Electoral Administration Bill
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Mr. Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con): The hon. Gentleman is making a very important point, but at least the literature that he mentioned was delivered. He may not know this, but there were serious black holes throughout Norfolk in which no election material was delivered at all. We have discovered that there is no comeback against the Post Office, because it simply denies any knowledge of the problem. I do not know whether he has had that experience in his own county. Perhaps the Government should consider the matter separately. Mr. Heath: I entirely accept what the hon. Gentleman says. I do not want to get into bashing Royal Mail because that is not the intention behind the new clause. Undoubtedly, there are problems with Royal Mail delivery of freepost in some areas. I have no idea about black holes in Norfolk, but it is no great surprise to learn that they might exist. I do know, however, that that happened elsewhere in the country. Incidentally, there are often significant problems with delivery in areas where parliamentary constituencies are so inconvenient as to cross postcode areas. Constituents of mine who live in part of the constituency with a Dorset postcode very often receive communications from the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin), although they live in Milborne Port, Somerset rather than Sherborne, Dorset. That is a great aggravation for my constituents who, I am sure, like to know about the right hon. Member for West Dorset, but do not feel that he is entirely relevant to their constituency. 12.15 pmMy general point is that the universal service provider—whatever that company will be; at present, it is Royal Mail—must realise that it does not have any editorial control over election material. That is not a matter for Royal Mail. If it has a serious doubt about whether material is within the constraints of the law, which is a question that will arise sometimes, it should not make that judgement, but pass it to the Electoral Commission to adjudicate. Although the Electoral Commission is not looking for additional work in this area, it is the only sensible outcome, rather than allowing a postmaster to take a view without the commission’s support. If there were such a scheme in place, it would have the desired effect. I do not envisage a lot of material being sent to the Electoral Commission for adjudication, nor that it will be a time-consuming or onerous task. Once the message has got through to postmasters that it is not their job, they will not seek to intervene in inappropriate areas, and the Electoral Commission will not have a huge new task foisted on it. I hope that the Minister will listen carefully to those points. Column Number: 181 Mr. Robinson: I am almost agreeing with the hon. Gentleman, with one exception. If he is arguing that postmen are not fit for that kind of job, how can he argue that it is only where they disapprove of material that it should go to the Electoral Commission? If they are not fit to do the job, the commission should surely do the whole job, because if postmen are not fit, they may allow something to go through when it should not? Mr. Heath: I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. The difficulty is that the postmaster has to adjudicate on matters such as design, fitness for purpose, size and clarity of address, which are proper postal matters. The material has to be sent to the postmaster in proof form in any case. It would be an over-cumbersome process for every single piece of election material to go to the Electoral Commission, which would not welcome that. That would be a misuse of the resources at its disposal at the time of a general election. We are talking not about a passing reference to a sub-post office, or a picture of somebody standing in a street with a post office behind them. We are talking about somebody setting out to be offensive, such as through racial or other forms of discrimination; that is the sort of material that I would expect not to be sent out by freepost, and to be sent to the Electoral Commission to intervene. There are, sadly, parties that would include such material in electoral address, and they must be stopped from abusing the freepost system to do so. There are also those who would use freepost for commercial advantage. Where an election address sets out an advertisement for widgets at threepence a go, or buy one get one free, instead of a platform for a candidate, clearly that is not proper electoral material and the postmaster would refer it. The distinction is clear. At present, sadly, there are instances of postal authorities overstepping the mark, and getting involved in areas that force them to make editorial judgements. We should prevent that if possible, and I hope that my new clause, however imperfect, might address that issue. If the Government agree with the principle, but think that the objective can be achieved by other means, I am happy to listen to what they propose to do. Mr. Binley: I also have great concerns, although I generally support the thrust of the amendment. I am not sure that the wording is absolutely as it should be, but I take the point that we are giving postmasters a job that they are not capable of, equipped for or trained to do. In the last election, there were a couple of cases in which points were made about political issues that the Post Office was clearly not equipped to deal with. There should be proper segregation of what the Post Office can take decisions on, such as the size of election material, the way in which it is presented for posting, how it needs to be received for delivery, and the way in which it is stacked in terms of addresses. All those things are vital for the good offices of the Post Office, and it is right and proper that a postmaster should take
