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Sir Patrick Cormack (South Staffordshire) (Con): The hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Stinchcombe) crammed a great deal into his speech, some of which I agreed with and much of which I did not. However, when we consider the voting figures for the past few elections, it is right to be concerned. I believe that there is a fairly simple explanation.
In 1992, when turnout was fairly high, the election was keenly contested. It was possible that the Labour party could win and people came out to vote in great numbers. They were also much influenced by what happened during the campaign. One need only mention the two words, "Sheffield rally". In 1997, we had a Government who were discredited and a party that had imploded and did not deserve the confidence of the people. We were seen off. In 2001, people were beginning to be disillusioned with the Labour
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Government, but if they had fallen out of love with them, they certainly had not fallen in love with us, so we did not benefit from any decline in support for Labour. Those simple facts explain more clearly than anything else why there was a decline. When people are really and truly interested, they will vote.
I would like to refer to the excellent, arresting and disturbing speech made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff). He took today's debate out of the party political arena and made us focus on some real and important facts. What he said about the postal voting in Birmingham should make us all pause and think. Every hon. Member who has fought many general elections—I have fought every one for the last 40 years—has had a slightly disturbing experience with postal votes, whether it involves someone who has influence over his own particular group, or the matron or superintendent of a home, who says, "It will be all right. We'll make sure they do it properly." We all have to acknowledge that the system is open to abuse, and it is more open to abuse than using a polling booth.
The Minister's speech was far too glib and complacent, and did not recognise the implicit faults that are present in any postal voting system, although they are not always capable of proof, as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Dame Marion Roe) pointed out. This does not mean that I am against postal votes, but I am in favour of choice. It should be the conscious choice of the elector to vote by post; if the elector wishes to do so, he or she should be allowed to do so. There should be some form of verification of identity, but there should not be a requirement to prove that they are going to be on holiday, or that they are ill or incapacitated. They should be able to make a conscious choice.
In the recent election, many people were very unhappy about being forced to vote by post. I come from Lincolnshire—my home town was Grimsby—and I received a number of letters from friends there who said, "Whenever you get the opportunity, do say that we do not want this choice permanently taken away from us. We treasure the fact that we go consciously to a polling booth to cast our vote." We deprive our electorate of that choice at the peril of our democracy.
I am fundamentally opposed to compulsory postal voting for two reasons above all others. One is that it effectively abolishes polling day. The other is that it abolishes the influence that a campaign can have. I referred briefly to the Sheffield rally, but we can all remember certain incidents, some of which have been to the advantage of our own party and others that have not. I remember the first general election that I fought, in 1964, in the constituency of Bolsover. Of course, I was never going to have a chance of winning, but I managed to reduce the majority from around 24,000 to 23,000. That was the best I could do. However, I remember that two things happened that could have influenced that campaign if they had happened a day or two earlier. One was the Chinese explosion of an atomic device; the other was the fall of Khrushchev.
During an election campaign, it is important that people should constantly be listening to the people who are seeking to represent them. I deeply deplore the demise of the public meeting; I hold them every night in my constituency. People should be continually aware of
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what is going on during the campaign, so that their minds can be influenced right up to the time when they go into the polling booth. With compulsory all-postal voting, we destroy that at a stroke.
We also, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath graphically demonstrated, run the risk of destroying the secret ballot. The secret ballot has been a feature of our democracy for only 140 years—before that, we stood on the hustings and proclaimed our allegiance. I could not help but think of that when he was talking about the demonstration of loyalty—a demonstration of loyalty voluntarily given is one thing, but a demonstration of loyalty yielded out of fear or intimidation is very different. I hope that those are factors on which the Government will think carefully.
If we are truly anxious, regardless of the will of the electorate, to increase participation in elections, there is an alternative, to which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath, towards the close of his speech, alluded briefly. That is the system that they have not only in Australia but in Belgium and other places—compulsory voting. If an element of compulsion is to be introduced, it should be that. People can then choose to vote by post or by going to the polling station. They can write, "A plague on both your houses," which was the substance of the hon. Member for Wellingborough's summation of the recent election, they can put more vulgar slogans, or they can return in the post a blank ballot paper. So great are the problems that we face, however—some of those to do with the integrity of the register were referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne—that we ought to give some thought to compulsory registration, without which people would not be entitled to benefits and other things. If someone registers compulsorily, they have a duty to vote compulsorily, by returning a ballot paper in one form or another. In that way, we do away with most of the opportunities for abuse, we increase the turnout, and we concentrate the minds of the politicians—those of us who sit here or seek to sit here.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman has touched on a crucial point: even were there fraud under such a system, because turnout is much higher, it is much more difficult to influence the result by fraudulent means.
Sir Patrick Cormack: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making a point that I was hoping to make a little later. If we have, as I believe that Belgium had on 10 June, a turnout of more than 90 per cent., or as they have in Australia, the incidence of fraud is diminished in its impact.
What we should all be concerned about is the reputation of our democracy, and what we aspire to do here. I am old-fashioned in my views of this place and of seeking election to this place. I believe that politics is an honourable vocation. Those of us who feel called to public service have a right to place ourselves before the electorate, and they have the right to choose. We have the duty to ensure that they have the means of choice. The way in which the Government are seeking to tackle this is misguided. It is not malevolent. I do not for a moment impugn the integrity of either of the Ministers on the Front Bench—they are both good chaps—but I
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do not think that they have thought it through sufficiently seriously. They have dismissed the Sparkbrook argument without listening to it, and now that they have heard it, I hope that they will take it on board, because it is a very important argument.
If Ministers are motivated by turnout, I hope that they will reflect on the logical, perfectly honourable precedent of compulsory voting—as we have said, there are precedents in other countries. If that is the road that they want to take, let us take it together. At the end of the day, however, let them realise that it is not the duty of the Government, by fiat—that is virtually what happened last time, and a Government with a big majority, such as this, behave in that way—to deprive people of choice. By all means, if a man or a woman wants to vote by post, let them do so, but do not deprive them of the opportunity of going to the polling booth.
It is no answer to suggest that because there is an alternative booth—one in a large area—that solves the problem. It does not. There is no substitute for the local polling station near where people live. Many people, particularly the elderly, rejoice in the fact that they make a real, conscious effort to go to vote. In the last general election, without doubt the most moving experience for me occurred in one polling station quite near a large old people's home. Those people were coming in, and being pushed in in wheelchairs—in one case, a bath chair—and they told me that they wanted to do that. They said that they did not want postal votes because coming out to vote was what they wanted to do.
If that is what people want to do, it is an arrogant assertion of overbearing power for any Government to deprive them of that. I hope that when the Minister replies to the debate he will recognise the validity of our arguments and show that he wants us to move forward in a way that affords proper choice to all our people.
4.6 pm
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