Westminster Hall
Wednesday 20 October 2010
[Martin Caton in the Chair]
Elections and Returning Officers
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.-(Miss Chloe Smith.)
9.30 am
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con): I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring this matter to the House's attention yet again, and to see that more than one or two colleagues are here. There is some interest in the matter. That is not a great surprise; if there is one thing that we can be sure Members of Parliament know at least a little about, it is elections and the conduct of elections.
There was much publicity after the general election in May this year, when we saw dreadful scenes that looked as though they came from some third-world country whose democracy was not very well developed. People queued to vote in the general election but were unable to do so after 10 o'clock due to rules made there and then-or, rather, interpreted on the spot-by returning officers.
My interest in the matter did not begin on the night of the general election. For the record, the electoral registration officer in my constituency, who is the acting returning officer, ran an extremely good and efficient election. It also had the right result. I talked to him about the process throughout the build-up to the election, because I was interested in such matters, and I saw how things were conducted in Epping Forest. It was an example of how an election ought to be run.
Although the vast majority of returning officers and electoral registration officers do their jobs impeccably and are never open to criticism, others are unfortunately not quite up to the mark. We discovered before the general election that returning officers are responsible to almost no one. A debate took place in this Chamber on 3 February 2010 in which such matters were examined in relation to election counts. At that point, there was a lot of fuss in the media about whether the result of the general election would become clear the day after or not until later. As it happens-hindsight is a wonderful thing-the true result of that particular general election did not become clear for several days. However, that cannot be blamed on the conduct of returning officers; it was a direct result of the decision of the electorate, which is another matter, and one that we are not here to debate.
The question that arose before the general election was whether the votes ought to be counted at 10 o'clock, immediately on the close of polls, or-as many returning officers decided-on the following day. Some of us got rather exercised about the decisions to wait and said that it was unacceptable behaviour on the part of returning officers. We brought the matter to this Chamber, where it was well debated. However, I was extremely surprised on doing serious research into the role and duties of returning officers to discover that their power and authority extends from a 19th-century statute and has been little modified in more than 100 years.
Parliament dealt with the difficulty in relation to whether returning officers should count votes at 10 o'clock somewhat unusually, by amending primary legislation. I tabled an amendment to the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. As an Opposition amendment, it looked as though it would be a talking point only, but fortunately, the then Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw), decided that the matter needed to be dealt with there and then. He put his name to my amendment, which then became part of the Bill. By a last-minute amendment to primary legislation, returning officers, unless they could demonstrate extenuating circumstances for doing otherwise, were required to start counting votes immediately on the close of poll. That gave us the right results for the last general election, but surely it cannot be right that the law on such a matter should be made ad hoc, in primary legislation, just a few weeks before a general election.
My purpose in asking for this debate was to allow the issues to be aired once again and to begin a general discussion now, I hope, to help the Minister, who I know is intent on improving matters in that area of the law. I also hope that we can begin a discussion that considers what the duties of returning officers are and who undertakes the duty of electoral registration officer and then acting returning officer.
Returning officers, as I am sure hon. Members are aware, are usually not paid officials but the high sheriff of a county, for example: another leftover from 19th-century legislation that has never been properly updated. The person with the official duty and responsibility of returning officer is the titular head of the returning officer's organisation but takes no actual part whatever in the running of elections, whether day to day, annually or every four or five years. That work is done by the acting returning officer. When one goes back into statute to examine where the acting returning officer's power derives from, one finds that it is a grey area. Those matters must be updated. In most cases, although the returning officer is, perhaps, the high sheriff or lord lieutenant, the acting returning officer is usually the electoral registration officer, often a high-ranking official in a local authority.
After the debacle during the general election in May, when a significant number of voters were left standing outside polling stations, denied their right to vote due to administrative upheaval and a lack of administrative control and planning, we discovered that acting returning officers are paid a considerable fee for their work in organising a general election. I make no complaint about the structure of that system because, of course, the duties associated with organising a general election only occur once every four or five years. Happily, the general election is now likely to be on a certain date every five years. That will perhaps aid the ability to plan because we will have far more certainty about the date of an election. Indeed, we should all be happy about that.
If someone undertakes to do a job every four or five years, of course, it should not be a permanent position-the job should be paid, and the duties allocated and required only for that time. However, on further examination of the situation, we discovered that very large sums were being paid to returning officers. That has been well documented so I will not read out the sums, because it
does not help the debate to put a particular person on the spot, give a particular name and say how much he or she was paid to do a job.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab): But that is what the hon. Lady's Government have just done in relation to everyone earning more than £80,000. I do not know why she is being so coy about the matter.
Mrs Laing: I accept the shadow Minister's comment. I understand what he is saying, but he is making a different point on a different matter. I have a list of returning officers who allegedly did not do their jobs very well and yet were paid sums in excess of £12,000 or £15,000 to do that particular job for a few weeks. I am not the kind of politician who embarrasses individual members of society by announcing their names to be recorded in Hansard. We will leave that sort of thing to the tabloid press. The point is that there is no chain of accountability. That is where the problem lies, and that is where the problem lay when we examined how returning officers could be required or even just encouraged to start the election count upon the close of poll. That is also what we discovered when inquiries where carried out correctly by the Electoral Commission into how administration was taken forward for the election in May this year.
It is appalling that senior people in local authorities who have a position of responsibility and normally command salaries well in excess of £100,000-usually far more than that, as far as I can see from the statistics-have not properly planned for a general election and have got things so badly wrong that people were deprived of their vote. In the instances that occurred in May, it is fortunate that there were no cases in which the number of electors who allegedly were unable to vote because of returning officers' maladministration was greater than the majority in that particular seat. Therefore, there was no reason for an appeal to the courts on the election result. In one way, that is fortunate because it would have meant uncertainty about the results of the election. In another way, however, it is unfortunate, because the matter has not been properly examined, which is another reason for my initiating this debate.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD): The hon. Lady is right: there is no evidence to suggest that any outcome would be different as a result of people being unable to vote on election day. However, we can never be sure about how many people turned up at polling stations, saw the enormously long queues that resulted from all sorts of chaos, went away again and did not bother coming back. That was a big disincentive in some areas, where people saw big queues and thought, "Well, I can't really be bothered. I'll just go home and won't bother voting."
Mrs Laing:
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct; I am glad he made that point. We have spoken a lot lately about the need to encourage people to be involved in the democratic process and to encourage all age groups and people across the social and economic spectrum to register and use their vote. I mentioned earlier the number of people who allegedly turned up at the polling
station and were denied their right to vote. That number may even be far greater than we estimate, because of the situation that he has described.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con): It is also important to note that the problems arose when the turnout was not particularly high. Turnout increased marginally in 2010 compared with the previous general election, but it was nowhere near the turnout figures of 75% or 80% that we used to have in the elections of the 1970s and 1980s. If we return to that level of turnout, I suspect that the problems that occurred will be magnified many times over.
Mrs Laing: My hon. Friend is, as ever, absolutely right. That is one of the problems we can foresee. We are all working hard-I know that the Minister in particular is doing so-to bring in individual voter registration as soon as possible. We all hope that individual voter registration will encourage more people to be involved, to register and to use their vote. We also find that where the media tell people that the outcome of an election is a foregone conclusion, many people think that there is no need to go and vote. If we have closer elections and it appears that there could, again, be a change of Government-let us hope not, but I suppose that it will happen one day-people are more likely to vote and there will be higher turnouts.
If the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, which is currently before the House of Commons, succeeds in going through Parliament, we will have a referendum next May and it is likely there will be a high turnout-although I have argued that that is not likely. However, in any case, there will be a national plebiscite where everyone will be given the opportunity to vote. That is not very far away. So although we will not have a general election for another four and a half years, we will have a full national election of sorts next May. Therefore, by securing this debate, I hope that I am helping to begin the discussion on matters that need to be taken into consideration before next May and the next set of elections.
One of the subjects that has not yet been fully explored is the role of the Electoral Commission, which is still a fairly new body. In many ways, it has been very successful. However, in some ways, it is still settling into its role. When taking the advice of the Electoral Commission on how to deal with the issue of returning officers and the timing of the count, we discovered that it has no power to require returning officers to act in a particular manner. The Electoral Commission only has the power to issue guidance.
As a matter for consideration, I suggest that such a situation is not fair. The Electoral Commission and its chairman were given the blame for what went wrong at 10 o'clock on election day, but it is not fair that they should take the blame when they had no power beforehand to put matters right. At 10 o'clock on election night, the Electoral Commission had no power to say to individual returning officers, "No, you can't do this. You must allow people to vote. You must keep the doors open." It had no power to tell people to act in a particular way. Nobody had any power. The Minister had no power; the Electoral Commission had no power; the local authorities had no power. There is no line of reporting or of authority for electoral registration officers and
acting returning officers. In a modern democracy, where we spend hour upon hour in the Chamber discussing the minutiae of elections and their administration, as we have done over the past few days, it is appalling to discover that there is no line of authority whereby the administration of our elections can be properly decided.
In the run-up to the election, during which I had been fairly vocal about the problem of returning officers and the 10 o'clock vote, I found myself in a live radio debate with a particular returning officer, a lady from the north of England. I made the point during that debate that returning officers ought to be responsible to the electorate and ought to act responsibly. The lady's retort, which was made live on the radio, was more or less along these lines: "How dare you, a Member of Parliament, try to interfere with how I, a returning officer, do my job. I am responsible to no one and I won't listen to you, Madam." Those were not her exact words, but it was clear that her message to me and to the three or four people listening was that returning officers were responsible to no one, and she was outraged that I would even suggest that Parliament should take some action in that respect. I was equally outraged in my response, but I will not repeat what I said. The fact is that the count in that constituency took place, I am glad to say, at 10 o'clock on election night.
The 10 o'clock issue is irrelevant; how our electoral system is administered is what is important. Over the past few years, various complications have arisen in elections, such as having more than one election on the same day, or different kinds of elections under different voting systems on the same day, as happens in Scotland. There is a danger that such complications will arise across the country next May, when a referendum and other elections will take place simultaneously in more than 80% of the UK. Indeed, in some parts of the country, three types of election will take place on the same day. On this occasion I do not object in principle to simultaneous elections, although I have done so on other occasions. The purpose of the debate is to open the discussion on how we ensure that elections are undertaken in a proper, measured and watertight fashion.
My first suggestion to the Minister is that the powers and duties of the Electoral Commission should be reconsidered and that perhaps the way forward is that it ought to be given a power to direct returning officers, electoral registration officers and acting returning officers. My second suggestion, which I am happy for the Minister to knock straight on the head, although I think it ought to be discussed, relates to the hypothecation of public money. The Treasury is implacably opposed to hypothecation, and there are good reasons for that, which I have always supported. However, the additional funds for electoral registration officers setting up and administering elections come directly from the Treasury, rather than local taxpayers. That is absolutely right, because if the money came from local taxpayers, a returning officer would have the excuse of saying, "Well, in this local authority we have had a particular problem with housing this year, and we have spent so much money on that that we simply do not have enough to spend on the proper administration of elections." That would be the case whatever the current concern in a local authority, whether it is asylum seekers or an influx of Gypsies and Travellers. However, such excuses cannot be made because the money spent on elections comes directly from the centre.
Having come directly from the centre, however, that money is not ring-fenced or earmarked, so there is no hypothecation. I am suggesting, for the sake of argument, that the principle of hypothecation in that instance ought to be revisited. We are talking about money allocated from central Government for a specific purpose over a specific period of time, so that money that comes to returning officers and local authorities for the funding of electoral administration ought to be hypothecated and ring-fenced. I appreciate that the Minister may be bound to say that Treasury rules do not permit hypothecation, which I understand, but this is only the beginning of the argument.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con): I am particularly pleased that my hon. Friend has raised this matter, as she has been doing for some years in the House through the auspices of the 1922 committee and with the Electoral Commission itself. My fear is that money is being leached across and leached out, as there is great pressure for that to happen in times of economic stress. I sincerely welcome her plea to the Minister and urge him to take the matter on board. Unless the Government do something about it, in these times of stress we will not see an improvement or have proper money spent on the administration of elections or on the training of registration officers and acting returning officers, and therein lies one of the vital points.