The other point about which I am concerned is the time and bureaucracy necessary to achieve those objectives during an election campaign. I recognise the difficulties, but it might make it easier if we had a clear definition of the two areas, and made greater use of the electoral registration officer, and subsequently the Electoral Commission, rather than relying on the Post Office. I therefore make a plea for the Government to consider that matter again, for all our sakes. Although I generally support the thrust of the amendment, I am not sure that the wording is correct. Will the Minister give us some comfort in that respect and say that he will examine that matter again? David Cairns: I am not going to recommend that my colleagues accept the new clause if it is pressed to a vote, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome for giving me the chance to clarify some of the issues that have been raised during this short debate. As we know, the Royal Mail has certain obligations—in relation to obscene publications, for example—and has obligations to its own staff in relation to the weight of items delivered. The hon. Gentleman made the point that it also has its own procedures and sets out regulations on how those leaflets should be delivered. However, the 1983 Act gives the Royal Mail other obligations. It says that the communication should include, and that therefore the Royal Mail should deliver
It is not for the Royal Mail, or the postmasters, to express a view on the editorial content— Mr. Heath: They do. David Cairns: Let me finish. They should not express a view on the editorial content of a particular leaflet. That was a problem in 2001, when the Royal Mail was issuing guidance in relation to the closure of post offices, but it now accepts that it was wrong to do so, and will not do it again. That matter has therefore been clarified and dealt with. As I understand it, the only leaflets that were rejected for delivery at the last election were adverts for Madame Tussaud’s, which had nothing whatever to do with the election. The Royal Mail is not intending to start interfering in the editorial content of the leaflets; it does not want to do that—[Interruption.] I shall give way in just a moment. Moreover, individual postmasters do not take such delivery decisions; the Royal Mail has its own internal procedures so that, should an issue arise on which a judgment is needed, it is passed up the chain of command in the Post Office for legal advice, so that the Royal Mail conforms to its legal obligations. The average postmaster at the sorting house does not take such decisions; if he or she is confronted with such an issue, there are internal procedures in the Royal Mail that will address it. Column Number: 183 Mr. Robinson: Is it not true that the Post Office will have to look at the editorial content? The Post Office would become liable to libel proceedings if it were to distribute literature that contained defamatory remarks about any of the other candidates. Perhaps elections in Northern Ireland are more robust than in other areas, but I think that it will be necessary for the Post Office to do that. David Cairns: I made the comment about editorial content after I had said that the Post Office has an obligation to ensure that it complies with other legislation such as that on obscene publications. I did not specifically mention libel, but clearly that is one of the issues that it would have to look at. I am happy to clarify that point. The Post Office should not send out material that is libellous, as it would be partly responsible for the libel. That general principle guides it on everything that is sent out. The leaflet before us does not libel anyone and it is not obscene; the Post Office has no business saying that it does not agree with this or that policy. An enormously wide range of leaflets go out at election time, from the extreme left to the extreme right, and there is no evidence that the Royal Mail is interfering routinely in those matters. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome is chuntering away, saying, “Yes, it is”, but he cited one example to do with privatising the Royal Mail. I have already said that that issue was raised with the Royal Mail, which accepted that it was wrong and agreed not to do it again. The hon. Gentleman began by saying that timetables are tight and so on, but he would introduce another layer of bureaucracy. That would exacerbate the situation. The hon. Gentleman did not answer the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, East, which was that if the Royal Mail is not fit to decide what should not be in, why should it be fit to decide what should be in? If we say that someone has to exercise editorial control, but we have a fallback position only if the Royal Mail decides that something should not be in, then we come to the logic of the point made by the hon. Member for Belfast, East, which is to give the whole thing to the Electoral Commission and let it decide on every leaflet. We do not want that. Only one leaflet fell foul of the provision at the last election, but we obviously need to keep an eye on the situation in case it starts to spin out of control again, as it may have done in the past. We cannot accept the new clause as it stands; we need to have a big think about how it would be resourced, how the Electoral Commission would work and what other appeals mechanisms there should be. However, I hope that I have clarified the situation, which is what the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome was looking for. It is not for the Royal Mail to express a view one way or the other on the content of policies that are not obscene and do not libel anyone. Its duty is to ensure that the leaflets relate to the election; adverts from Madame Tussaud’s