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Session 2009 - 10
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Delegated Legislation Committee Debates



The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairman: Mr. George Howarth
Crabb, Mr. Stephen (Preseli Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Donaldson, Mr. Jeffrey M. (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
Farrelly, Paul (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Flint, Caroline (Don Valley) (Lab)
Goggins, Paul (Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office)
Kennedy, Jane (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab)
Liddell-Grainger, Mr. Ian (Bridgwater) (Con)
Lilley, Mr. Peter (Hitchin and Harpenden) (Con)
McCafferty, Chris (Calder Valley) (Lab)
McCarthy, Kerry (Bristol, East) (Lab)
McGrady, Mr. Eddie (South Down) (SDLP)
Marris, Rob (Wolverhampton, South-West) (Lab)
Purnell, James (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab)
Reid, Mr. Alan (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
Robertson, Mr. Laurence (Tewkesbury) (Con)
Seabeck, Alison (Plymouth, Devonport) (Lab)
Mark Oxborough, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee

Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee

Wednesday 20 January 2010

[Mr. George Howarth in the Chair]

Draft Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2010
2.30 pm
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Paul Goggins): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) (Amendment) Regulations 2010.
Welcome to the Chair, Mr. Howarth. This is the first time that I have served as a Minister under your chairmanship, and it is a pleasure to do so.
The Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2008 made provision in respect of electoral matters in Northern Ireland, including the registration of electors, absent voting procedures and access to the electoral register. Members of the Committee may know that last year I launched a consultation on improving electoral registration and absent voting procedures in Northern Ireland. Many of the changes proposed in the consultation can be implemented only through primary legislation. However, several changes can be made by amending the 2008 regulations, and those changes are the subject of the draft regulations.
I turn first to those provisions that deal with absent voting procedures at parliamentary elections in Northern Ireland. The Committee will know that the rules for absent voting in Northern Ireland are different from those in the rest of the United Kingdom because, of course, of the perceived increased risk of fraud. It is important that the Government maintain the integrity of the absent voting process in Northern Ireland, and bring legislation before the House whenever necessary, further to protect against potential fraud.
Regulation 5 requires an absent vote applicant to provide reasons for requesting that their ballot paper be sent to an address other than the one at which they are registered. That will allow the chief electoral officer to monitor whether ballot papers are being diverted to certain addresses without good reason and for potentially fraudulent purposes. The chief electoral officer has recently expressed concern about potentially false attestations from health care professionals and others on absent voting applications. Regulations 6 and 7 therefore require individuals attesting absent vote applications to be on the electoral register themselves. That would enable the chief electoral officer to check the information in an absent vote attestation against information that he already holds.
Although protecting against potential abuse of the absent voting process remains a key priority, we also want to seek ways of maximising the participation in the electoral process of those who rely on absent voting. Regulation 6 extends the list of those who can attest an absent vote application on the grounds of blindness or other disability to include registered social workers. Currently, the list of eligible attestors consists largely of people providing medical or residential care. The change will ensure that those providing social care to people with disabilities in the community will also be able to attest applications. Further provision has been made to exempt those in receipt of the higher rate of attendance allowance and the highest rate care component of disability living allowance from the attestation requirement. That will further assist those with severe disabilities to participate in the democratic process.
To protect further against electoral fraud, the 2008 regulations provide that an individual may attest only one absent vote application at any election. Regulation 7 amends those regulations, so that an individual may attest up to two per election. That will mean, for example, that one valid person can attest applications from a couple, rather than two individuals being required to carry out two separate attestations.
The remaining provisions in the regulations deal mainly with electoral registration. Regulation 3 extends the circumstances in which the chief electoral officer may summarily remove individuals from the register to include when he is notified of an elector’s death by a registrar of births and deaths in England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland. Currently, he may do that only when notified of a death by the registrar in Northern Ireland. Avoiding the need for a formal review of the deceased’s entitlement to be on the register in those circumstances, will allow the chief electoral officer to adopt a more efficient and sensitive approach, while maintaining the accuracy of the register. Under the current review process, if somebody died outside Northern Ireland, for example if they were in the care of family members in another part of the United Kingdom or in Ireland, or if they were on holiday, the crude fact is that the chief electoral officer would have to write to the deceased to ask whether they had died. While that may be in a sense amusing, it could be distressing to a family to receive such a letter. The change will allow the relevant registrar in England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland to provide that information.
