draft European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) regulations 2013
The Committee consisted of the following Members:
Anderson, Mr David (Blaydon) (Lab)
† Andrew, Stuart (Pudsey) (Con)
Campbell, Mr Ronnie (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
Champion, Sarah (Rotherham) (Lab)
† David, Wayne (Caerphilly) (Lab)
† Djanogly, Mr Jonathan (Huntingdon) (Con)
† Hands, Greg (Chelsea and Fulham) (Con)
† Henderson, Gordon (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
† Newmark, Mr Brooks (Braintree) (Con)
† Russell, Sir Bob (Colchester) (LD)
Shannon, Jim (Strangford) (DUP)
† Smith, Miss Chloe (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office)
† Stringer, Graham (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
† Turner, Karl (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
† Vickers, Martin (Cleethorpes) (Con)
† Wright, Simon (Norwich South) (LD)
Jean-Paul Flaherty, Committee Clerk
† attended the Committee
Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee
Thursday 12 September 2013
[Mr Andrew Turner in the Chair]
Draft European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2013
11.30 am
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith): I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2013.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner, in this rather briskly temperatured room this morning. I have a fairly long set of remarks to cover the extent of what the regulations will do, and I hope that the Committee will bear with me.
The regulations will update the rules for the administration and conduct of European elections, flowing from changes made for UK parliamentary elections under the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 and associated secondary legislation. They will also provide for the implementation of a European Union directive concerning non-national EU citizens standing as candidates at European parliamentary elections, and make other changes to the administration and conduct of those elections. The amendments are needed to support the effective administration of the European parliamentary elections next May.
The measures are designed to improve the accessibility and security of the voting process, and they will implement a number of recommendations made by, among others, the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators since the last European parliamentary elections in 2009. The Cabinet Office has consulted on the regulations, the underlying policies in the 2013 Act and related secondary legislation with the Electoral Commission, the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, the territorial offices and colleagues in the Government of Gibraltar. We were fully involved in the discussions about the new directive with the European Commission, and have worked to ensure that its implementation is proportionate and workable in the UK context.
The 2013 Act made a number of changes to the rules for UK parliamentary elections, which are set out in primary legislation, but the rules for European elections are set out in secondary legislation. The regulations therefore make some corresponding updates for European parliamentary elections. They contain measures that will improve the accessibility of the voting process for electors and the security of the process, which are important twin aims.
I will begin with the measures related to accessibility. The regulations will enable postal votes to be dispatched further in advance of polling day, which will be of particular help to those at remote locations, including overseas and service voters, as it will give them more time to receive, complete and return their postal vote in
time for it to be counted. Enabling postal votes to be issued as soon as practicable at an election will facilitate the early dispatch of postal votes soon after the close of nominations, which is 19 working days before polling day. It will give administrators the flexibility to dispatch postal votes earlier than the 11th day before the poll, which is currently the earliest that postal votes may be issued.As a consequence of the earlier dispatch of postal votes, the regulations will also ensure that electors can continue to cancel their postal vote where appropriate and arrange instead to vote in person or by proxy, provided that they do so before the postal vote application deadline and that the ballot papers have not already been completed and returned to the returning officer.
The regulations will also introduce a set of up-to-date voter-facing forms and notices, including poll cards, postal voting statements and the ballot paper, which are intended to make the voting process more accessible. That reflects moves in recent years to modernise the appearance of various other voter-facing forms, which I think is to the good. The revised material has been produced following a programme of public user testing and consultation with the Electoral Commission, the AEA, the territorial offices, electoral services suppliers and Scope. We acknowledge all their input and advice received during the consultation and are grateful for it.
Furthermore, the regulations will permit those who had planned to vote in person but were called away at short notice before polling day on business or military service to appoint an emergency proxy to vote on their behalf, which builds on the current facility for those taken ill. That follows a recommendation from the Electoral Commission and the AEA that the current facility be expanded.
Hon. Members will recall that during the passage of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, the Government listened to the considerable parliamentary interest that there was in the need to ensure that there is a mechanism in place to deal with any queues that form at polling stations at close of poll, given the isolated but highly publicised instances of queues at polling stations at the 2010 general election. The regulations therefore reflect for European parliamentary elections the 2013 Act’s provision for UK parliamentary elections, whereby voters waiting in a queue at the close of poll—that is, at 10 pm on polling day—for the purpose of voting may be issued with a ballot paper and may cast their vote.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab): Does the Minister really visualise a situation in which people are queuing at the polls to vote in the European parliamentary elections next year? Quite honestly, it is difficult to get people to vote at all, never mind get them queuing up.
Miss Smith: The hon. Lady raises an extremely pertinent point. She will know that it is my wish, and the wish of many Government Members, that people should take a fervent interest in our position on the European Union, and that we should have the chance to vote more on such issues, whether those votes are cast at 9.59 pm or at any other time of the day or night. Far more relevantly, let me say that the regulations enable us to put in place provisions for circumstances that may be unusual, but for which none the less we ought to make provision.
