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Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, I support the amendments in the names of the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, and the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. In their speeches at earlier stages of the Bill, they trenchantly set out—as they have done again today—the arguments why we should be cautious in proceeding to "roll out"—as the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, described it—these arrangements in many parts of the country.

The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was given his first political appointment in 1983 when he acted as my agent in the general election of that year. Since then I have watched with considerable pleasure as he has honed his formidable skills and won just acclaim as one of the country's most knowledgeable commentators on electoral practice. I think that the House would do well to listen to the caution he urged in his remarks today. Those remarks are based on real practical experience of how elections are run.

Over the 25 years that I represented people in Liverpool both as a city councillor and as a Member of Parliament—and it is a city that the Minister knows very well—the election statistic that always interested me most after the size of the majority was the election turnout. In often keenly fought contests, the turnout in that constituency was always the highest in Liverpool and among the highest on Merseyside. Over the past decade, however, it has depressed and disturbed me to see declining turnouts and large-scale absenteeism at the polls. In one ward by-election in Liverpool, turnout was a paltry 6 per cent. When 94 per cent of the electorate decide to absent themselves from voting, grave doubt is cast on the legitimacy of the election and on our institutions as well. Where here is an electoral mandate? Where here is a commitment to civil society?

Nor was that an aberration. City-wide turnout in local elections in recent years has rarely seen more than one in five voting, and in the most recent general election the Liverpool Riverside constituency achieved one of the lowest turnouts in the UK, with a turnout of just 34.8 per cent. Voter alienation manifests itself in other ways as well—through, for instance, support for groups such as the British Movement in the Lancashire town of Burnley.

The answer to this alienation is to re-engage with the voters. The absence of direct political contact on a regular face-to-face, person-to-person basis is one of the reasons why voters have switched off. Instead of re-engagement, however, we tend to try to dream up ever more novel ways to enable a shrinking group of people to cast their votes. While I am not intrinsically opposed to the extension of postal voting, I am seriously concerned that this debate is simply a distraction from the more fundamental question of why people are disengaging from politics and from

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their civic duty to vote. I am also extremely worried that the way in which this measure has been promoted will create more cynicism, rather than abate it.

I shall divide my remaining remarks into two questions on the principles and the practicalities.

The Electoral Commission has been right to argue for a guarded and cautious approach to postal voting. As we have heard, the commission recommended a pilot scheme to be conducted in areas geared up to dealing with potential abuse and fraud and then for an assessment and evaluation to be carried out before deciding whether to extend the scope of postal voting. The commission says that that could be a useful contribution in increasing participation, and certainly evidence from boroughs such as St Helens, where postal votes were used last year, would tend to bear that out. However, from an empirical point of view, what would be really useful is to know whether that is just a passing fancy—an aberration—or a long-term, solid achievement. Clearly such an evaluation would need to take place over several elections for that to become clear.

What we lose by the extension of that principle is the physical presence that voting at a polling station requires of each citizen. It takes only a few minutes each year to vote at a polling station. Noble Lords who have served in local authorities or in both Houses may not think it an enormous burden to give up a few minutes each year in order to be personally present to vote. It is part of living in a country with the privileges of freedom and liberty that we enjoy.

GK Chesterton's Edwardian poem "The Secret People" contains a famous admonition to politicians and a reminder of the electoral day of reckoning. He said:

"we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.

Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget".

If the voters are not to be seen asserting their rights and liberties through the ballot box, we will lose something special from our democracy, and perhaps the politicians will be more inclined to forget. It was Gladstone's first administration who provided for the secret ballot so that landowners could no longer evict their tenants and employers could no longer discriminate against their workers when voters exercised their franchise against their master's wishes. The safeguards in postal voting are nowhere near as great as those offered by being physically present to vote.

Another principle at stake is the contamination of the impartial process of elections themselves. When the two major opposition parties object to the arbitrary overturning of the Electoral Commission's recommendations, it breaks the consensus that should always be at the heart of how we organise elections. Charges of manipulation, partisan advantage, gerrymandering and the rest, damage the whole process and can be completely avoided by proceeding only when there is inter-party agreement. It is a very bad principle to ride roughshod over the safeguards. It casts a shadow over the process and risks undermining the legitimacy of the process itself.

