Mrs.
Laing: I agree entirely. I said that this morning, but it
might have been at a time when I was going on a
bit.
David
Howarth: I hope that I will be forgiven for having
forgotten, because it was so long ago.
My interest
in the matter, as I said this morning, comes from being in a university
seat. Among the households that organise electoral registration are
Cambridge colleges. They count as the head of the household and put
everybody on the register. If we changed to individual registration, we
would need some way to ensure that individual students were on the
register. That would not be too difficult to organise—students
have to sign up for lots of things at the start of term, and they could
sign up for that as well—but we would need to ensure that it was
carefully considered.
I believe
that we are also discussing new clause 2. The hon. Lady did not say
much about new clause 2, but its effect appears to be the opposite of
new clause 1. New clause 2 seems to say that if one is an overseas
elector and one does not have a passport, one does not have to present
one’s passport number—it is enough to claim to have a
passport. That seems to be the exact opposite of what the hon. Lady is
trying to do with new clause 1. It seems that it is okay to stuff the
roll with people who live abroad, but not with people who live in the
UK.
Mrs.
Laing: I ought to clarify that point. I skipped over new
clause 2 to try to save time, because I had given way so many times
over new clause 1. I realised that was the only time that other Members
would have a chance to participate in the debate.
The point of
new clause 2 is simply to find a personal identifier for overseas
voters and a passport number seems to be a perfectly sensible
one.
David
Howarth: I accept that a passport number is a sensible
identifier, but the substitute, which is simply a declaration that one
has lost one’s passport, does not seem to be adequate at
all.
I return to
the rather disappointing arguments from the Government Benches about
why we should not go to individual registration quite yet. There is a
kind of Augustinian aspect to this—we all accept that it is a
good idea, but we do not want to be made virtuous right now.
The hon.
Member for Battersea raised an argument about postal votes, saying that
they are the real problem and that if one looks at the cases one can
see that there is a serious problem. He said that there is not a
problem—at least as far as we know—with personation,
where people turn up at the polling station, pretending to be somebody
else. There is some truth in that, but individual registration would
make postal vote fraud more difficult because planning the fraud would
take longer. At the moment, all one has to do is to decide to commit
the fraud at the moment when one is trying to generate fake postal
votes. That is the point at which one would generate the fake
signature.
However, to
commit the same postal vote fraud when the signature is on the register
and each individual has signed the register to make sure that they are
individually identifiable, makes the whole thing more difficult because
it has to be planned further in advance. That does not make the system
foolproof, and I fully accept that individual registration would not
make the system foolproof. It does not seem to be a significant
condition for increasing the security of the register to first-class
levels, but it would make it better. In the end, what would make the
system even better than simply a legislative change comes down to
resources, which I touched on earlier when I talked about the need for
a campaign of registration. One of the problems at present is that
electoral officials do not have the resources to check signatures
properly on postal votes—they are simply overwhelmed by the
numbers.
Mr.
Djanogly: The hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that
there is a problem with resources, although whether the service is
better or worse depends on which part of the country one is in. It is
also a question of the checking systems—the machines that help
with the checking are apparently not up to scratch in many cases
either.
David
Howarth: I gathered the same thing as the hon. Gentleman,
but it is a matter of resources in terms either of people, or of the
equipment needed to make the system work properly, and we cannot do
without that. It is therefore not right to say that simply passing a
law to introduce individual registration would solve the
problem—it would not. More would be needed, such as the
investment of resources and a real commitment by the authorities to
make the system work. Nevertheless, I am still convinced that the
individual registration route is an important step
forward.
Mr.
Tyrie: I have been reflecting on the
hon. Gentleman’s proposals for a state-run campaign. Can he
clarify whether that state-run campaign is the Electoral Commission,
which enables a transition from the current
system to individual registration to be conducted without people falling
off the register, or is he primarily talking about a campaign with a
substantial increase in public expenditure that will take place every
year to achieve higher
registration?
David
Howarth: There is definitely a need for a transitional
campaign. The question is where to go after that. Having been a local
councillor and seen how much money is devoted to ensuring that the
register is up to date in particular authorities, I think that there
might be a need for some permanent increase as well. My main point
remains that even though we will not attain perfection by introducing
individual registration, it will be an improvement. I support new
clause 1 as amended by amendments (a), (b) and (c).
