---

Mr. Bernard Jenkin (North Essex) (Con): I thank the Minister for sending me a copy of his statement well in advance. I am bound to say that it contained no surprises and raised a wry smile on my face. The Electoral Commission report is clear on several points that the Government have hitherto denied. Turnout in the all-postal voting regions was only five percentage points higher than elsewhere, and not 50 per cent. up as the Government falsely claimed. The public do not trust all-postal voting, and major reforms are required to increase the security of postal voting, even if it is postal voting on demand.

Of course the report's key recommendation is to abandon all-postal voting for all future statutory elections and referendums.

The Electoral Commission has delivered the most astonishing and courageous snub to the Government on this policy. The Minister's statement is simply the latest lurch in the Government's conduct of policy on all-postal voting. First, in January they included the north-west and Yorkshire in the June postal pilots, against the advice of the Electoral Commission. Then the Government forced them through the House of Lords, ignoring all the warnings about the tight timetables and lack of public confidence. They insisted there were no problems, as the elections proceeded in an atmosphere of utter chaos. Ballot packs were misprinted. There were panic reprints. Ballot packs were lost in the post or delivered to the wrong voters. Some voters got no ballot packs at all; some got more ballot packs than they bargained for.
 
13 Sept 2004 : Column 990
 

Most important, when ballot papers are distributed willy-nilly to thousands of people who have no intention of voting, all-postal voting allows almost unlimited scope for electoral fraud. So why, after the June elections, did the Government still insist that all-postal voting was "a success"? I notice the Minister is still using the word "successful" in relation to the pilots. If one has tested a system to destruction and to the satisfaction of everybody that it is an unsound system, I suppose that is a kind of success.

Only when Labour Back Benchers lined up against the Government to denounce all-postal ballots did they abandon all-postal referendums in Yorkshire and the north-west. Now, the whole system of all-postal voting has been roundly condemned by the Electoral Commission out of hand. Since those of us who issued warnings to the Government have been utterly vindicated, will the Minister now abandon all-postal voting in the north-east referendum? Will he confirm that the Electoral Commission is not calling for change? The only reason it is not calling for change is that Parliament approved the orders back in July. Of course it is not for the Electoral Commission to second-guess decisions of the House. It is for Parliament to revisit those decisions.

Has the Minister forgotten, incidentally, that back in July the commission opposed the Government laying the orders for the north-east referendum in the first place? So why did the Minister not quote the commission's disclaimer on the north- east referendum, which states:

"Nothing in this statement"—

supporting the north-east referendum—

"should be interpreted as offering reassurance that . . . the referendum process in the North East will be risk free or secure a high degree of public support"?

If that is not the commission washing its hands of the problem, I do not know what is. It does not want to be responsible for the Government's irresponsible intransigence.

The Minister has no answer to the following question: if it is wrong to go ahead in Yorkshire or the north-west, why should the people of the north-east have to use a discredited voting system in their referendum? May I suggest to the Minister what he should do? Why not abandon all-postal voting in the referendum and ask Parliament for the necessary powers to revert to the tried and tested ballot box? I note the point that the Electoral Commission makes about the far greater risk of changing the system now, but I do not quite understand the point that it makes.

Even if the Prime Minister wanted a general election on 4 November, are we to take the Electoral Commission's advice and let it tell us that there is far too great a risk for the Prime Minister to call a general election before Christmas? That is totally unreasonable. The Government have just moved a writ for the Hartlepool by-election on 30 September. Did I hear the Electoral Commission tell us that there is much too much risk to call a by-election at such short notice? If there is time to call a general election by 4 November, there is time to revert to a tried and tested voting system in the north-east—a voting system that the people of the north-east can trust. As was recommended by my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) in his
 
13 Sept 2004 : Column 991
 
private Member's Bill before the recess, surely the people of the north-east deserve the best voting system that we can provide for them.

The Minister is an honourable man. He would do much for his reputation and for the House if he admitted that the Government got it wrong. They are still getting the matter wrong. The right hon. Gentleman is carrying out his political masters' wish for all-postal voting because they hope to disguise the apathy towards Labour's unwanted elected regional assembly in the north-east. Labour's determination to carry on regardless clearly demonstrates that it puts self-interest before public interest and party before principle, and that it has no respect for the integrity of the constitution, which it should be Labour's duty to defend.

Mr. Raynsford: The hon. Gentleman showed his mastery of selective quoting in trying to support his point. He conveniently chose to ignore all evidence from the Electoral Commission that does not agree with his point of view. That reminds me of the position that the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) took in an earlier debate, in which he said that he did not care about the Electoral Commission's views, which indicates the seriousness of the Opposition when it comes to important matters of election procedure and probity.

The hon. Gentleman's first point was that the Electoral Commission had proved that the Government's claim that all-postal voting had doubled turnout was wrong. I shall quote paragraph 4.19, page 29 of the Electoral Commission report:

"While turnout more than doubled in pilot regions, it increased by only half that amount in non-pilot areas."

The report states that, compared with the previous European election, the increase in the pilot areas was 109.46 per cent. and in the non-pilot regions it was 53.38 per cent. Most people with the slightest smattering of mathematics would say that the result in the pilot areas was double that in the non-pilot areas. It is astonishing that the hon. Gentleman should try to use a technical point about percentage points casuistically to claim that the Government have got the matter wrong, and I suggest that he read the report more carefully.

The hon. Gentleman went on to say that we held the all-postal pilots in June this year against the Electoral Commission's advice, but that is not true, because we consulted it at great length. The Electoral Commission recommended two regions as particularly suited to all-postal voting and four other regions as potentially suited to all-postal voting. We had previously asked the Electoral Commission to recommend three regions as suitable for all-postal voting and one region as suitable for an electronic pilot. In the event, the Commission did not recommend an electronic pilot, and we did not hold one. When we decided which regions should have all-postal pilots, we took the two regions that the Electoral Commission recommended as eminently suitable and two of the four regions that it recommended as potentially suitable. The hon. Gentleman's argument that we ignored the Electoral Commission's advice is simply untenable.

The hon. Gentleman repeated the exaggerated claims of problems associated with the pilots in June. If he examines page 50, paragraph 4.104 of the Electoral
 
13 Sept 2004 : Column 992
 
Commission report, he will read the following, which he might wish to ponder before he makes any rash allegations:

"In summary, we are not aware of any evidence to date to suggest any widespread abuse of postal voting, either in or beyond the pilot regions."

Those are the words of the Electoral Commission.

The hon. Gentleman suggests that we should abandon the north-east referendum, against the advice of the Electoral Commission, which says that we should proceed. He quoted the Electoral Commission saying that it would not be safe, so I shall tell him what the Electoral Commission actually said:

"There is presently no evidence on which to conclude that an all-postal referendum in the North East would be unsafe in terms of fraud or malpractice. To the Commission's knowledge, no allegations of electoral fraud made in the North East in relation to the June all-postal pilot scheme have led to formal prosecutions".

Those are the Electoral Commission's conclusions, and the hon. Gentleman does himself and his party no service by trying to ignore them.

The hon. Gentleman discussed the possibility of the referendum in the north-east being conducted by conventional means, against the clear advice of the Electoral Commission, which states that changing the basis of the referendum at this late stage would be risky. He also shows contempt for the views of people in the north-east, who have consistently shown their support for all-postal voting. The Opposition's position is simply not credible.

---