However, that provision is not a substitute for good planning by regional and local returning officers at elections; they ought to be able to ensure the orderly conduct of a poll. It is for returning officers to make sufficient provision, in terms of the number of polling stations and staffing levels, to manage the volume of electors likely to vote at polling stations. On a related note, the regulations contain a measure to ensure that returning officers are accountable, reflecting as they do for European parliamentary elections the 2013 Act’s provision for UK Parliamentary elections, whereby returning officers’ fees may be reduced or withheld by the Secretary of State following a recommendation by the Electoral Commission.
The regulations also put into legislation the requirement that all postal votes be subject to a key security check, in which the signature and date of birth on the postal voting statement are checked against records. That improves on the current requirement to check at least 20% of postal votes. Checking 100% of postal votes has been funded at previous elections, and that was achieved by a large proportion of returning officers; however, we want to ensure that all postal votes are subject to the same high level of scrutiny.
The regulations include a related measure that helps to ensure that the voting process remains accessible, but also that there is a renewed focus on the security of the process. The measure requires electoral registration officers, or EROs, to inform electors after a poll if their postal vote was rejected because the signature or the date of birth that they supplied on the postal voting statement failed to match those held on record, or if parts of the statement were simply left blank. That is designed to help ensure that those electors can take part effectively in future elections, and will not have their ballot papers rejected at successive polls because they are making inadvertent errors or their signature has degraded over time. It will help legitimate voters who submit their postal ballot packs in good faith to avoid their vote being rejected at successive elections. It also gives EROs the flexibility to challenge, when there is any cause for concern about the validity of postal votes, in the context of all postal votes being scrutinised. That measure is clearly helpful.
Given that EROs will not be obliged to inform individuals where fraud is suspected, the measure also gives an opportunity for any such suspicions to be collated and reported to the police, where that is warranted. It ensures that particular attention is paid to the way in which mismatches appear and gives a chance to identify patterns or anomalies that may indicate that malpractice has been attempted. The changes will strengthen the integrity of the electoral process and give an additional safeguard against electoral fraud, and are an improvement on the present arrangements. We want to build on and encourage best practice.
The regulations also provide for police community support officers—PCSOs—to enter polling stations and counting venues under the same conditions as police constables, in line with the corresponding provisions in the 2013 Act. The provision does not extend the power of PCSOs, or give them the power of arrest, but it will allow police forces additional flexibility in deploying their resources on polling day and enable them to provide greater visible reassurance to the public. The provision will act as a further safeguard against fraud
being committed in polling stations. The Association of Chief Police Officers and the Electoral Commission have expressed support for the provision.Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab): The Minister has explained how the regulations have been tightened up to stop people harvesting postal votes. When she mentions fraud in polling stations, I assume that she is talking about personation. Are the European regulations on personation the same as those that apply in our general elections? Is a record kept of ballot papers, as it is in general elections, if personation occurs?
Miss Smith: I will write to the hon. Gentleman about that matter, because I do not believe that it is covered by the regulations. Finally, the regulations implement a Council of the European Union directive that amends an existing Council directive by providing that an EU citizen living in a member state of which they are not a national may vote and stand as a candidate in European parliamentary elections in their state of residence. In previous European parliamentary elections, a candidate who wished to stand for election in the UK and who was an EU citizen—but not a UK, Irish or Commonwealth citizen—had to provide certification from their member state of citizenship that they were not disqualified from standing in European elections in that state when they submitted their nomination for candidacy. I hope the Committee follows that; the provision is rather complicated.
That will change under the new directive, and from the 2014 polls, candidates or nominating officers will be able to ask the UK Government to request information from their home member state. That requirement will be applied across all member states and is designed to remove a perceived barrier to non-nationals standing for election in member states where they reside. The existing provision that allows candidates to obtain the declaration themselves will remain in place as an alternative choice for candidates and parties. The Government will liaise closely with colleagues and regional returning officers in the implementation of the directive.
The provisions make sensible and relevant changes regarding the conduct and administration of European elections, in line with those that are being made for UK parliamentary elections. They are designed to increase voter participation, further improve the integrity of our electoral system and ensure that the processes underpinning our elections are more robust and more relevant to voters’ needs.
The Chair: I call Mr David Wayne.
11.43 am
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab): Wayne David. It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Turner Andrew. We support the regulations, but I want to make a few comments and ask the Minister a couple of questions.
