Mrs.
Laing: Indeed I can. First, the part of the Joseph
Rowntree report quoted by the Minister is just as bad if not worse than
the part that I quoted. It means that we must do even more to tighten
postal voting. There are some very questionable election results from
the last general election, and since then, postal votes have been
unreliable. The fact that the Government have done little to tighten
postal voting is even worse. My understanding is that there have been
43 cases of electoral fraud over the past few years. That means that
only one electoral district in England did not have a case of electoral
fraud to look at. There are far too many.
Mr.
Djanogly: It is amazing that the Minister asked my hon.
Friend how many incidents of fraud have taken place in this country.
Perhaps he should be telling the Committee that. The figure of 43,
mentioned by my hon. Friend, referred to cases taken to court, not
cases notified to the authorities. The latter was, I think,
10 times that amount, not including the evidence given to
this very Committee by one of the learned professors, who said that
there had been under-reporting and that the true figures were not
known. Why is that the case?
Mrs.
Laing: My hon. Friend is right. In the intervening moment
I have found my note on this. I was correct: in the past seven years
there have been 42 convictions—not just cases brought—for
electoral fraud. Only one of the 43 police authorities—I
apologise, Sir Nicholas, a moment ago I said electoral registration
authorities, but I meant police authorities in England and
Wales—has had no case to investigate at
all.
Mr.
Wills: I just want to clarify something. When I was asking
the hon. Lady to enlighten the Committee, it was not because I did not
know the figures. I am very well aware of them and, in due course, with
your indulgence, Sir Nicholas, I shall reveal them to the Committee at
great length. The hon. Lady was making a hyperbolic speech about the
extent of all this and I just wanted to be clear that she knew what the
actual figures are. We have some idea of that, but I shall reveal more
in due course.
The
Chairman: Before the hon. Member for Epping Forest
continues her speech, may I say that I have been somewhat upset by the
Minister’s response. He indicated that he is going to talk at
length. I had hoped that he would give us the information
succinctly.
Mrs.
Laing: Thank you, Sir Nicholas. We look forward to the
Minister telling us, at length, why this is relevant. Perhaps we are
interpreting this rather differently, but I think that to have 42
convictions for electoral fraud over the past seven years is a high
figure and not one that we ought to be proud of in Britain in the
21st century. We should not have any electoral fraud; it is
bad enough that we can have electoral mistakes and that the occasional
thing goes wrong, but to have 42 convictions for electoral
fraud puts the integrity of the ballot in
question.
Martin
Linton (Battersea) (Lab): Is this not another case of the
hon. Lady asking for something that we have already got? Just as she
asked for individual registration, which is already available to
people, it is generally agreed that the great majority of problems with
fraud centre on postal votes. However, in the postal votes system that
we have introduced, we already have signatures. In order to get a
postal vote, one has to produce two signatures—one on the
application form and another on the declaration. Surely the security
that she is looking for is already there.
Mrs.
Laing: The hon. Gentleman completely misses the point. Of
course what he says is correct for postal votes, but it does not apply
to votes in the polling station. It is more difficult to take a book
out of the library than it is to go into the room next to the library
and cast one’s vote.
Martin
Linton: How many of these cases of fraud involve votes
cast at the voting station?
Mrs.
Laing: I do not understand what the hon. Gentleman is hung
up about here. Postal votes are different from those at the polling
station. While we are on the subject of postal votes, let me say that
there have been many instances that prove the inadequacy of the system
for verifying signatures. Our postal voting system
calls into question the integrity of the ballot, which is all I care
about. I do not care what the Minister uses. I do not mind if it is not
national insurance numbers but something else—as long as it is
not identity cards. If the Minister says not to use signatures, but
thumb prints, I say let us consider it. It is the integrity of the
ballot with which I am concerned, and not the
process.
5
pm
Mr.
Wills: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, and
I hope that she will not give me many more occasions when I feel that I
have to intervene. I must correct something she said. She suggested
that we on the Government Benches are proud of what happened. Of course
we are not proud. No one can be complacent about a single instance. One
instance is too many, and we agree on that. All that I have been
seeking to achieve is that she try to put the matter in
proportion.
Mrs.
Laing: I accept what the Minister says. Putting it in
proportion by my reckoning means that 42 convictions for electoral
fraud is 42 convictions too many. We should not have electoral fraud.
It is so easy to commit electoral
fraud. Mr.
Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con): The Minister is getting
dangerously close to suggesting that there is not a serious problem
when we have all the experts in the field queuing up to tell us that
the system is “fundamentally
flawed”.
Mrs.
Laing: Yes. As ever, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. I
am beginning to worry about the Government’s motive for not
introducing individual voter registration. The Bill is perfect for such
a measure and everyone is calling for it, even Labour Back Benchers.
