The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Ainger,
Nick
(Carmarthen, West and South Pembrokeshire)
(Lab)
Anderson,
Mr. David
(Blaydon)
(Lab)
Beresford,
Sir Paul
(Mole Valley)
(Con)
Burgon,
Colin
(Elmet) (Lab)
Carswell,
Mr. Douglas
(Harwich)
(Con)
Fallon,
Mr. Michael
(Sevenoaks)
(Con)
Hemming,
John
(Birmingham, Yardley)
(LD)
Hesford,
Stephen
(Wirral, West)
(Lab)
Howarth,
David
(Cambridge)
(LD)
Laing,
Mrs. Eleanor
(Epping Forest)
(Con)
Linton,
Martin
(Battersea)
(Lab)
Lucas,
Ian
(Wrexham) (Lab)
Mudie,
Mr. George
(Leeds, East)
(Lab)
Prosser,
Gwyn
(Dover) (Lab)
Wills,
Mr. Michael
(Minister of State, Ministry of
Justice)
Wilson,
Mr. Rob
(Reading, East)
(Con)
Eliot Wilson, Committee
Clerk
attended the
Committee
First
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Monday 26
January
2009
[Robert
Key in the
Chair]
Draft
European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations
2009
4.30
pm
The
Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Mr. Michael
Wills): I beg to move,
That the
Committee has considered the draft European Parliamentary Elections
(Amendment) Regulations
2009.
The
Chairman: With this it will be convenient to consider the
draft European Parliament (Disqualification) (United Kingdom and
Gibraltar) Order 2009 and the draft European Parliamentary Elections
(Loans and Related Transactions and Miscellaneous Provisions) (United
Kingdom and Gibraltar) Order 2009.
Mr.
Wills: Mr. Key, may I begin by welcoming you to
the Chair? It is the first time that I have had the pleasure of taking
part in proceedings under your august chairmanship. I am sure that it
will be an enlightening and enjoyable experience, and I hope that it
will be an expeditious one, too.
I am grateful
that it has been made possible for the Committee to consider the
statutory instruments together. The three pieces of legislation relate
to the European parliamentary elections to be held in the United
Kingdom on 4 June, and form an important part of the
Governments preparations for the elections. All three
instruments have been subject to consultation with the Electoral
Commission and other stakeholders, and drafts were revised and amended,
when appropriate, as a result of responses to that
consultation.
Mr.
Key, with your permission I shall deal first with the draft European
Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2009. The main purpose
of the draft regulations is to amend the European Parliamentary
Elections Regulations 2004 to take into account the changes that have
been made to electoral law since 2004. In general, this means applying
to European parliamentary elections the provisions made in the
Electoral Administration Act 2006. We have already undertaken the
exercise for the various types of local election and the Greater London
authority elections. To assist electoral administrators in the
practical application of the legislation, we have re-enacted in their
entirety schedule 1 European Parliamentary Elections
Rules, schedule 2 Absent Voting and schedule 3,
Modification of European Parliamentary Election Rules for
Combined Polls to the 2004 regulations.
The European
parliamentary elections are administered in Great Britain by 11
returning officers, one each for Scotland and Wales and nine for the
regions of England, whom we know as regional returning officers. They
perform some functions regionally, such as
nomination
procedures, but most of the mechanics of poll delivery fall to electoral
administrators in each region, the so-called local returning
officers, with the regional returning officer acting as a
co-ordinator. The European parliamentary elections rules confer
functions on the returning officers and local returning officers to
ensure the smooth running of the poll.
Schedule 2 to
the draft regulations replaces the European parliamentary elections
rules of schedule 1 to the 2004 regulations and reflects the new
security measures that the 2006 Act introduced. These include security
markings on ballot papers, new identifying marks and the replacement of
counterfoils with corresponding number lists. The measures also reflect
the changes made under the 2006 Act to the retention and
inspection of election documents after the poll.
The key
policy changes that we have made on absent voting at European elections
are set out in schedule 3 to the draft regulations, which substitutes
new schedule 2 to the 2004 regulations. The changes include new
provisions for the collection of personal identifiers from persons
applying to vote by post or by proxy at a European parliamentary
election; a requirement for postal voters at European parliamentary
elections to provide their signature and date of birth on postal voting
statements, which they must complete and return with their ballot
papers; and a requirement for local returning officers to take steps to
verify the signatures and dates of birth on postal voting statements,
which involves checking that the identifiers provided on the statement
correspond to those previously provided with the postal vote
application.