One of the unique features of elections to the European Parliament is that they are, I believe, the only elections conducted in the United Kingdom in which Gibraltar is allowed to participate. In such elections, Gibraltar is linked to south-west England. I notice from the explanatory memorandum that there has been consultation with the Government of Gibraltar. Will the Minister elaborate on that? As my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall has suggested, the elections are not renowned for their
high turnout. Nevertheless, the votes in Gibraltar could be significant in determining who represents south-west England in the European Parliament. There needs to be co-ordination and collaboration, as electoral processes here differ slightly from those in Gibraltar. Will the Minister elaborate on that?Secondly, I seek reassurance on bilingual ballot papers in Wales. Although that is not the Minister’s responsibility, she will be cognisant that back in November there was almighty confusion, to put it mildly, on issuing ballot papers for the police and crime commissioner elections. Although we and others told the Government firmly that new secondary legislation was required to provide bilingual ballot papers for those elections, I think the Home Office denied that that was the case. However, belatedly it recognised that, indeed, a new legislative base was required. We therefore had the farcical situation of two sets of ballot papers being printed for Wales: one lot entirely in English and another printed in English and Welsh. Thankfully, with our help, the Government were able to get new secondary legislation through to allow bilingual ballot papers. The result, however, was that the English-only papers had to be destroyed, at great public expense. Although we are talking about new secondary legislation, will the Minister assure me that no such mistakes or omissions will be made again?
My third point relates to the implementation of the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013. As I am sure the Minister recalls, one of the issues raised in the passage of that Act was that of people in queues being able to vote in elections, even though they might not have got into the polling station and been issued with a ballot paper when the polls closed at 10 o’clock. The Government were extremely reluctant to accept an amendment, which was sponsored on a cross-party basis and supported by the Electoral Commission, and voted against it in the Commons. However, when the Bill got to the Lords, the Government —quite rightly, in my view—accepted an amendment.
Paragraphs 25 and 26 propose to implement that part of the Act. My question relates to paragraph 26, because the wording is rather strange, and the Electoral Commission has commented on that paragraph. First, it said that it would have liked more consultation on it; secondly, it pointed out a potential perverse interpretation of the paragraph. I will not read the paragraph out, as Members have it in front of them, but when read carefully, it could be interpreted as saying that as long as a person with a postal vote was in a queue to cast that vote when the polls closed, it would not matter when their vote was returned. Ridiculous though that may seem, a literal interpretation of that regulation may allow an individual with a postal vote who was in the queue at the time to cast that vote at any time after the poll closes. That is obviously not the Government’s intention, so will the Minister give clarification, and assurance that that potential loophole and complication has been considered and will be addressed if necessary? A categorical commitment from her, here and now, would certainly help.
With those few comments and requests for clarification, we will be happy to support the regulation. I look forward to the Minister’s comments.
11.49 am
Miss Smith: I am shocked that no other member of the Committee feels sufficiently engaged by the regulations to speak, but I should be delighted to try to put at rest the mind of the hon. Member for Caerphilly.
On the hon. Gentleman’s question about Gibraltar, I can confirm, as I said, that the Government have consulted the Government of Gibraltar and we have every confidence that that has been effective. He is right to note that it is in European parliamentary elections that Gibraltar participates alongside the rest of Great Britain. We all share the desire to ensure consistency, as far as possible, in the conduct of the poll across the combined region of south-west England and Gibraltar. The Government of Gibraltar agree that the UK Parliament, which has the competence to do so, may legislate on Gibraltar’s behalf in such cases.
Moving on to the question about bilingual ballot papers, a separate Welsh forms order will be laid before Parliament in the coming months, before the European parliamentary elections. The forms are being prepared in consultation with interested parties, including electoral administrators in Wales and the Electoral Commission. I reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am keen for that to be conducted in as orderly a fashion as work on any other area of the regulations.
The hon. Gentleman’s final point relates to paragraph 26 of the regulations, and I will take it head-on. I am aware of the Electoral Commission’s concern that the measure, as drafted, could be interpreted by an elector to mean that if they join a queue with a postal ballot paper before the close of the poll, they could then leave the queue and would, by virtue of the fact that they had been in the queue at the close of the poll at 10 o’clock, be entitled to return their postal ballot paper to the returning officer or a member of their staff elsewhere. That is a slim and near-impossible eventuality, but if genuine concerns exist on that point, they can sensibly be dealt with in Electoral Commission guidance, rather than in regulations. The Association of Electoral Administrators and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives agree with that approach. Indeed, both organisations have offered their support for the paragraph as drafted.
It is also worth saying that the current wording is particularly welcomed by those who run elections, because it gives them the flexibility to run polling stations as they see fit, and to allow people who are waiting in a queue at 10 o’clock to hand in a postal ballot early to the staff of the local returning officer, which could reduce the queue and would allow postal ballots to get to the count sooner. It is far better to work closely on ensuring that guidance adequately sets that out. In line with our statutory obligations, before laying this statutory instrument before Parliament, we consulted the Electoral Commission by sharing with it an early draft and then a final draft, which included the final wording to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I hope that those words satisfy the Committee.