do not relate to the election, which is why they were ruled out. Column Number: 184 Mr. Heath: I have noted before that the Minister gets rather more excited towards the end of the sitting than he does at the start. Perhaps is something to do with his blood-sugar levels. What he states does not reflect the experience of a great number of practitioners from all parties, who have had precisely that difficulty with the Royal Mail. Although I hear what the Minister says about procedures within the Royal Mail, I do not accept that they are always put into effect in the way that he suggests. If the result of our debate is that a clear message goes out that there are limits to the extent to which the Royal Mail can interfere in such matters, that would be a good thing. That is the outcome that I desire. However, to say that it does not happen is wrong. I know for a fact that a vociferous argument took place in my constituency during the European parliamentary elections in 2004, long after the Minister claims it was all sorted, because a leaflet included references to the health service and the police. The health service and the police are as relevant to politicians seeking election to the European Parliament as they are to anyone else, but the postmaster decided otherwise. He decided that those matters ought not to be included in an freepost election leaflet for a European parliamentary election. If that is not editorial control, what is? I suggest that the Minister collates information from his own party agents, if not from those of other parties, as to exactly what happens rather that simply asserting that everything is all right now. It is not. It needs further clarification. [Interruption.] Exasperation will get the Minister a long way but not, I suggest, in this Committee, because he has not made a case; he says only that everything is all right. I welcome the support of Members from other parties who say that it is not all right and that problems still need to be addressed. The Minister would do well to listen to the various political parties and their experience of what happens. 12.30 pmAs I say, our debate may be sufficient to effect a change. I would welcome that enormously. However, I firmly intend to return to the matter. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 3
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Brought up, and read the First time. Mrs. Laing: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I speak on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner). The clause relates to absent and overseas voters. In this year’s general election, many people who live outside the United Kingdom who were entitled to vote lost that right because of administrative problems in returning their ballot papers. If the Minister is unwilling to accept the new clause as a way of putting that right, can she please reassure the Committee that the Government will take other steps to protect the rights of voters who live outside the United Kingdom? Ms Harman: The hon. Lady anticipates my response. I cannot offer to accept the new clause, but the points that lie behind it are well made. I said earlier that we want to ensure that as many people as possible register to vote and participate in voting, including overseas voters, crucially servicemen and women. Although we cannot accept the new clause, there is more that can and should be done. The Bill has thrown light on many areas in which people are inadvertently being disfranchised, either because of the time it takes to vote or by not being on the register. We will need to look at the matter further. Mrs. Laing: I accept the Minister’s assurance; I am very pleased to hear what she said. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 4
Brought up, and read the First time. Mrs. Laing: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. The new clause relates to the collection of postal votes. There has been great concern since the last general election about the opportunities available for fraud in connection with postal voting. We all see the point of postal voting—not universal postal voting but postal voting in certain circumstances—as it allows people who would not otherwise be able to do so to cast their vote. Therefore we want it to work properly. However, there have been many instances that ring alarm bells about the delivery of postal votes, and of postal votes going missing. Column Number: 186 If the new clause were accepted, people who had a postal vote could go in person and deliver their postal vote, thereby ensuring that it was in the right box. The vote would not have to be cast on polling day but could be done before polling day, and the voter would not be in any doubt that it had arrived at the right place, by the right time. Ms Harman: The amendment would insert a clause into the Bill that would oblige electoral registration officers to provide a ballot box for postal voters to deposit their ballot papers in advance of, or on, polling day. I appreciate that the hon. Lady’s intention is to provide a safeguard against electoral fraud or to reassure people who are worried about it, even when that is not the reality. The concerns in the media about electoral fraud have undermined some people’s confidence and many postal voters deliver their ballot papers by hand to the relevant electoral registration officer or to the polling station on polling day. However, some attempt to do so when electoral staff are not in the office, which can result in completed ballot papers being handed to staff members who are not trained to deal with them. That creates an opportunity for electoral fraud or for the completed votes to be mislaid and not passed on to the electoral registration officer, causing the elector to be disfranchised. However, secure systems have been established between the postal service and the