Some have even been brave enough to sign the early-day motion along
with the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon). Some 27 Labour
Members had the audacity to stand up to their Government and sign that
early-day motion. I am sure that many more would like to sign it and
support the proposal, because there are no arguments against
it. What
the hon. Member for Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire said
earlier about the reduction in the number of people registered in
Northern Ireland is not an argument against bringing in individual
voter registration. It is not an argument against saying that the
individual is a free person and should have the right to register
themselves to vote on every occasion—not just when they do it
separately, because that takes a huge amount of
effort. It
was mentioned a few moments ago that people can already register
individually, but they would have to take the trouble to do that,
knowing that for some reason they were not registered by the household
by which they ought to be registered. That goes completely against what
every member of the Committee and every Member of the House is saying
about making it easier for people to register and to
vote. We
want to encourage people to vote and to widen the franchise, not narrow
it. That is what individual voter registration is all about. What are
Labour Members afraid of? Are they afraid that some people in some
marginal constituencies held by their colleagues will not
register to vote, which will mean fewer votes for the Labour party? Is
that what they are afraid of? If not, they must be afraid of something.
There is no argument against individual voter
registration. Martin
Linton: As a Member who represents a very marginal
constituency, I am afraid that non-registration will get even worse, as
it did in Northern Ireland. Already in inner London, 18 per cent. are
non-registered. Some 27 per cent. of private tenants are
non-registered, and 37 per cent. of black Africans. In inner-London
seats, there is huge non-registration. Even if the experience in
Northern Ireland is replicated only partly as a result of an immediate
blanket move to individual registration, there will be an even greater
problem with under-registration in seats such as
mine.
Mrs.
Laing: So, it is about party political advantage. The hon.
Gentleman is talking about inner-London seats, but almost every
inner-London seat is held by the Labour
party.
Martin
Linton: What about Kensington and Chelsea?
Mrs.
Laing: I am not worried about Kensington and
Chelsea—I said almost every seat. The hon. Gentleman is talking
about an inner-London problem, but why do not people in inner-London
seats register? I shall give way to him if he cares to answer
that.
Martin
Linton: Well, since I have been asked to intervene again,
I think that the clue is in the categories in which under-registration
is highest: 47 per cent. of people who share flats, 38 per cent. of
people who live in unfurnished accommodation and 37 per cent. of black
Africans. Those are the very categories of people who are least engaged
in the political system. Those figures apply, regardless of party, to
all seats in which there is a mobile population and where there are
large proportions of people on low incomes or who live in tenanted
properties.
Mrs.
Laing: The hon. Gentleman makes my point far better than
anyone else has all day. As he has just said most eloquently, the
people in inner-London seats who do not register are those in shared
flats, in rented accommodation and who are part of the mobile
population. Those are the very people who depend on a head of household
to register them. They live temporarily in shared flats and rented
accommodation and do not register themselves. They do not register
because they have to depend on someone else to register them—
[Interruption.] The
hon. Gentleman makes my point perfectly, so I shall not give way to him
again. This is exactly the point: if people should have the right to
vote and to take part in the democratic system, they should have the
right, the duty and the responsibility to register themselves. What he
said a moment ago answers my question perfectly, and in the
inner-London seats it is exactly the reason why people do not
register.
Another
reason why people do not register might be that they are not engaged in
the political system, but that is up to them. Every individual has the
right not to be engaged in the political system if they do not want to
be. The reason why the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues are so afraid
of this fair system of registration is that
they think it might reduce the Labour party vote. That can be the only
reason why they are against individual voter
registration. Mr.
Djanogly: On this point, hon. Members will want to study
what happened in America recently with Obama’s campaign. He went
to areas in which there was low registration and gave people a reason
to register—some for the first time. The hon. Member for
Battersea and other hon. Members could do that in their constituencies,
but that is a separate issue from the need for individual voter
registration.
Mrs.
Laing: That is absolutely right. It was striking to hear
people say in interviews for the American elections that they had never
voted before. It is incumbent on us all to encourage people to register
and to vote. A few weeks ago, I did an interview with a female
journalist on this subject. A person in the audience said something
about encouraging people to vote, and the journalist asked me,
“Don’t you think it should be up to MPs to try to get
people to vote?” I realised that she had not a clue what she was
talking about because what do we all do, all the time, but try to get
people to vote? We encourage them to vote first and foremost for us, or
for whichever candidate we support, but my goodness, as a body of
people we go out there—week after week, month after
month—to encourage people to become involved in the democratic
process.
Mr.