Mrs Laing: My hon. Friend, as ever, makes an excellent point. I know that he is rather an expert in those matters, and it is a pleasure to have his wisdom and guidance on them.
The basic principle is one of confidence. As a modern democracy, we must have confidence in how our elections are administered. I would have raised the matter for discussion-I hope that I would have had the opportunity to do so-even if the queues had not formed at polling stations at 10 o'clock on election night. Even before that happened, most of the questions that I have asked this morning were unanswered and are waiting for action. Having seen what happened at the close of the polls, I think that all of us who are involved in any way in the democratic process ought to hear alarm bells ringing. I know that the Minister takes the matter seriously and hope that I am being helpful by giving him one of the first opportunities to examine the matter and assure Members that the Government will take action before we have any serious national election to ensure that we have a proper accountability structure for those administering our electoral system.
9.59 am
Mark Lancaster (Milton Keynes North) (Con): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton, and to contribute to this timely debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on securing it. She has been a champion for that cause and I was particularly interested in her comments and suggestions on the Electoral Commission, which I will touch on. I agree wholeheartedly with almost everything she said.
I shall briefly draw attention to some of the issues in my constituency, Milton Keynes North, which was one of the 11 constituencies that formed the focus of the Electoral Commission's initial review, "2010 UK
Parliamentary general election," published on 20 May. Regrettably, the difficulties encountered in my constituency on election day were numerous.
Initially, problems arose early in the day around ballot boxes in one of the polling stations in Newport Pagnell, which was being used for voting in local council elections in two wards as well as the general election. Ballots for the wards were mixed up: ballots for Newport Pagnell North were issued to residents in the south and vice versa. Eventually, amidst the confusion, the police were called to attend and some votes were recalled. It is worth noting, though, that the people who had already voted were not contacted by officials to recast their local council votes in the right ward. Fortunately, there was a clear-cut election in both wards, and the number of ballots cast which were issued incorrectly was significantly lower than the majority of the winning parties, so there was no need to hold a new election. However, that is not the point.
Another issue that we faced in Milton Keynes, which I believe was not shared in many of the other affected areas, was the time it took for the general election ballots to be counted. The Electoral Commission's guidelines-of course, they are just guidelines, as my hon. Friend made clear-suggest that the vote count should be started by 2 am on the morning after the election takes place. In Milton Keynes, due to the local election taking place on the same evening, the count began at 4.18 am, with the results announced at 8 am. Given the relatively small geographical area covered by Milton Keynes unitary authority, which is coterminous with the two parliamentary seats, the general view was that that was an unnecessarily long period to wait. I should emphasise that Milton Keynes is not a very big place.
Those instances highlight the fact that there are difficulties in holding more than one election on the same day-a view resonated by the returning officer of my constituency. Given the complications experienced in Milton Keynes, I should be grateful to know whether the Minister believes there is reason for concern and the potential for the same problems to occur again next May, when some polling stations may have to deal with three separate elections on the same day.
I would now like to focus my attention on an issue faced by several polling stations in Milton Keynes North and in 10 other constituencies around the country. It became apparent at 8.30 pm that large queues were forming outside three polling stations. The acting returning officer, John Moffoot, did well to follow procedures and was proactive in sending senior council officers to monitor the congested polling stations. He himself went to the Wyvern school polling station, which appeared to be the worst affected. With more than 150 people still queuing to vote after the 10 pm deadline, Mr Moffoot, with some concern for the safety of polling staff, decided to go against Electoral Commission guidelines and allow those in the queue at 10 pm to be issued with ballot papers after the 10 pm cut-off point.
It is my understanding that, at present, returning officers must follow strict guidelines on closing polling stations at 10 pm unless issued ballot papers are still being marked. That is the only circumstance in which ballots should be submitted after the deadline. It is
interesting, though, that following the review carried out by the Electoral Commission, the returning officer for Milton Keynes North did not receive the same amount of criticism for allowing polling to continue as returning officers who closed polling stations at 10 pm received for disallowing voting by approximately 1,200 of the electorate around the country. I supported Mr Moffoot's actions and, indeed, the Electoral Commission's conclusions, but I believe that this case highlights a key area for concern, and a need for clarification or review of the law. To that end, I ask the Minister whether he believes that there should be a review so that Mr Moffoot would not again be put in a position where he is required to turn people away from polling stations even though they were queuing to vote before the 10 pm deadline.
The perception is that turnout at this year's general election was higher than in previous elections, but the reality in Milton Keynes is that it was not. Indeed, this year's turnout of 62.8% was relatively low compared with some previous elections; for example, in 1983 it was 74%, in 1987 it was 73%, in 1992 it was 81%-an all-time high for Milton Keynes-in 1997 it was 73%, in 2001 it was 63%, and in 2005 it was 64%. Given that, I fear similar occurrences in future elections if the problem is not addressed.
It is clear that some of the issues can be addressed without the need for legislation by ensuring careful choice of polling stations, although I understand that there are restrictions on which buildings may be used. The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) made a good intervention. He said that we simply cannot estimate how many people decided not to vote when they saw long queues at polling stations. On the basis of contacts that I had after the election, I would estimate that several hundred people in my constituency chose not to queue and vote. Once again, I am pleased to say that the result in Milton Keynes North was decisive, and I do not think that that factor affected the election result.
Mr Leech: There is certainly anecdotal evidence from constituents. One told me that there was a big queue when they turned up at the polling station at 6 o'clock. They went away and came back at 7, but there was still a big queue. When they came back at 9 the queue was even bigger, so they simply gave up.
Mark Lancaster: The hon. Gentleman makes the point that I wanted to make. It is clear that the problems faced in my constituency were not isolated incidents. Praise should be given to the Electoral Commission for its swift publication of the interim report on the problems faced in a few constituencies, but I believe that we should address the confusion and difficulties regarding the 10 pm cut-off to guarantee that those who wish to vote are able to do so. I would suggest to the Minister that the actions taken by Mr Moffoot in Milton Keynes to alleviate the problem were right, even though, in the eyes of the law, they were wrong.
10.6 am
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on securing this debate on such an important issue. I also congratulate her on eloquent and
passionate speeches on the topic on the Floor of the House yesterday and in this Chamber this morning. I concur with her when she says that elections are always well run in Epping Forest. I know that at first hand, as my researcher was an election agent in her borough prior to working for me.
The public must have confidence in our democratic process. Over the past 12 months, several issues have been raised regarding the conduct of elections. I would like to deal them in two parts: those that are election offences and those that are not. Election offences including impersonation, fraud, bribery and misuse of campaign expenditure are covered by several Acts of Parliament, and the Government are taking steps to help to protect against fraud by improving the accuracy of the electoral register. However, matters such as polling station failures and incorrect ballot papers are, in themselves, not election offences.
The Representation of the People Act 1983 states that it is the returning officer's duty
"to do all such acts and things as may be necessary for effectually conducting the election in the manner provided by those parliamentary elections rules."
That clearly covers both points.
Returning officers have considerable authority in their work. Although they take instruction from the Electoral Commission, they are under no obligation to follow its advice and are subject to little scrutiny. Returning officers are independent statutory office holders and are therefore accountable only to the courts. Action against returning officers can be taken only by means of a complaint to the police or by means of an election petition. The 1983 Act sets out the penalty for those, including returning officers, who are in breach of their official duties in parliamentary elections: a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, currently £5,000.
Key players in the political process are often reluctant to take action against returning officers for the following reasons. First, the returning officer is usually a community leader-for example, the chief executive of a council. Politicians and election agents are often reluctant to take action against such a person, particularly if the outcome is not guaranteed. Secondly, poor performance by a returning officer does not necessarily constitute a criminal or an election offence, and it is difficult to prove that someone has been in breach of their official duties. Thirdly, an election petition is expensive. It costs £5,000 to issue a writ, which can be issued only against one's opponent, not the returning officer. Fourthly, if an election petition is successful and the election is void, the electorate may feel that the candidate responsible for the petition is a bad loser, and the resulting by-election may see massive swings against them. The 1997 Winchester by-election is an example of that.
Returning officers should be more accountable for their performance. Introducing senior returning officers with enforcement powers, responsible for a geographical area, is a possible solution. It is important to remember that many issues have a simple solution. For example, on polling station failures, a risk assessment would foresee many problems, and procedures should be in place to deal with high volumes of electors and shortages of ballot papers. On incorrect ballot papers, showing a copy of the ballot paper to candidates or election agents before issue would reduce mistakes.
To sum up, existing legislation is sufficient to deal with the process of elections but returning officers should be more accountable. Action to prevent mistakes is far more productive than dealing with their consequences afterwards.
10.11 am
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD): May I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on her thoughtful speech this morning about returning officers and the conduct of elections? I am delighted to have the chance to speak this morning, mainly because, disappointingly, Manchester, Withington was one of those constituencies that was the scene of chaos on election night in May. The polling station at Ladybarn community centre was constantly on the news for days because someone had filmed the events there on a mobile phone. There were angry scenes, with more than 200 people questioning why they were not being allowed to vote even though they had been waiting at the polling station, for up to an hour in some cases, to exercise their right to vote.
In Manchester, Withington there were three main reasons for the chaos on election night. The first was an increased turnout, which was expected-but it was an increased turnout of those who were more likely to vote later in the day. If they had turned up earlier, they might have waited longer than they would normally but there would not have been the scenes of chaos that there were later in the day. That needs to be taken into consideration when we look at ensuring that everyone who is in the queue at 10 o'clock has the right to cast their vote. Obviously many people are unable to vote during the day, and if they have to vote late at night, even if they have to queue, they must have the opportunity to do so if they are at the polling station before 10 o'clock.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP): The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. If, as we learned in yesterday's debate, there is to be a drive for higher registration and it is successful, as I hope it will be, and more people are registered who previously did not vote because they were not registered and, therefore, are less likely to be disposed to vote earlier, the problem that he is outlining will probably increase in future elections. There will be not only people queuing to vote who are normally registered and have gone late because of social problems or work commitments, but an additional issue of previously non-registered voters turning up to vote late. Therefore, the problem that the hon. Gentleman has outlined will be much worse next time.
Mr Leech: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The reality is that we do not know what will happen to people who have not been previously registered and we do not know whether, having been registered, they will be likely to vote, and if so, at what time. The issue needs to be considered. We must be ready for potential additional chaos late at night.
The second reason why we had chaos in Manchester, Withington was that some polling stations were expected to deal with too many people turning up to vote-way above the limit recommended by the Electoral Commission. That issue is being addressed in Manchester and, I am pleased to say, the council is acting on extending the number of polling stations to improve the situation.
The third reason why there was a problem in Manchester, Withington was the dual election-one being a general election. In some parts of the country, people are used to general elections on the same day as local elections, but that has not happened in Manchester for a very long time. Considerable confusion and delay resulted. Some people were told, "Oh, actually, you've got two votes. You can vote in the local and general elections," but a significant number of people were entitled to vote in the local elections but not the general election, and that had to be explained to them because there was confusion. That number of people was probably significantly bigger in Manchester and other city areas.
From previous exchanges with the Minister, I know that I have not won the argument about the general election date being set in stone and separate from any other elections. I still firmly believe that the general election should not be held on a day when other elections or referendums are held, but the Minister does not accept that point. I am on to a loser there.