Schedule 4 to
the 2004 regulations, which sets out the modifications needed to the
European parliamentary elections rules in the event of combined polls,
is updated to reflect the changes that were made to the Representation
of the People Act (England and Wales) (Combination of Polls)
Regulations 2004 as a result of the 2006 Act.
To facilitate
the smooth running of the poll in Scotland, we have defined
local counting area in Scotland to mean a local
government area in Scotland. However, a local returning officer for
European parliamentary elections in Scotland remains the person
responsible for UK parliamentary elections in Scotland, as required by
section 6 of the European Parliamentary Elections Act 2002.
In schedule 1
to the draft regulations, which inserts a new schedule A1 to the 2004
regulations, we have been able to provide that the local returning
officer for each local counting area is the person who is responsible
for a specified parliamentary constituency. To make that work in
practice, we have assigned a local returning officer to each local
counting area, which means that, on the ground, the checking of postal
vote identifiers will be simplified because electoral administrators
will not have to use multiple software systems to perform the task. For
the long term, we have included measures in the Political Parties and
Elections Bill that, subject to Parliaments approval, will
provide that all European parliamentary polls after 2009 will be
administered on local authority
boundaries.
Turning
to Gibraltar, the European Parliament (Representation) Act 2003
enfranchised the Gibraltar electorate for the purposes of European
parliamentary elections in response to a judgment of the European Court
of Human Rights. We have worked with the
Gibraltar Government to ensure that all necessary amendments have been
made to the 2004 regulations to enable the Gibraltar electorate to
continue to vote in elections to the European Parliament as part of and
on the same terms as the United Kingdom electorate. For example, the
regulations require personal identifiers to be used in Gibraltar for
the first time at a European parliamentary election. On 9 January, the
Gibraltar Parliament passed the European Parliamentary Elections
(Amendment) Act 2008. That Act amends the European Parliamentary
Elections Act 2004 to mirror closely the changes that were made in
Great Britain by the Representation of the People Act 1983, as amended
by the 2006 Act. Thus, the Gibraltar electorate will be able to take
advantage of late and anonymous
registration.
We
have consulted with the Electoral Commission and have incorporated a
number of the points that it raised in formal response to the
regulations, including provision for the registered name of the party
to appear first on the ballot paper, followed by any description used
and a recommendation to make it clear on the ballot paper that a voter
must mark his or her vote with a cross in the box. After careful
consideration, the Government agreed to implement the Electoral
Commissions recommendation to change the rules in relation to
the use of party descriptions, on the basis that the change is in line
with Ron Goulds recent findings about the use of descriptors in
list-based elections. That means that the registered name of the party
must appear first on the ballot paper, followed by any description of
the party that has been used on the nomination papers. The Government
will work with the Electoral Commission to review whether a similar
change to the use of party descriptions would be appropriate and
beneficial for electors at local and UK parliamentary
elections.
Following the
Electoral Commissions recommendation, we have taken steps to
make it clear that a voter should mark his or her vote with a cross in
the box to the right of the name of the party or individual candidate
for whom he or she is voting by amending the wording at the top of the
ballot paper to
read:
Vote
once (x) in one blank
box.
The
Electoral Commission also recommended that the regulations make
provision for the acceptance of valid votes where electors mark them in
numbers rather than using an x or other mark to indicate for whom they
are voting. However, after informal consultation with regional
returning officers and other stakeholders, the Ministry of Justice
concluded that, in the light of the current legislation and guidance on
the rejection of ballot papers, all decisions on whether a vote is
valid where a voter has marked his or her vote with a one, two or three
should be left at the discretion of the returning officers
application of the current
rules.
We
have worked to complete the regulations as early as possible. We aimed
to meet the recommendations made by Ron Gould for electoral legislation
to be in place at least six months prior to the European parliamentary
elections, but, I am sorry to say, we have narrowly missed that target.
Nevertheless, the regulations will, subject to the approval of both
Houses, be in force four months before the European parliamentary
elections on 4 June, which we hope will be helpful to electors,
electoral administrators and other stakeholders.