Regulation 4 adds further education colleges to the list of authorities from whom the chief electoral officer may request information for the purposes of registration. The Committee may be aware of the chief electoral officer’s schools initiative, where he visits secondary schools to encourage the registration of young people. Allowing the chief electoral officer to access information on the number of potential electors at FE colleges will assist him in extending that initiative to those colleges, and, in doing so, further encourage the registration of young people in Northern Ireland. The Committee may be interested to know that there are now 18,000 under-18s on the register in Northern Ireland, compared with just 244 four years ago. The initiative has really helped and extending its remit will help further.
Regulation 10 adds registered medical practitioners to the list of those entitled to receive copies of relevant parts of the full electoral register. They may receive that information only if it is necessary for medical purposes. Because the Northern Ireland register has a high level of accuracy, medical practitioners believe that it would be useful to have access to it in certain circumstances, for example, where an incorrect prescription or test result was issued but the patient could not be contacted because the address held by the medical authorities was out of date. We agree that it is desirable for that information to be provided in limited circumstances.
Regulation 12 amends the parliamentary elections rules and extends the list of acceptable forms of identity that may be used as proof of identity at polling stations to include 60+ SmartPasses, provisional driving licences and European Community driving licences. That will make it easier for voters to meet the ID requirements for voting, and the chief electoral officer is satisfied that the extension will not result in increased voting fraud.
It is important that procedures are in place to assist those who are entitled to participate in the electoral process in Northern Ireland. It is also important that adequate measures are in place to prevent those seeking to abuse the system from doing so. The draft regulations make small but important changes that further contribute to meeting those important objectives, and I hope that the Committee will support them.
2.37 pm
Mr. Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con): Welcome to the Committee, Mr. Howarth. This is the first time that I have served under your chairmanship and I am sure that it will be a pleasure.
I am grateful to the Minister for giving me the opportunity to discuss the regulations with him earlier today and for the notice of other business that may come up over the next few months. It is always helpful to be aware of these things. I have no intention of opposing the order, but I have one or two questions, which arise from the explanatory notes.
The Minister rightly says that the rules for registering for absent votes are different in Northern Ireland, and we can all understand the reason that he gave. I am a little concerned about absent votes overall because there are concerns about them in England as well. In fact, there was great concern about fraudulent use of absent votes in a local election in my constituency a few years ago. Is there any need for the difference? Should we not be the same as Northern Ireland?
That point may be slightly beyond these regulations but the Minister may want to think about it. There are obviously reasons for having different rules in Northern Ireland, but I suspect that there are beginning to be reasons to look at the rules across the UK. I always think it better if laws such as this run across the UK and are not different in Northern Ireland. A number of us would like to see that happen.
The Minister also mentioned that when people ask for their absent vote to be sent to a different address they need to provide reasons. The explanatory notes say:
“in certain circumstances, those attesting applications will themselves have to be on the electoral register.”
Why does that have to happen only in certain circumstances?
The Minister gave a good explanation about why medical practitioners may be among the bodies that may access the electoral register. Will he, by way of comparison, list one or two of the other bodies that might access the register in certain circumstances? I have no intention of detaining the Committee for longer than necessary, and am generally supportive of the regulations.
2.40 pm
I have one concern, however, about regulation 5. The regulation refers to an elector called “A” and states towards the end that, if they apply for their ballot paper to be sent to a different address from that shown on the electoral register, they have to explain why their circumstances are such that it has to be sent to that address. That provision obviously has to be included to cover situations in which people have moved house. However, it also opens up the possibility of fraud. For example, an unscrupulous candidate could persuade electors, either by inducements or by threats, to enter a different address when completing a postal ballot application. The unscrupulous candidate would have access to that address and could direct a large number of ballots towards it. Are there guidelines for the chief electoral officer to follow when accepting an application? Moreover, will a limit be placed on the number of postal ballot applications asking for the ballot paper to be redirected to a particular address?