I wanted to speak in the debate today, not necessarily about the chaos on election night, but mainly about payments awarded to chief executives who act as returning officers at general elections. I confess that I was stunned to find out that running the general election as a returning officer was not in the job description of the chief executives of big councils. I do not want to target Sir Howard Bernstein, the chief executive of Manchester city council but, my constituency being within the boundaries of Manchester city council, he is the example I have. Sir Howard is an excellent chief executive and has done a great job for Manchester, but chief executives are well paid for the jobs that they do-the chief executive of Manchester city council earns significantly more than the Prime Minister-and yet a £20,000 bonus was payable to him for running the general election.
Given that at least 200 or 300 people missed out on voting in Manchester, Withington, I question whether any bonus was deserved. To his credit, Sir Howard returned 20% of his bonus, due to there being five constituencies in Manchester and the Manchester, Withington election not running smoothly-he returned the whole 20% for that constituency. However, I question whether any sort of bonus was justified if a single person in Manchester was unable to vote on general election day through no fault of their own, and there were clearly a significant number of people in that position. The chief executive in Sheffield forwent his entire bonus due to the chaos there.
Finally, there ought to be an assumption that the chief executive of a large council is the returning officer, and that should be part of their job description. There should never be additional payments simply for running an election and ensuring that we have democracy in our constituencies and our local authorities.
10.20 am
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con): It is a pleasure to serve under your guidance, Mr Caton. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for obtaining this important debate. The standard and quality of our electoral system in terms of elections and compilation of the electoral register are
central to the quality and credibility of our democratic system. It is good to see that the matter is treated seriously by so many people.
I have been a football player and then a supporter since I was about three, so I have a long history of being involved in football. I know well the moans about the decline in referees, and by golly they have declined over the years, but nowhere near as much as the professionalism of our electoral registration officers and acting returning officers. The quality of the people running our elections, through no fault of their own, has declined enormously over a long time. I have been involved in 14 general elections and many local government elections, European elections and referendums. My first election was in 1959, so I have a little knowledge about them. I have also been an election agent, and I have seen the decline.
I was so concerned about the organisation of my election in Northampton South that I wrote to the acting returning officer, who is also the chief executive of the local borough council, making a number of points. I want to highlight two and I shall do so briefly because I know that time is pressing.
There is no doubt that people are included on the register when they should not be. They are included because of the lax processes pursued by electoral registration professionals, and some of them voted. I know that that is a fact because we knocked on more than 40% of the doors in my constituency during the general election campaign. We had to because I was in the unusual position of fighting a Labour seat for the second time running, and we put in a lot of effort. The number of people we came across who, when we checked them out, were not qualified in any way to be on the electoral register was deeply worrying. When we checked our tellers' returns, we found that sizeable numbers of those people had voted. It is pointless to have an electoral register unless it is properly constructed and we abide by and take notice of it.
Iain Stewart: I have had examples in my constituency of people who have applied to reside permanently in the United Kingdom but are not yet full citizens using their presence on the electoral register as evidence that they are entitled to be here. I totally accept my hon. Friend's point that the electoral register's integrity is far from perfect.
Mr Binley: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's important intervention, which supports my point.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con): Is not part of the problem, as I found during the election, that if someone wishes to challenge a household's electoral registration there are only 21 days in which the returning officer can do so? In the heat of the work in the run-up to an election, that is effectively impossible.
Mr Binley: My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Minister should consider, and I hope that he noted it.
With postal voting we have created a frightening potential for corruption in our election system. If it were not so important, the inability to ensure good and proper elections through the postal vote would be laughable. There was a time when the whole construct of postal voting was carefully created and checked, and its efficacy
was understood and known to be absolutely within the prescribed limits. That time has gone because of the machinations of the previous Government, who did not understand what they were doing in that respect. We must all recognise the faults because the issue is more important than party politics. It is about the very basis of our electoral and democratic system-[Interruption.] I am happy to give way if the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) wishes to intervene.
Those two matters are vital, and there are many others. I want to describe from my experience the reasons for the decline. The business of electoral registration officers used to be a profession. People in local government offices did the job for years and years, and they had assistants who followed them and who had learned to do the job properly. We had the money to check whether a registration was valid by visiting the home of people seeking registration. The whole process was efficient, but that efficiency no longer exists because electoral registration has been downgraded dramatically in most council office structures, and the attitude seems to be, "Who will do the register this year, Fred?" It seems to be a last resort, and that is simply not good enough.
What can we do? My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest said that the Electoral Commission must be a more robust policing body. First, we must ring-fence the money that we allocate from national Government for the conduct of elections and registration. Money is being leached, and there is every reason why local authorities should so do. They are in trouble with money, but we must ensure that our money is used for the reasons for which it was designated. That means ring-fencing, and the Electoral Commission must be responsible for monitoring that money and ensuring that it is properly used for the purposes for which it was allocated. Secondly, we must spend money on training electoral registration staff and returning officers because the quality of their work has fallen, largely because the learning thread that goes from one officer to another no longer exists.
We must bring the law to bear much more. We must make criminal actions a higher priority in society. When someone cheats the electoral system, they cheat my vote and me. If we truly believe in a democratic process, we must ensure that the systems to undertake that democratic process are as viable and credible as possible, and they are not at the moment.
We have a good voting system, and I have made that clear in the House. It does not need to be tampered with for any reason, least of all for those that apply at the moment. The voting system is not broken, but the conduct of elections and electoral registration is a total mess, and if the Government had any sense they would recognise that democracy is in danger through those processes and not through the process of our electoral system.
10.29 am
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab):
It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton, and yet again to gather together this group of hon. Members who take an interest in electoral matters. No doubt we shall gather again this afternoon for the next round of discussions. I congratulate the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). There are many things I do not understand
about the Government, one of which is why she is not a Minister. She is extremely efficient, capable and competent, and she always makes her argument very well. Yesterday she got a little cross with me. I do not take any offence at that, although a lot of people do.
The basic message from the debate, which I hope returning officers will understand, is that many of us who are involved in politics as elected politicians worry that we are taking democracy somewhat for granted. We all worry about the fact that turnout has fallen, as the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) mentioned. Turnout rose slightly at the last general election, but it is still lower than it was in the 1980s and earlier. Now is not the time to rehearse those arguments, but in Wales turnout was consistently above 75% or 80%. Wales often had the highest levels of turnout, but lately they have been some of the lowest. That is a worry to us all.
It is all too easy for local authorities, which often make the decisions about funding for the democratic process, to take democracy for granted. A local authority might have to choose between keeping a swimming pool open, which will cost £100,000 a year, or doing a full canvass of every house to ensure that everybody who is entitled to vote is on the register, and that everybody who is not entitled to vote is not on it. Elected politicians at local level sometimes choose to protect the swimming pool rather than the democratic process.
I suspect that over the past few years, the whole anti-politics movement-to give it a name-has added to that problem. Too many people felt that all politicians of whatever political party were in it just for themselves, and that there was no point in voting because, in terms used by many comedians, "If voting made any difference, they'd abolish it." The issue of Members' expenses also fed into that, and that cynicism has weighed heavily on the political system over the past few years. That has fed into the presumption that money spent on the electoral register or on electoral processes was not money well spent. That is a mistake.
I am sure that we can all remember watching the first time that people voted in South Africa. There were queues not only down the street but round the block for days. People were camping out and waiting to vote. Watching people vote in countries such as Iraq or Afghanistan, where they might have been running terrible risks to do so, fills a lot of us with admiration. In the Balkans, boycotts of elections have sometimes been organised by one ethnic grouping, and it has been great to see turnouts that were significantly higher than many had anticipated. That is why the scenes that we saw in May were sad. It is fortunate-and only fortunate-that there was no constituency in which the number of people who we know were not able to vote was higher than the majority of the candidate who won. Therefore, we can be confident that that issue may not have affected the result.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) makes an extremely good point: we have no way of knowing how many people went to the polling station, saw a long queue and thought that they would come back later. Perhaps they came back later but still saw a queue and gave up.
Mr Leech:
There is also the fact that there were local elections on the same day. I guess that in some constituencies, the result of the local election in a particular
area was very close. It may be that some people were elected to local councils who would not have been elected if everyone had had the chance to vote.
Chris Bryant: The hon. Gentleman makes his point, and I hope that the Minister will be able to answer him on it. I will speak about combined polls a little later.
The Opposition tried to provide an answer to the issue of 10 o'clock voting with an amendment that was discussed last Monday. Unfortunately, not enough hon. Members felt able to vote for it. The Minister said that the problem with our amendment was that it introduced the concept of a queue into British legislation, and that that might be difficult to define. If the British Parliament cannot define a queue, I do not know which Parliament in the world would be able to do so. Many other places in the world have a system in which, for example, a person's finger is dabbed with indelible ink the moment that they present themselves, and that is the moment at which they are entitled to receive a vote. I am sure that many other ways could be devised. I hope that the Minister will look specifically at a way of ensuring consistency across the country.
The hon. Member for Milton Keynes North made the point tellingly: in some constituencies, the returning officer decided to be generous and to stretch the regulations in one direction, but in other constituencies they decided to be extremely strict about how they operated the system. That inconsistency around the country does not inspire confidence in voters. In subsequent elections, people might think that if it is 9.30 pm or 9.45 pm there is no point going to vote because there are always queues at the polling stations.
I do not want to be nasty to the Minister this morning-
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper): Keep it for this afternoon.
Chris Bryant: I cannot keep it for this afternoon because I do not think that the Minister will be responding to the debate then. However, I thought that he was a little complacent about that element last Monday afternoon. He said that the issue was not an enormous problem and that there was not an enormous number of instances in which it had happened. The figure of 1,200 was suggested, but I suspect that many more people were affected. I suspect that in Hackney North and Stoke Newington alone more than 1,500 people ended up not being able to vote because of the situation. I hope that the Minister will return to the issue with some means of providing consistency around the country.
The inconsistency around the country applies not only to what happens at 10 o'clock but to a whole series of different issues. In part, that is precisely because of the reason adduced by the hon. Member for Epping Forest: although the responsibilities and powers are laid down in statute, a wide amount of freedom is given to the returning officers and there is little accountability. I agree with the hon. Member for Manchester, Withington that it is ludicrous that such a job is thought of as additional to the job of electoral registration officer, and that somehow people have to be additionally recompensed in order to perform their function when
there is a general election. I think that it should be part of the standard job description and that no additional fees should be payable. It should be run of the mill and part of doing the job. Frankly, if someone does not do the job well, they should not remain in it. It should not be a question of getting extra payments.
Mrs Laing: It is worth going over that point again. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: not only is it not part of the job description of a local authority employee, but there is also a lack of accountability. The fee for doing the job comes from central funds, but there is no line of accountability to that. As we have seen, some people were paid perhaps £15,000 for administering matters this year. They got it wrong and were not required to pay a penny back.
Chris Bryant: The hon. Lady makes her point extremely well. I hope that the Minister will think about whether we need to look at the structure of how returning officers-in most cases, broadly speaking, an honorific title-and those beneath them are appointed.
In my constituency in 2001, the returning officer appointed himself because he wanted to announce the election result. Unfortunately, he could not speak Welsh. He decided that he had to make the announcement in Welsh first, despite the fact that remarkably few people in the Rhondda speak Welsh, and very few people in the hall spoke it. He certainly did not speak Welsh, so what he announced was virtually incomprehensible. The BBC immediately switched off and went somewhere else. We would be better off with the electoral registration officer, who is the person who knows the law best, being the returning officer. I am sorry if that means that we will be sacking all the high sheriffs and lord lieutenants of the land. I mean no disservice to them but it is a professional job that must be done on a professional basis.
Another point raised was about when the count should take place. I think that people like the drama of election night. It is fascinating that people are watching the BBC's 1970 and 1974 election programmes, which are now being re-shown. It is quite exciting thinking "I can't remember who won Plymouth, Devonport" or wherever. I had an Australian friend who was my lodger. This was a few years ago. He was fascinated by Australian politics and refused to watch any news for a week until his mother had sent him the five DVDs with the election television programme from Australia. It took even longer than it might have because the count takes a long time in Australia.