The draft
European Parliament (Disqualification) (United Kingdom and Gibraltar)
Order 2009 replaces the provisions in the European Parliament
(Disqualification) (United Kingdom and Gibraltar) Order 2004 to take
account of the changes that were made by the Gibraltar Constitution
Order 2006. The most notable changes are that Gibraltar Ordinances are
now known as Acts and that the House of Assembly is renamed the
Gibraltar Parliament. The reason for the repeal and re-enactment of the
2004 order is therefore a change of nomenclature rather than one of
policy. The 2009 order continues to ensure that a consistent approach
is taken in Gibraltar and in the UK on the disqualification of Members
of the European Parliament. That is reflected in the content of the
order, which I shall summarise
briefly.
Currently,
certain classes of people in the UK and Gibraltar, including under-18s,
are disqualified from being MEPs under section 10 of the European
Parliamentary Elections Act 2002. The draft order extends the
classes under the 2002 Act so that the provisions for Gibraltarians
mirror those in the UK. It provides that
a person is
disqualified for the office of
MEP
if
he or she
has been
adjudged or otherwise declared bankrupt under any law in force in
Gibraltar and has not been discharged.
That makes the position
in Gibraltar broadly similar to that in the UK for European
parliamentary
elections.
Article
3(b) disqualifies from the same office a person who holds or
acts in certain public offices, including judges and members of
the police, by virtue of which they would be disqualified from being
members of the Gibraltar Parliament under the Parliament
ActGibraltar Act No. 1950-15. Again, this is similar to the
existing UK position, as such people are disqualified from membership
of the House of Commons. However, the provision enables people such as
teachers and junior administrative staff, who are not disqualified
under UK law, to be
MEPs.
Article
3(c) disqualifies from office the Clerk of the Parliament of Gibraltar,
who is both the electoral registration officer and the local returning
officer for the Gibraltar part of the combined region.
In addition, any deputy or clerk appointed by him or her in
his or her capacity as a local returning officer or as the European
electoral registration officer for Gibraltar is also disqualified.
Similar persons are disqualified in the United Kingdom.
Article 3(d)
disqualifies from office people who are disqualified for election as a
Member of the Parliament of Gibraltar by virtue of having committed
offences connected with the elections to the Parliament of Gibraltar.
In the UK, similar persons are disqualified for electoral
offences.
Article 3(e)
disqualifies those who have been found guilty of one or more
offencesin Gibraltar or elsewhereand have been
sentenced or ordered to be imprisoned either indefinitely or for more
than one year, and are detained in Gibraltar or are unlawfully at
large. That provision is similar to one of the disqualifications for
the Parliament of Gibraltar, and it equates to a measure in the
Representation of the People Act 1981 that disqualifies similar persons
from the House of Commons.
Following
consultation, the Electoral Commission noted that the provisions on
bankruptcy differ slightly throughout the UK and Gibraltar, but it
confirmed its overall support for the order.
During the
four months before a European election, Gibraltar, which, as you know,
Mr. Key, is combined with the south-west region of the UK
for the purposes of voting in European elections, is subject to a
modified form of the statutory provisions that regulate donations to
political parties. Those measures are set out in the European
Parliamentary Elections (Combined Region and Campaign Expenditure)
(United Kingdom and Gibraltar) Order 2004, which allows UK political
parties that declare an intention to contest a European parliamentary
election in the combined region to accept donations from donors who are
based in Gibraltar in the four months before a European Parliament
election. It also regulates loans entered into by Gibraltar parties
contesting the region during the same period. In addition, it caps the
total amount that UK parties may receive from Gibraltar donors at the
amount of campaign expenditure that the registered party would be
permitted to incur if it were standing for election in the combined
region only, which equates to £315,000. That figure is called
the permitted maximum.
The European
Parliamentary Elections (Loans and Related Transactions and
Miscellaneous Provisions) (United Kingdom and Gibraltar) Order 2009 is
required to update the 2004 order to take account of changes that were
made to the regime for the financial support of parties in the
Electoral Administration Act 2006 and, specifically, to apply to
Gibraltar new part 4A of the Political Parties, Elections and
Referendums Act 2000, which deals with regulation of loans and related
transactions.