2.42 pm
Mr. Eddie McGrady (South Down) (SDLP): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr. Howarth, although we have met on many previous occasions in different circumstances. On behalf of my party, I very much welcome the regulations. I also welcome the refinement of the electoral law in Northern Ireland, which has a long and troubled history. It is significant that we are now down to tidying up certain areas and that the fact that we are here does not excite the blood pressure of parties in Northern Ireland. There has been huge progress in that respect. I thank the Minister and the Government in general for a courteous, helpful and agreeable exchange of views and representations on the regulations before they were published.
I would like to ask the Minister one or two short questions. My first point relates to the scheme for the measurement of performance standards by the chief electoral officer. The Electoral Commission currently has that authority, but has agreed for it to be transferred to the chief electoral officer. The Government, however, have also agreed to initiate a pilot scheme. Has that pilot scheme been drafted and put into operation? How far advanced is it? It surprises me that the scheme requires primary legislation, because I consider it almost an administrative exercise.
Secondly, I welcome the change on identification for overseas electoral applications from Northern Ireland, so that people can now declare themselves, if they so wish, as Irish rather than British citizens. Sometimes in the past that has been a thorny and debateable subject, but since the advent of the Good Friday agreement some 12 years ago it has become common practice for partnership in Northern Ireland. I welcome that as an indication of where our society is heading.
2.47 pm
Mr. Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP): I join others in welcoming you, Mr. Howarth, to the Chair. I also add my voice, on behalf of the Democratic Unionist party, in welcoming the legislation. I join the Minister in expressing appreciation to the chief electoral officer and his staff in Northern Ireland for the work they have done in recent years to reduce electoral fraud. As the hon. Member for South Down will know all too well from his long experience in fighting elections, that problem has dogged the political process in Northern Ireland for years, and there is no doubt that some marginal constituencies may have changed hands as a result of fraud—there is an old adage in Northern Ireland that even the dead vote often. Thankfully, most of that has come to an end, and we have seen a remarkable transformation. The electoral office and the team are to be commended on the steps that have been taken, with the minimum of inconvenience for voters. The proposed changes are welcome.
Earlier, the Minister identified the problem that only a small number of young people had registered under the new rolling registration system in Northern Ireland—a mere few hundred initially. The Minister has indicated that the figure has now increased to about 18,000. That increase is welcome, and the figure includes young people who are attaining the voting age of 18. Will the Minister confirm whether his Department has any statistics available, through ongoing statistical research for other purposes, that might indicate where the shortfall is and how many young people around the age of 18 there are in Northern Ireland? We could then judge the gap between the overall total and the 18,000 who are registered to vote at present. The addition of further education colleges is a welcome step in trying to gather information about young people to ensure that they are properly registered to vote.
I welcome the steps on absent voting. It is right that there should be an exemption for claimants on higher rate attendance allowance or DLA benefit, and that they are not required to have an attestation for their absent vote. Equally, it is important that individuals can attest two absent votes. It is one at the moment and I know from my own experience in elections that it has been a problem. It means that every individual who seeks an absent vote has to find another elector who is able to attest their application. The steps provide a welcome flexibility. The protections identified by the chief electoral officer are necessary to ensure that those who attest an absent vote application are not committing electoral fraud in any way, and that there are proper procedures in place to check the validity of those undertaking the attestation.
On the subject of access to the register and polling station identification, the proposals are sensible in allowing health care professionals access to the register for the purposes of trying to identify patients who may have moved away from home and need to be contacted urgently. Will the Minister clarify what monitoring will be in place to ensure that those privileges are not abused in any way? The inclusion of the 60+ SmartPass is a sensible move. It is one of the benefits of the Executive in Northern Ireland that they have been able to extend free travel for our older people to those aged 60 and over. That means that when they qualify now at 60, they will be able to use their SmartPass as ID for voting purposes.
Will the Minister clarify whether the inclusion of European Community driving licences is targeted towards migrant workers who are now living in Northern Ireland and are, I believe, eligible to vote in European and local government elections? If so, will he also inform us of any other steps that the chief electoral officer intends to take to facilitate voting arrangements for those who come from other EC countries and may have problems with language barriers when it comes to election time?
In general, I welcome the legislation and look forward to the Minister’s response.
2.53 pm
 
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