My point is that the drama of election night is very important and, as we saw in our election, all the more important because sometimes it can determine the feeling, when there is to be a hung Parliament, about how Governments may or may not be formed. That is why there should be consistency across the land. If there are combined elections, the general election votes should be counted first, and the count should not start at 4.19 in the morning and finish at 8 o'clock in the morning. That explains why the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North looked just a little weary by the time his election result came out. We should be moving to greater consistency in that regard.
That leaves us with the problem in relation to combining polls. If we are to go to a fixed-term Parliament when we already have fixed-term council elections and fixed-term
Assembly elections in Wales and Northern Ireland and for the Parliament in Scotland, we either decide that they will all coincide always, so that that is a fixed part of the programme as it is in the United States of America, where there are elections every two years, or we decide that we will not combine polls at all, because that is better. I think that it is a bit odd that we have elections on the first Thursday in May, because April is a pretty rubbish month to go campaigning. Chaucer got it right when he talked about April with its showers. Perhaps we should think about another month. I say that as someone who was first elected in June rather than May.
Obviously, it is more important that we hear from the Minister than that we hear further expatiations from me. I just hope that the issues of consistency around the country can be addressed, as well as the finance and the accountability of returning officers.
10.42 am
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper): It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) on securing the debate. As she correctly said, this is an area in which she has taken great interest over a considerable period, and she has spoken very well on it for our party. She slightly underplayed her role in her mini-triumph earlier this year when she persuaded the then Lord Chancellor to adopt her amendment, which brought considerable consistency-to pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant)-about counting. Those of us who were up for election and whose result was perhaps not as assured as that of the hon. Gentleman were grateful that the counts took place promptly and we had early results so that we knew our fate. My hon. Friend played a considerable part in that and has taken a great deal of interest in the issue, and we thank her for the opportunity to discuss these matters today.
It is worth saying, so that it is clear, that the administration of elections takes place at local level, as my hon. Friend set out. The acting returning officer is often, although not always, the local authority chief executive or another senior officer. They are responsible for all aspects of the election, including publication of the notice of the election and dealing with the nominations of candidates, ballot papers, polling stations, the counting, the arrangements for the count and the declaration of the result. Part of the tension when we are talking about accountability is about making it impossible for the people running elections also to have a stake in the outcome. The difficulty is about who is accountable.
That highlights one of the issues with the solution that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr Leech) highlighted. If the task was made part of the local authority chief executive's day job, for which he is accountable to elected members of a local authority, there would be a risk in some places of political pressure and influence being exerted on the returning officer. That post is separate from the role of chief executive is so that political pressure is not put on that person. We do not want to lose that if we make any changes. My hon. Friend made a good point, but I am not sure that that is the right solution.
Mr Binley: There is a distinction between the returning officer and the acting returning officer, which we must not lose sight of. The returning officer is normally a volunteer, not a local government professional, and is guided immensely and totally by the acting returning officer, who is normally the chief executive and does the work. We need to make that distinction.
Mr Harper: I thank my hon. Friend for making that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest paid tribute to the way in which the acting returning officer conducted the election in her constituency. It would be remiss of me not to mention that I was also fortunate that the acting returning officer in my constituency ensured that the polls ran very smoothly. Indeed, unlike at the last general election in 2005, when I had to wait until about 6 am for the result-albeit perhaps not as long as my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster)-this time, the acting returning officer and her team made a declaration almost three hours earlier and I was the first Member of Parliament in Gloucestershire to be elected. I have told them that I shall expect that level of service from now on.
What I am describing can be done. It is worth saying that, across the country, with the exceptions that we have discussed, most of the general election counts and the process were very well conducted. The standard is very high. However, that is not to take away from the fact that there were difficulties.
My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and other hon. Members drew attention to the problems that occurred on election day. I am referring to the queues at 10 o'clock. The Electoral Commission, in its report, made the point that that was largely to do with poor planning and poor contingency arrangements on the day. It is worth putting it in context. I am not being complacent or underplaying it, but there are 40,000 polling stations in the United Kingdom and there were issues at 27 of them. The reason why the Government hesitate before we rush off and legislate is that we want to see whether legislating would solve the problem and not create further problems. We want to see whether that is the right way to go. Without wishing to understate the problem, I just think that before we legislate, it is worth thinking about whether that is the right solution.
I will not go into the issue at length. As the hon. Member for Rhondda said, the House had the opportunity earlier this week, because of the amendment that he and his hon. Friends proposed, to debate the matter. The House did debate it and decided not to make the change to the law at this time, but we are considering the Electoral Commission's report and looking at the right way of solving the problem.
It is worth saying, though, that the law is clear. It has not changed; it has been the law for a considerable time. It is clear that a ballot paper should not be issued after 10 pm, so there is no reason why acting returning officers should be confused about that, and I know that the Electoral Commission will ensure that that guidance is clearly established before the next set of elections.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con): Has the number of polling stations, particularly in urban areas, reduced and have they become larger?
Mr Harper:
My hon. Friend puts his finger on a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington raised. In Manchester, there were polling
stations that covered too great a geographical area, or far too many electors were expected to vote in them. It is good to hear that Manchester city council has taken steps to address that. It is one of the issues set out in the guidance from the Electoral Commission. It lays out broadly how many electors should be going to a particular polling station, precisely so that if there is a high turnout, that number of electors can be processed smoothly. It is good to hear that in places where we know that there were issues, they are being dealt with. I do not know overall across the country whether there has been a reduction in the number of polling stations.
I suspect that one problem was that given that turnout was lower at the last few general elections and at other elections, as the hon. Member for Rhondda highlighted, some acting returning officers made assumptions that turnout would continue at a low level and were caught unawares when, perhaps because people were more engaged in the election, they took part in it in greater numbers.
Chris Bryant: I am sure that the Minister is absolutely right, and I think that another assumption the officers made was that many more people would vote by post. That has undoubtedly happened: in my constituency we have lost, I think, eight polling stations since I was first elected in 2001, for all sorts of reasons that are pretty much insurmountable. Virtually everyone in those old polling districts now votes by post, notwithstanding the points made earlier by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart).
Mr Harper: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I suspect that in some areas people have made assumptions about postal voting. Because of the problems that we have had with such voting at previous elections, quite a lot of my constituents who had decided to vote by post have now gone back to voting in person, partly because they like doing that but also because they feel that it is more secure. Acting returning officers need to take that into account.
Mr Binley: My hon. Friend has touched on a very important point. People did not receive their postal votes until after the time allowed for the receipt of them. The returning officers have to stick to the rules, and that is why monitoring is necessary.
Mr Harper: My hon. Friend makes a good point, and it comes back to accountability-an issue that has been mentioned by a number of Members. I would say a couple of things about that, and about the payments. The returning officer's job is separate from and in addition to their normal duties, which ensures that in carrying out those duties they are not accountable to politicians, who might have an interest in the election. Returning officers are not paid for just the one night; a lot of planning and preparation goes into ensuring that elections run smoothly. Indeed, some returning officers appoint deputies to help them, and with whom they share the fees. The Government have issued guidance in relation to national elections, which recommends that that happens.
One of the things that Members have highlighted is the issue of what happens if things go wrong: what is the accountability? In Manchester, the council's chief executive, who is the acting returning officer, has effectively taken the view that because there were problems in one of the constituencies-Manchester, Withington-he would not take his fee for that. Some other returning officers have also taken that view. Members have suggested that someone should have the ability to make such a judgment, and to not pay the fee. We will be experimenting with that idea, to some extent, in the provisions in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.
Regarding the referendum, the chief counting officer-the chairman of the Electoral Commission-is responsible for its conduct, and appoints regional counting officers and counting officers. Those officers will be the same people as the returning officers, but we will-if Parliament agrees-give the chief counting officer the ability to withhold the fee for their duties in conducting the referendum, if performance is not adequate. We will consider whether that has the desired effect, and will review the measure after the referendum to see whether we might want to consider it more widely.
Mrs Laing: I thank the Minister for his kind remarks earlier. I have for the first time just seen a good point-a plus point-to having the referendum. The Minister will appreciate that that measure could be a sort of pilot scheme for a system of accountability for returning officers, and that would be very welcome.
Mr Harper: I am very pleased that views, certainly on the Government Benches, are hardening in support of our Bill. I look forward to further progress today.
It is worth noting that, although my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest suggested that the Electoral Commission should have more powers to direct returning officers in their conduct of elections-not referendums-the Electoral Commission itself has called for greater accountability, but not for greater powers of direction, with the exception of the referendum, the outcome of which they are responsible for. We will think further about that, but we will first see how the step of making the Electoral Commission responsible for the fee for the referendum works-the pros and cons-and whether it might be something to bring in more widely for returning officers. The difficulty would be in deciding to whom they would be accountable, and who would make that decision. We will, however, look at that further, and it might be something to debate after the referendum.
In the six minutes that remain, let me just deal with some of the other issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest, and other Members, raised. One issue that she raised, which was supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton South (Mr Binley), was the hypothecation or ring-fencing of funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest made two points. For national parliamentary elections, the funding, as she correctly said, is ring-fenced. It comes directly from the Consolidated Fund and the Government say to returning officers that for properly incurred expenditure to do with the election the money is payable from the centre. That is clear, and my hon. Friend made it clear.
The other point is about the money for electoral registration. At the moment, that money is not ring-fenced; it is part of the revenue support grant. I have heard a number of Members state that the money in that revenue support fund is not used for electoral registration, but there is no evidence of that. If people were to bring forward evidence, we would look at the issue very seriously. The hon. Member for Rhondda mentioned those points as well. Given that the electoral registration officer is a senior member of the local authority officer team, the acting returning officer responsible for delivering the elections is often the chief executive, and the other decision makers in local authorities are councillors who have to get elected, I do not understand why we should think it likely that that set of individuals would de-prioritise spending on elections, since that is something in which we as politicians have a great interest. So, I am not convinced intellectually that there should be a problem, and there is very little, if any, evidence that that is happening-if there is, the Government will look at it. It is not just a Treasury rule; it is the general view of this Government that we should allow local authorities to make judgments about how much money needs to be spent in different areas, although they do have legal duties to ensure that elections are well conducted and that the registration system works well.
As we roll out individual voter registration, I hope that we can tackle both sides of the coin. We can deal with the problem of people who are on the register but should not be-a number of Members mentioned that this morning-and, equally importantly, we can look at people who are eligible to vote but are not on the register. The resources issue is important, and I have written to every local authority chief executive about our data-matching pilots. I encourage Members to encourage their local authorities to participate. We hope to enable local authorities to use other public data sources to identify people who are eligible to vote but not on the register, or the other way around, so that they can target them and use limited resources more effectively, to ensure that the register is both accurate and complete. The funding for the pilots will be met from central Government. I encourage Members, particularly if they feel that there are problems in their areas, either with accuracy or completeness, to encourage
their local authorities to participate. I hope that that reassures my hon. Friend the Member for Gillingham and Rainham (Rehman Chishti), who raised some of those issues.
I have dealt with some of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington. It is good to hear that the issue of the number of polling stations has been dealt with. He raised some very good points about the combination of elections, and about a differential franchise between the local, European and parliamentary franchises. We are alive to that issue, with the combined election and referendum that we hope to see next year, and one reason why we have been working very closely with the Electoral Commission and with those responsible for delivering elections is to ensure that there is clear guidance. In their planning for the referendum and the elections, the Electoral Commission and acting returning officers will take exactly that into account, to ensure that in parts of the country where they are not used to such a combination there is clear guidance and clear planning, to avoid those sorts of problems.
