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Mr. Hilton Dawson (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab): Will my right hon. Friend assure me that during the time in which the Government are allowed to give objective information to people about this extremely important constitutional occasion, they will use that opportunity to give a great deal of information to everyone who can vote?

Mr. Raynsford: I am happy to provide that assurance. Last week, I attended a hearing in Blackpool, which is not far from the constituency of my hon. Friend, where the debate was intelligent and sensible. The no campaign fielded an expert on local government, whom I respect greatly, and the yes campaign fielded a councillor with considerable experience of a local authority. I presented the factual basis and the yes and no campaigns argued
 
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their cases, which is right and proper. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for North Essex laughs, but he would be surprised if I went into the detail of what the advocate for the no campaign said, which did not accord with the views expressed by Conservative Front Benchers—I have more respect for that particular spokesman and his expertise than I do for them. [Interruption.] I will take one more intervention, but then I must end my speech because other hon. Members want to speak.

Mr. Neil Turner (Wigan) (Lab): Sub-paragraph (c) of "Limits on referendum expenses by participants in the North West region" refers to

"£100,000 in the case of an individual or body falling within"

a certain Act. What provision is there to prevent a very rich person from setting up a number of bodies and putting the £100,000 into the fund, thus skewing the debate one way or the other?

Mr. Raynsford: My hon. Friend has put his finger on a difficulty with the existing regulations. Having examined them carefully, we believe that there is scope for individuals to support different organisations, all of which could register separately. It will be for the Electoral Commission to decide whether, in its opinion, there is an abuse of the system in such circumstances. I trust the judgment of the commission, which is of course empowered to register participants. Without its endorsement, those participants are not entitled to spend more than £10,000.

The orders are essential to enable referendums on elected regional assemblies to be held this autumn. I believe that they provide a proper basis for the achievement of our objectives. Those objectives are to give the people in the northern regions an opportunity to express their views either for or against elected regional assemblies, to do so on the basis of the highest possible participation, and to be well informed of the outcome. I commend the orders to the House.

3.56 pm

Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) (Con): I think the whole House is extremely grateful to the Minister for the time he has given us and the number of interventions he has taken. He is an extremely nice man, and also an extremely honourable man; but sometimes, as he puts his head on the pillow at night, he must wonder what on earth the mess is that he has got himself into.

Even if Parliament approves the orders this week, everyone will be left wondering whether the referendums in the north of England will take place at all. It is difficult to imagine how the Government could have created more of a mess for themselves. Here we are with the date of the referendums set, with the Government spending millions of pounds of public money on their own propaganda campaign, and with the yes and no campaigns up and running in three northern regions not yet recognised by the Electoral Commission or the Government, facing the fact that the referendums may never be held.
 
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The problem is that the Government have become obsessed with conducting the referendums by means of all-postal ballots. We must ask ourselves why. The conventional ballot box was good enough for the Scottish referendum, good enough for Wales and good enough for the London mayoralty and the London Assembly. Why does it not do for referendums on regional assemblies? Why does the Deputy Prime Minister—against all the advice of the Electoral Commission, after the chaos of the all-postal pilots in the June elections and after the collapse of public confidence in all-postal voting—still insist on all-postal referendums? He is effectively putting the whole policy at risk, because the Government may yet have to call them off.

The real danger with the referendums is the massive opportunity for vote-harvesting. I use that phrase advisedly. Unscrupulous individuals or organisations collecting unwanted ballot papers from doorsteps, from the doormats of multiple-occupancy residences or even from people's rubbish sacks and bins could forge signatures and post the papers off, and no one would be the wiser. There is no way of checking whether the votes are genuine.

I hear what the Minister and the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) say about the self-interest of candidates not being a factor in a referendum, but reduced motive does not improve the security of a system that is fundamentally unsound.

Mr. Kevan Jones : Is it not easier to impersonate someone under the present ballot-box system than under the postal-vote system? I could turn up at the hon. Gentleman's polling station, give his name and address, receive a ballot paper and walk out. There would be no audit trail to establish that I had been there. Surely what the hon. Gentleman is saying is nonsense.

Mr. Jenkin: Logistically, it is much more difficult to organise large-scale impersonation in a polling station than behind a closed door with stacks of ballot papers. In order to impersonate me, another voter and another voter several times, the hon. Gentleman would have to go into separate polling stations to avoid being identified voting more than once. That is not necessary if he is voting behind a closed door using ballot papers with forged signatures. It is possible to vote hundreds and hundreds of times under the system that is being promulgated in these orders. It would not be possible to do that with the conventional ballot box.

