| Previous Section | Back to Table of Contents | Lords Hansard Home Page |
Lord Renton: My Lords, while I welcome the appointment of 12 experienced Members of your Lordships' House to the committee, I ask the Lord Chancellor to bear in mind that there is a greater need for consolidation of statutes now than for many years, especially those statutes relating to criminal justice, of which there are about a dozen amending statutes. Will he therefore advise the Joint Committee, when it is appointed, of the need to get down to the consolidation work, especially in relation to criminal justice Acts?
Lord Falconer of Thoroton: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Renton, for that intervention. Of course, I shall pass on to the committee the points that he made. I also thoroughly agree with what he said in relation to the need to consolidation being urgent now and far more urgent than before.
On Question, Motion agreed to; and a message was ordered to be sent to the Commons to acquaint them therewith.
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
Lord Grocott: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Rooker on the Order Paper.
Moved, That the amendments for the Report stage be marshalled and considered in the following order: Clauses 1 to 40,
Schedule 1, Clauses 41 to 54, Schedule 2, Clauses 55 to 78, Schedule 3, Clauses 79 to 88, Schedule 4, Clause 89 Schedule 5, Clauses 90 to 117, Schedules 6 and 7, Clause 118, Schedule 8, Clause 119, Schedule 9, Clauses 120 to 124.—(Lord Grocott.)On Question, Motion agreed to.
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
3.10 p.m.
Clause 1 [Piloting conduct at European and local elections]:
Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 1:
- Page 1, line 19, leave out subsection (5) and insert—
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving this amendment, I shall also speak to Amendment No. 3. Those amendments are included in a very large group of amendments that are being introduced by the Government. We have been backwards and forwards over this issue in Committee. Subsequently, I had a meeting with the Minister and I thank him for giving us the opportunity for further discussion. However, I do not think it will come as any great surprise to him that we are not convinced by the arguments that he has advocated for piloting in four regions.
We believe that there are fundamental reasons why we should stand firm on this point. First, we think that it is irresponsible to hold a pilot scheme in nearly half of all the regions that will be holding combined European parliamentary and local elections in June. They form a substantial part of the electorate of England and therefore it can only tendentiously be described as a "pilot". Pilot schemes are designed to generate evidence on a system of voting that is new and that is by no means guaranteed as secure. We have conceded that there may be merit in trialling all-postal voting on a regional basis in the combined regions. It has already been trialled on a local basis in other schemes. However, we draw the line at a trial in four regions.
Secondly, the Government are disregarding the evidence contained in the Electoral Commission's report. Its conclusion was that only two regions—the north-east and the east Midlands—could be recommended as ready and able to undertake these schemes. I asked why the Government intend to ignore the advice of the Electoral Commission and have received no satisfactory answer from the Minister. Extensive research has been carried out. The Electoral Commission is impartial. It is an independent body set up by the Government to advise them and it is now deemed to be expert in electoral matters. I am sure that other noble Lords will have received a letter from the Electoral Commission from which it is interesting to note that it says that it has been involved in no further discussions with the two extra regions proposed by the Government:
Does the Minister, or his Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, believe that they know better than the commission? I think that the answer must be that they clearly do. In Committee, in relation to the Electoral Commission's advice, the Minister said:
I find this baffling. We have moved from a situation where the Government asked the Electoral Commission to put forward up to three best regions for piloting. The Electoral Commission said that it could only positively recommend two regions. Now there are four regions. The two additional regions are Yorkshire and the Humber and the north-west where there were issues with the unwillingness of the returning officers and the complex nature of some of the elections. They still remain. I know that from information that I have received since Committee. The strongest possible objections remain to all-postal pilots in these regions. That view has been made extremely clear to the Government, including by a motion passed by Bradford City Council in October of last year saying that it was opposed to the idea of piloting in these combined elections.
There is deep concern about fraud and security issues. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, drew our attention to the problems experienced in previous piloting. It is against this background that the Government are proposing to bludgeon two unwilling regions, and many unwilling local authority chief executives, into running a pilot vote.
The Minister made it clear that he does not believe that the lack of enthusiasm of returning officers, or the possibility of malpractice, should be impediments to piloting the all-postal scheme. The Electoral Commission clearly thought that they should. Our faith rests in the experts and we remain adamant that only the two original regions should pilot the election: the north-east and the east Midlands.
In response to our intention to limit the pilot to only these two regions, the Minister commented:
Despite what the Minister may feel about this, we are not trying to cause trouble. We feel that the Government are taking a big risk that is not justifiable in terms of a possible increase in turnout. We need to balance innovation against security and the safety of our democratic process.
