Mr.
Tyrie: I am sorry that I missed a couple of minutes of the
hon. Member for Southampton, Test, but I listened attentively to what
he had to say before the Divisions. He was right on the button in terms
of identifying the key issues. He and I worked together for a long time
on a Select Committee, and we also worked on the informal consultative
group for the Electoral Commission. We know each other’s views
and there is a good degree of agreement between us. I agree that the
integrity of the register is important, but I differ slightly from him
in one regard.
I have made
this point repeatedly in different ways and it goes to the heart of a
question that was asked by an hon. Gentleman who is no longer in his
place—it is a pity that the Divisions have broken up the
discussion as we had come to a very important point. The question was
whether under-registration or fraud posed the bigger problem. However,
I do not think that that is the crucial matter. The crucial question
is, what is the public perception of the bigger problem? The
essential—the necessary—condition for any electoral
system, is that it should secure consent. Broadly speaking, after
people have been upset about this, that and the other and have had a go
at all and sundry, they finally get the chance to vote and—win
or lose—they accept the result. That situation is not achieved
lightly but is easily destroyed.
We have seen
many countries with apparently perfect and sophisticated constitutions
that have failed over time to find a means through which to establish a
level
of consent, regardless of how many rough edges still exist in the
electoral and voting systems. In Britain, we had a system that secured
a very high level of consent. The tragedy is that some of that consent
has been eroded because of the perception of fraud, even if the level
of fraud is lower than the perception of it. That is why it is crucial
to push through a measure such as new clause 1. There is no
point in thinking through clever wheezes to improve the situation such
as electronic voting or publicity campaigns. I am not against a
transition publicity campaign but I am nervous about having only a
campaign that might sit there in perpetuity and create its own
constituency, as Weber tells us that all bureaucracies do. The
Electoral Commission has threatened to do just that unless it is
reformed as a consequence of the investigation by the Committee on
Standards in Public Life. We must keep focused on the basic point of
securing consent. The perception is as important as the
reality.
I want to
discuss a number of aspects to new clause 1 that have been touched on
by others. Before I do so, there is a relationship between this point
and that which I raised earlier concerning service voter registration;
I promise not to dwell on it long, Sir Nicholas. If we introduce
individual voter registration, we must think about how it will affect
voters in the services. They have already been badly affected by one
reform, and we do not want them to be affected by another. Has any
preliminary preparatory work been done on that subject? Have we
examined the effect that the introduction of individual registration
and voter ID might have on the arrangements that are currently in place
to try and secure higher levels of service voter registration? Have the
services been consulted?
I ask those
questions because, inadvertently, I did not give the accurate figures
for the fall in service voter registration as a consequence of PPERA. I
suggested that they had roughly halved but perhaps I can quickly give
more accurate figures. In 2000, there were 483 service
voters registered in Chichester, in my constituency. Two years after
PPERA, there were 22. That gives an idea of the scale of the fall.
Service voter registers are kept in Scotland, but are not kept
separately for England and Wales. In Scotland in 2000, there were
18,226 such voters on the register. By 2004—the big drop was in
2003—that figure of almost 18,500 had dropped to 2,100, which
gives an idea of the scale of what has happened. I cannot impress on
the Committee too strongly how important it is that we think through
carefully the changes for groups such as service voters, but that is
not an argument for delaying the introduction of individual
registration along the lines set out in new clause 1.
It is worth
while putting the new clause into context. When the Government came to
power, they were full of bright ideas for polishing up the
constitution. Some worked and some did not: rolling registration has
broadly worked, but postal voting on demand fell flat. In fact, it has
been an absolute disaster. It led to the warehousing of votes and ended
up with the notorious Birmingham court case. One of the key quotations
from that case, which has already been given, was that it resulted in
practices
that “would
disgrace a banana republic.”
I had always assumed
that that quote was “would not disgrace a banana
republic”,
but “would
disgrace a banana republic”
is actually rather
worse, so the judge was clearly in a firm frame of mind when he wrote
his
judgment. Before
we go any further in working out how to address all this through the
new clause, it is worth asking this: before the Government introduced
postal voting on demand, just how big was the problem that three or
four Labour Members have alluded to? The most detailed recent
investigation of non-registration was by the Office for National
Statistics, which did work on behalf of the Electoral Commission.
