subordinate legislation, so that it is clear what we can and cannot do. In particular, they will enable the electoral process to work satisfactorily in Gibraltar.
Government amendment No. 11 restricts the power in clause 11(6) so that it is clear that it cannot override any provisions on the face of Bill. In Committee, we discussed the scope of that subsection to ensure that it was restricted by what was on the face of the Bill. It is not restricted by what is in other regulations.
Amendment No. 23 is hard to accept because it uses difficult language such as the world "germane". I do not know what the legal interpretation of "germane" would be, so the amendment would create a legal difficulty.
Amendment No. 37 would require all subordinate legislation to be made only by affirmative resolution procedures. We discussed extensively in Committee the fact that some matters are suitable for the negative resolution procedure and that others are suitable for the affirmative resolution procedure. Clearly we will consider the views of the Committee in the Lords, but we have set out our views on the appropriateness of the way in which the resolutions should be treated, and that is based on how electoral law tends to be treated under the negative and affirmative resolution procedures.
The Government amendments are relatively technical. I hope that the House will agree to them.
It being Nine o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker, pursuant to Orders [29 October and 10 December], put forthwith the Questions necessary for the disposal of proceedings to be concluded at that hour.
Remaining Government amendments agreed to.
9 pm
Yvette Cooper: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I thank those hon. Members who contributed to the debate and those who participated in Committee. We have had an in-depth and generally constructive debate on the issues included in this important Bill, which allows us both to meet our treaty agreements to enable additional states to participate fully in European Union democracy and to give Gibraltar a voice in European elections.
Part 1 enables the UK to move a step closer to fulfilling our obligations under the treaty of Nice as part of the preparations for enlargement of the European
Union. As other states join the EU, they clearly need fair representation in its institutions, and that includes the European Parliament. It is right that they should have fair representation there and the treaty of Nice sets out provisions to enable that to happen. To ensure that the European Parliament does not simply inexorably increase in size, a mechanism was agreed in the treaty of Nice by which the number of MEPs across all European countries can be reduced. Parliament ratified the treaty last year and the Bill implements the obligations that it places on us. The Bill establishes the mechanism by which the number of UK MEPs can be altered to allow space in the European Parliament for the new accession states.It is right that the redistribution should be based, as far as possible, on equality of representation and a minimum threshold of three MEPs per region. It is right, too, that the Electoral Commission should be the appropriate body to carry out the necessary calculations and make recommendations on redistribution. It is essential that we start work on that as soon as possible so that we can implement the first tranche of changes in time for the 2004 European Parliament elections. The European Commission has considerable work to do before it makes its recommendation on the distribution of MEPs. That will be included in an order that will be placed before the House under the affirmative resolution procedure and pass through the House then.
Part 2 enables the people of Gibraltar to vote in European parliamentary elections as of 2004. That means that their interests will be directly represented in the European Parliament for the first time. We have discussed extensively the need to consult the Government of Gibraltar on the Bill's details. As I set out today and in Committee, we are still in discussion with them and intend to table amendments in another place to give effect to some of the issues that they have raised, although the discussions have been going on for a considerable time. As hon. Members will be aware, officials had a meeting with the Chief Minister of Gibraltar and his colleagues before Christmas to discuss such matters. We have recently received further points from the Government of Gibraltar, which I have shared with hon. Members who served on Committee. We are looking at the matter in more detail with parliamentary counsel and hope to table further amendments.
Secondary legislation is also required to put into practice the more detailed amendments to electoral law. Important issues about the franchise were dealt with in the Bill, and more detailed amendments on donations to political parties and so on will be dealt with in regulations under the Bill. It is important that powers in part 2 are restricted to those that give the people of Gibraltar representation in the European Parliament and ensure that the combined region is established under the recommendation of the Electoral Commission. We should set that in train as rapidly as possible to meet the tight time scale imposed by the 2004 elections.
We have had extensive debates about bits and pieces of issues surrounding the Bill. I hope that its fundamental principles are supported by Members on both sides of the House and members of all political parties, as they deal with enlargement of the European Union, ensuring that new member states get fair representation in the European Parliament, fairness of
representation and democracy, and the enfranchisement of the people of Gibraltar by giving them the vote in the European Parliament. I hope that Members on both sides will sign up to those principles, so that we can all support Third Reading.
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