Finally, the issue of combination, which the hon. Member for Rhondda raised, is interesting, and we in the House need to think about that more widely. There is a view that no elections should be combined, but given that the Government are looking at more fixed terms, including a fixed term for this Parliament, and are also considering having more elections-for police commissioners for example-it would be difficult to have all those elections on separate days. It is worth thinking about the argument, "If you're going to combine them you should go for it big time and make sure it's well done," and considering whether we effectively have a big democracy day in the same way as they do in the US, where everything is on the same day. It would be helpful if Members thought about that, and I am sure that we will get the opportunity to debate it in due course.
This has been a good debate. We have touched on a number of issues that are very important to Members, and I once again thank my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest for enabling us to have the debate. I look forward to debating with, or listening to, her this afternoon, when we continue consideration of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.
Independent Financial Advisers
10.59 am
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con): It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I hope the Minister will forgive me for holding this debate on a day when he probably has quite a few other things on. As he knows, however, such debates are a bit of a lottery, and I was not expecting mine to come up today.
According to the Library, this is the first time that the regulation of independent financial advisers has been debated in a Chamber of the House, and we have to ask why. Colleagues on the Treasury Committee discussed the topic yesterday, and I have put my toe in the water by asking for a 30-minute debate today. Given the interest that I have encountered in the issue-I have had a binder full of correspondence since the debate was announced last Wednesday-I anticipate that this is not the last that we will hear of it.
Mark Garnier (Wyre Forest) (Con): The interest that I have encountered is certainly unprecedented, and I too have a very large binder. Will my hon. Friend work with me to secure a Back-Bench business debate in which we might have an opportunity to debate the issue for up to three hours on the Floor of the House?
Harriett Baldwin: Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for that suggestion and I would be delighted to support it.
IFAs are regulated by the soon-to-be-abolished Financial Services Authority, the independent statutory regulator set up by the previous Government. Banking supervision is to return to the Bank of England, while many other regulatory functions will go to a new consumer protection body. Thus, this seems an opportune time for the House to debate some of the implications of those policies and some of the functions involved.
Fewer people are benefiting from defined-benefit pension schemes. More individuals are being asked to contact an IFA to obtain advice. Many will receive lump sums from an inheritance or perhaps a redundancy payout, and they will need professional advice to make the most of them. With auto-enrolment beginning in a few years' time, people will also have to decide whether they need to opt out. Many younger people will leave university with student loans. Many older people will need to buy annuities or to make arrangements to pay for long-term care. All those transactions require some financial advice.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab): I previously worked as a solicitor and employed an independent financial adviser. Does the hon. Lady agree that it is better to receive advice from an independent financial adviser than a tied agent?
Harriett Baldwin: There are indeed advantages, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. He obviously has a lot of experience of dealing with the sector.
It is estimated that there are about 45,000 IFAs in the country, many of whom are sole traders.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con): Should those tens of thousands of small traders not be encouraged to use their entrepreneurialism to help people save, rather than being squashed by the dead hand of unthinking regulation?
Harriett Baldwin: I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting intervention. I shall come to precisely that point in a moment.
The market for financial advice suffers from comparatively low consumer trust. Consumers find it difficult to engage with the financial services industry-banks are not exactly the most popular institutions in the country at the moment. Economists would describe buying financial products as a transaction in which consumers have asymmetric information; in plain English, the buyer knows a lot less about the product than the seller. There is therefore a need for proper independent advice.
Along with banks, IFAs have been guilty of selling certain products because they give a better commission. Like banks, IFAs have been found to have mis-sold private pensions to public sector workers. Like banks, they have mis-sold high-income precipice bonds. Often, they have sold products that simply performed badly or carried high charges. There is no doubt that the industry's reputation could be improved.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con): My hon. Friend mentioned the Treasury Committee, and it may be of interest to note that I was in the Committee yesterday when it talked about this issue. Interestingly, the response from the Association of Independent Financial Advisers and the Association of Private Client Investment Managers and Stockbrokers was that the retail distribution review, having started with high ambitions and high principles, not only ran four times over cost, but conducted a somewhat ineffective consultation. I put the question whether, in that aspect at least, it had become a bit of a fiasco, and the witnesses concurred, very much to my surprise. My hon. Friend might want to bear that in mind in future discussions.
Harriett Baldwin: I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour. He is a distinguished practitioner and member of the Treasury Committee. I am very interested to hear about the evidence yesterday.
We should not underestimate the costs of mis-sales to consumers. The FSA's cost-benefit analysis assesses the cost to consumers of the pensions mis-selling scandal at £45 million per annum. In reaction to such circumstances, the FSA has spent the past several years consulting on how to address the issues involved. I share its goal of improving consumers' perception of the industry and access to high-quality investment advice.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that the new regulations will raise the bar in terms of the standard of advisers, which means that there will be fewer financial advisers in future and that individuals' ability to seek advice will be restricted, not enhanced?
Harriett Baldwin: My hon. Friend raises an important point, and I will come to that.
The FSA has come up with proposals to address the issue. They are close to final, and the board is likely to take a decision in December. Under the current plans, the proposals will be implemented by the end of 2012. As they stand, the proposals are known as the retail distribution review. As colleagues have suggested, they
raise real questions about the role of regulation and the laws of unintended, and indeed intended, consequences in terms of regulation.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con): Is it not also true that not only will there be a reduction in the number of IFAs, but many of those who have been in the industry for a long time, who are very experienced and who understand the market and customers very well, will unfortunately inadvertently fall foul of the regulations?
Harriett Baldwin: My hon. Friend, who is also a member of the Treasury Committee, makes an extremely important point, which I will mention in a moment.
The impact of the proposals has been brought to my attention by a range of independent financial advisers, who are also constituents. Acting independently of one another, they all came to see me in my advice surgeries. Under the RDR proposals, each IFA should pass a set of exams and then spend at least 35 hours per annum on continuous professional development. Hon. Members should note that the requirement is 35 hours and that 34 hours would not be acceptable. IFAs also need to obtain a statement of professional standing from an accredited body. Someone who, today, is a qualified and approved IFA but who does not meet those requirements by 31 December 2012, will no longer be able to practise his or her profession, despite many years' experience.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con): Is not the problem with the RDR that many of our constituents will be left without appropriate financial advice because of the introduction of the new rules? Often it is the most experienced IFAs, with the most years of experience, who will be forced out of the profession.
Harriett Baldwin: My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I am about to make myself, so I thank him for his helpful intervention.
Advisers will have to charge explicitly for their services and will not be able to accept commissions. Oxera, the market research firm employed by the FSA to assess the costs and benefits of the changes, expects the net present value of the compliance costs to the industry to reach between £1.4 billion and £1.7 billion. Worryingly, the estimate in 2008 was £600 million. That cost will be passed directly to consumers. The latest estimate represents an astonishing 180% increase.
Oxera expects the increase in compliance costs to be passed on to consumers, so they will pay for the changes. Charges will be higher, so sales of financial products will decline. The majority of adviser firms expect a reduction in turnover. Consumers with smaller amounts to invest are much less likely to seek advice if they have to pay for it explicitly. Smaller firms of IFAs are the most likely to exit the market.
Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con): We all want greater transparency in IFAs' charges, but I am concerned about the direction in which the RDR is going, because of precisely that point. If we go down that route we shall restrict financial advice to the very wealthy, and do nothing to reverse the appalling savings ratio that we have inherited.
Harriett Baldwin: I agree, because according to Oxera's survey for the FSA, 25% of firms are very or quite likely to leave the market. That will reduce access to advice for those living in rural constituencies such as mine. It will reduce access to advice for those with smaller amounts of money; the charges for explicit advice will be for those with higher sums of money.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con): Does my hon. Friend agree that there will be a particular effect on rural areas? I live in a rural area, where nearly all the financial advisers are small, one-person businesses. The imposition in relation to costs and time is particularly onerous for them. Many will simply close and the service in rural areas will disappear.
Harriett Baldwin: Yes, I agree. In London it does not really matter if one person goes out of business-there will be lots more financial advice available; but in rural constituencies such as mine and that of my hon. Friend there will be a significant impact on access.
The IFAs in West Worcestershire who have come to my constituency advice surgeries have also raised concerns about the exam. Most of the advisers I have seen have been-I know we should not mention age-in their late 50s or 60s. Speaking for myself-and obviously I am still very young-I am not as good at taking exams now as I was when I left university. That does not mean that I have not accumulated something else over the years. I hope that I have a little more wisdom and experience than I had then.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con): I have spoken to many local IFAs in my constituency and elsewhere, who provide localised, personal services to individuals who may not be of great net wealth, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) said. Does my hon. Friend agree that asking them questions about international arbitrage and the derivatives market is hardly relevant to the practice they have carried on for many years?
Harriett Baldwin: Indeed, that is a helpful intervention. I received a letter from someone in the north of England who was concerned about having to learn a lot about non-domiciled investors, which they did not think was very relevant in Sheffield.
In financial markets wisdom and experience are valued. Someone who has lived through a boom and bust cycle in the past is much less likely to believe that the latest investment fad will defy the laws of investment gravity. Someone who has seen a few economic cycles is much more likely to understand the ravages of inflation on savings. Someone who has been to a range of conferences over the years is more likely to know when something is really too good to be true. No exam can test that. Yet it is those experienced IFAs, who are often sole practitioners, who will find it hardest to take the time required to pass the specified exams.
George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con): Is not the situation also exacerbated by accounting rules? Being compelled to write off goodwill in one year, it is very difficult for groups of IFAs to acquire the business of smaller IFAs, which compounds the problem.
Harriett Baldwin: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point that I had not even thought of.
The experienced IFAs, who are often sole practitioners, will find it hardest to pass the exams. However, someone who has just graduated from university with a bachelor's degree in financial markets-and I am not knocking that-will be immediately accredited by certain institutions. In the full file that I have received in the past few days are stories from experienced IFAs with unblemished regulatory track records, years of experience, happy clients and no complaints. Yet as a result of the rules, if they do not pass the exams they will not be able to ply their trade on 1 January 2013.
Esther McVey (Wirral West) (Con): I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate. I have had many letters from concerned constituents about it. Independent financial advisers feel that they will be put at a substantial commercial disadvantage by the new rules.
Harriett Baldwin: There is an important point to be made about how some of the larger organisations, and indeed some banks and bancassurers, will most readily be able to have their staff trained for the exams. However, that raises the question whether the exams will really test the skills needed by a good financial adviser. In the investment world, experience is valued and the FSA is imposing on the market a one-size-fits-all, prescriptive approach to education, at great cost to consumers, in return for a modest benefit.
I have written to the chief executive of the FSA and to date have received a letter, beginning, "Dear Mr Baldwin", simply reiterating the FSA's consultation paper conclusions. I would like to ask the Minister to answer a few questions. The FSA is the independent statutory regulator. However, it is answerable ultimately to the Treasury. Does the Minister believe that it is proportionate in the present case to impose a regulatory burden of £1.7 billion on consumers? Is the Minister concerned that up to 25% of smaller advisers are likely to leave the industry, handing a competitive advantage to banks and bancassurers? Is he convinced that the banks will not be able to find a way to reward employees for pushing certain products? Does he share my concern that the FSA's own impact assessment suggests that those who get reduced access to advice are likely to be the smaller, poorer consumers in more remote areas?
Does the Minister think that there might be a more proportionate way for the FSA to achieve its objectives? For example, IFAs who have passed exams could add the letters of qualification to their business cards. Consumers could then be educated and could choose an unqualified adviser if they preferred, but would come to know over time that there was a brand to the qualification.
Jesse Norman: There is also a simple solution for firms of more than one person, which is that the senior member can sign off on the work or qualification of the person who has not received formal accreditation. That allows for the sharing of liability, the preservation of standards within the firm and the guarantee of good quality to the customer.
Harriett Baldwin: I thank my hon. Friend for that helpful suggestion.