Finally, I shall say a brief word about the detail of the two amendments that we have tabled. After our welcome meeting with the Minister, we thought that it was important to signal immediately our continued opposition to any more than two regions being on the face of the Bill and to do so by tabling the old amendment that we put down to Clause 1 in Committee. This is Amendment No. 1. However, we are willing to accept the Minister's argument that, if we decide to move on Amendment No. 1, it would mean that it would fall outside the scope of the restructuring of the Bill that the Minister is trying to do, which is to enable just one order to be laid, rather than two. Therefore, we have now put forward Amendment No. 3. If, having heard what the Minister has to say, I believe it to be necessary, that will be the amendment that we shall pursue. I beg to move.
Lord Rennard: My Lords, I rise in support of Amendment No. 3. A number of your Lordships have expressed considerable reservations about all-postal voting—or compulsory voting by post, as I prefer to call it. I shall not dwell in detail on all those reservations but they fall into three broad areas. First, there are concerns about lack of secrecy and privacy in voting, which some people believe undermine the basic principles of the Secret Ballot Act of 1872. Secondly, there are considerable concerns about potential fraud with all-postal voting, particularly in relation to homes in multi-occupation where people are not at all sure who will receive the ballot papers that are put through the letter box and who will return them.
There are also concerns about the timing of all-postal voting mechanisms. We now understand that in these all-postal voting pilots in June, the ballot papers will be delivered between 25 and 29 May, some two weeks before the official polling day and two weeks before many people have made up their minds,
Notwithstanding all those reservations about some of the problems associated with postal voting, it seems to me right to consider that there should be an element of pilot experiments to see whether the concerns are valid. So perhaps the idea of having the two pilots in the north-east region and the east Midlands should be supported. However, I believe that no case whatever has been made for having more than two experiments. If there is a case for experimentation, why should it occur in more than two regions?
The Government have given us no explanation for their fundamental change of heart on the issue. Only a few months ago, their view was that there should be no all-postal pilot experiments and that the only experiment this June should be the combining of the local and the European elections. The Government's position then changed from no all-postal pilots to three all-postal pilots. They had to ask the independent Electoral Commission, given its expertise and various criteria, to recommend three regions for such experimentation. The Electoral Commission said that it could positively support only a proposal for two regions and that only that would be suitable. We therefore assumed that only two pilots would go forward. Now, however, the Government seem to be opting for four pilots. I believe that operating four pilots—effectively four of the eight regions in England, and almost half the local authorities that will vote in June—amounts to rolling out all-postal voting rather than "experimenting" with it. It is a fundamental change to voting mechanisms.
Of course, there is time for progress in deciding how voting mechanisms should be changed. However, if changes are to be made, they should not be made unilaterally by one party which imposes change on all the other parties without the support of the independent Electoral Commission—which itself was established to avoid accusations that parties were changing voting systems for purely partisan advantage.
The idea of four pilot regions plainly does not have the support of the Electoral Commission. I believe that the problems are such that it would be wrong to subject half of England and nearly half of local authorities to all-postal voting methods. A few hundred votes may not seem terribly important in European elections in which millions of votes are cast. However, a few hundred votes may make a great difference in many local authorities and in many wards. The problems associated with all-postal voting often occur in inner-city areas and houses in multiple occupation. I believe that a too widespread use of all-postal voting could cause a false result and make the difference in many areas.
There is a strong feeling that this is not just about legitimate experimentation; two pilots would have been sufficient to accomplish that. There is a strong suspicion that such widespread all-postal voting has been proposed to ensure that the overall national result is more palatable to the Government. The
"(5) An order under this section may only specify—
(a) the North East;
(b) the East Midlands; and
(c) any local authorities within those electoral regions which are due to hold elections on the same date."
"The Commission was unable to make a positive recommendation in respect of those regions having assessed their suitability against the criteria we applied . . . We have not ourselves been involved in further discussions".
Then how have the Government assessed the suitability of the two extra regions?
"It has given us advice. We have not asked it to make the decision but to investigate the issues and give its analysis and reasons, and what underpinned its reasons. We have asked it to investigate, appraise and advise, not to decide".—[Official Report, 26/01/04; col. GC 18.]
"Otherwise we are saying that we shall never have postal voting on a wider scale than in those areas where people are interested".—[Official Report, 26/1/04; col. GC 20.]
We do not believe this to be the case. These are pilot elections, trial schemes and experimentation. It seems sensible to have them in regions that are confident about using the all-postal system and that want to give it a try. If these prove successful, as I hope that they will, next time round it is likely that there will be more enthusiasm and confidence from other returning officers and the all-postal system can be widened to include more regions. Of course, that is unless the Government are going to try to bounce all-postal elections on other elections.
3.15 p.m.
Next Section
Back to Table of Contents
Lords Hansard Home Page