House of Commons Standing Committee B (pt 6)

Electoral Administration Bill

Mr. Heath: I welcome what the Minister has said. It is helpful that he has been as explicit as he has. However—I will say this within the confines of the Committee—he overstates a little the impact of what is being proposed, because I believe that those are already corrupt practices. None the less, I accept the fact that making that matter explicit means that no one can be under any illusion that to commit such acts, which we all rightly wish to stamp out, is unacceptable. I entirely support the Minister's view that we should have zero tolerance for that sort of practice, both in national and party political terms. If any of our parties have members within them who are engaging in practices of that kind, there should be no doubt whatever that they will be reported to the authorities and action will be taken. There should be no attempt to hide what is going on. I hope that all party representatives in this House will assert clearly that they will not tolerate activities of that kind.

I make one minor point. If someone were to obtain the services of others in trying to commit such offences, presumably there is an appropriate conspiracy offence that would be applicable. It would be perverse if people who were hoping for a gain of money or property in response to an inducement made by some other person in order to farm votes, or something of that kind, were prosecuted under proposed new section 62A(1)(b), but if the person who was doing the organising was not committing an offence by so doing. I am not absolutely clear that, under the strict terms of the clause, the person doing the organising would be committing an offence, but I believe that there are other ways of achieving a satisfactory prosecution. Can the Minister confirm that?

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David Cairns: I regret that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the explicit confirmation that he seeks. If I can do so in writing, I will. We agree with the broad thrust of what he said and we are sending out the clearest possible signal that we will pursue anybody minded to attempt to get around the provision in any way. I shall be happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with the explicit assurance that he seeks.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 38 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 39

Control of documents after

parliamentary election

Mr. Heath: I beg to move amendment No. 10, in clause 39, page 47, line 16, after third 'the', insert 'marked'.

The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 11, in clause 40, page 4, line 39, after second 'the', insert 'marked'.

Mr. Heath: We now come to the control of documents after a parliamentary election and the issue of marked registers and access to them. This is, to an extent, a probing amendment, because I want to understand the relationship between this clause and clause 43, which deals with marked postal voters lists. There is no clear link, but clause 43 will provide explicitly for postal voters lists to be marked. Currently, we have the strange phenomenon that marked lists are to be kept of those who have voted in an election unless they happen to vote by post or by proxy by post. The procedures adopted by electoral returning officers in different parts of the country vary enormously, in terms both of their marking of lists and of whether they are prepared to make those lists available to the political parties during or after an election.

A degree of controversy has arisen in several elections about whether, particularly in the context of an all postal ballot, it is appropriate to provide a running total of marked postal voters lists. Some would say that it is inappropriate to give that information to political parties and others would argue strongly—I think that I am one of them—that it is in the interests of electors and of the political process that those marked lists be available because it prevents repeated canvassing of people who have already cast their vote. It is in their interests for everybody to know that they have voted and that it is a waste of time to continue knocking on their doors. In that way they will not be bothered on their doorsteps.

My amendment simply inserts the word ''marked''. I would welcome clarification from the Minister of how the two clauses that I mentioned fit together, and whether it is his intention that the marked postal voters lists be made available to political parties either during the course of an election or following its completion.

David Cairns: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having tabled a probing amendment and I am happy to confirm that the intention is that the word ''marked'' should be read before all of the lists—there

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will be marked copies of the postal voters list; marked copies of the list of proxies and marked copies of the proxy postal voters list. However, to answer his second point, it is our intention to make the marked postal voters list available only after the election.

Mr. Heath: At least I now know what the Government's intention is and I am grateful for the Minister's clarification. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 39 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 40 to 42 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 43

Marked postal voters list

Mrs. Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): Clause 43 concerns the marked postal voters list. Rule 37 of the parliamentary election rules, contained in schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, makes provision for the full electoral register to be marked at polling stations—as we discussed with the last amendment—to show whether an individual has been issued with a ballot paper. Obviously, that is done to prevent electors from voting more than once. Because people who vote are not allowed to remove ballot papers from the polling station, it can be assumed that if an elector's name has been marked on the register, that person has cast a vote. However, that is not the case with postal votes. There is an absent voters list of electors who have voted by post, which is drawn up by the returning officer, but when the ballot papers have been issued, that list is marked to indicate that the ballot papers have been sent out. However, there is no list to indicate whether postal votes have been returned.

Amendments Nos. 61 and 62 would ensure that the marked postal voters list is as comprehensive as possible by ensuring that it is marked not only when a postal vote has been returned, but when a person registers for a postal vote. The list will then be required separately to show electors who are registered for a postal vote and electors who have voted already by post. A BBC presenter made much of being denied a ballot paper because he was listed as having been sent a postal vote. If there were a more comprehensive list, it would clearly show who had cast a postal vote, enabling the electoral registration officer to see quickly whether someone is entitled to cast their vote in person. At present, there is no way to check that, and our amendments would rectify that.

David Cairns: The purpose of amendment No. 61 appears to be to ensure that separate records are kept of persons who register for a postal vote before or during the election.

Mrs. Laing indicated dissent.

David Cairns: I think that that was not what the hon. Lady wanted to discuss, but may I deal with the issue that she left hanging? It may be thought that the clause would increase the instances of late applications for postal votes, which means more fraudulent activity. If that were the case, I would be able to tell her that I was not convinced by the strength of that

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argument, which she did not make. None the less, I shall make it for her, and knock it down. There is, of course, nothing inherently suspicious about applications being made close to the deadline—

Mrs. Laing: Nothing at all.

David Cairns:—although, of course, in other legislation, we are going to move the deadline. However, there would normally be a good reason why an elector would wish to apply for a vote nearer to the deadline. We think that it is good that people have the option of applying for a postal vote, so avoiding being disenfranchised.

Mrs. Laing: The Minister is answering an argument that I did not make. He is not wrong; I agree with him.

David Cairns: I think that I may be able to answer the hon. Lady's question now—but no, perhaps I shall wait for inspiration that is rather more legible. I think that I am correct in saying that in the instance that she quoted—for reasons of pure cowardice, I am not going to cast aspersions on the individual, lest I face him at the crack of dawn one day—the matter was resolved to the extent that he had applied for the postal vote, but had forgotten that he had done so. He may have ticked the box requesting postal votes for ever, but he thought that he had ticked the box for just one election. I think that that was the resolution of that. I remember seeing a exchange of particularly furious e-mails from that presenter and the returning officer for Hammersmith and Fulham—or wherever it was.

There is already a list of people who have applied for postal votes, but what was at stake in that case was that the officials told the presenter that he had applied for a postal vote and he said that he had not. That was the dispute; it was not that there was not a list available for the officials to consult. I am not sure that the hon. Lady's amendment addresses that matter.—[Interruption.] By happy, fortuitous coincidence, that is exactly what my inspiration was trying to tell me, so I think that I have addressed the point.