Overall, it gave 8 to 9 per cent. as the best estimate for
non-registration in England and Wales in 2000. That sounds quite a lot
and it is not ideal, but it is worth bearing it in mind that that
compares to an estimate of 7 to 9 per cent. in 1991, so it does not
seem that there has been much change. There has been no sharp
decline.
It is
interesting to note that in two surveys, in 1981 and 1991, some 19 per
cent. of those who were then unregistered to vote said that they did
not wish to vote or that they could not be bothered, which is the point
that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest was making. By
contrast, in 2004-05, a poll conducted by MORI showed that 14 per cent.
said they were not interested in voting.
6.15
pm I
should add that the figures I have just quoted are not entirely
comparable. The Electoral Commission has done its best to make them
comparable, and those who are interested can look at its September 2005
report, pages 43 and 44. I only say that because there would be no
point in the Minister coming back to me with detailed, technical points
about the construction of that survey. The commission has concluded
that the figures are broadly but not exactly comparable in the way in
which the questions were asked.
Notwithstanding
the assessment that we are still in the range of 8 to 9 per cent., I
still think that there is a problem, and it is a problem that exists in
particular constituencies more than others. I agree with the general
point that has been made by Labour Members, but it is not an alibi for
delaying the introduction of individual registration and voter
identification.
Under the
Electoral Administration Act 2006, the Government tried what I still
consider was probably a stalling measure. I did not oppose it at the
time, but it was not ever likely to deal with the problem. I am
referring to the creation of the new offence of falsely applying for a
postal vote. It was in the wake of the Birmingham case. I am not a
lawyer, but I could not see the point of it. Falsely filling in a
postal vote application form was already illegal, even before the Act.
Those engaged in the warehousing in Birmingham already knew that such
action was illegal. The whole response of the Government to that issue
had the smell of display purposes only legislation, the sort of
legislation that we have had too much of recently. However, I do not
exempt my own party from such action when it was in government. The
Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 is perhaps the most salient example of the
phenomenon. Such
a measure was not an adequate response. We are now several years
further down the line and we still have not got to the starting post
for individual registration.
I do not know whether what I am about to say is correct, but a colleague
told me that only one country has household voter registration.
Officials might be able to supply me with a long list of such
countries. I would be delighted if the Minister could supply additional
names. I was told that the only country was Zimbabwe, but that country
is not a good
precedent. In
his evidence on 4 November, the chairman of the Committee on Standards
in Public Life was unequivocal. He
said: “At
the time my committee made the
recommendation”— for
individual voter
registration— “under
my predecessor, it was well aware of the situation in Northern Ireland
and of what has happened since the measure was introduced. That
includes the much greater confidence that now exists in the integrity
of the electoral system...if something is fundamentally flawed, as
we now believe the electoral system in the country to be with the
combination of household registration and postal voting on demand, we
should not keep it because of concern about some other issue. One
should address that other issue directly”.—[Official
Report, Political Parties and Elections Public Bill Committee, 4
November 2008; c. 36,
Q90.] We could
not have clearer advice than that given by the chairman of Committee on
Standards in Public Life: “Fundamentally flawed” was his
conclusion. My hon.
Friend the Member for Epping Forest quoted the Council of Europe. I
will not repeat her quotation about the United Kingdom being open to
fraud and the system being childishly simple to fiddle, but it was
worth pointing out. Those quotations can be found on page 12
of the House of Commons Library brief on postal briefing and
electoral fraud. I implore members of the Committee to read the rest of
what was said, which is set out over the page, and note who said such
things. Politicians from Poland, Germany and other countries throughout
Europe strongly recommended that we do not tarry with such matters but
get on with changing the system in the manner that we are proposing
under new clause 1 without
delay. Furthermore,
those politicians were so concerned about such matters that they
considered threatening us, as they might a hopeless banana republic.
The briefing stated:
“The
UK should not face a full PACE monitoring procedure at this stage, the
committee concluded—but special attention should be paid to
these outstanding vulnerabilities during periodic monitoring reports on
the UK. If they are not addressed, and start to have an impact on the
overall democratic nature of British elections, a full monitoring
procedure should again be
considered.” For
Britain to be in the dock with the Council of Europe, which we helped
to create—indeed we were integral to its creation—is
deeply
worrying.