Mr. Edward Davey: Would the hon. Gentleman be more relaxed if there were a declaration of identity, as there was in the all-postal ballot pilots? It is important for him to say that. If he can join our party in making that point, perhaps we can persuade the Government that, until we get individual elector registration, that is the way to go to prevent the fraud that he has expressed concern about.

Mr. Jenkin: A witness statement is an additional safeguard. None the less, it is unsatisfactory because it can be forged, too, and there is no way to check that. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be preferable to have a witness statement.
 
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I still think that it would be preferable to have conventional ballot box voting. That would be a more secure way of conducting the referendums. How could anyone check whether the signatures on the ballot packs were real or fake?

Ms Dari Taylor: The House is well aware that evidence was produced that fraud took place in parts of the midlands. I should be grateful if the hon. Gentleman could tell us whether there was any evidence of similar fraud, on any scale, in the northern region.

Mr. Jenkin: If the system is unsound in the midlands, it is unsound in any other region. I will come to what the leader of Birmingham city council said in a moment, but the other place insisted on a witness statement in the postal pilots because of the need for some check on all-postal balloting. I agree with the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin), who is longing to be the new Miss North-east in the regional assembly: it probably would reduce the turnout because it would complicate the system, but it would make it safer. We must accept that.

That is why the Electoral Commission wanted the Government to delay these referendum orders. It is all very well to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), who is no longer here unfortunately, would not listen to the Electoral Commission. When it does not suit the Minister for Local and Regional Government, even though his Government set up the Electoral Commission, he does not listen to it—well, he listens to it and ignores it. That is what he has done in this case.

It is widely known that the Electoral Commission would have preferred the Government to delay the orders until it reported on the pilots. I am sure that the Minister will not be disingenuous enough to insist that that is not true. What it wants ideally is to implement individual voter registration, so that a record of every voter's signature is held centrally on file and signatures on ballot papers can be cross-checked if there is any doubt or any need. Indeed, they could be spot cross-checked to discourage anyone from forging a signature on a ballot paper.

In these referendums, apathy will be rife. The majority in all three regions probably do not care, or hardly know, about the Deputy Prime Minister's precious regional assembly proposals. Few people will care what happens to the ballot papers that they never asked for. Again, despite the chaos last time, live, validated ballot papers will pour out across the north of England and, from that point on, no one will know where individual ballot papers have been, who has completed them and whether any fraud has taken place. That is what the postal pilots clearly proved last month.

The other problem is the state of electoral law. As Sir Albert Bore, Labour leader of Birmingham city council, said last month:

"At present, in relation to postal ballot papers, the law is so general that almost anything is legal."

That is why the Electoral Commission is pushing for an increase in the number and type of offences with regard to postal voting to protect the integrity of the ballot.
 
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I put it to the Minister that there is no consensus on this matter. He has the support of neither the Liberal Democrats nor the Conservative party on the question. Why are the Government galloping ahead with their own way of conducting ballots without any party consensus? This has hardly ever been done before with such a cavalier attitude. The only conclusion that one can reach is that it is being done because it is in this miserable, rotten Government's interests; they see political advantage in it. An all-postal ballot is the only hope of avoiding the humiliation of a totally derisory turnout. That is not an excuse for hijacking the voting system.

The other advantage that the Government now have is a convenient exit strategy. I can well imagine that the right hon. Gentleman has been detailed by the Prime Minister to try to extricate the Government from the mess that the Deputy Prime Minister has made. If the Government really do face humiliation in all three regions, they can use the Electoral Commission's report as a pretext to call the whole thing off.

Last month, the House was told that the referendums would not proceed if the Electoral Commission were to conclude that it was "unsafe" to proceed with all-postal voting. Rather like "derisory", what does "unsafe" mean? The Minister told us in the same debate that not to proceed the Electoral Commission would only have to produce

"evidence leading to the conclusion that it would be unsafe".—[Official Report, 22 June 2004; Vol. 422, c. 1260]

He has also said that only

"a suggestion that new regulations were required"

would be enough to postpone the referendums. There is plenty of wiggle room there; we know that the commission already wants additional regulations to protect the integrity of the ballot. It will be possible for the right hon. Gentleman and the Government to interpret the Electoral Commission's report however they so choose.

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