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So much for the principles, but what about the practicalities? The Electoral Commission said that it was not able to make a positive recommendation that the north-west region was suitable to undertake a pilot scheme in 2004. If the commission cannot offer such a recommendation, how can the Government be in a position to do so?

I was looking at a table of comparative experience in organising postal voting. The number of authorities in the north-west is 43, and only 14 per cent—six of them—have any experience of all-postal pilots. By comparison, in the north-east, 65.2 per cent of authorities have that experience. Clearly, the north-east region is in a much better position to carry it out, which is why the Electoral Commission said what it did.

I have also been in correspondence with the leader of Liverpool City Council—Councillor Mike Storey. I put to him several questions about electoral fraud and multi-occupancy of properties, and his remarks bear out the need to proceed with caution. His letter referred to comments made by the Electoral Commission, which stated:

"There have been several allegations of electoral fraud in the North West in recent years. These have centred around interference with postal votes, or intimidatory procurement of proxy votes in conventional elections. Some of these investigations could proceed to court in early 2004. This would be likely to produce unfavourable publicity about the security of postal voting".

Again that will lead to the contamination and the undermining of the process. I also asked about the complexity of running such an election, and he said:

"An all out council election for the whole city, on new ward boundaries, which do not fit existing constituency boundaries, plus the Euro election at the same time, fills me with great concern about the effective organisation of such an exercise. This is especially so as time is short, and planning started later because the North West was specifically recommended not to be included in the pilot in the Commission's report of 8th December.

He continued:

"Given the Freepost for the Euro, as well as an all postal, I estimate that we are looking at 40–50 million additional items for the Post Office to deliver. I suspect it will be chaotic if this pilot goes ahead".

In cities such as Liverpool and Manchester there is the other issue of multi-occupancy. I well recall from my days as a Member of Parliament that multi-occupancy and vacant properties were frequently where fraudulent votes came from. I remember vividly a group of members of the Militant Tendency who had written on the back of their hands the names of voters whom they had come to the polling station to personate. I saw that with my own eyes and complained about it at the time, and the police were called. How much easier it will be to carry out such abuses using this measure.

There are principled and practical reasons why we should proceed with great caution before messing around with the electoral process. I commend the amendments to the House.

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3.30 p.m.

Lord Greaves: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, referred to some of the information that I provided in the Grand Committee about the allegation of widespread fraud involving postal voting in towns in the north of England. I shall not repeat it today as it is set out in Hansard and is available for people to read, but towns such as Bradford, Oldham, Bolton, Bury, Rochdale, Blackburn, Burnley and my own district of Pendle have all been involved.

Although there have been only a few prosecutions, some police investigations are still going on, and it is widely accepted among politicians of all parties that fraud has taken place, and that it is likely to happen if there is all-postal voting. I chaired a meeting last week, which was attended by many members of the Asian communities from the towns throughout the north-west. They expressed great concern that all-postal voting will lead to fraudulent activity and put a great deal of pressure on the Asian communities. It will be difficult for the political parties to stamp out fraud completely, although we shall do our best.

Secondly, I agree almost entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, who made an excellent speech. Unlike the noble Lord, I am still active in party politics in the region. Since the Grand Committee, I have talked to election staff in the different authorities who have expressed great concern. I am referring not only to those authorities which will have all-out elections in new boundaries, where the whole process itself will be difficult, but to authorities such as Pendle, where we shall have ordinary local elections using the old boundaries. There is great concern that the region as a whole is not ready for such an experiment either administratively or in a practical way.

Thirdly, I reinforce what my noble friend Lord Rennard said. In the past fortnight, I have talked to people in the north-west from across the parties. They believe that the change is being made for two reasons: first, because it will improve the prospects of the Labour Party in these elections. I think that they are wrong and that the Government are wrong if that is their motivation behind it, but there is no doubt that that is widely believed within the Labour Party in the region. Secondly, it is believed that the measure will help to stop the BNP winning seats. As I said in the Grand Committee, I believe that they are wrong about that too. If it is possible to rig elections, there is no doubt that all-postal voting will make it much easier for unscrupulous people to rig elections. I would not put the BNP at the top of the list of the most scrupulous political parties in the country.

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