The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Bellingham,
Mr. Henry
(North-West Norfolk)
(Con)
Betts,
Mr. Clive
(Sheffield, Attercliffe)
(Lab)
Cousins,
Jim
(Newcastle upon Tyne, Central)
(Lab)
Duddridge,
James
(Rochford and Southend, East)
(Con)
Ellwood,
Mr. Tobias
(Bournemouth, East)
(Con)
Foster,
Mr. Michael
(Worcester)
(Lab)
Hall,
Patrick
(Bedford)
(Lab)
Hands,
Mr. Greg
(Hammersmith and Fulham)
(Con)
Harris,
Dr. Evan
(Oxford, West and Abingdon)
(LD)
Hughes,
Simon
(North Southwark and Bermondsey)
(LD)
Knight,
Mr. Greg
(East Yorkshire)
(Con)
Linton,
Martin
(Battersea)
(Lab)
Marshall-Andrews,
Mr. Robert
(Medway)
(Lab)
Michael,
Alun
(Cardiff, South and Penarth)
(Lab/Co-op)
Prentice,
Bridget
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional
Affairs)
Tami,
Mark
(Alyn and Deeside)
(Lab)
Wyatt,
Derek
(Sittingbourne and Sheppey)
(Lab)
Hannah
Weston, Committee
Clerk
attended the Committee
Seventh
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Wednesday 6
December
2006
[Janet
Anderson in the
Chair]
Draft Representation of the People (Combination of Polls) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2006
2.30
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs
(Bridget Prentice): I beg to move,
That the Committee
has considered the draft Representation of the People (Combination of
Polls) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2006.
I am very pleased to be serving
under your chairmanship, Mrs. Anderson; it is the first time
and it is a delight.
I have no intention of delaying
the Committee over the regulations, which make some minor but technical
changes necessary as a result of changes to the Representation of the
People (Combination of Polls) (England and Wales) Regulations 2004, and
because of changes introduced by the Electoral Administration Act 2006.
The regulations will provide for the effective combination of a
parliamentary election with another election or referendum.
The regulations revoke the
provisions made in the 2004 regulations which applied specifically to
combined elections in June 2004, as they are no longer needed. They
revoke the prescribed form H from the 2004 regulations as a new form H
has now been prescribed in the Representation of the People (England
and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2001, as amended in
2006.
The regulations
also provide for the combination of three further functions when there
is a joint issue and receipt of postal ballots, as a result of changes
introduced by the Electoral Administration Act 2006. The returning
officer in charge of the combined functions will also have
responsibility for the creation of a corresponding number list
prescribed under rule 19A of the parliamentary elections rules, the
creation of a marked postal voters list and proxy postal voters list
under rule 31A, and verification of personal identifiers on postal
voting statements underrule
45(1B)(d).
The
regulations also make a number of modifications to the 2004 regulations
to reflect changes made to the parliamentary rules by the 2006 Act.
They will amend the form of directions for guidance of voters at
combined polls to provide improved clarity for voters, and remove the
specific reference to European parliamentary elections from the formal
declaration to be made by the companion of a voter with
disabilities.
Finally,
the regulations will replace the reference to incapacity with a
reference to disability to reflect the change in terminology introduced
by the 2006 Act.
2.32
pm
Mr.
Henry Bellingham (North-West Norfolk) (Con): As the
Minister pointed out, these are very technical matters. My colleagues
have read the regulations carefully, and they are obviously satisfied
with what they read because they decided that the issues are not
controversial enough for them to stay.
I will not trouble the
Committee very much, but I have one or two questions to put to the
Minister. If she turns to page 2 of the regulations, she will see that
regulation 4 states that ballot
papers
shall be of a
different colour from that of any ballot papers used at any relevant
election of referendum.
Is the idea to have different coloured
ballot papers if there are simultaneous elections? Presumably, that is
what the legislation is getting at.
Regulation 4(4) states
that
for the words
at this election, wherever they appear, substitute
at this Parliamentary election.
Why is it necessary to stipulate that it
should be a Parliamentary election? Surely, a
parliamentary election is an election, so is it necessary to clarify it
in that way?
In
regulation 4(11), proposed regulations 27A, B and C relate to
circumstances in which one of the candidates dies during an election.
The passage is technical and quite difficult to follow without having
the earlier statutes to hand. Am I right in saying that it is the South
Staffordshire clause, the so-called Cormack clause, that allows for the
changes in procedure should a candidate die? What happened was that the
election in South Staffordshire was postponed. There was not a
by-election for the seat; there was instead a mini-general election
that took place about four weeks after polling day. Will the Minister
elaborate on
that?
Page 5 of the
regulations makes new provisions under the heading Guidance for
voters at combined polls. The guidance is quite detailed.
Paragraph 3C
says:
At the
European Parliamentary election, mark a cross (X) in the box ...
opposite the name of the party or individual candidate you are voting
for.
As we have a list
system in this country, I did not know that one could vote for an
individual candidate in a European electionwe vote for a party,
and we cannot vote for an individual
candidate.
Mark
Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab):
Unfortunately.
Mr.
Bellingham: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is a
pity, but it is the law that probably all of us, including him, voted
on, and the House voted for changes in the electoral system for
European elections.
Under the same
heading as paragraph 3C, paragraph 4
says:
Please
do not fold the ballot papers
for
elections
at
which the votes are to be counted
electronically.
Will the
Minister elaborate on that? I did not know that we had launched any
pilot electronic voting schemes yet, but she may have them in mind and
we shall be examining them at some stage.