I do not
support new clause 8 in its present form. The problem with new clause
8, with its list of personal identifiers, is that it is too inflexible.
It does not allow for different circumstances in different parts of the
country. The hon. Member for Epping Forest spent a lot of time talking
about library cards, but I notice that library cards are not on the
list. I have a British Library card. It has my signature on the back
and a photograph on the front, and it seems a perfectly adequate
identifier. New clause 8 is imperfect, and I urge the hon. Lady not to
press it.
Mrs.
Laing: Does the hon. Gentleman agree with the principle of
personal
identifiers?
David
Howarth: Yes. I agree with what the hon. Lady said. It has
always struck me as rather extraordinary that in the UK one can vote
without any personal identifier at all, but there needs to be
flexibility in how the system of identifiers works. What will count as
an adequate identifier in some parts of the country will not exist in
others. In my constituency, library and university cards would be good
things to use.
I mentioned
new clause 2, which goes in exactly the opposite direction to new
clause 1. On new clause 7 and the edited register, I agree with what
the hon. Lady said, but it does not seem to go far enough. I do not see
why the electoral register should be used for any commercial purpose at
all. It should be used only for electoral and political purposes. We
should make that absolutely clear and try to get away from the
situation in which the electoral register has become a tool for
advertising and commercial
organisations.
The
Chairman: Before I call the next speaker, may I make an
appeal for brief speeches? We have a tremendous amount of ground still
to cover. I know that the usual channels want to break at a reasonable
time this evening, and I hope that all the important parts of the Bill
can receive proper debate and scrutiny in the
Committee.
Dr.
Whitehead: I rise to make three points. First, we should
be concerned about two things: the integrity of the register and the
validity of the ballot. If the ballot loses its value and its resonance
with people, confidence in the whole system will be undermined and the
outcome, as the hon. Member for Epping Forest said, could eventually be
called into question. The integrity and value of the ballot are
important.
Secondly, the
fact that someone can cast a ballot is important. That is why the
integrity of the register is essential. It is not just that people who
should be on the register are on it and people who should not be on it
are not; there should be access to the register in the first place. It
is an important part of our duty to ensure as nearly as we can that
people can cast their ballots and that as many people are registered to
vote as possible.
I do not
think that it is reasonable in those circumstances to say simply,
“Well, if people really want to register, they will.” We
know from evidence gathered over quite a period that for various
reasons, cast it how we will, there are enormous variations in the
extent to which people living in a particular area of the country are
able to cast their ballots. I mentioned earlier that registration
figures in Hampshire in 2003 were 103 per cent. of the census. That is
what one would expect from a registration system that works properly.
The people on the census get to register, and more people register as
they move into the area over the years. Within two or three years of
the census, the number of people on the register will be in excess of
the number recorded as resident in the area when the census was taken.
That means that the system is working well. We should realise that the
electoral registration offices in the area are working well, and we
should reflect on the nature of the population living
there.
5.30
pm In
some parts of the country, over the same period, the electoral register
collapsed by more than 20 per cent. I do not mean in relation to the
census, but the electoral register itself. In 2003, almost 20 per cent.
fewer electors were on the electoral register in Brentford and
Isleworth than in 2001. In central Edinburgh, there were 10,000 fewer
people on the register in 2003 than in 2001, and in Bradford, West,
7,000 fewer. Those changes related to, among other things, differing
practices in electoral registration at local level. On a wider basis,
if we look at the 2001 census figures for various parts of the country,
as well as at electoral registration numbers, we see a different
picture to that in north Hampshire. The registration figure for Brent
in 2001 was 70 per cent. of the 2001 census figure, whereas for
Hammersmith and Fulham, and for Brentford, it was 76 per cent. There is
enormous variation in who is getting to vote.