electoral services officer to enable postal ballots to be returned through the postal service. It is still best for somebody who has a postal vote to post it. I acknowledge the concerns of the hon. Member for Epping Forest, but I do not believe that legislation is necessary in this instance. Electoral registration officers and returning officers are responsible for the organisation and running of elections, and it is clearly best practice to provide the service that she has described. I am informed that the measure advocated in the amendment is already adopted by many EROs, and regulations already enable voters to hand in their completed postal ballot papers at their polling stations on polling day. The idea of having a central place where they could put their postal vote in a ballot box might—I hesitate to say this—have to be subject to good practice guidelines from the Electoral Commission. First, we should see how many people want to do that, how big the problem is and whether the matter can be dealt with by light-touch encouragement rather than the full force of good practice guidance. The hon. Lady is right that the point should be drawn to the attention of the Committee, the EROs and the Electoral Commission. Mrs. Laing: I am pleased that the Minister shares my concern about this aspect of preventing electoral fraud. Let us hope that the Electoral Commission will also take note of what she has said at the appropriate time and in the appropriate way. In the hope that that will happen, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn
Brought up, and read the First time. Mrs. Laing: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. New clause 5 concerns referendum campaign funding. It would amend section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Electoral Commission recently published a report into last year’s north-east regional assembly referendum. That strongly criticises the controversial information campaign of the Deputy Prime Minister, on which some £3 million of taxpayers’ money was spent on one side of the campaign. The Electoral Commission recommends that the Government should be banned from funding any information campaign, not just 28 days before polling day, as at present, but from the start of the referendum period. Section 125 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 sets out the restrictions on publications at referendums. No material of a specified type may be published during the relevant period by or on behalf of any Minister of the Crown, Government Department or local authority, or any other person or body whose expenses are defrayed wholly or mainly out of public funds or by any local authority. Material relating to a referendum may be published only during the referendum period if it complies with specified requirements. The effect of new clause 5 would be to alter the relevant period from 28 days before polling day to a period commencing when the campaign begins and ending with the date of poll. That would effectively ban the Government from funding any information campaign with taxpayers’ money. Mr. Heath: We concur. David Cairns: We do not, but I will do the hon. Lady the courtesy of explaining why. We have to strike a balance. Clearly, it would be inappropriate in the four weeks or so leading up to a major decision such as a referendum if the Government or any public body that had access to lots of funds were to spend money to promote one side of the argument. That is why the 28-day period is specified. Referendums do not fall, fully formed, from heaven. They are the political acts of Governments in pursuance of political objectives. It would seem perverse in relation to a major decision by the
We are talking about an elongated period that could last up to 10 weeks with the various steps that are needed to set up the referendum. We do not think that saying that the Government should effectively go into purdah for the entire length of the referendum period strikes the right balance, but we accept that a balance needs to be struck. The 28 days—that is when most people will begin to pay attention to the referendum—is there to ensure that there is a clearly laid-out set of guidance about who is speaking for the yes campaign, who is speaking for the no campaign, how they are funded and to whom they are accountable. The Government will observe purdah and will step back from that. We think that that strikes that balance. That is why we not minded to accept the new clause. Mr. Robinson: I hope that not all of the Government will go into purdah, as I understand that it applies only to women. The reality is that the Government abuse the whole referendum system. The experience of the 1998 referendum in Northern Ireland on the Belfast agreement will not leave me for as long as I live. The Government threw tens of millions of pounds into a campaign in support of that agreement, whereas the opponents had £70,000. That made it a fairly unequal contest in terms of the distribution of documentation and other campaigning. We need to tie the Government down so that people can assess in a more balanced way what the arguments are on any issue. The new clause goes some way to doing that. I welcomed the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, even though it came after the event, but there are other elements of campaigning that the Government still get up to that fall outside the remit of publications. In the case of Northern Ireland they even brought in the great and the good from far and wide. They involved pop groups and others and did anything that would persuade people to vote in one direction. The new clause is a good step and is welcome. If people are to take a fair decision we need a level playing field, rather than one that is seriously skewed in the Government’s favour. |
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