I would also like to ask the Minister how changing from commissions, which are currently exempt from VAT, to advice, which will attract VAT, will not add a further cost for consumers.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con): On the subject of commissions, the IFAs in High Peak who have spoken to me are concerned that removing the option of commission and replacing it with up-front charges will prevent people from getting the independent financial advice they need. Conversely it will prevent IFAs from taking the exams, because of the downturn in work. That means many people will not get the independent financial advice they will need.
Harriett Baldwin: Yes, that is a question to be considered as well.
Does the Minister really believe that consumers should not be allowed to choose whether they pay explicitly for advice or whether they pay through commission? Does he believe that it is consistent with UK legislation retrospectively to change the qualification regime for a whole class of practitioners? Finally, does he agree with one commentator, who described the RDR as
"a sledgehammer to miss a nut"?
11.18 am
The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr Mark Hoban): I think that that commentator was my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr Redwood).
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on securing the debate. She said that it is the first debate we have had on IFAs for some time, which surprises me given the amount of interest it has generated and the volume of correspondence that hon. Members received during the previous Parliament about the RDR.
The structure of regulation in the UK means that regulation is the responsibility of the FSA, not the Treasury. Treasury Ministers cannot dictate to the FSA how it should do its job. That might seem to my hon. Friends an attractive idea in the present circumstance, but they may be able to think of other circumstances where it would be less attractive. Today of course we are announcing the settlement in relation to Equitable Life. Those losses arose when the Government were responsible for the regulation of financial services, so do not be tempted down the route of suggesting that the Treasury should do all financial regulation.
Access to high-quality and independent financial advice is vital to increasing confidence in the financial sector and to ensuring that people are encouraged to save, plan for the future and make appropriate choices. As my hon. Friend said in her speech, the impact of receiving poor adviser advice can be financially disastrous for the consumer. We do not need to go far to find evidence of that-look at cases of widespread mis-selling of products such as pensions and endowments and, more recently, of structured products.
The Financial Services Authority's view is that the regulation of independent financial advisers, in particular through the retail distribution review, is essential in rebuilding trust in the industry when confidence in financial services is at an all-time low.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD): The Minister is clearly outlining that risks are involved in the advice given by independent financial advisers. Does he agree that a risk-based approach, which is responding to complaints and which might require longer-standing financial advisers to undergo retraining, could be a better way of tackling the issue?
Mr Hoban: That is an interesting point, but my hon. Friend should bear in mind that with some products, which might be long term, it can be some time before an issue emerges. If people buy a product in their 30s-a pension product, for example-they might only find out in their 60s that they had been mis-sold something. There is a real issue about looking at complaints records in that way.
The retail distribution review aims to address the structural problems in the distribution of retail financial products, such as conflicts of interest, transparency and professional standards. Although the RDR is the responsibility of the FSA, I fully support its aims-all colleagues should support those objectives. I hope that the RDR will lead to increased confidence, simplicity and clarity in the financial advice sector.
On professionalism, hon. Members are familiar with the fact that the rules seek to ensure that all financial advisers adhere to common professional standards, including an increased minimum qualification level, effective maintenance of knowledge and subscription to a code of ethics. The current minimum financial adviser qualification is at the same level as a diploma in shift management offered by McDonald's. We should all reflect on that for a moment: the products being sold by IFAs are infinitely more complex and more long-lasting in their effect than a Big Mac.
The rules aim to improve trust and the service offered to consumers. Consumers will have confidence that their financial adviser is up to the job. Investment advice will be seen as a professional activity, financial advisers will have a new status and fresh talent will be attracted to the industry. The FSA reports that, rather than being put off by studying, many financial advisers are going on to obtain more advanced qualifications than those required by the RDR. One of my constituents, who is an IFA, has said that when the FSA raised the minimum bar he wanted to go even further, to demonstrate that his qualifications, knowledge and technical expertise went beyond those of his peers. The FSA also noted that take-up for financial planning degree courses has increased.
I know that many financial advisers have concerns about meeting the increased qualification standards required by the RDR, but almost half of advisers already meet the required level, with two years to go before the RDR is introduced.
Many financial advisers feel that the new rules should be "grandfathered," so that those advisers with experience are exempt. However, how do we know how good those advisers are? Someone might have been in the industry for some time, but is that necessarily a guarantee of the technical expertise and quality of advice?
Mr Hoban: I only have seven minutes left and my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire gave way quite a lot, so I would like to make some progress.
The existing qualification requirements for advisers focus mainly on knowledge, whereas the new higher level is primarily about understanding and applying that knowledge, which are core skills for every adviser to demonstrate. The result is a level playing field where consumers can have confidence that their adviser meets a required standard.
IFAs are not the only people who have an interest in this debate. The consumer group Which? welcomes the FSA's increased standard, as it does not feel that the current qualification level is sufficient.
Advisers are required to maintain competence under the FSA's current rules as part of their approval conditions, and so those advisers that have actively engaged in maintaining competence by keeping up to date with market developments should not have to commit a significant amount of time to study. Continuing professional development can be used to fill any gaps between existing and revised examination standards, and financial advisers can opt to undertake an alternative basis of assessment, instead of a traditional written qualification. That addresses one of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire, about how someone who is slightly long in the tooth, as I am, might not be as exam-ready as someone straight out of university. The alternative assessment might well help advisers in such a situation.
On adviser charging, at present financial advisers earn different amounts of money as commission payments, depending on which particular firm they recommend a product from and on what product they recommend. That creates a potential conflict of interest which can be damaging to consumers and undermines trust in the investment industry. The RDR rules on adviser charging are designed to tackle the risk, as well as the perception that commission paid by product providers might bias advice.
FSA consumer research also found that only half of respondents understood how the value of their product would be affected by commission. To add to that, in October 2007, Which? conducted a survey of IFAs and found that 82% of advisers failed to explain the document on the key facts about the costs or to have a meaningful discussion with their client about how advice would be paid for. There is a big issue to be addressed-getting people to understand how they are paying for advice at the moment-and IFAs have a role to play.
It should be noted that consumers already pay for advice, through the commission structure in their product. We are not doing anything new by ensuring that consumers know how much advice costs. It is important that consumers understand the value that good financial advice can add and that we create a much more transparent market in which advisers compete on cost and quality. That is a good outcome for consumers.
My hon. Friend mentioned how banks reward employees for pushing certain products-I understand her point-and the FSA is to look into how the reward structures of in-house sales staff in banks affect their performance.
On ability to pay for advice, we need to bear in mind that not enough people are in receipt of financial advice. That is one of the reasons why our party, in opposition and now as part of the coalition Government, has been able to support the Consumer Financial Education Body, the introduction of a social responsibility levy on
the financial services sector and the funding of a free national advice service, which will help people review their financial affairs regularly, plan ahead and ensure that they hold appropriate products. Such measures will help to tackle some of the advice gap. I hope that the industry will work in partnership with the CFEB and the Government to ensure access to financial advice.
A number of my hon. Friends raised the issue of the disproportionate impact of RDR on small firms. I appreciate that concern. Smaller IFA firms, in remote areas in particular, will feel the impact, and they are more likely to struggle to meet the challenges of the RDR proposal, unlike the larger IFA firms and the banks, and instead might decide to exit the market. However, the RDR will apply to all advisers in the retail investment market, not just to IFAs.
Although the change will bring challenges in the short term, it is important that we see the advice sector grow and strengthen in the long term. New and existing firms can increase supply in the long term to meet that demand, and indeed the FSA has found that a larger proportion of the costs of the RDR will be borne by larger firms.
In respect of the costs being passed on to the consumer, it is true that with the RDR come implementation costs. The Oxera research commissioned by the FSA found that such costs could translate into higher prices placed on consumers in the short term. However, over the longer term, it concluded that the higher prices could be competed away through increased transparency of prices, encouraging consumers to shop around.
I could respond to many more issues. I will write to my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire on RDR and tax issues.
We all want to ensure that consumers have access to good-quality advice, delivered in a transparent and professional way, so that people understand what they are buying and have paid for. I believe that that will be taking a major step forward in improving the financial outcomes for our constituents.
11.30 am
Ahmadiyya Community
[Annette Brooke in the Chair]
2.30 pm
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab): Let me start by apologising for any words that I may pronounce incorrectly. No insult is intended, and I stand to be corrected on my pronunciation. For someone with a name like Siobhain McDonagh, that is quite a thing.
Britain's Ahmadiyya Muslims work hard and contribute greatly to this country. Their belief in peace and religious tolerance is an example to us all, and is to be expected from a community whose motto is, "Love for all and hatred for none." Their fifth spiritual head, Mirza Masroor Ahmad, lives in the United Kingdom, and their headquarters are in south London. Indeed, one of the world's biggest Ahmadi mosques is in Morden. It has capacity for 10,000 people, which means that I have many Ahmadi constituents, as do many neighbouring seats. I am pleased to say that we now have the backing of enough parliamentarians to start up an all-party parliamentary group for the Ahmadiyyan community, and we will hold our first ever meeting in the next few weeks.
In my experience, my Ahmadi constituents are well-educated, cultured and have a sophisticated and peace-loving approach. I am therefore delighted to be granted this opportunity to talk about the Ahmadiyyan community. I understand that this is the first ever parliamentary debate specifically to discuss the Ahmadiyya faith, and it is a great honour to be leading it. However, I am extremely sorry to bring this community's concerns to the House at this particular time. The circumstances that led me to ask for a debate are extremely sad. On 28 May, nearly 100 Ahmadiyya Muslim worshippers were brutally murdered in two separate attacks in Lahore. However, what makes the story especially poignant is not just the fact that the Ahmadi are so peaceful but that their murderers were also Muslim. What I hope to do today is to examine why the attacks took place, then ask whether there is anything that we in Britain and the wider community can do to prevent such atrocities happening again in the future. Finally, I want to assess what the implications are for Britain of how the Ahmadiyya community in Pakistan is treated and what we can do about it.
To begin, I need to say a few words of introduction about the Ahmadiyyans. Despite the fact that they have translated the holy Koran into more than 60 languages, span 195 countries and have more than 15,000 mosques and a membership exceeding tens of millions, theirs is a faith that is little known outside their community. The Ahmadiyya Muslim community was founded in 1889 and arose out of the belief that the long-awaited Messiah had come in the person of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian. Ahmad claimed to be the metaphorical second coming whose advent was foretold by Mohammed. Obviously, that contradicts the view of mainstream Muslims who believe that Mohammed is the last prophet. Nevertheless, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is a very peaceful religion. They believe that there are parallels between Ahmad and Jesus, as God sent both to end religious wars, contend bloodshed and bring peace. For
instance, they reject terrorism in any form. Ahmad declared that jihad by the sword had no place in Islam. Instead, he wanted his followers to wage a bloodless, intellectual jihad of the pen to defend Islam.
In a similar vein, Ahmadis believe that theirs is the only Islamic organisation to endorse a separation of mosque and state and to champion the empowerment and education of women. Ahmad also warned his followers not to engage in irrational interpretations of the Koran or to misapply Islamic law. In Britain today, we regard such attributes as modern and tolerant. However, those values are not shared by some other Muslim traditions, particularly those with a more fundamentalist viewpoint. For such fundamentalists, belief in a false prophet is heretical enough, but for the Ahmadiyya Muslim community also to follow teachings that fundamentalists believe are wrong is adding insult to injury. Consequently, Ahmadis have long faced persecution. Their first martyr was killed in custody in 1901, and it is estimated that there have been about 200 deaths in total. Of course, religious disagreements have cost countless lives over the years throughout the world. Religions have a long and very unhappy history of attacking each other for worshipping the wrong prophet, even much closer to home than in Pakistan.