Martin
Linton: Most European countries do not have
electoral registers or annual canvasses for the simple reason that they
have ID cards. There is no reason to draw up a separate register of
voters every year because they already have a register of the
population. One point that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend the
Member for Epping Forest have not made is that Northern Ireland has
electoral ID cards, which is the most effective security device. The
logic of his argument, therefore, points to the fact that the most
effective way in which to register voters is through an ID-card
system.
Mr.
Tyrie: I found that a deeply concerning intervention. No
one else who has looked at this matter has arrived at that conclusion.
I am talking about people who devote their professional lives to
considering this and no other issue. It also seems to confirm what I
fear, which is that the Labour party will cling to any counsel of
delay. As everybody knows, ID cards are something for the very
indefinite future, even if Labour were to win the next election.
Frankly, the matter is probably for the birds because the cost would be
so prohibitive, and the cost-benefit analysis simply does not stack
up.
Martin
Linton: For clarity, I was not suggesting that progress on
the road towards individual registration should be held up on account
of the fact that Parliament may in future decide to adopt ID cards. I
was merely saying that the hon. Gentleman’s international
comparisons are beside the point. He is comparing us with countries
that do not need to have electoral registers or annual
canvasses.
Mr.
Tyrie: There are upwards of 200 countries in the world, of
which 150 purport to have some sort of democratic system in place. I
would not claim to know what their systems are, which is why I referred
the point back to the Minister to consider in the fullness of time. I
was not demanding that though.
The fact that
several European countries use ID cards does not seem to take us very
far in this debate. We do not have ID cards, but we have a method of
dealing with the problem. All the experts and the overwhelming evidence
suggest that we should go forward on that basis.
[Interruption.] I have been passed a note that says that
I must sit down in eight minutes. I have a long history in my party of
being slightly independent. However, I am not so independent as to
disobey such a clear
message.
The
Chairman: Order. The only message that the hon. Gentleman
should obey is that from the
Chair.
Mr.
Tyrie: There are all sorts of people whom I should obey,
temporal and otherwise, but certainly you, Sir Nicholas, are very high
on the
list. The
remaining argument, to which I alluded earlier—we certainly had
a heck of a canter around it earlier so I do not want to prolong it
much further—is this question of the Northern Ireland experience
providing an alibi for not acting now. Labour Members queued up to make
that point. I would not suggest for one moment that some brief had
passed among them. I doubt that it has because they made points from
very different angles. It clearly is a very strongly felt point, and I
am sure that Northern Ireland itself will be impressed by the depth of
their knowledge and understanding of what was allegedly done. The truth
is that Labour Members are clinging to a pretty poor life raft if they
want to use Northern Ireland as an excuse for not getting ahead with
this. It is such a waterlogged life raft that it is virtually
sinking.
It is worth
looking at what the Committee on Standards in Public Life said about
Northern Ireland on page 94, paragraph 5.67 of its “Review of
the Electoral Commission”, which I do not think has not been
quoted in Committee yet. It
states: “The
Committee’s view is that individual registration in Northern
Ireland has not led to the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters,
as is widely believed to be the case.”
That is a direct
reference to the earlier paragraphs. It
continues: “The
Government is on record as saying that this drop owed to a combination
of inaccuracy resulting from weaknesses in the household-based system
and the withdrawal of the ‘carry
forward’” Paragraph
5.67 goes on to
say: There
are...a significant number of individuals who, for various
reasons, do not re-register during the annual canvass; therefore the
withdrawal of the carry forward effectively meant that each year a
sizeable number of individuals would fall off the register. There would
be a similar significant reduction in registration under the household
system if the carry forward was
abolished.” Therefore,
we have the answer to the points that Labour Members were making. The
lion’s share of the reduction in the numbers on the register was
not caused by the introduction of individual registration. The report
goes on to praise the Government. Although it does not use the word
“praise”, it is fair to say that that is what it does. It
says that the Government’s response, with the Miscellaneous
Provisions (Northern Ireland) Act 2006, was to
abolish “the
annual canvass in favour of a system of continuous
registration.”— which
the committee clearly supports. The main problem in Northern Ireland
has been resolved. I would have thought that that would have been
enough for anybody. It is clear and unambiguous
advice. Mr.
David Kidney (Stafford) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman
give
way?
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