Tyrie: My hon. Friend may not be aware of my evidence to
the Committee on Standards in Public Life. I suggested that it was our
job to get the vote out, not that of some other institution. That is
why I felt that that part of the Electoral Commission’s budget
should be cut back and its role altered. The Government have accepted
the principle, and the Electoral Commission is being remodelled to take
account of exactly that point that I made to the Committee on Standards
in Public Life. The committee’s report set out why it agreed. In
other words, it is our primary duty to interest people in politics. We
should not be relying on other institutions. We should certainly not be
relying on wheezes, such as maintaining completely out of date 19th
century registration
systems.
Mrs.
Laing: My hon. Friend is correct. I shall move on, because
we are also considering new clauses 7 and
8. Mr.
Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): Has my hon. Friend
heard the explanation that the problem in Northern Ireland results more
from the number of voters exceeding the number of people resident in
the
constituencies?
Mrs.
Laing: Yes. Again, my hon. Friend makes a valid point of
which the Committee should take
note. I
shall move on, because I am conscious of the time and we have a lot to
get through. However, I am not sorry for taking time over this group of
amendments, because new clause 1 should have been the most important
measure in the Bill. It still should be the most important, but I fear
that the indications from the Minister are that the Government will not
accept it, which is a great pity.
New clause 7
concerns opting in to the edited register. I merely propose it because,
as we said when discussing the keeping together of so much information
in the register, registers are used by many commercial organisations.
Rather than giving people the right to opt out of the edited register,
which then goes to mail order companies, charities and other such
organisations, it would be more sensible to give people the right to
opt in, if they so
wished. We
should also consider, although not in the context of the Bill, the very
principle of the electoral register being sold for commercial purposes.
That is an argument for another day, and I do not propose to go down
that route
today. New
clause 8 concerns personal identifiers at the ballot box. It is
incredible that a person can walk into a polling station, say,
“I am John Smith and I live at 40 Acacia
avenue”, and be handed a ballot to vote. They do not have to
prove who they are or where they live; they do not have to prove
anything at all. Most people think that they need their polling card.
How often on polling day have we all encountered people and encouraged
them to vote, but they say, “Oh, but I can’t find my
polling card.” We have to explain to them, “Madam, you do
not need your polling card. Just go down to such and such a village
hall, which is where this street votes, say who you are and
vote.”? It is incredible that it is easier to vote than to take
out a library
book. There
is no doubt that the system needs to be tightened up. The most ironic
thing here is that it would be relatively easy to do. It has been done
in Northern Ireland. For more than three years, the Government have
been saying that they intend to do it, but they have not made proposals
for individual voter registration, personal identifiers or any system
that would take us forward to prevent fraud in the electoral system.
That puts the integrity of the ballot itself in
question. If
we were to have an election where, unlike any election in recent times,
the majority in the House was small and some constituencies were
decided on majorities of well under 1,000, as many were during the last
general election, the integrity of our democratic system and of a
future Government could be brought into question. That is unnecessary.
If the Government introduced the safeguards that I suggest in new
clauses 1 and 2, the system could be massively
improved. 5.15
pm David
Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): I will not take up as much of
the Committee’s time as the hon. Lady, but I am glad that she
moved amendments (a), (b) and (c). Apart from the problems identified
by the Electoral Commission with the original drafting of new clause 1,
there is also the problem that it appeared to bar all gap year students
from the electoral register for at least three months. Given the hon.
Lady’s strictures this morning about the importance of ensuring
that students can get on to the electoral register, it would have been
odd if she had proposed something that operated entirely in the
opposite direction only a few hours
later. I
am somewhat disappointed, however, by the interventions from the
Government Benches on the question of individual registration. It seems
clear that there is a serious problem with the accuracy of the
electoral register, a problem that threatens the legitimacy
of the entire electoral system. What Richard Mawrey, the election
commissioner, said in the Slough case—not the Aston
case—is important. He said that electoral fraud
was “childishly
simple to commit and very difficult to detect”.
The particular fraud
that he was referring to in the Slough case was what the Australians
call roll-stuffing: increasing the electoral register by inserting
people who do not exist. There is a clear case for reform.
The arguments
on the other side are not arguments against reform; they are arguments
for doing reform carefully, in a properly considered way. For example,
the arguments from Northern Ireland about how much the register went
down and came back says that one can go too far in reforming and throw
off the register people who are entitled to be there, but that is not
an argument against the proper effect of reform, which was to throw off
the register people who did not exist in the first place and should not
have been
there. At
this point, I part company to some degree with the hon. Lady. When the
reform is introduced, as I am sure it will be, it needs to be
accompanied by a Government-led, state-organised campaign to get the
right people on the electoral register. It is not enough to say that
individual Members of Parliament or politicians in general should take
on that task; it must be the state’s role to get the register
right.
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