Rule 19A
concerns the situation in which, according to the explanatory
notes,
ballot papers
will no longer need to be attached to a counterfoil, instead returning
officers will be required to produce a corresponding number list of
ballot papers to be issued to postal voters and postal proxy voters for
use in a polling
station.
Does that refer
to postal voters who have not actually used their postal vote? I
understand that someone who has a postal vote but does not use it can
still go to the polling station and vote in person. Is that what rule
19A refers to?
Will
the Minister address those few points? Otherwise, the Opposition have
read the instrument and the other papers very carefully and we are
satisfied with them.
2.37
pm
Simon
Hughes (North Southwark and Bermondsey) (LD): I apologise,
Mrs. Anderson, for arriving late and not hearing the
previous, great contributions. I shall not extend the debate long and I
apologise also to the Minister and to other colleagues. Having a local
constituency has advantages and disadvantages: one can sneak off and do
things at lunchtime but they take longer on some occasions than on
others.
I have three
questions. First, will the new regulations permit more than two
elections on the same daya local election, a general election
and a European election, for example? That was not clear to me from the
paperwork and it would be useful to know the answer. Secondly, my
colleague Lord Greaves asked some questions yesterday in the House of
Lords which the Minister will have seen. The hon. Member for North-West
Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) may already have dealt with the
point, but will the Minister address the question of the privacy of the
ballot process if there is more than one ballot paper, and the process
from issue to insertion in the ballot box? That is
controversial.
Thirdly,
there is an issue that we have probably all confrontedensuring
that there is a clear and unambiguous record of who has taken a ballot
paper for a particular election. I had an exchange with the Minister on
that point in another context. On one occasion I turned up and I was
told, No, you cant votesomebodys voted
for you. Clearly they had not, and there was an error. In the
end, the error turned out to be that a line had been put through the
wrong namea small mistake, but a serious one. What is the
process for ensuring that the signs that indicate which ballot paper
somebody has taken, and which do so in a way that can be checked, can
be verifiedboth by the individual later, if there is a contest,
or in another way? I ask that question because there seems to be no
specific requirement as to how the markings are made on the single
sheet of those who have voted if there is going to be more than one
election on the same day, which is obviously the situation that the
regulations
address.
2.40
pm
Bridget
Prentice: First, in response to the point made by the hon.
Member for North-West Norfolk, I can confirm that there will be
different coloured ballot papers for different elections. That is
easier for both the elector and the counters. We
specify parliamentary
elections because where elections are combined it will be necessary to
be able to distinguish between, for example, a parliamentary election
and a local government one.
On the Cormack clause, the
regulations provide that a parliamentary election and another election
may be combined, and if the parliamentary election has to be abandoned
because of the death of a candidate, the local government election
would be able to go
ahead.
People will be
able to vote for individual candidates in European elections if
independents are standing. That is why we included a
specification.
There
have been a number of pilots on electronic voting. The last Greater
London assembly and London mayoral election ballots were counted
electronically, and my borough used electronic counting in this
years local government elections. We have done quite a lot of
piloting on electronic voting. The papers have to be kept flat so that
they can be scanned into the electronic
machines.
Simon
Hughes: I obviously followed the London elections closely
and saw the machinery at work. The Minister will also have been
involved in those elections. I do not know what her view is, but I do
not trust the electronic system to be as accurate as real people who
can do a recount. Once something has been put inthe machine,
who knows what happens? What encouragement can the Minister give the
voter that they will be able to check the accuracy of the machine or
know that it is accurate? How can the public have confidence that the
machine does the job properly?
Bridget
Prentice: All the pilots, and all our experience of
electronic voting elsewhere, show that, generally speaking, the
machines are more accurate than humans. If a machine were to reject a
ballot paper, the human eyethe returning officer, the agents
and so onwould have the opportunity to inspectit and
decide on its acceptability. I have a lot of confidence that the
machine will give a true figure, possibly more so than I have in
respect of human error.
The hon. Gentleman
raised the issue of two elections on the same day. It would be possible
to have two elections on the same
day.
Simon
Hughes: More than
two?
Bridget
Prentice: More than two is possible. In London, were not
European, GLA and mayoral elections, and, in my constituency, a ward
by-election, held on the same day?
The list for postal and proxy
voters in rule 19A is the corresponding number list for the ballot
paper used at the election, so it would not be possible to do as the
hon. Gentleman suggested. I think that he asked another question, but I
have forgotten what it was. I apologise for
that.
Simon
Hughes: It was a similar question to that asked yesterday.
Are there rules governing the way in which peoples names are
marked off, or can that be left to the discretion of officers on duty?
If it could,there would be a danger of a misinterpretation.
The
issue raised yesterday concerned what happenswhen someone says
that they want to vote in the parliamentary elections but not in the
council elections, or vice versa. In such a situation they would
therefore want to take only one ballot paper. There would need to be a
way of recording that they took only one ballot paper. Would there be
two separate lists, with one headed, parliamentary
election, or would there be one list in which two ticks would
be made? I am trying to establish how we could check afterwards that
things have accurately reflected what has
happened.
Bridget
Prentice: Guidance will be issued by the Electoral
Commission so that polling clerks will
know how to deal with that situation. My current understanding is that
there will be one list, but that will be able to be marked in such a
way that if a person wanted to vote in only one election he could do
so. Again, using my borough as an example, there was a difference in
some cases between the number of people who wanted to vote just for the
Mayor and those who wanted to vote for the ward councillors. I am told
that the register used at the police station will identify which ballot
papers have been issued for each elector. That register will be able to
be checked.
I commend
the regulations to the
Committee.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Committee
rose at fifteen minutes to Three
oclock.