The
draft order replicates the current donations provisions for loans, as
set out in the 2004 order; in other words, it will permit loans from
specified individuals and organisations in Gibraltar to UK political
parties contesting the combined region in the four-month period
preceding an election and regulate loans to Gibraltar parties
contesting the combined region during this period. It also, in effect,
alters the matters that count towards calculation of the permitted
maximum by ensuring that the value of loans as well as donations must
be taken into account by a party when deciding whether the permitted
maximum has been reached. In order to reflect the spirit of the
provisions in relation to donations from Gibraltar, loans entered into
with Gibraltar individuals or bodies during the four-month period may
not be subject to actual capitalisationin other words, an
increase in the capital borrowedafter the date of the poll. The
intention behind that is to prevent non-Gibraltar parties from using
existing loans to borrow more money from Gibraltar individuals or
bodies after the end of the permitted
period.
The
draft order will help fulfil the United Kingdoms obligation to
ensure that the Gibraltar electorate is able to vote at elections to
the European Parliament on as similar a basis as possible as the UK
electorate. That matter has been the subject of consultation with the
Gibraltar Government and the Electoral Commission and I am pleased to
say that they are both content.
I appreciate
Committee members bearing with me patiently and attentively as
I have outlined each of the statutory instruments. I hope that they
agree that it is important to go through the details: these are complex
matters, but they are important. The Electoral Commission and other
stakeholders have given us many helpful, useful and practical comments
that we have taken into account in the final drafts of the statutory
instruments before us today, which will enable the combined elections
to go ahead successfully and make sure that they are conducted
properly, and I hope that they will make matters easier for electors.
That is our objective and on that basis I commend the regulations and
draft orders to the
Committee.
4.47
pm
Mrs.
Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): Mr. Key,
may I welcome you to the Chair and say what a pleasure it is for the
few Opposition Members present to serve under your
chairmanship?
I
am pleased that the Government have introduced these statutory
instruments. I thank the Minister sincerely for going through them in
detail, so that the Committee is better educated about exactly why they
are necessary and why it is important to introduce them at this time.
We have been waiting for them for a while, but I forgive the Minister
for not tabling them in time for them to be in place six months before
the European elections on 4 June. Let us hope that there is,
administratively speakingthere ought to besufficient
time for those concerned with the practicalities of the arrangements
for the elections to put the measures in place. As you might have
guessed, Mr. Key, we will not oppose any of the
measures.
My
concern, as always, is the smooth running of elections, and I have
great respect for the support of the Electoral Commission in such
matters. The Minister told us that the Electoral Commission has been
consulted on the statutory instruments, has made suggestions that have
been taken into consideration and supports what he has said this
afternoon. I am pleased to hear that; it makes perfect
sense.
As
ever, on behalf of the electorate, I am looking for certainty,
continuity and consistency. I believe that the Minister addressed all
those points in his remarks, so I will not take the Committees
time to quiz him on them. However, there is one matterpersonal
identifierson which the Minister will not be surprised that I
take issue. The Opposition are very pleased that the draft regulations
are properly introducing personal identifiers for absent voters, but we
have long arguedand still argue in the context of the Political
Parties and Elections Bill, which is only part way through its passage
through the Housethat personal identifiers in the form of
individual voter registration ought to be introduced across the board
in all elections. I appreciate that the Minister has listened to the
argument in principle and may even be, in principle, in favour of it.
We are very pleased that, in this context, the Government have taken
further steps to introduce personal identifiers, and I hope that the
Minister will take this opportunity to state that he will fulfil all
our requests for individual voter registration generallyin all
elections throughout the United Kingdom and Gibraltar. That is the way
to ensure the consistency and clarity of the ballot. He will not be at
all surprised to hear me make the argument
again today. I know that we will have an opportunitynext week, I
hopeto address these matters again, in connection with the
Political Parties and Elections Bill, so I will quite understand if he
wants to keep his powder dry until then.
I am
particularly pleased by what the Minister has said today about
Gibraltar, where the instruments will make quite a substantial
difference. The Gibraltar referendum, which, Committee members may
know, was held six years ago, was held to consult the people of
Gibraltar on whether they wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom.
They turned out in their thousands: 98 per cent. of them took part in
the referendum and 99 per cent. of those voted to remain
British. I was there as an official observer, appointed by the
Electoral Reform Society, as were several other Members, so I took part
in the electoral process of Gibraltar and saw it
work.
In
those days in Gibraltar, the ballot box was taken to people who, owing
to illness, old age or some infirmity, were not able to get the polling
station. I spent a whole day going around with a ballot box, verifying
that the right people were voting in the right way. As much as that was
an interesting experience, the introduction of personal identifiers
will make it a lot easier for such people in Gibraltar to
vote.
