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Written Ministerial Statements

Tuesday 11 October 2005

CABINET OFFICE

Public Sector Ombudsmen Services

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hutton): The Government launched in August a consultation document on reform of public sector ombudsmen services in England.

The proposed reforms would remove some of the existing legislative constraints that prevent the main public sector ombudsmen—the parliamentary ombudsman, the health service ombudsman, and the local government ombudsman—from working collaboratively to provide a more efficient and streamlined service to the citizen.

The consultation period ends on Friday 18 November. Copies of the consultation document are available in the Libraries of both Houses and available electronically at www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/propriety and ethics/parliamentary–ombudsman/ombudsmenreform.asp

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

Electoral Administration

The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs (Ms Harriet Harman): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor has made the following written statement in the other place today:

"The Government will shortly introduce legislation to improve the administration of elections. This will be accompanied by the publication of the Government's response to the DCA policy discussion paper and the Electoral Commission's securing the vote report.

This legislation will aim to make progress on the Government's three core principles for elections:

access to voting for all;

highest possible turnout; and

lowest possible fraud.

These key issues—access, participation and integrity—are those on which the legitimacy of our representative democracy depends.

We need to strike a balance between security and access. The changes that the Government will propose to Parliament aim to enhance both. Our key objectives are to ensure that all who are entitled to vote are on the register and improve safeguards against fraud.

The changes we propose include:

introducing performance standards, to be set by the Electoral Commission in consultation with the Secretary of State, to promote best practice in electoral services;

moving back the last date for registration, enabling people to register to vote after an election has been called;

placing a new duty on registration officers to take all necessary steps to ensure comprehensive registers. Those steps include the following specific measures:

 
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(a) Sending the canvass form more than once to any address;

(b) Making house to house inquires on more than one occasion;

(c) Making contact by such other means as the ERO thinks appropriate with persons who do not have an entry in a register;

(d) Inspecting any records held by any person which the ERO is permitted to inspect; and

(e) Providing training to persons under the direction or control of the ERO in connection with the carrying out of the duty;

giving returning officers a new power to promote elections and electoral registration;

enabling parents and those with caring responsibilities to take children into the polling stationwith them when they go to vote;

providing for pre-poll information to be sent to all electors including details about their vote;

allowing electors to register anonymously in certain circumstances, so that registration doesnot compromise the safety of the vulnerable;

lowering the age of candidacy from 21 to 18;

simplifying guidance for voters, and enabling this to be available in languages other than English for those who need it;

establishing a framework for returning officers to conduct reviews of polling places every fouryears to ensure they meet accessibility criteria;

establishing two new electoral fraud offences, for falsely applying for a postal or proxy vote and for supplying false information or failing to supply information to the electoral registration officer at any time;

providing for pilots of personal identifiers (e.g. signatures and dates of birth) at registration to test the security benefits that this could bring and measure the effect on the completeness of the register;

establishing a framework for the co-ordinated on-line record of electors (CORE) to improve the accuracy and integrity of electoral registers and support national access and future data sharing between registers;

revising the offence of undue influence, enabling the offence to be effective even where influence has not led to any action being taken;

improving security markings on ballots papers;

introducing a marked register of postal votes received, similar to that currently used for polling station voters;

introducing statutory secrecy warnings to accompany postal and proxy voting papers to deter anyone from unlawfully attempting to influence another person's vote;

requiring voters to sign for their ballot paper at the polling station to act as a deterrent to fraud;

allowing access to accredited observers at polling stations and at other stages of the electoral process, such as the count, to enhance the openness and integrity of the electoral system; and

simplifying and clarifying regulations for political parties, including by standardising the period in which election expenses can be incurred at four months.

To provide for more flexibility and transparency in the administration of elections we will:

enable administrators to correct clerical and administrative errors during the course of the election;

 
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introduce simpler and more flexible funding arrangements for national elections; and

support the administration of postal votes by enabling automated production of postal vote documents, including by removing the counterfoil on ballot papers and replacing the stamping perforation with a pre-printed security mark.

We will also seek to address the concerns raised by the hon. Member Sir Patrick Cormack of South Staffordshire in relation to the death of an election candidate during the campaign period by reducing the time delay for setting a new date of poll. We also intend to respond to the issue of candidates standing in more than one constituency at the same election, which Sir Patrick raised in his speech on 6 July.

We also plan to introduce a package of secondary legislation echoing the principles I have set out above. These measures are based on existing primary legislation, and our aim is that they should be in place in time for the next local elections in May 2006, to improve public confidence in our electoral system.

A full announcement on the secondary legislation package will be made in due course. Specifically it will deal with questions around how and when voters can apply for a postal vote or a replacement, the process by which postal votes are returned to administrators and how postal votes are collected on polling day. It will also address the issue of standard polling hours for local elections. More detail on the individual proposals are included in the response to the DCA policy discussion paper and Securing the vote report, also published today.

These measures will be consolidated with regulations concerning access to and supply of the electoral register. Both sets of regulations will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. It is intended that they will be laid before Parliament in the near future so the debate can run alongside the Government's proposed legislation.

The legislation will be accompanied by the publication of the DCA paper Electoral Administration—legislative proposals resulting from consideration of the policy discussion paper published on 25 May 2005, including a response to the Electoral Commission's securing the vote report. This paper is also available on the DCA website: www.dca.gov.uk
legist
electadmin.htm."

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