My plea is
not that we should not have individual registration, because that is
very important, in the short, medium and long term, to ensure that the
ballot is validated—the use of individual identifiers is an
important aspect of validating the ballot. However, validating the
ballot is about not just one issue, but a whole range of issues that
ensure integrity in our electoral system. In some parts of the country,
the system fails to deliver huge numbers of people on the electoral
register, thereby denying them a vote. Under the current system, when
we periodically divide our electoral boundaries, through the boundary
commissions, the numbers of electors per constituency are taken into
account. Over a period of time, not only will some people be denied the
right to vote, but whole areas of the country will end up with lower
levels of representation than they might otherwise have had, because of
the way that the electoral system has
worked. We
have a dual responsibility. First, we must ensure that the ballot has
integrity. Our electoral system is
relatively clean, but even one case of fraud in a relatively clean
system is too many. We must have a system that is as fraud-proof as
possible. Tony
Lloyd: My hon. Friend makes some important points, because
there are two ways of getting the system wrong, one of which is when
people fraudulently want more than their one vote. It is equally fraud
of the electoral system when people cannot vote because they are not
registered. In an earlier speech, it was said that information about
that complaint was relatively light, but will my hon. Friend hazard a
guess as to which is currently the dominant feature in modern
Britain—fraud or
under-registration?
Dr.
Whitehead: I hope that I am making the case that those
elements are interlinked in a complete electoral system. I think that
all hon. Members present agree that there is not widespread fraud in
the British electoral system. We have a relatively clean electoral
system. However, some aspects of our electoral system have always been
as they are and always will be. For example, if one wished to be
sufficiently corrupt, one could, to some extent, in principle, match up
who has balloted and which way they have voted. Even with individual
registration, it would not be possible to clean the system completely
of fraudulent
entrants.
Mr.
Djanogly: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that expert
after expert, and report after report, have said that fraud is a
significant problem in the UK? Is it not therefore the first issue to
be dealt
with?
Dr.
Whitehead: With respect, the expert evidence that has been
given to the Select Committee on Constitutional Affairs, of which I am
a member, and to this Committee has been that there are cases of fraud,
particularly postal vote fraud, but that they are not an enormous
proportion of the total system. Compared with a number of other
systems, fraud is a relatively small element of our system. That is
different from saying that the British electoral system itself is proof
against fraudulent entry. There are two separate questions to be
addressed. First, are people fraudulently entering or misusing the
ballot on a widespread basis? Secondly, does the construction of our
ballot system mean a low possibility of fraudulent entry, whether or
not it is taking place? Fraudulent entry is possible now and could
remain so in a future
system. 5.37
pm Sitting
suspended for Divisions in the
House. 6.1
pm On
resuming—
Dr.
Whitehead: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for
Battersea.
Martin
Linton: On the point about convictions for fraud, the
total number of convictions under the Representation of the People Act
1983 was one in 2006, one in 2005 and none in
2004.
Dr.
Whitehead: I thank my hon. Friend for those statistics,
because they underline that while one is too many—we must make
our system as fraud-proof as possible—the overall incidence
appears not to be enormous compared with a number of countries in the
world. That does not mean we should do nothing about
it. Essentially,
a valid electoral system is, one might say, a three-legged stool: those
entitled to vote should be able to vote; those who vote should be able
to do so freely, anonymously and without threat; and those who vote
should not feel that their vote has been devalued by casting their vote
alongside those who are not entitled to vote. If we ignore any one of
those three legs, the system will not work. That is why moving to
individual voter registration and to individual signifiers has to take
place alongside measures to ensure that the register itself is as good
as we can make it. That should include, as has been undertaken with
some other legislatures, voters whom we know as reliable entrants to
the register being placed on automatically—perhaps sixth-formers
at college, rising-18 voters, or those known to have proper
data-protection safeguards, having identified themselves to public
bodies in various ways. In addition to having reliable canvassing
methods across the country rather than the huge variation in the
quality of register compilation in different parts of the country, we
should look at measures for strengthening the
register. The
hon. Lady asked what the argument was against individual registration.
There is not, and should not be, an argument against individual
registration. The question is how complete we wish to make our
electoral system. I am in favour of making it a complete system with
those three legs of the stool thereby verifying it. We have to move
towards individual registration with that understanding. That is how,
overall, we shall give our system integrity for the
century.
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