Most
important, however, are the general changes that will take account of
the new Gibraltar constitution. That was what we were all working for,
and it has been achieved. That is important for the people of Gibraltar
and, I believe, for the integrity of the United Kingdom in our
relationship with places such as Gibraltar. I know that the people of
Gibraltar will welcome the changes that result from these proposals. As
the Minister said, they bring the arrangements in Gibraltar into line
to mirror closely those in Great Britain, and the Gibraltar
constitution is being not only respected but implemented. As they did
in the previous European elections, the people of Gibraltar will have a
chance to express their views at the ballot box and to send a
representative of their ownwell, in conjunction with south-west
Englandto the European Union forum, and that is very important
for Gibraltar.
The Minister
outlined many other principles relating to, for example, party
descriptions and so on. Those are all matters that we have been and are
discussing in relation to the Political Parties and Elections Bill, so
I will not take up the Committees time discussing them today.
We support and welcome the measures. We hope that some of what has been
done today will be multiplied, particularly in respect of individual
voter registration, so that it applies to all elections and all
electors around our
country.
4.55
pm
John
Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD): Mr. Key, I
am pleased and somewhat surprised to serve under your chairmanship,
because I was not aware of this until about half an hour ago. I have
one slight point of jurisdictional confusion: is Gibraltar a Crown
dependency? I suppose I should have asked the Minister that
earlier.
The measures
raise some interesting jurisdictional questions. I share the concern of
the official Opposition about the use of personal identifiers. There is
a good exhibition at the British Library at the
moment
I recommend that hon. Members go and see it if they have
timewhich looks at the documents that have brought us to the
constitution that we have today. One interesting element of that
exhibition relates to the question whether it can be counted as a bribe
when someone gambles on the result of the election. Prior to the Ballot
Act 1872, voting was done by people ticking a linethere was the
voters name and a line against it with who they voted
for.
Hon. Members
might not be aware that I drafted the election petition that proved
that vast numbers of election frauds were taking place in Aston.
Factories on industrial estates were being used to manufacture postal
ballots and postal vote fraud was being carried out on an industrial
scale. I also assisted in the Bordesley Green petition. Although we
have dealt with some aspects of that by bringing in the identifiers, we
have not dealt with the issue of whether people can be bribed to vote
in a particular waythe price issomewhat
surprisinglyoften quoted as being about a
fiver.
Yes,
we have moved away from the postman being offered £500 or death
as the choice in relation to whether he gives up the box of postal
ballots, and we have not had riots in the street involving 200 people
in recent elections. Things have improved, but I agree with the hon.
Member for Epping Forest that we need to work to improve the electoral
processes in relation to the use of personal identifiers at polling
stations. We also have to consider the protection of the secret ballot
in relation to postal votesabsent voting. We have considered
the issue of personation in Birmingham because postal votes basically
meant that people who used to do personation found an easier way to
fiddle the elections and so they fiddled a lot more votes.
One
difficulty is proving fraud in retrospect. On the use of personal
identifiers for polling station votes, perhaps the Government need to
consider that the personal identifier might not have to be checked
there and then. However, when in retrospect it comes to checking
whether personation has occurred, unless we have polling agents it is
difficult to pick that up. In the 2002 elections in
Sparkhillone of the wards in Birminghamwe identified a
number of voters who were in prison on the day of the election. As they
were not exercising absent votes, there was obviously some other magic
mechanism whereby they had managed to cast their
vote.
One
of the great difficulties of tackling personation is dealing with it in
retrospect. Merely having a record of the personal identifiers would
facilitate an election petition being raised after the election, where
it was clear that large numbers of personated votes had occurred. There
were other wards in which we were well aware such things were going on,
but the difficulty on election day is balancing out trying to get
honest votes and trying to stop other parties fiddling the elections.
Hence, changes still need to be made. Going back to the British Library
exhibition, we need to maintain the integrity of the
election.
Trying to
handle the issue of donations in relation to Gibraltar can be
overcomplicated. In saying that there is a limit to how much can be
spent in the south-west, the Governments approach is
reasonable. There are massively complicated ways of dealing with the
matter, and sometimes we forget that the vast majority
of
treasurers in political parties are volunteers. We need to make sure
that the system has integrity, but that it does not generate so much
paperwork that it gets incredibly difficult for a volunteer to handle
it. On that basis, we support the statutory instruments, but recognise
that there is some work to be
done.
5
pm