I am a Catholic and we are as guilty as anyone. A Catholic pope promised heaven to mediaeval thugs who took part in murderous crusades against followers of a prophet whom they believed was false-Mohammed. That period of history continues to haunt us. This country is not immune to using discrimination against religions we have not liked, with Catholics on this occasion often being the victims. It is only a few years ago that I helped to change the law to allow former Catholic priests to become MPs. Although that law was a throwback to a much earlier time, there are, even in our more recent history, examples of discrimination of which we should not be proud, particularly in Northern Ireland. It is hard therefore to stand here and lecture other countries about their practices, and we need to remain humble. The fact that religions have been persecuting each other for centuries does not make it right, especially in Pakistan where extreme groups such as the Taliban are already very active in creating a lot of volatility.
We are lucky in this country in that, on the whole, our religions can carry on side by side without conflict, respecting each other's right to worship. In Pakistan, most mainstream Muslims are horrified that anything could happen to their fellow countrymen just because they have a different religion. They are as shocked as we are by attacks such as those in Lahore. However, discrimination is an everyday reality for many Ahmadis living in Pakistan, and it is embedded in the Pakistani constitution.
Pakistan's founder, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, may have said that the country should be a secular state in which all were equal and religion was no business of the state, but today's Ahmadis do not enjoy equality. Pakistan was created in 1947. In 1948, Major Dr Mahmood Ahmed was lynched by a mob at Quetta. In 1950, Ahmadis were murdered in Charsadda, Okara, Rawalpindi and Mansehra. By 1974, riots and killings, attacks on mosques, assaults, arson and looting were widespread, and the organs of the state were not neutral. The police arrested victims and not perpetrators. In September 1974, Prime Minister Bhutto amended the constitution
and declared that Ahmadis were officially non-Muslim. That was followed in the 1980s by measures introduced by Zia ul-Haq's Government to Islamicise Pakistan's laws.
In 1984, Ordinance 20 significantly restricted Ahmadi freedom of religion or expression, threatening up to three years in jail for any Ahmadi who, for example, called themselves a Muslim. Since then, thousands of Ahmadis have been arrested. In 1989 and again in 2008, the entire 50,000 population of the Rabwah was charged with practising Islamic worship. Ahmadis are prevented from holding public meetings and are not even able to vote or to register to vote because registering to vote would require them to deny their faith. Ahmadis are barred from entry to public office except at the lowest level. In order to claim to be a Muslim on the Pakistani passport, they are forced to sign a declaration that says:
"I consider Mirza Ghulam Ahmad to be an imposter."
Persecution by the state is at times systematic. My fear is that such discrimination helps to feed the ideology of groups such as the Taliban and offers them a justification for some of their worst excesses. It does not legitimise what they do, but it might make them feel, wrongly, that they have some kind of legitimacy. Even if there was no violence, it makes Ahmadis feel threatened. Therefore, the Pakistan constitution poses a problem, as it gives some perverse encouragement to extremists and belittles the Ahmadi community.
Non-state persecution of Ahmadis is very worrying and appears to be growing. According to Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, Ahmadis face the worst treatment of anyone in Pakistan. The media there are often virulently anti-Ahmadi, broadcasting phrases such as, "Ahmadis deserve to die." In particular, the Khatme Nabuwwat movement carries out regular activities to oppose Ahmadi Muslims. It calls for the banning of Ahmadiyyat and for the killing of Ahmadis. It incites attacks against Ahmadis in speech and broadcast, and is credited with introducing the widely used phrase, "wajibul qatl" which means "those who deserve to be killed".
In the past decade, there has been an increasing number of murders and attacks of Ahmadis, and an increase in the number of pre-planned and targeted attacks on Ahmadi mosques by Islamist militants. As we know, those attacks culminated in the Lahore attacks, when two mosques were stormed in a well-planned assault that lasted for about four hours. At one stage, more than 1,000 worshippers were trapped in the Darul Zikr mosque, trying to escape militants armed with guns and grenades. The Baitun Noor mosque was also stormed in a co-ordinated attack. The multiple suicide attacks by the Punjabi Taliban took place slowly, with terrorists methodically throwing hand-grenades among their hostages and climbing the minarets to fire at them from above. When the attackers started to run out of ammunition, they began detonating their explosive vests. Although the police came, they arrived late-even after the media arrived-and the only attackers who were caught were captured by unarmed Ahmadis.
The loss of life and the prolonged and bloody siege prompted widespread condemnation and global media coverage, and it is the reason why we have asked for this debate today. Many people have been in touch with me about the outrage in Lahore. Shortly after the murders, I spoke personally with Rafiq Hayat, the head of the
UK's Ahmadi community. I wanted him to know that I was very concerned about what had happened and I wanted to see if I could do anything more to help.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con): In my constituency, the attacks in Lahore in May sent a shockwave through the local Ahmadi community. However, I was very impressed that, despite that sense of shock, several months later the community displayed its altruistic and inclusive nature when it invited representatives of many different faiths in my constituency-Christian, Hindu, Sikh and Muslim-to come together for a celebration at the end of Ramadan. Is that not a great example of the way forward and of how we can include all communities together, with respect for all different faiths and religions?
Siobhain McDonagh: I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman and, as I have been arguing, such inclusiveness is the hallmark of the Ahmadi faith.
We thought that it was important that Britain send a strong message to Pakistan after the attacks in Lahore, saying that we were appalled by what had happened and that more must be done to support Ahmadi worshippers in that country. At the time of the attacks in Lahore, we were concerned that the British Government should highlight both Pakistan's duty to protect Ahmadis and the poor treatment that Ahmadis receive in Pakistan. As my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (David Miliband) said when he was my party's foreign affairs spokesperson:
"It is when the international community has taken its eye off the ball in Pakistan that instability has increased...Internally, Pakistan has a duty to protect minority groups and needs the support of its allies to do so."
Rafiq Hayat told me that he agreed with that sentiment and I hope that the Minister can join us in expressing the Government's views to the Pakistan Government in his speech later in the debate.
I am concerned that the discrimination against Ahmadis that is embedded in the Pakistani constitution can be construed by militants as giving them legitimacy. The Pakistani Government are already facing many difficulties with al-Qaeda and other militant groups, and the British Government need to work hard to convince them to help to fight global Islamic terrorism. As the June issue of Terrorism Monitor notes:
"As the Pakistani Taliban are trying to spread their war on the Pakistani state, they are likely to continue to target minorities like the Ahmadis in their efforts to create instability."
If we do not persuade mainstream politicians in Pakistan to stand up for the Ahmadi Muslim community, we risk further Islamicist militancy. Moreover, if the militancy continues in Pakistan, it not only threatens Ahmadis but the whole international community. After all, any increase in Islamicist activities also affects us here in the UK, so it is in our own interests for the Government to seek to persuade Pakistan's Government to show more tolerance to the Ahmadi Muslim community.
I therefore urge the Minister to ask his colleagues to raise this matter with Pakistani Ministers in the course of their regular meetings and to keep the new all-party group informed of any progress. The truth is that the Pakistani extremists' hatred of Ahmadis is already being exported. In fact, it is here in the UK today.
Last week, south London local newspapers carried front page articles about discrimination against and intimidation of Britain's Ahmadi community. The police are appealing for information about inflammatory leaflets that have been distributed across south London, apparently by Khatme Nabuwwat, as part of a targeted ideological campaign, and they have said that an investigation into alleged hate crimes is ongoing. They have also said that a teenage Ahmadi girl gave them a statement, claiming that a leaflet that was written in Urdu said:
"Kill a Qadiyani and doors to heaven will open to you".
Another KN leaflet, entitled "Deception of the Qadiyani", was recently displayed in the window of the Sabina Hair and Cosmetic shop in Mitcham road, Tooting. When the local Guardian newspaper confronted staff at the shop to ask why they had put up the leaflet, a worker said:
"These people are not Muslims. I did it myself. They don't believe that prophet Mohammed is the last prophet."
Many Ahmadi shopkeepers are worried about the future of their businesses after clerics demanded a boycott of their shops. Imam Suliman Gani, of the Tooting Islamic Centre, apparently pleaded with the owner of the Lahore halal meat shop in Tooting not to sell his business to an Ahmadi man, saying:
"Since the Qadiyanis are routinely deceptive about their religion, there was a potential risk of Muslims being offered meat that wasn't necessarily halal."
Yet another leaflet that was posted on the wall of the Streatham mosque called for a boycott of the Lahore halal meat store.
The discrimination is increasing. An Ahmadi butcher who came to London in 2001 after fleeing Pakistan has just won an employment tribunal after being sacked by the owner of the Haji halal meat shop in upper Tooting. The owner, Azizur Rahman, had put pressure on his employee to convert to the Sunni Muslim faith. Apparently, Mr Rahman said that pressure was placed on him
"by the head of the Sunni sect who had helped Mr Rahman to gain admission for his daughters to a single sex school for girls."
Mr Rahman also claimed that he had been influenced by a conference hosted by KN at the Tooting Islamic centre in March, where worshippers were ordered to boycott Ahmadi-run shops. During that conference, the KN's Abdul Rehman Bawa said:
"I don't know why our sisters or mothers are talking with these Qadiyani and making friendships...Don't make friends with them...They are trying to deceive you, they are trying to convert you from Islam to Qadiyanism."
According to the local Guardian newspaper, the owner of one Tooting halal butchers shop said that his trade had virtually halved in three months, and claimed:
"Some people refuse to come here just because I am Ahmadi. They use words against me like 'Kafir', which means I am not Muslim. I've lived here for 13 years and lots of people know me in Tooting, but this situation has become so much worse now."
Furthermore, the Tooting Islamic centre was at the centre of another controversy, when an election hustings in April was disrupted by anti-Ahmadi protests. The Tory candidate was mistaken by a group of fundamentalists for the Liberal Democrat candidate, who is an Ahmadi, and he had to be locked into a room for his own safety.
I appreciate that not everything that appears in the newspapers is the whole truth and that the real story about anti-Ahmadi activities in this country may be
more complicated and untypical. I also do not want to focus on Tooting any more than anywhere else, because I have lived in the Tooting area all my life and there is nowhere else in the world that I would prefer to live. My own experience is that the vast majority of mainstream Muslims are wonderful people and respect their local communities in peace.
We are still a long, long way from a Lahore-style attack happening in south London, but the emergence of anti-Ahmadi activity is a great concern. I ask the Minister to address the issue of how groups originating in Pakistan are encouraging illegal discrimination and inciting hatred in this country, and to raise it with colleagues at the Home Office and other agencies, including the police. None of us wants to see the Pakistani attacks repeated anywhere else. The Pakistani Taliban and groups such as KN have no place in a tolerant society and Ministers must exploit all this country's diplomatic skills to work with the Pakistani Government.
In the UK, most of the time, people from different religions live side by side, even though we each believe that the other worships a false prophet. I include the vast majority of the mainstream Muslim community in that. Muslims are among the most peaceful, tolerant and understanding people in our community, and I say that as a south London MP with a very diverse constituency. However, for the sake of Ahmadis here and in Pakistan we must work towards a greater understanding of the Ahmadi Muslim community.
I hope that the Minister can make a commitment today to raising our concerns with his colleagues in the Home Office and the Foreign Office, with the police, with the Pakistani Government and with the Commonwealth. I also hope that our new all-party group will contribute towards a greater understanding of Ahmadis, because our aim is for the whole world to share and respect the Ahmadi slogan, "Love for all and hatred for none".
2.49 pm
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing this debate. In spite of our political differences, we often make common cause on issues. I hope that she will therefore welcome the fact that the funding for St Helier hospital has been re-announced in today's comprehensive spending review; that is a success that she can share with me and, indeed, with the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). I am also pleased to make common cause with the hon. Lady in supporting the Ahmadiyya community. I support her work and welcome the fact that she is setting up an all-party parliamentary group on the issue. I am happy to be a member of that group and to facilitate its establishment.
In her opening remarks, the hon. Lady outlined well the position of the Ahmadiyya community around the world and the difficulties and risks that Ahmadiyyas face in seeking to practise their peaceful religion in various countries. Like her, I have had the pleasure of visiting the mosque in Morden. I went a couple of weeks ago with my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam, who I know would have wanted to participate in this debate if his ministerial duties had not kept him
elsewhere. We talk a lot about the big society at the moment. The building of the mosque is a good example of how a community can work together and draw on the resources at its disposal. It is a mosque of great stature and presence, and it sets an example for the rest of us. Hon. Members who visit can see the library, the TV station and the facilities for both men and women to worship.
I also welcome the fact that in a similar big-society vein, the Ahmadiyya community is working locally with other faiths to secure a large open space immediately opposite the mosque for the widest possible community use. For me, that is the thing that resonates most and comes across most strongly about that community: the willingness to work with other faiths and people of no faith on issues that are important to us all. That is one of the community's strengths that we should respect, which is why it is particularly depressing that, as the hon. Lady described, Ahmadiyyas face such risks and challenges around the world and, increasingly, in the UK. I will not repeat the examples that she quoted, but I will say one thing about the incident at the Bentall centre in Kingston. Those who know Kingston will know that if people are inciting hatred and potentially putting lives at risk in the Bentall centre, we have a wider problem in the country as a whole. One could not find a more affluent middle-class environment than the Bentall centre.
When the Minister responds, will he clarify what discussions he is having with the Home Office about the issue, particularly in relation to the Prevent agenda? The Prevent agenda-it is currently under review, which I welcome-is about preventing extremism from developing within communities. It seems to me that there is a risk of that at present, and I hope that he has had or will have discussions with the Home Office about how the Prevent agenda can be brought to bear on the issue. He might also be able to comment on the YouTube clips. I do not know whether he has had an opportunity to see them; I recommend that he does so, and that he reads the translations provided. He might then want to reflect, if he has not already done so, on whether there are implications under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 for some of the statements being made.
That is where I shall leave my comments, as many other hon. Members clearly want to speak. What I have seen on YouTube seems to go beyond a discussion about the relative merits of religions, which is what I think we all want to facilitate, and the Home Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office need to respond to that agenda. I hope that we will hear a forceful response from the Minister shortly.
2.55 pm
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab): I apologise for being absent, Mrs Brooke; I will be chairing a meeting at half-past 3, so I will miss the Front-Bench responses. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) not just on securing this debate but on her continued commitment to the Ahmadiyya community over the years and her dedication to a constituency that she clearly loves, although she could relocate to Hayes.
For me, the issue is fairly straightforward. In this debate, we are setting the agenda for our new all-party group. The two issues topmost on that agenda will be
the discrimination that might be occurring in this country and attempts to divide our communities, but the attacks in Pakistan are also an issue. Over the years, many of us have signed early-day motions on discrimination, but we are deeply shocked by the attacks in Lahore. I think the head count was 94 dead and at least 100 injured, some very seriously. The severity and scale of the attacks gave us a shock.
All parties have made representations to the Pakistani Government about discrimination against Ahmadiyyas, as did the previous and incoming Foreign Secretaries, but we still have had no movement on some key issues. First, working with Human Rights Watch, we asked for the repeal of the blasphemy laws in order to eradicate them from the Pakistani legal system. Secondly, we mentioned the failure over years to prosecute the perpetrators of attacks on the Ahmadiyya community. I am aware of no prosecution in the past 15 years in Pakistan for a serious attack on members of that community. Thirdly, we attempted to see how we could work with the Pakistani Government to combat persecution and harassment overall and understand in greater depth the motivations for such attacks. In many cases, it is small groups of extremists who perpetrate such attacks, but a culture of victimisation, persecution and discrimination against the Ahmadiyya community has also built up in Pakistan and infiltrated other communities around the world. I will welcome any Ministers who come along to the early meetings of the all-party group to report on the progress that they have made in their representations to the Pakistani Government on those three issues.
We are now encountering problems in this country. My constituency has a relatively small but active Ahmadiyya community. I convene a regular meeting of religious leaders in my community every couple of months. The Ahmadiyyas are active representatives who have involved themselves in every community campaign and every charitable act and target that we have set ourselves, ranging from getting involved in local community groups and festivals to running marathons. They are excellent contributors to the local community.
The Ahmadiyyas in my area have set up a centre in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Randall). It has taken over the old Irish centre, of which I was a member, the Irish community there having moved elsewhere. I will miss having a pint of Guinness there, but I welcome the centre. Immediately the centre was established, it opened its doors to the wider community. We had a session there a few weeks ago on the theme, "Love for all, hatred for none" in which representatives from the local community and all religions were invited in for a genuine discussion of local issues that we should address together. It demonstrated the commitment of the Ahmadiyya community to my local area.
We have also launched an ad campaign in Uxbridge featuring "Love for all, hatred for none" on the sides of buses. In addition, the Ahmadiyya community leafleted every house in my constituency with a similar message of peace. In my area, all that work is establishing the Ahmadiyya community in a very close, warm and encouraging relationship with the wider community. However, there are real fears about what has happened
in south London and that the situation will infect the wider community, resulting in further victimisation, discrimination and, indeed, persecution of the Ahmadiyya community in this country.
For that reason, I hope that the second item on our all-party group agenda will be about receiving a report back from Ministers on the issues surrounding liaison, through the Home Office, with the Metropolitan police. What monitoring of these activities is going on, and what intelligence do we have? We then need to consider how to devise a strategy to deal with the matter. The problems under discussion are based on profound ignorance, which some elements within our society are willing to exploit to their advantage. If we can nip that in the bud at the earliest opportunity, combating discrimination against the Ahmadiyya community may shine as an example that could well provide us with lessons we can learn from in relation to Pakistan and elsewhere.
3 pm
Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con): I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on securing an important and timely debate. In my constituency of Battersea, like so many London seats, there are communities of people who have come to the UK from all over the world-some many decades ago and some more recently. During the four years that I was a candidate and in the five months that I have been an MP, I have met and visited a number of different faith communities to get to know them and understand their concerns. The Ahmadi are one of those communities.
Although I was previously unfamiliar with the beliefs and traditions of the Ahmadiyyan faith, from my first introduction to the community I have been made very welcome and kept well informed. I am grateful to the Ahmadiyyan national president Mr Rafiq Hayat, my local Battersea president Mr Tariq Uppal and my friend Tariq Ahmed for the efforts they and others have made to keep me briefed about issues of interest and concern. I am also grateful to them for ensuring that I know more about the Ahmadi and the important role that they play in the life of this country and my local community.
The London mosque, a very long established place of worship and the site of the head office of the Ahmadiyyan Muslim Community UK, is in my neighbouring constituency of Putney. The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), is currently in the main Chamber, but she has a long-standing and positive relationship with the Ahmadi community and is taking a close interest in this afternoon's debate.
I was aware of the long-standing tension that exists between some other Muslim faith groups and the Ahmadi Muslim community, especially in Pakistan where-as has been mentioned-persecution of the Ahmadis is, sadly, written into the constitution. However, it was still a huge shock and very distressing to hear of the Lahore massacres in May. They have been described already. Those worshippers were murdered with grenades, suicide vests and automatic weapons. As we heard, many people were killed and injured. Tragically, a local Putney resident-a much-loved husband and father, Mr Muhammad Bilal-was one of those people murdered.
Although one of our fellow citizens was caught up in the dreadful events in Lahore, it is always tempting to look at bad things happening in a foreign land and hope that we might somehow be insulated from them. We might be tempted to think that such events spring from a tradition very different from our own and that it could not happen here. However, this country has long-standing and very close political and diplomatic ties with Pakistan, which have been reinforced through the bonds of friendship and family over many decades. That has been manifested in many positive ways. Most recently, there has been a hugely generous response from the British people to the devastating floods that affected millions of people in Pakistan.
However, there have also been some less welcome developments that have resulted in part from the ongoing close ties of culture and religion between Pakistan and its diaspora. The Ahmadi Muslim community in the UK has noticed that disturbing trend in the months since the Lahore massacres. As has been alluded to, the persecution of Ahmadis has intensified in tone and frequency around our country, particularly in south-west London. There have been the incidents described today of intimidation during the general election, and posters and leaflets with aggressive and derogatory messages have appeared around the area. I have been shown images of posters put up in Scotland that denounce Ahmadis as infidels and publish their place of worship. That leaves those observing the poster to read between the lines.
As the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden has said, many local newspapers, including the Wandsworth Guardian, have reported on organised boycotts of Ahmadi- owned businesses. Much of the written material that has appeared treads a conscious line between what is illegal and what is merely very unpleasant. A recent Ofcom investigation into provocative broadcasts by faith-based satellite TV channels was hampered by uncertainty about where some programmes had been shown. Translation has also sometimes proved a problem, with the exact nuances of some terms often disputed, even though the intent is obvious. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to keep a close liaison with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport with regard to broadcasting guidelines to ensure that loopholes are not exploited in such a way. I am certainly confident that we are not talking about restricting the right of free speech; we are talking about ensuring that people do not exploit loopholes to do the very opposite of the notion of free speech.
Whatever the details of individual events, we do not have to read too far between the lines to see that a deeply worrying trend is developing. Throughout history, we have seen where such trends have led. Indeed, we are reminded by the origins of the word "boycott" of the sectarian divisions that have scarred Ireland for many centuries. We must speak out now against persecution at home and abroad. Rather than keep our silence or let things be too low key, we must speak out before it is too late and further tragedies take place abroad or here.
I do not know, and actually I do not care, about the doctrinal differences that underpin so much of this unpleasant activity. I care about this country's tradition of religious tolerance, which we were rightly reminded earlier is still evolving and is not perfect. Nevertheless, we can take some pride in it. That tradition must
embrace and protect the Ahmadi community, as it has protected other religious groups before. It is a tradition of religious tolerance that we urge Governments around the world to adopt and that our own Government should encourage at all times. I am sure the Minister will touch on that.
In the UK, I welcome the measures already taken by the borough commander of Wandsworth police to investigate what is happening in my local community. That investigation was urged by my hon. Friend the Member for Putney and others, and is supported by Wandsworth council, as well as many councillors and community leaders. There is more that can and should be done by all Members of Parliament to give leadership to attempts to combat rising intolerance. I will certainly be playing my part, and I am glad that this debate has offered us all the opportunity to draw attention to this very grave matter.
3.6 pm
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab): I will contribute briefly to the debate, because most of the points have already been very well made by other hon. Members. I represent Scunthorpe county constituency. Picking up the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) made in initiating the debate, prejudice is unfortunately something that we must live and work with in all our communities and get the better of through tolerance.
A few years ago, an Ahmadi community came to Scunthorpe and applied for planning permission for a mosque. That drew huge objections from the local community. However, the planning application was perfectly correct and went through. The mosque was built and those who lived in the community got on with their lives. A few months after the mosque had been established and opened, the neighbour who had led the series of objections knocked on the door of the mosque. They said to the person who answered the door, "I just wanted to apologise for having led that process of objection because you have been fantastic neighbours. You contribute to the community and we are proud to have you as our neighbour."
That little story demonstrates the way in which prejudice is often overcome by people living together and becoming more knowledgeable about each other. The sadness of the situation in Pakistan is that that does not appear to be the case. I agree with the comments already made: whatever the British Government can do in working with the Pakistani authorities to try to address the concerns about intolerance and violence towards the Ahmadi community in Pakistan would be very welcome. We must be ever-vigilant in this country to ensure that our tradition of religious tolerance is protected and celebrated. We must also ensure that the incidents that we have sadly heard about this afternoon and that have been reported more recently in the press do not increase. We must ensure that such incidents lessen, so that there is an increased growth in tolerance. Thank you for letting me contribute to the debate, Mrs Brooke.
Annette Brooke (in the Chair): Would any other hon. Member like to make a contribution? If not, I call John Spellar.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |