Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order 2016
(8 years, 3 months ago)
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The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 2 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Committee divided: - Ayes: 9 / Noes: 2 - Question accordingly agreed to.
The Minister for Immigration (James Brokenshire)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order 2016.
Thank you, Ms Buck. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and to welcome other members of the Committee to this consideration of the draft Immigration and Nationality (Fees) Order 2016. The order sets out the maximum amounts that can be charged for broad categories of immigration and nationality functions for the next four years, which is the expected life of this order. Maximum fee amounts are ceilings, limiting the amount that may be charged in subsequent fee regulations; they therefore set out that broad framework.
This order is to be made using the charging provisions in sections 68 to 70 of the Immigration Act 2014, which consolidated and simplified the charging provisions from three previous Acts and allows for such multi-year arrangements. Like the previous order, the maximum amount for each category is set to accommodate the highest individual fee in each category. In most cases, the categories will contain a number of different, individual fees. I want to make clear that the maximum amounts are not targets that the Home Office will seek to charge by the end of the four-year period. Rather, these maximums will allow the Home Office to be responsive over the next four years to the needs of customers, the Department and the taxpayer, and to meet the Government’s objective, as announced at the spending review, of a border and immigration system that is fully funded by those who use it by 2019-20.
The fees order will also enable us to expand the scope of our premium service and provide greater flexibility to deliver services directly to customers and organisations that request an increased or tailored level of support. We continue to ensure that measures are in place to enable appropriate scrutiny of our proposals and to ensure that immigration and nationality fees continue to be transparent and set in the best interests of the UK. The individual fee levels will be set out in negative regulations. We expect to lay regulations shortly setting fees for 2016-17. We have published a fees table that shows our intentions for individual fees in 2016-17.
To support the Government’s approach towards recovering an increased proportion of immigration and visa costs and transitioning to a self-financing border and immigration system, we propose to apply incremental increases to most immigration and nationality categories. To support economic growth, we intend to make relatively small fee increases for applications related to work, study and visit; these will increase by 2% next year. For example, the fees for short-term visit visas and tier 4 student visas would rise by £2 and £6 respectively. A number of visa and immigration fees will continue to be set at or below the estimated processing cost. The highest proposed increases to fees in 2016-17 are for optional services that offer an enhanced level of convenience and for routes that provide the most benefits and entitlements; for example, requests for bespoke application services and applications for indefinite leave to remain.
I know that all hon. Members will support a border and immigration system that controls immigration for the benefit of the UK while improves services to customers and reduces the cost to the UK taxpayer. I believe that this fees order, as an enabling provision, will help us to achieve this, and I commend it to the Committee.
Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Thank you, Ms Buck. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the chair. I indicate from the outset that we will not be opposing this order and we support the broad aim of making the border, immigration and citizenship system self-financing. It is right that the service is sustainably funded rather than being funded by the taxpayer. However, there are some issues on which we would like clarity from the Minister. The first of these relates to the introduction of premium-rate phone lines for visa applicants. Once the order is in force there will be a £2.50 a minute maximum charge for “the provision of advice, assistance or training in relation to functions in connection with immigration or nationality.” The Government have so far indicated that they intend to set the initial fee level at about £1 a minute, but the bracket is between £1 and £2.50 a minute.That seems questionable in principle, and I ask the Minister to provide more detail. In particular: is the premium-rate phone line for general inquiries about immigration status and visa applications or is it a special advice line? If it is not for general inquiries, will the Minister provide more detail about the circumstances in which it will be used?
I want to probe a particular example, and hopefully get some reassurance from the Minister. When the Immigration Bill was going through the Committee, attention was paid to the ability of landlords and employers to check the immigration status of those they might rent to or employ. Only this week, we saw the roll-out of the Immigration Act 2014 scheme for civil penalties for landlords who find themselves renting premises to people who do not have the right immigration status. The current Immigration Bill proposes to extend that provision by introducing a criminal penalty, and landlords are anxious about how that will work. So far, they have been reassured by the Home Office saying that it will be possible to carry out quick-and-easy checks on immigration status and that they therefore need not fear neither the introduction nor the extension of the scheme.
Is it anticipated that the premium-rate phone line will be the advice service for landlords? Will they be charged at the premium rate for carrying out their checks? That would be a major cause of concern for the Residential Landlords Association, which, I think, is under the impression that it will be either a free advice service or one with a limited charge, rather than £1, or even up to £2.50, a minute.
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
I wonder whether the hon. and learned Gentleman has experience, as I have, of constituents coming to surgeries saying that they are entitled to work here but that the Home Office is months behind with getting the paperwork sorted. The Home Office has then advised people to phone the not-yet-premium-rate line but their employers have said, “Look, I can’t be bothered. I don’t have the time”. Not only will the measure deter people who cannot be bothered because they have others they can employ; it will deter those who just do not want to pay the extortionate rate to make the call.
Keir Starmer
I am grateful for that intervention. It touches on an issue that we discussed in the Bill Committee, which is that for landlords and employers there is a risk, if checking immigration status is difficult and there is a penalty for getting it wrong—which, of course, there is—that they will default to a position where unless someone has a British passport and is white, they will not let them premises or employ them. That was not the first time that the concern was raised; it was brought up when the 2014 Immigration Bill was going through Parliament. All parties were concerned that there was a risk of indirect discrimination.
It is accepted that there is a risk. The Minister and the Home Office say that it is a manageable one, but one of the tools for managing the risk is the ability of landlords and employers quickly to get the advice they need. They say, unsurprisingly: “We are not experts in checking immigration status. There are many nationalities that will apply to rent a premises, or for a job, and we need to be able very swiftly to get an answer to any queries”.
Keir Starmer
I think that that was almost an instruction to give way, but I will in any event.
James Brokenshire
I would never dare to instruct the hon. and learned Gentleman in that manner. I can perhaps assist the Committee by explaining that the fees set out in the order relate to the overseas line. The landlords checking service is a different product, for which we have no intention of charging, and that applies also to the employers checking service.
Keir Starmer
I am glad to have that reassurance, which is in keeping with our debate in the Bill Committee, and I am sure that now it is on the record it will be clear for all to see. I am grateful for the Minister’s intervention.
I welcome the reduction in fees for dependent relatives of refugees. However, it is clear, going through the order, that the largest increases in 2016-17 are being imposed on those seeking British nationality or long-term residence, with many of those costs increasing by up to 25%. In contrast, the fees for those coming here on tier 2 skilled worker visas are being frozen or increased by 2%. It is right that we do not impose excessive costs on those coming here to do skilled work, but we must be careful to strike the right balance. The proposed fees under the order are higher than the 2015 maximums in more than a quarter of categories. Did something go wrong with the previous regime that required those changes under the order?
Secondly, when is the border, immigration and citizenship system expected to be self-financing, which is the aim? When do the Government plan to raise fees to achieve that? Thirdly, the order states that it will allow for increases over the next four years. Is the intention that, by the end of the four years, the likelihood is that the maximum fees will be charged? Fourthly, the impact assessment indicates that the planned increase in fees will cause application volumes to fall. Will the Minister provide more detail on the anticipated fall over the four years?
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck.
The Scottish National party opposes this order. We are concerned about the 25% increase across the board for family fees, and the huge hike in the administrative review fee from £80 to £400—a 500% increase. I am sure that the Minister will wish to emphasise, as he already has, that these are maximum ceilings and that lower indicative costs have been published for the coming year. But what guarantee do we have that they will not go to the maximum in the effort to make the system self-financing, which is the Government’s avowed aim? Committee members will no doubt have had an opportunity to look through the briefing from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, which makes some pertinent points. In particular, it highlights the fact that there is no correlation with the ability to pay, and that study and business-centred immigration is favoured over child and family issues. The Minister has said that he has given reasons, but we have grave concerns that the fee increase will be a disincentive to families, particularly those already here trying to register a child.
All Members have constituents coming to us with examples of the difficulties posed for them by the immigration system, and in November the ombudswoman published a report that was very critical of the Home Office. Let me give a couple of examples of constituents who have come to me about administrative reviews, which the ILPA has also highlighted. One constituent applied for a settlement visa for his wife, but the Home Office failed to communicate with Cambridge English Language Assessment about her certificate, which clearly stated that she had passed the English language assessment, and the application was refused. My constituent was forced to submit an administrative review and wait several months before the decision was overturned. It was a clear error on the Home Office’s part and resulted in his wasting money. I am sure the Minister will say that in certain circumstances the administrative fee is refunded, but as the ILPA briefing highlights, it is not refunded in all circumstances. For example, it says:
“The fee is refunded if the application is successful. It is not refunded where the refusal stands, but on some other ground, the original decision having indeed been found to have been flawed”.
I feel that that is against the principles of natural justice.
There is also the issue that regardless of the expectation that the fee may be refunded, people still have to stump up at the outset. There is a huge difference between £80 and £400, and that may be a disincentive to go for administrative review. During the passage of the Immigration Act 2014, the Government sought to reassure us that review would be cheaper than bringing an appeal, but these proposed maximums suggest that they have abandoned that idea. We should also remember that the increases must be seen in the context of increased thresholds for spousal visas, the removal of appeal rights and the removal of legal aid.
I want to speak briefly about another constituency example. A gentleman and his wife came to see me. They are both entrepreneurs and have invested considerably in the Scottish and, indeed, the UK economy and employed many UK citizens. Their application for a tier 1 entrepreneurship visa was rejected on grounds that were purely due to a Home Office mistake—a typographical error which meant that it searched for and investigated the wrong company in relation to the evidence of investment that had been produced. My constituent had stumped up a total of £7,200 up front to get the application in. I hope, because I believe in the principles of natural justice even within the Home Office, that an administrative review will be granted. My constituent’s business success means that he is in the fortunate position of being able to stump up the fee, but that does not detract from the fact that people are already expected to lay out large sums, and now considerable increases are proposed.
I know that the Government have said that one reason for the increases is to fund the costs of the system and make it self-financing. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East will talk more generally about the benefits of immigration for the UK and why we should question whether the system needs to be completely self-financing, but I make the point that the costs of the system would be substantially reduced if the Home Office addressed its considerable inefficiencies.
The report published on 10 November last year showed:
“Poor handling of immigration-related complaints is a key reason why the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman upholds almost seven in 10 complaints about the Home Office…The top reason for the complaints were delays, which left many people separated from their loved ones, denied access to education or forced into the informal economy where they can face abuse. Poor decision making was the second issue highlighted in the report, cited in more than one in four upheld complaints about the Home Office.”
I ask the Government, why should families who want to come and live in this union of countries and contribute to our economies have to pay for the Home Office’s inefficiencies? What is the Home Office doing to address those inefficiencies, rather than putting the costs on to the applicants?
Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)
As my hon. and learned Friend for Edinburgh South West says, the Government have stated that the excessive hike in fees is to cover the cost of running immigration services, with the aim of their becoming self-funding within four years. They say that those who benefit should pay for the services, which strongly implies that the British taxpayer does not benefit from immigration: immigrants add nothing to the UK, so why should the British taxpayer pay for those services? If we are going down that route, incidentally, I want to get out of paying for Trident. The Government do not have to reduce my tax bill; they could just put the money towards something that I think is beneficial. The idea is ridiculous because we have to take a collective approach to running these islands, and given that we do benefit from immigration, the costs should not be borne purely by those seeking to live and work here.
The Government recognise the impact of immigration in some circumstances, mainly where they can see a direct financial impact, but perhaps they need some help to see the bigger picture. We know that they recognise the benefits because it is only some who will be hit by these fee hikes. Large, wealthy multinational companies that require immigrant workers to make profits, for instance, will not see a rise in fees, with tier 2 sponsorship remaining at £1,476. Clearly the Government see that these immigrant workers are necessary for those companies and beneficial to our economy. Students who wish to study at our universities will also not experience a rise in fees, so again the Government can see the direct correlation between overseas students paying big money to universities and those establishments staying afloat. However, families who wish to be together and to practise the family values that the Conservatives are so fond of extoling will, in many cases, find the cost of being together out of reach. Are we to believe that “family values” is a reference to financial cost, rather than family relationships and bonds?
What of the student who we have previously welcomed because they will be paying big money for an education? Notwithstanding the problem of a lack of post-study work visas, there are still ways for that student to obtain a work visa, namely if he or she can get a graduate-level job. Let us take a civil engineer on a starting salary of just over £24,000 a year, although many start on lower salaries. They get a visa, they have enjoyed studying here and they want to settle for a while, so they apply to bring their spouse and children over. Do the Government honestly believe that a person on such a salary can afford to pay the proposed fees? This is yet another example of people being educated and gaining really useful skills at our universities, but the UK not getting the benefit of those skills. It does not make sense.
Far from embracing family values, the Government are clearly stating that families are not welcome, because otherwise why would they make it so excessively costly for them to come here to be with their loved ones? It is almost as if the Government do not believe that having a multicultural society and encouraging families of different ethnicities and cultures to mix is of any value to the UK whatsoever. It is as if they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. The Government do not seem to realise that when people come to live and work here, they buy property, furniture and cars, go to local shops and contribute skills that we are often short of, so they do contribute to our economy. I am embarrassed that the migrant integration policy index has ranked the UK 38th out of 38 for family-friendly immigration policies.
Finally, like my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West, I want to draw attention to the increase in fees for administrative reviews from £80 to £400. It is well documented that a large number of decisions are overturned at the review stage. Is this why the Government want to make such reviews out of reach to all but the better-off?
James Brokenshire
I am interested that the hon. Lady and the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West have suggested that the fees for admin reviews are rising to £400. The proposals published by the Home Office represent an increase in fees from £80 to £84.
Anne McLaughlin
If that is the case, why am I reading a figure of £400? The Government may charge up to that amount, and no one knows what the cost will be in the end. I remind the Committee about the large number of decisions that are found to be wrong at review stage and therefore overturned.
Perhaps the Minister forgets—I am sure that he has not—that I was a member of the Immigration Public Bill Committee. I am as certain as I possibly can be that he stated during our consideration that it did not matter if appeal rights were removed because an administrative review would be a cheaper option. Perhaps he is about to guarantee that all administrative reviews will cost the £84 he just cited, rather than £400, but I will be interested to hear what he has to say about the situation, given that he plans to increase the fees by an eye-watering 500% in some cases, although we do not know how many.
James Brokenshire
I appreciate the opportunity to clarify the situation in the light of some of more excitable statements that we heard from the hon. Lady about the increase in certain fees. It is important to state that the Government believe that those who use and benefit most from the immigration system should contribute more to that system’s cost, which means that it is appropriate to increase charges to users of services, application and processes, rather than continuing to rely on the UK taxpayer to meet the costs. As we set out at the spending review, the Government’s intention is that the border and immigration system is fully funded by those who use it by 2019-20. I think that that answers a question asked by the hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras.
The order is, in our judgment, an essential part of the immigration fees framework, enabling us to set fees regulations over the next four years, setting maximum amounts, which will provide the flexibility to adjust fee levels within those ceilings. However, as I think I indicated at the outset of the Committee, the important point is the framework and that flexibility. It is not our intention to try to maximise revenue. Indeed, if the hon. Member for Glasgow North East looks at the maximum fees we allowed ourselves in the last such order that was before this House, she will see that we certainly did not use the full flexibility allowed by that order, and we would not seek to do so in these circumstances. It is about ensuring that we have that broad basket—that broad range—to enable the move to the process that I have outlined.
Anne McLaughlin
The Minister has said a couple of times today that the reason for the change is that the service should be self-funded by those who use it, but the impact assessment—and everything else the Government have put out—refers to
“those who use and benefit”
from it. Maybe it was an excitable statement, in his view, when I talked about whether he recognised that we benefit from immigration, but can I ask: does he, in fact, recognise that this country benefits from immigration and that therefore we should share the costs?
James Brokenshire
If the hon. Lady looks at the things I have said and the approach we have taken, for example on the growth routes—she highlighted the 2% increase in tier 2 and tier 4—she will see that it recognises the contribution made in those circumstances. Therefore, that is the approach we have taken to the fees that we would propose for 2016-17. It is important that we strike a good balance between the economic interests of the UK and the need to maintain a sound immigration system. We will seek to ensure that fees for immigration and nationality services enable the UK to retain its position as an attractive destination to work in, study in and visit.
Keir Starmer
The briefing from the Immigration Law Practitioners Association raised the point about ability to pay and gave an example that I have to say concerned me. The Minister may be able to give an answer now or in detail later, but the briefing quotes a figure of £936 to register a child as a British citizen where there is an entitlement to do so. I appreciate that the Minister may not have the detail on this, but I was struck by the fact that there is no provision for those who do not have the means to pay, yet if that relates, as in that example, to registering a child where there is an entitlement to do so, that would concern me. It may be that the Minister can reassure me on that point now or, if the answer is too detailed, perhaps in writing.
The Chair
Order. May I point out that interventions are drifting in the wrong direction?
James Brokenshire
We have considered the increases carefully in respect of what I have outlined when it comes to the growth routes—those we judge to be focused on contributing to our economic growth—and therefore the distinction that has been drawn is between those and certain other categories, where we judge there to be significant benefits that attach to the rights that are applied.
For example, we are looking to larger fee increases for what we consider to be the non-growth routes by up to 25%, which includes nationality and settlement fees. We believe these fees reflect the considerable benefits and entitlements available to successful applicants. That is the approach we have taken, certainly over the last couple of years, to relative fee increases. We judge that to be the appropriate stance to take, certainly in respect of the manner in which we are moving to self-funding for the border and immigration system, as I have outlined. Moving to 2019-20, we anticipate that the increases we intend to set out in the 2016-17 regulations will take us to around three-quarters self-funding for the costs of the borders, immigration and citizenship system, around £600 million of which is currently funded by the Exchequer. It is also important to underline that it is not simply about that side of the equation. There are rightly efficiencies that we need to continue to make to drive down costs and ensure that we have an efficient and effective service. Our expenditure is expected to reduce over the period before 2019-20 to get us to that self-funded position. We judge that that is the right thing to do, building on the important steps that that the Home Office has taken since 2010, when the coalition Government came into office.
About £3 billion of savings will have been delivered in 2015-16 as a consequence of this Government’s reforms, which were required to deal with the economic issues we had to face up to and to ensure that our public finances are on a much stronger footing. That has been the driver behind our work and it has delivered a much more efficient, effective, reliable service. That service has dealt with the issues, some of which have been described today, and decisions have been reached correctly and therefore have not been susceptible to appeal.
Keir Starmer
I will be short, Ms Buck. The question is about the registration of a child where there is an entitlement to do that but it costs £936, and the individuals cannot afford it. Is the answer that is tough?
James Brokenshire
As I have already said, fees will be set out in the negative regulations. There are already operable fees for citizenship and the other elements I have outlined. It is certainly not intended that there will be a specific nationality waiver and we will never require a fee when that would be incompatible with rights under the European convention on human rights. Clearly, there are costs to the immigration system in processing and assessing such claims and in the ability to assert rights, so it is right that we have a system that can recover those costs. I will certainly reflect on what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said and see whether there is anything further I wish to add once I have reread his comments. It is all about that relative balance.
On the question of a reduction in the number of applications, I would direct hon. Members to the regulatory impact assessment, which shows that there is no clear evidence that an increase in the fees would lead to such a reduction. Although certain assumptions are made in the impact assessment to underpin that, it makes it very clear that in practice such a reduction may not be seen and how, should there be a reduction, the amount of fees charged would cover the financial implication of that. We have increased charges for a number of routes over the past few years and yet, in many cases, the number of applications has gone up, notwithstanding those fee increases. There is no clear read-across in terms of what the economists would argue about price elasticity of demand being linked to the overall price of a visa.
I hope that the Committee will be minded to support the order.
Question put.
Draft Warrington (Electoral Changes) Order 2016
(8 years, 3 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Warrington (Electoral Changes) Order 2016.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I apologise to Members who probably think that they have better things to do on a Tuesday afternoon than talk about boundary changes in my constituency, but there are issues here. We all complain about boundaries, and although I recognise that the Boundary Commission has a tough job, it is right that it is accountable, and if it is not accountable to Parliament, what is Parliament for?
Before I go on to explain the issue, I point out that one of the by-products of the review in Warrington is a ballot paper, which I hold up for the Committee to see, that is likely to have on it 50 names, from which, three months from now, we will ask electors to choose 12. I will pass the paper around, so that colleagues can see it. I shall explain how and why that has happened, and why it is not satisfactory.
Boundary reviews can be emotional. This is not a party issue; the review covered two constituencies, mine and that of the hon. Member for Warrington North. My constituency is south of the ship canal. Warrington council is Labour-dominated: 42 of the 57 seats are Labour, and only five Tory. The area that we are talking mostly about today is south of the ship canal, where eleven out of 12 seats are Conservative or, in most cases, Liberal Democrat. So this is not about party politics; it is about what is right. I will talk about why we had to have the review—the starting point—the process that was followed, the result and the consequences, and the action that I hope the commission’s representative will take to sort the matter out at least in the short term.
As I said, the starting point is the two constituencies of Warrington North and Warrington South. The unitary council has 57 councillors spread over 22 wards. Equally significantly, there are 17 parish councils in Warrington, many of them very ancient. The parish council boundaries were, as one would expect and as is normal, aligned with the ward boundaries. Broadly speaking then, parish councillors are within wards or, as in certain instances, wards are within parishes, but the boundaries are aligned and there is no patchwork.
Although Warrington is a new town, there are a number of villages to the north and south with their own characteristics and identities. Lymm in Cheshire is a large village, with perhaps 10,000 people. To give a little historical perspective, a village called Thelwall was founded in 923 by Alfred the Great’s son. I do not think that Alfred the Great, or his son, should have too much bearing on how we draw our boundaries, but I make the point that these are ancient communities, and we are not just talking about how to divide up a town into different areas.
We needed the review because the town has grown—the 57 councillors need to become 58—and over time the ward boundaries have got out of kilter. That triggered a review under the Electoral Commission criteria. It started in May 2015, with the aim of putting in place new boundaries for the unitary and parish councils by 2016—that is, by the time of the elections coming up in three months, which will be the last in Warrington until 2020, as a result of their being all-out elections.
Everybody was happy that there should be a review and the criteria for such reviews are set out in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. Members who might not be familiar with that Act might like to know that it establishes three criteria. First, the boundaries should be within 10% of each other. Secondly, they should maintain community identity. Thirdly, they should be a mechanism for convenient and effective local government. As for which is the most important, the Act says that there should be the “best balance” between them. That implies that they are all relevant and it is not necessarily right to focus on one rather than on all three together.
The council put in a submission to start the process of reviewing how to get 58 councillors, how to maintain a better split between the wards and how to ensure that the parish boundaries continued to be aligned to the ward boundaries. The submission had support from all three major parties on the council. I think it is accepted that it maintained the integrity of the villages, but it is also true that it did not totally meet the 10% rule. Two of the 22 wards would have had a percentage slightly different from the 10% de minimus that the Act sets out.
We then went into the process and the Boundary Commission followed its normal procedure. In my view and that of many of us involved in the process, it ignored all but the quantitative criterion—that is, it ignored the two qualitative criteria of the need for community identity and for convenient and effective local government. As a consequence, it came up with a proposal that is better than the council’s in terms of the quantitative criterion, but not greatly so. In the commission’s proposal, two of the 22 wards are also outside the plus or minus 10%, although it is also fair to say that the delta is lower. If that was the only criterion, the Boundary Commission’s submission would have been better.
The cost of getting that balance of plus or minus 10% slightly better has been extremely heavy in terms of its impact on the community and on the quality of governance, particularly south of the ship canal. I contend that the review, to all intents and purposes, used only one of the three criteria and is therefore arguably illegal under the 2009 Act. I want to talk about a couple of the issues. The first comes under the second criterion, that is, the impact on local communities. I mentioned earlier that there are a patchwork of villages surrounding the town, and the way that the boundaries have been reset rolls those villages back into the town. Lymm and Thelwall have been combined, as have Walton and Stockton Heath, Hatton and Appleton and Grappenhall and Appleton Thorn. This is a minor point, but the commission did not even rename any of the wards to acknowledge the continuing existence of some of those villages, which would have been a very small thing to give away, even if it had wanted to maintain the arithmetic of what it put together.
The third criterion is effective local governance, and at the start of the process, all parties had alignment between the parishes and the wards. If someone was a parish councillor for a ward, they would know who their borough councillors were, and so on. At the end of this process, there is no alignment. For example, Grappenhall parish council is now in three unitary wards of Appleton, Lymm and Grappenhall. Stockton Heath parish council is now in three unitary wards of Grappenhall, Appleton and Stockton Heath. There is no alignment between unitary borough council wards and the parish council wards, many of which have been there for more than 100 years. Similar issues exist in other councils, such as Walton and Appleton.
That is not the end of the problems. The next issue is the ward sizes that were determined in the Boundary Commission’s review. In Stockton Heath, it was determined that the ward would be made up of two sub-wards, one with 12 members and one with three members. In Appleton, it was three sub-wards, one with 10, one with one and one with two. No parish council in the whole of Warrington has been exempt from having ward sizes of fewer than six members. Many members of the Committee will have been councillors in their careers and will know that if a ward has 12 members, it is difficult to divvy up the work. A councillor must ask, “Do I do that or does he do that? Who is in charge of reviewing that?” That is what they are faced with in Stockton Heath—in Appleton it is 10—and in every parish in Warrington there are at least six members. It is hard to claim that that represents an adequate response to the third criteria of effective local governance.
Then we come to elections. If we have a 12-member ward, it is not hard to predict that the ballot paper could potentially have 50 names on it and we will be asking electors to select 12 names from those 50. That would be no mean feat, leaving aside the environmental issues of the size of the ballot paper and the need to stuff it into an envelope. It will cause problems, because people will put 13 crosses instead of 12. I said 50 names, but it could be 40, depending on how many candidates each of the major parties puts up. But it is a risk and—unless it was an attempt to get into the “Guinness World Records” book—it could potentially make Warrington in these elections resemble something out of a banana republic. In fact, I do not think many banana republics would have ballot papers with 50 names on them, from which electors had to choose 12—I may be wrong. I certainly do not think—although other hon. Members may wish to correct me—that any other part of the UK has ever held an election with a ballot paper of up to, or possibly more than, 50 names from which 12 must be selected.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a case for Warrington on the ludicrous solution that the Boundary Commission has come up with. My council had experience of working with the commission in 2014 to change the ward boundaries in north-west Leicestershire, and we went the other way and now have 38 single-seat wards, which is far more satisfactory for the electorate and for by-elections. We are having a by-election at the moment and, with just 1,000 or 1,100 houses in a ward, it can be done cheaply. It would be very expensive to replace an existing councillor in a 12-seat ward.
David Mowat
That is a good point. I had not considered the by-election point, but I agree with my hon. Friend.
It is fair to say that I am talking about parish elections. It may be that the commission makes the point that it is possible for the council to fix the boundaries by performing a local community governance review. Indeed, that is what would normally happen—the council would do that, realign the boundaries, make the parishes fit the unitary system and all would be well. The unique aspect of what has happened in Warrington is that there is no time for that to happen before the all-out elections in May. That process would take, given the statutory consultation periods required, between nine and 12 months. It cannot happen before May. I do not think the Boundary Commission intended for that to be the case, because its initial response was that that remedy was available to the council. The problem is that the remedy is not available to the council in time for the elections in May and, as a consequence, we will have the absurdity of the ballot paper that I have described.
In summary, we have two issues of substance here. First, the criteria used for the unitary review did not properly take into account the qualitative requirements of the 2009 Act in terms of community cohesion or effective local governance. As a result, there was a mishmash and an unsatisfactory answer, particularly south of the Manchester ship canal. Secondly, an unintended consequence of the non-alignment with the parish and unitary boundaries, along with an inability to fix it in time for the all-out elections that are coming up, has led to an absurd situation.
That brings the Electoral Commission into disrepute, as well as the Government: people do not understand what the commission is, and think that it is the Government, and they blame me because I am representative of the Government, as they think that it is something to do with me. All in all, that is unsatisfactory, so I would request that the commissioner withdraw the measure. I understand that there is no power to alter the order, but it should be withdrawn and resubmitted in three months’ time. We should go ahead with elections on the old boundaries, and we would have time to fix the absurdity of the ballot paper before the next all-out elections.
I look forward to hearing the response from my hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon, who speaks on behalf of the commissioners, but in the meantime I should like to ask him a number of questions. Did anyone from the Boundary Commission visit the south of Warrington as part of the review, particularly the villages concerned, or was the whole thing done by someone in Millbank with a GPS system, a map and a photocopier? We have asked for clarification on that, but we have not received it. Does he agree that the 2009 Act stipulates three criteria, with a requirement to find the best balance between them? The review focuses purely on one quantitative criterion, which is potentially illegal under the Act. How many similar reviews of boundaries made no changes whatsoever between the draft and the final version? A point made to me by a number of councillors was that it was unusual not to have any changes to a boundary change review between the draft and the final version, but that was the case here and even meant renaming unitary wards to ensure that village names did not die out.
Does my hon. Friend consider that 10 or 12-member wards represent best practice in this country or anywhere else, and does he further consider that having ballot papers with up to 50 names is an acceptable way to hold elections? Pre-empting his response, given that it is not, is that not a failure under the third criterion in the 2009 Act? I shall conclude by requesting that the order is withdrawn and resubmitted after the election, enabling us to have a proper election on boundaries that are accepted. We should fix this mess after that has happened.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
I do not wish to detain the Committee long. The hon. Member for Warrington South made the case, as is quite right, about what has happened in Warrington South, but I gently want to point out that there are two constituencies in Warrington. In Warrington North, although we did not get everything that we wanted from the Boundary Commission, we are reasonably happy about going ahead with this. The hon. Gentleman’s case seems to be based on what is happening in the parishes, rather than in the borough wards.
In my constituency, parish boundaries have crossed borough ward boundaries for a considerable period, and villages have been put together in one ward. That is inevitable in a growing town. I live in the village of Culcheth, but the ward is Culcheth, Glazebury and Croft—all distinct communities. The Burtonwood and Westbrook Parish Council crosses two distinct borough wards. There is a Westbrook ward, a Burtonwood and Winwick ward, and a separate Winwick parish council. They do not align with the boundaries. The ancient community of Risley is now part of the Birchwood ward in Warrington. The north of the town has been in that position for some time. There has been no meltdown and we have managed to live with it quite easily.
I looked at some of the comments made in my local paper about the new boundaries. The leader of the Liberal Democrats basically said that he did not quite understand that the Boundary Commission meant what it said when it told him that there was only a 10% tolerance either way. The Conservative leader in the area does not like his ward of Hatton, Stretton and Walton being abolished. That is a fair point. None of us would like that, but it does not mean that the boundaries are not right. Equally, there have been complaints about Lymm being separated into two wards, but it is a growing area and my understanding is that if its boundaries are not dealt with this time, it will shortly exceed the level of tolerance again and there will have to be yet another boundary review.
Most of the submissions to the Boundary Commission’s draft proposal came from that one area of Warrington—south of the ship canal. I understand that people are aggrieved but it is not a problem for the whole borough. In fact, 100 of the 144 submissions made came from that area alone. It is arguable that the change does not reflect communities. I agree with the hon. Gentleman about that and that is precisely what the Government will achieve when they rejig parliamentary boundaries; numbers will trump everything else.
Although the hon. Gentleman has a fair point about the parish wards and the number of people who will be on the ballot paper, by itself that point is not sufficient to postpone borough elections. It is, as he rightly said, fixable—not in the next few months, but over time. Yet, if the proposals are withdrawn today, we are faced with two options: either councillors will be elected on the old wards for a year and then we will have another all-out election, which seems to be a costly and expensive way of dealing with the problem; or, we postpone the elections this year, people do not get a chance to vote, and we have all-out elections the following year, which seems to be an overreaction to the problem we face.
Although the hon. Gentleman has rightly made a case for his area, there is a whole other area of Warrington that has new boundaries and is happy to live with them, even if bits of the proposals are not what we would have wanted. We would not necessarily have wanted the changes between wards in my constituency but our general view is that we need to go ahead and get these elections done. The problems with the parishes can be dealt with afterwards but they should not postpone new boundaries for borough elections.
Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your distinguished and experienced chairmanship, Mr Evans.
I apologise to the Committee that it will take me about 12 minutes to put on the record the background and process surrounding Warrington. The Local Government Boundary Commission for England is independent of the Government and reports to the Speaker’s Committee on which I serve, which is why I am responding to the powerful speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South. I commend him for his diligence in raising this issue in Parliament. As we all know, he has a reputation for being a real fighter for his constituents in this House, and he has demonstrated that in earnest today. It was also good to hear from his neighbour, the hon. Member for Warrington North, who made some very helpful points.
It might help if I gave the Committee some of the background to this matter. The commission carried out its electoral review of Warrington Borough Council to correct the high levels of electoral imbalances between local wards, which is what it is charged to do under statute. Several of Warrington’s wards currently have over 10% more or fewer voters living in them than the average for the borough. For example, the three councillors elected to Fairfield and Howley ward represent well over 10,000 voters, whereas the three councillors for Penketh and Cuerdley—I hope Members will forgive my pronunciation—represent just under 7,000.
That pattern of imbalances was identified by the commission in the council’s electoral register for 2014 and is repeated across large parts of the borough. In fact, nine of Warrington’s 22 wards—41% of them—have significantly more or fewer voters than the average for the borough. The levels of variance across the borough comfortably breach the commission’s long-standing threshold for triggering a review. The situation means that the value of a person’s vote in council elections varies to a considerable degree depending on where they live in Warrington.
The commission’s programme of electoral reviews is targeted towards authorities with the highest levels of electoral variance between wards or electoral divisions in all 352 English local authorities. Warrington was included in the programme on that basis. The review followed the commission’s well-established electoral review process.
First, the commission asked for evidence from the council about the total number of councillors who should be elected to the council in the future. Warrington Borough Council put forward a case to increase the number of councillors serving the borough by one. The commission analysed the council’s case under three broad headings: first, how the council takes decisions and conducts its business; secondly, how those decisions and decision makers are scrutinised; and thirdly, the representative role of councillors in the community. The commission concluded in May 2015 that an increase of one councillor was justified—that is quite unusual around the country at the moment—and therefore proceeded with the review on the basis of 58 councillors being elected to the authority. There was little contention in the early parts of the electoral review.
In May 2015, the commission started to consider new ward boundaries for the borough. It held a public consultation over 10 weeks to ask the council, local organisations and members of the public to put forward ideas for new ward boundaries. After considering the proposals put forward during the consultation, the commission drew up draft recommendations for new boundaries, which it published in August.
In the north of the borough, the commission’s draft recommendations were largely based on the proposals put to it by the council during consultation, with some minor tweaks. Unfortunately, the submissions received in the south of the borough—largely below the canal—simply did not work within the formula that the law requires. Accordingly, the commission drew its own pattern of wards for the southern tranche. In particular, the council’s proposal for the Lymm area of Warrington would have left that ward with an electoral variance of 19%. The ward would have included more than 500 electors too many to deliver electoral equality.
The commission is flexible in the way that it interprets electoral equality. It recognises that achieving boundaries where each councillor represents exactly, or near to exactly, the same number of voters is likely to lead to perverse outcomes. That is why it will routinely accept variances of up to around 10% and, in exceptional circumstances, more, where there is compelling evidence in relation to community identities or geographic features. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South made great play of the issue of variance in Lymm ward, where 19% variance was considered by the commission to be simply too high.
That flexibility is evident in the review of Warrington, where the recommendations allow for two wards with variances of 10% as they reflect community ties and logical boundaries. However, the commission still has a statutory duty, as my hon. Friend rightly said, as set out in the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, to ensure that each councillor represents roughly the same number of voters. As I said, the commission considered that a variance of 19% would not meet its statutory criteria. There simply was not sufficient community, geographic or local government grounds for allowing such a high level of inequality, even though the commission looked hard, deep and long to see if it could find such supporting reasons.
As a result, the commission sought an alternative pattern of wards and concluded that Lymm should have two borough wards, rather than one. By having two wards, electoral equality could be achieved. As is the case in nearly every boundary review, delivering electoral fairness for Lymm had a knock-on effect on surrounding areas. In order to build a pattern of wards, the commission divided parishes in south Warrington between borough wards. Of particular interest was its decision to divide Appleton parish council and Stockton Heath parish council, both of which were mentioned by my hon. Friend.
The commission’s adherence to its statutory criteria for ward boundaries had a consequential impact on the electoral arrangements of the parishes in question, namely the parish wards to which local parish councillors are elected and the number of parish councillors elected to each ward. Legislation is clear on the procedure when a parish is divided between wards: the commission must abolish the existing parish electoral arrangements and redraw parish ward boundaries so that they match the district or borough ward boundary. In short, no parish ward can cross borough ward boundaries. Therefore, the commission, in its draft recommendations, abolished the electoral arrangements for the two parishes and redrew them so that they matched the proposed ward boundaries. It then consulted on those new arrangements over eight weeks in the summer and autumn.
While the consultation yielded opposition to the proposals, the process did not identify alternative arrangements that would meet the statutory criteria that the commission must follow. Although parishes and others argued eloquently in favour of retaining ward boundaries that matched parish boundaries, they were unable to produce a solution that solved the problem of electoral equality in Lymm while delivering an overall warding pattern for Warrington that balanced the criteria. In fact, the most popular solution put to the commission would have unwound its entire scheme in the north of the borough, which, as the hon. Member for Warrington North confirmed, was broadly supported locally, without setting out how it might be redrawn.
Nevertheless, and in the absence of workable propositions, the commission investigated an alternative pattern of wards for the southern part of the borough as it recognised the strength of feeling about the proposals. Unfortunately, despite its best efforts, the only way it could deliver a scheme that avoided the division of local parishes was to build a ward or a series of wards that straddled the Manchester ship canal, but it did not believe that crossing such a strong and identifiable boundary would support its obligation to promote effective local government.
The commission considered all 144 responses to its consultation on draft recommendations and, in the absence of a coherent solution, it did not feel able to amend the recommendations. That is why the draft order under consideration today includes the proposals relating to Appleton and Stockton Heath Parish Councils. The consequential proposals for new parish wards follow the letter of the law. No parish ward boundary crosses a borough ward and the existing arrangements are abolished.
The commission accepts the well made arguments against its ward boundary proposals. However, it must not only consider local views, but come up with alternatives that can be implemented. In the case of ward boundaries for southern Warrington, it did not believe that any of the alternative proposals would be a better balance to its statutory criteria than the draft recommendations. Similarly, no alternative arguments for parish electoral arrangements were put forward that specifically took into account the changes that had to be implemented by the ward boundary proposals. That is why the commission simply proposed the parish warding arrangements that it was obliged by law to make.
In terms of process, procedure and the legal framework in which it operates, the commission has fulfilled its obligations. However, it accepts that the new parish arrangements leave parish wards that elect several parish councillors next to wards that elect only one or two. That is inelegant to say the least and the commission will look to learn lessons from the review for future purposes. However, it would like to suggest a potential solutions to the issues raised.
Warrington Borough Council may hold a community governance review immediately following elections in May this year. Such a review could look at the lopsided nature of the parish arrangements, which is the source of contention here, and recommend new arrangements that provide for a better spread of parish councillors. To implement the outcome of the review—new parish wards—it must then make a local order, which can specify a year of election.
The council could therefore recommend that new parish arrangements come into force in 2017. There could be an election in 2017 on those new parish boundaries that the review might recommend and the council could hold the next elections in 2020 to bring them back into line with the borough council elections. That seems to be at least a partial solution to meet my hon. Friend’s fierce advocacy on that point.
There are a couple of caveats. First, the council would need to seek the commission’s consent to change the parish electoral arrangements in that way. However, the commission has already indicated that it will not unreasonably withhold consent. Secondly, an additional election for the parish councils in question is required. Nevertheless, it offers a more immediate solution to the problem.
My hon. Friend asked me a number of questions. He asked whether the commission visited Warrington. Yes, it did. Staff and/or commissioners visited Warrington on four occasions during the review, and the commission staff and the lead commissioner toured Warrington to see first-hand the areas of contention and assess the potential boundaries on the ground.
There are three criteria in the 2009 Act, and the commission considered all three carefully when coming up with its proposals, which I hope I have explained. Similar reviews have resulted in no changes between the draft and the commission’s final order—South Buckingham and Milton Keynes are two examples that spring immediately to mind. It is accepted that the parish council arrangements for voting in the next election in the two wards in question are far from ideal, but a partial solution has been suggested. The unfortunate ballot paper that my hon. Friend circulated will be used for just 12 months, and after that we will be back on track. It can then coincide with the elections for the rest of the area.
In conclusion, my hon. Friend made some important points, but sadly the commission cannot withdraw the order without starting the process all over again. That would leave the variances in place for another four years, which is simply unacceptable. The electoral arrangements for all 163,000 voters in Warrington are contingent on the draft order, which will deliver electoral fairness for the long term. As a courtesy to the House, the commission held back from making the order, despite the fact that it completed the process under the negative resolution procedure. Given the proximity of the forthcoming local elections and the partial solution I just mentioned, the commission hopes to be able to make the order shortly so the new, fair electoral arrangements can be implemented for the whole borough.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. I am afraid I have never visited Warrington, but after this afternoon’s discussion I feel that I know the town intimately.
In my experience, it is always best for there to be a natural consensus on such boundary changes, and it is sad that we do not appear to have one here. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North made a powerful argument, but I am also aware of what the local press in Warrington is saying. Let me quote two examples. The chairman of the local Liberal Democrats said he is concerned because:
“Faceless bureaucrats sitting in their ivory tower in London surrounded by maps and tables have completely ignored the views of people.”
The leader of the Conservative group, ward councillor Paul Kennedy, said:
“I am very disappointed for the residents of Hatton, Stretton and Walton that from May 2016 they will no longer be represented by their own designated borough councillor”—
I think that is probably him—
“and I, and they, are rightly concerned that there is not even recognition of the three parish names in the new ward patterns.”
Quite seriously, it is unfortunate that they feel as strongly as they do. I believe that those views are genuinely held.
I am encouraged by what the hon. Member for South West Devon said. There has been genuine widespread consultation, which is very important. I note what was said about the long ballot papers, but they are for parish councils, rather than the borough council. In my experience, other parts of the country have equally long parish council lists—in Wales, community council lists. It is not desirable, but as the hon. Gentleman said, it is a short-term measure while the issue is being addressed. That is important. Given that a consultation has taken place, and given that the legislation is clearly being adhered to, on balance the Opposition will support these recommendations.
David Mowat
I will not detain the Committee for long. I have a couple of points in response. The hon. Member for Warrington North rightly said that there was not a major issue on her patch, although an aspect of one, and there was no meltdown. I concede there is no meltdown but that does not make it right. There will be no meltdown in Warrington South but that does not make it right, either.
I listened carefully to the arguments made by the representative of the commissioners. I have two points on that. There is a tendency, which was evident in his response, to use the word “statutory” in connection with the quantitative requirements of the Act, plus or minus 10%. In fact, the word “statutory” also applies to the qualitative parts of the Act, which are the communities and the local governance.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Devon mentioned a partial solution. I am sure the people of Warrington will be relieved to hear that the boundary commissioners do not intend unreasonably to withhold consent to a Boundary Commission review subsequent to the election. It might be said that that is the least they could do. It is not a partial solution just for a year, because there are all-out elections and those last four years.
Finally, the Opposition spokesman is right that the thrust of what I have said applies to parishes and the ballot paper. I make the point to colleagues, though, that when there is a unitary not a district council, which tends to be a higher level council, parishes are important and have a part to play. We should not just act as though they are not important or, if we do think that, we should abolish them.
On those grounds, I will sit down content.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Warrington (Electoral Changes) Order 2016.
Electoral Law
(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Chair
Before we begin, it may be helpful if I remind Members of the procedure in European Committees. The proceedings must conclude no later than two and a half hours after we begin. I will begin by calling a member of the European Scrutiny Committee to make a brief statement about why the Committee decided to refer the documents for debate. I will then call on the Minister to make a statement followed by questions for up to an hour, although I have some discretion to extend that time if there is an appetite to do so. The Committee will then debate the Government motion, and I will put the question on that motion when the debate or the time available is exhausted, whichever comes first.
Does a member of the European Scrutiny Committee wish to make a brief explanatory statement about the decision to refer the documents to the Committee?
Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
May I say what a pleasure it is to be serve under your chairmanship for the first time in the new year, Mr Howarth?
The proposed Council decision, which is, I am glad to say, subject to unanimity and ratification by member states, aims to harmonise certain aspects of the conduct of European Parliament elections in member states. Initiated by the European Parliament on the basis of article 223(1) of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, its more significant measures include common deadlines for establishing lists of candidates and electoral registers; making members of regional parliaments and legislative Assemblies ineligible for election as MEPs; proposals concerning the gender equality of candidates; proposals on electronic and postal voting; some mandatory 3% to 5% thresholds for winning seats; proposals relating to voting by EU mobile citizens and their data; incorporating the spitzenkandidaten process, under which there is a pretence of electing the Commission President; and making provision for detailed implementing rules. However, it does not include aspirational proposals, only set out in the European Parliament’s resolution, such as a common minimum voting age of 16 and a common voting day.
On 13 January, the European Scrutiny Committee recommended a reasoned opinion on the proposed Council decision. The reasoned opinion procedure, introduced by the Lisbon treaty, allows national Parliaments to object to a draft legislative act if they consider that it breaches subsidiarity. That principle requires that decisions should be taken as close to the citizen as possible. National Parliaments have eight weeks from transmission of a proposal to submit a reasoned opinion. If such opinions represent one third of all votes of national Parliaments, they constitute a yellow card. The initiator of the proposal, in this case the European Parliament, must review it. The EU Committee in the House of Lords has also decided to recommend a reasoned opinion. The Government have expressed some subsidiarity concerns, saying that some aspects of the proposal are best decided at national level. Their main concern appears to be that uniform practice for European parliamentary elections would be inconsistent with domestic electoral practices, making it difficult for the UK to hold European parliamentary and local elections at the same time, resulting in further reduced turnouts for European parliamentary elections.
The European Scrutiny Committee concluded in its reasoned opinion that there is no detailed subsidiarity statement in the draft legislative act, so the European Parliament has failed to comply with an essential procedural requirement; there is, in any case, insufficient substantiation in the resolution and the European “added value” assessment; and the proposal’s objective of creating a uniform electoral procedure to enhance the European Parliament’s democratic legitimacy through electoral equality is undermined by harmonisation at a level of detail which divorces the European Parliament’s electoral procedure from well-established and recognised domestic procedures. Bearing that in mind, the European Scrutiny Committee has raised specific objections questioning the European Union’s “added value” benefits of all of the significant measures outlined, excepting the measures on spitzenkandidaten and implementing rules.
The European Scrutiny Committee was not assisted greatly in this task by the Government’s inadequate subsidiarity and financial assessment of the proposal for the reasons set out in paragraphs 1.7 and 1.8 of its report, and so asks the Minister to comment on that.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (John Penrose)
It is a pleasure to have you in charge, Mr Howarth, as my parliamentary neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset said at the start of his remarks.
It is always a pleasure to receive proposals from Brussels, particularly when they contain suggestions on how it feels our democracy could be improved. We in this mother of Parliaments will consider them carefully. More seriously, the European Scrutiny Committee fulfils a very important role in analysing proposals from European institutions. I welcome the opportunity to consider the Committee’s concerns about the documents, particularly the concern that the proposals from the European Parliament do not comply with the principle of subsidiarity.
As I am sure we all agree, democratic accountability in Brussels could usefully be improved in the light of a turnout of 43% across Europe—and just 36% in the UK—in the last European elections. That said, changes cannot be imposed that disregard the practices of individual member states. Reforms need to be made in accordance with those practices, and should not be a one-size-fits-all process.
I do not plan to go through things in huge detail at this stage, because we will have a formal debate on the motion, as you mentioned in your earlier remarks, Mr Howarth, so I am happy to answer any questions from hon. Members at this point. I will then expand in more detail on any remaining points at the start of the formal debate.
The Chair
We have until 10 am for questions to the Minister. I remind Members that they should be brief. It is open to a Member, subject to my discretion, to ask a related supplementary question.
Mr Rees-Mogg
I have only one question for my hon. Friend and neighbour. The proposal before the Commission is subject to unanimity. Will the Government undertake to veto the proposal?
John Penrose
I am not sure of the formal status of our reasoned opinion, but as I plan to state later on, we disagree with large chunks of the proposal, so I cannot see that we will approve it in any form.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
These are, of course, early days in terms of negotiations on what has been suggested by the European Parliament. I think the proposals will initially be considered under the Dutch presidency. Will the Government commit, rather than simply waiting until the end of the process and exercising their veto then if necessary, to contributing positively to make sure that we have allies among other member states on what the European Parliament has suggested?
John Penrose
Everybody in all parts of the House keeps telling one another—and the Government—that we need to engage early in any deliberations going on in Brussels to influence what is happening before it is too fully baked—before proposals start to harden. I hope that we are contributing constructively, but in this case, quite critically, to what is proposed. I would expect that with the aid of my colleagues in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, we will continue to do so during the passage of this proposal.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of the time allotted for questions. If no more Members wish to ask questions, we will proceed to the debate on the motion.
John Penrose
I beg to move,
That this Committee takes note of Unnumbered European Union Documents, a European Parliament Resolution of 11 November 2015 on the reform of the electoral law of the European Union, and a Proposal for a Council Decision adopting the provisions amending the Act concerning the election of members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage; supports the Government’s initial view that it is not persuaded of the merits of many of the proposed measures, and that a number of the proposals concern issues that should be decided at a national level; further notes that there is a power of national veto in respect of the European Parliament's Proposal, and that the Government is therefore not committed to agreeing to any of the proposed measures; and considers that the Proposed Council Decision does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in annex 2 to Chapter 1 of the Nineteenth Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 342-xviii) and, in accordance with Article 6 of Protocol (No. 2) annexed to the EU Treaties on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the Presidents of the European Institutions.
On 11 November last year, the European Parliament adopted the resolution and proposal that set out a number of proposed changes to the law governing the conduct of European elections. The proposed measures are wide-ranging, and I have noted them with interest—that is, I think, a polite way of putting it.
Although our consideration of the proposed measures is at an early stage, our initial view is that we are not persuaded of the merits of many, if not most, of the proposals, and we do not consider that they would achieve the European Parliament’s stated objectives. Moreover, the Government share the Committee’s concerns that some of the measures do not comply with the principle of subsidiarity, and the issues that they are designed to address should be decided at national, not European, level. I should also make it clear that all member states need to approve the proposals, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset mentioned, in order for them to take effect. There is therefore a power of national veto in respect of the proposals from the European Parliament.
I am pleased to report that many member states agree with us that there are shortcomings in democratic accountability in the EU, as shown by the poor turnout that I mentioned. There is widespread support for enhancing the role that national Parliaments play. That is why the Prime Minister made it clear in his letter to President Tusk that we
“want to enhance the role of national parliaments, by proposing a new arrangement where groups of national parliaments, acting together, can stop unwanted legislative proposals.”
I am sure that we have all read newspaper reports of progress in that direction, but we will have to wait for developments today or tomorrow before we see the all-important detail in that area.
Related to that is the issue of subsidiarity, which goes to the heart of the debate that we, and national Governments and Parliaments around Europe, are having on reform of the EU. Subsidiarity—or localism, to use a more familiar British synonym—governs whether legislation should be enacted at local, national or European level. It is therefore at the core of the idea that the EU must respect the layers of government that are closest and most accountable to European citizens.
It makes sense to take action at the EU level only when it is clearly necessary and in the collective interest of member states to do so. However, the default assumption should be that in all other circumstances, it is better for decision making to be done at the national, regional, or local government level. All too often, that presumption has not been rigorously applied. The gap between the EU and its citizens is growing, and while that is felt acutely in the UK, the concerns are far from limited to our own.
The European Parliament has proposed that it should not be possible for Members of a regional Parliament or Assembly vested with legislative powers to hold the office of MEP. EU law prevents certain office holders from holding that office, including Members of national Parliaments such as hon. Members here today. Clearly, the proposal has the potential to impact on membership of the devolved bodies in the UK, and the Government will want to consider it carefully. My inclination is that it should be firmly left to individual member states to decide this issue. What is right for a Member of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly or the Northern Irish Assembly may be entirely inappropriate for office holders in a German Land, a French département or a Greek island.
It is proposed that the lists of candidates that political parties put forward at elections should ensure gender equality. I am not sure why the proposals focus on gender equality and ignore the equally important question of equality for other groups such as those from black and minority ethnic communities, and those with different sexual preferences or religious views, to name only a few. It is not right to mandate a legal quota for only one of those groups and not the others. Nor would it be right to install a one-size-fits-all solution for all countries, and all political parties within them.
I am pleased to report that the proportion of women in the British MEP group, and who are MPs in Westminster, has risen steadily over the years. I hope and expect that those figures will keep rising, but the mechanics used to achieve those outcomes have been understandably different in each political party, depending on our respective beliefs and traditions. Some use quotas, some use targeted selections and others use zipped candidate lists. Mandating a single approach and forbidding all others risks missing out on opportunities to move faster, and to reflect changing societal views. Importantly, it takes no account of different approaches across other European countries.
The European Scrutiny Committee has highlighted the proposal that, for all member states, a common deadline should be set for registering to vote at European elections and for candidates to submit their nomination papers. The deadlines would be eight weeks and 12 weeks before polling day, respectively. The suggested deadlines would be considerably earlier than the existing deadlines for those actions at UK elections.
This week is national voter registration drive week. We are trying, on a cross-party, cross-community basis, to improve and increase voter registration, not reduce it. The proposals would make it hard to sign people up and add complexity to a UK system that desperately needs simplification and clarity. They would, I am afraid, move us in precisely the wrong direction.
The European Parliament has proposed that member states should consider adopting electronic voting at European elections. We recognise that the European Parliament is seeking to encourage participation. However, there are serious concerns that electronic voting is not yet sufficiently transparent or secure. In many parts of our lives, more and more communications and transactions take place online, and that change is happening quickly, but we are not yet sure about the security and safety of electronic voting. The risks are inevitably high if we are talking about an attempt to steal the government of a country or influence the leadership of a continent. We have to be conscious of cyber-security risks and the serious threats they might present to the integrity of an election where electronic voting is more widely available.
Currently, the Government have no plans to introduce online voting in UK elections, although we are keeping a close watch on the technology as it develops. I certainly agree with the European Scrutiny Committee that the decision to adopt this method of voting should be taken by individual member states, not at EU level. The European Parliament has proposed the introduction of a threshold ranging between 3% and 5% for candidates elected at European elections. That proposal may stem from concerns that it is possible for extreme parties to win MEP seats on a small share of the vote in some countries. The UK does not generally have provision for thresholds in its statutory elections, and in principle does not support them, as they can be seen as undemocratic, although it is realised that a party or a candidate, in practice, needs to secure a certain level of support in order to be elected. However, the UK would not fall within the scope of these proposals, which apply only in countries with only one constituency, or constituencies with more than 26 seats. We have 12 constituencies; the largest has 10 MEPs, so it is very unlikely that, under the existing provisions, we would qualify and this would affect us.
The European Parliament has proposed that ballot papers and campaign material should show any UK party’s affiliation with European parties, should they wish, during the course of an election campaign. I suspect the Committee will be unsurprised to learn that UK political parties have, by and large, chosen not to follow this approach, for reasons which I think are rather clear—because it would not be a popular move, and would quite possibly lose them votes. Rather than mandating this idea in law, I think we might suggest that Brussels consider why this might be unpopular, as it would tell them something rather profound, I think, about some of the EU’s underlying problems.
The European Parliament has also proposed changes to the way in which the President of the European Commission is selected—the so called spitzenkandidaten process. The position of President of the European Commission is very important, so any proposed changes need to be closely scrutinised. If there are to be changes in the way this post is selected, the changes must be seen as wanted and necessary by all member states. Consensus is vital.
The Government remain of the view that selection of the Commission President should remain a European Council decision and based on current EU law. The Government have been consistent in stating that it is the prerogative of the European Council to select the candidate for President of the Commission, and I welcome the views of the House on the recommended changes from the European Parliament to this process.
The final measure is ratifying these measures. The European Parliament has suggested that this should be done by qualified majority voting, rather than through unanimity, which is how things are currently decided. As has been stated by the Government, we are making decisions that affect all of Europe. Consensus among member states is vital, and this must be reflected in the decision-making process—or to put it another way, no.
I hope that I have reassured the Committee on a number of points raised by these proposals, and shown that the Government share the Committee’s concerns that a number of the proposed measures do not comply with the principle of subsidiarity either. As I have explained to the Committee, the Government will wish to look at the proposed measures carefully. We are not committed to agreeing to any of them, and would need to be fully persuaded of the merits of any of the proposals before agreeing to take them forward with other member states across the EU. I look forward to hearing colleagues’ comments.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Mr Howarth, to serve under your chairmanship. For 10 years I was a Member of the European Parliament.
Wayne David
I hope I have recovered from that experience, but obviously I have learned from it. Certainly by the end of the 10 years I was there, I was a convinced European—and still am. I think Britain’s future lies in co-operation with our European partners, and that makes good practical sense, in the modern world especially. But I have to say that does not make me uncritical of the European Union—indeed, I am not uncritical of the European Parliament.
One of the concerns I had then, and still have now, is about the desire of the European Parliament, as an institution, to continually obtain more powers for itself, almost irrespective of the subject under consideration. The automatic position was to gain more powers. Sometimes that is correct, but quite often it is incorrect, because I firmly believe that the European Union fundamentally is an association of independent, democratic states, which come together and pool their sovereignty from time to time, where appropriate. I think that is the essence of the European Union, and I think that should be respected by all the member states, but also all the institutions that make up the European Union.
Fundamental to that concept of the European Union is the principle of subsidiarity. Decisions should be taken at the most appropriate level, but as close to the people as possible. That implies a clear role in the construction of Europe for local and regional government, but also member states, and also, where appropriate, the institutions of the European Union. Given that over the past few years the principle of subsidiarity has become, by common consent, more and more important, the European Scrutiny Committee believes that, on this occasion, the Government have not attached sufficient weight to it. That worries me greatly, because although I do not agree with the European Scrutiny Committee on everything, nevertheless I recognise that a great deal of time, effort and detailed consideration have gone into its deliberations. It worries me that, in its view, the Government have not paid sufficient attention to that principle.
Equally, it also worries me that the European Scrutiny Committee has come to the conclusion that the Government have not given due weight to the financial implications of the European Parliament’s suggestions. All the measures are practical and they have a cost implication. It is very important that when the Government set out their case, they consider the financial ramifications. Unfortunately, the Minister has not really touched on those, and I hope that he will have an opportunity in the debate to give us some indication of the cost implications should the measures be adopted in part or in whole.
I am also concerned about the European Parliament’s innate desire always to accrue more powers for members of that Parliament. Linked to that is my concern that, all too often, the European Parliament believes in the desirability of uniformity across member states. Of course, one of the great things about Europe is that it is a celebration of diversity, and we should not only recognise that but be proud of it. That certainly holds in terms of our commitment to democracy. We are all in favour of the universal franchise. In the case of the European Parliament elections, we have all signed up to a system of proportional representation for elected Members of the European Parliaments, but that differs markedly from one member state to another, as does the system of election. There are certain traditions and practical reasons why that should be the case, and therefore I am concerned that the European Parliament should propose basically a straitjacket by suggesting that all member states should adhere to a rigid set of proposals that the Parliament thinks is appropriate. I do not think that there is any logical, intellectual reason for that bland uniform approach. It would be far better to adhere to the principle of recognising that there are different ways of conducting elections, domestic or for the European Parliament, in democratic countries.
Can the Minister tell us what is the member states’ position on this, in particular that of the British Government? What is the role of the European Commission, because I understand that it is currently engaged in its own review of the last European Parliament elections, and that it will make proposals to improve the system in respect of next elections to that Parliament? The European Commission has its own proposals, but the European Parliament, another European institution, has its proposals as well. It will be interesting to hear how those two sets of proposals fit together, assuming that they do, and what the response of the Council, representing the member states, will be to that other institution’s response.
More specifically—I do not want to go through all the points listed by the Minister that have been made by the European Parliament—I shall focus on two points. First, on electronic and postal voting, as the Minister said, postal voting is used widely in this country and, increasingly so in the past few years. Not only is it popular but it is an effective way for voters to express their democratic view. Clearly, on electronic voting, there are cost implications and, as he suggested, there are security implications too. I do not think that technology is sufficiently advanced for me to say, hand on heart, that it is possible, perhaps in any member state, to have a watertight system that would ensure full participation along with security and confidence in the system.
Will the Minister look to the future and say whether or not the Government are considering more generally the issue of online voting to enhance the democratic process in this country? We are all surprised by the way in which technology has advanced in the past few years, and the Government should give active consideration to whether that is a feasible option in the not too distant future.
I should also like to raise the issue of the President of the European Commission and the spitzenkandidaten. To be honest, I was slightly confused when I read the recommendation from the European Parliament. I understood the first proposal that European Parliament elections should be contested by formal EU-wide lead candidates, but I did not understand precisely what was meant when I read that a joint constituency should be established in which lists were headed by each political family’s candidate. The Government are not inclined to adopt any of these suggestions, but will the Minister shed some light on what the European Parliament meant? On the face of it, it appears to be a radical suggestion that is not in keeping with custom and practice in most member states, and certainly not in this country.
I would appreciate clarification on those points, and I should like in general terms to have a cast-iron commitment from the Government that they will do everything possible, rather than simply waiting until the end of the process and exercising a veto, to engage actively with other member states, which I am sure share our concerns that the proposals should be put to one side, so that the EU can focus on more consensual and immediate matters.
Mr Rees-Mogg
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Caerphilly. Like him, I am a convinced European, but I am convinced about it as a geographic entity, rather than as a political one—I have rather more suspicions than him about that, and those suspicions are highlighted by the documents that we are considering.
The text adopted by the European Parliament is something to which all hon. Members should pay careful attention, because it sets out with great clarity and honesty the ambition of the European Parliament: how it views itself, and what it wants to get out of the process. It is a fascinating document, because although the view it expresses is the opposite of mine, that is the reality of where the European Union aims to go. It is clear in the document that the European Parliament sees itself at the forefront of creating a single European state.
Looking at the 35 reasons for why this proposal is necessary which are set out by the European Parliament, a common thread runs through them of our fundamental nature as citizens not of the United Kingdom but of a state called Europe. I promise that I will not go through all these points. Although the time is available, it would try the patience of hon. Members. Point B states that the aim is to,
“reinforce the concept of citizenship of the Union, improve the functioning of the European Parliament and the governance of the Union, make the work of the European Parliament more legitimate”.
It is about giving the European Parliament more power and more authority because of this concept of citizenship. Point E addresses voters’ lack of interest, with a particular concern for younger voters, stating that,
“voters’ lack of interest in European issues is posing a threat to the future of Europe, and whereas there is therefore”
—that is a particularly ugly construction, even considering that it must have been translated from several languages. I hate to think what the Finnish might be for “whereas there is therefore”—
“a need for ideas that will help to revive European democracy”.
I do not believe in European democracy. I believe in the democracy of the United Kingdom and of France and of Germany coming together as nation states, not in this broader concept. However, the European Parliament is quite clear about it. The document continues with a statement, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly said, of the power of the European Parliament, which,
“now has equal status as co-legislator with the Council in most of the Union’s policy areas”.
The European Parliament’s competencies have been gradually increasing, so it has got a long way towards what it wants to achieve with these advancing competencies. Point K sets out that the concept of citizenship of the Union,
“includes the right of Union citizens to participate in European and municipal elections”.
This focuses on the creation of citizenship of a single state, with the concern that electoral campaigning remains national. In this country it is entirely national, and there was hardly any mention of what was going on in continental Europe during our last European Parliamentary elections. That is because we believe in the nation state. The European Parliament is pushing again and again towards the creation of a single state. Point M states that,
“European political parties are best placed to ‘contribute to forming European political awareness’”.
Well, I am a member of the Conservative party, as people may have realised, or, if hon. Members prefer, the Tory party—that may in some ways be more suitable for me. It is technically a European party. It has a function within the geographic continent of Europe, but I must confess that I have never thought it was my role to contribute to forming European political awareness except as something to object to. The European Parliament has adopted a European awareness about Europe as a single state. This is made clear in point U, which states that,
“establishing a common European voting day would better reflect common participation by citizens across the Union, reinforce participatory democracy and help create a more coherent pan-European election”.
It is trying to create a legitimacy that is certainly not there at the moment for their scheme to create a single federal state. This is of the greatest importance. Point AI, which is the last point to which I shall refer and indeed the last point in the document, refers to,
“the principle of degressive proportionality”.
Again, I do not really know what “degressive proportionality” means. This is one of the problems with European documents. One has to get into the interstices of these documents to try to find out what they might mean in plain English, and then reveal that as far as one can in these Committees. It continues,
“the principle of degressive proportionality enshrined in the TEU has contributed significantly to the common ownership of the European project between all Member States”.
We all know what that European project is. It is about the advance to a single state in which the European Parliament is the Parliament of the European Union and we become a mere assembly within it, perhaps somewhere between a county council and the Scottish Parliament but not a proper national assembly. This document shows the route of travel of the European Union. That is where the current context is so important, because the Government are trying to paint a picture of it going our way—that over there, they are not as ambitious as they once were and they accept that closer European integration was yesterday’s story. We hear it again and again—with magnificent renegotiation, we are finally halting the tide of pro-Europeanism.
Then we have an unnumbered European document, a European Parliament resolution of 11 November 2015 on the reform of the electoral law of the European Union, that gives the game away. This is a usurping and pretending Parliament that seeks to take powers from us and is looking towards fulfilling its ambition of a single European state. The Government must oppose it by veto and we must send forth our clear concern about subsidiarity, but most importantly—above and beyond all the technicalities that we get from reading these papers—we must understand what is happening, what the aim is and what the ambition is. If we quietly discuss it in a Committee of a dozen people, and we do not make sure that it is more widely known that this is what is happening, we will find—regardless of renegotiation or referendum—that we are in a greater European state.
Wayne David
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is important to keep things in perspective? What we have here is a view from the European Parliament, expressed—I suspect—by just a few MEPs who happened to get together in a Committee. It does not reflect the view of member state Governments or the people of Europe.
Mr Rees-Mogg
The hon. Gentleman is brilliant, and it is always a pleasure to take his interventions and hear his wonderful exposition of how this is all fine. He says it is a very mild document from the European Parliament, and that the European Parliament does not really matter. I am sure that he did not say that when he was sitting in Strasbourg or going back and forth between Strasbourg and Brussels.
This is a document that has been approved by the European Parliament. The European Parliament is one of the three pillars of the European Union, alongside the Commission and the Council. The idea that this is a quiet paper put forward by a few MEPs on the European Parliament equivalent of an all-party parliamentary group, to be read in a village hall in Surbiton—if it has one—is absurd. This is a really serious document that has gone before the Council and is now a Council proposal. It is within one unanimous vote by the Council of being adopted as law across the European Union.
Fortunately, the Government have a veto and have indicated that they will use it. That is extremely good news, but it is a wonderful concoction to suggest that the document is something mild that can just be ignored. I wish it were so and that the European Parliament could be so easily dismissed, but regrettably it has become a major player in the development of the European project—understandably, because MEPs want power for themselves. That is probably why they stand for election and, as the hon. Gentleman said, Parliaments are always looking for more powers. But since Lisbon, it has a lot of them and this is a further push. What is so important about it is that it shows the reality of what is aimed for in the EU—the direction of travel has not changed. We may go down the road at a slightly slower pace—we may be on a bicycle when other members of the European Union are in Ferraris—but the destination is the same.
John Penrose
I shall try to respond briefly to the points that have been raised. In spite of the slightly different starting precepts of the various contributions, there is a fair amount of cross-party agreement in the Committee. We all cleave to and support pretty strongly the notion of subsidiarity—the principle that things should be done at the place closest to the citizen, whether at a local elected level, a regional elected level or at a national level. Only when something requires international co-operation should sovereignty be voluntarily pooled as part of that process.
Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)
I have a specific question: how many other nations does the Minister think will also veto this proposal?
John Penrose
It is a little early in the process to have a precise count. However, I am told that the mood music from other capitals around Europe is that they are equally concerned and that many other countries share our point of view on most if not all of these proposals. We do not need a huge degree of consensus, because, as we have all observed, there is a veto, but we are far from alone on this matter. I hope that the Committee is reassured by the fact that many other countries share the view that has been widely expressed, which is that there is no such thing currently as a European polity—a European demos.
As the hon. Member for Caerphilly pointed out, we are a diverse continent, with many different points of view and many different inheritances and traditions. We are hugely religiously diverse, ranging from Catholic and Orthodox Christians to many other more newly arrived religions as well. We are enormously different in our heritage and in our attitudes, so it would be perverse for us to assume that a one-size-fits-all solution is either desirable or likely to be effective. Neatness is an outcome that is usually beloved only of accountants and lawyers and very rarely something that politicians should go for as a starting point. I share his suspicion of something that comes out as a one-size-fits-all solution across Europe. It is very revealing that he, as a former Member of the European Parliament, feels so strongly in that respect.
The hon. Gentleman asked about finances. It is rather early in the process to have a precise, detailed accounting, but as we are politely but pretty firmly demurring from most of the contents of this proposal, we hope not to get to the point at which the finances become relevant, because we do not want this to happen in the first place, but should we get to that point in the process, of course we would have to add up which bits would cost money and which would not.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the role of the Commission, which I think he had heard was analysing the results of previous elections. I am not familiar with that process or with any proposals; I do not think that any proposals have been issued from there at all so far. I guess the point I would make is this, and it goes back to the points underlying the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. These proposals focus mainly on the plumbing of democracy—the dates on which the nomination papers need to be filled in, the way in which electoral registration is handled and the way in which elections are conducted. There will be a suspicion in this country and, I suspect, in many others that through changing the plumbing of European countries’ democracies, Brussels will be trying to advance the case of more Europe—the case of more Brussels.
I just gently suggest, both to everyone in the Committee and to the wider audience, that what is needed is not, in this case, changes to plumbing. What is needed is not plumbing, but poetry. People in Europe—certainly in this country and, I suspect, in many other countries—need to be persuaded of the benefits of Brussels. They need to be persuaded about why Brussels feels that it has something to add—the principle of added value—and to understand where it does not. At the moment, given the turnout in European parliamentary elections, it is clear that that poetry is lacking and that many people are not persuaded of the way in which Europe could, in its view, add value. Therefore, I suggest that focusing on the plumbing is not the answer. These proposals are not the solution. This will seem to many to be an attempt to achieve by stealth what cannot be achieved through honest, genuine democratic debate and persuasion.
If people were persuaded, if there were at some future point some kind of European demos, a shared European view on the benefits or demerits of more or less Europe, we would be able to have a much more straightforward, pan-European and honest democratic debate, but that is not where we are. It is not the direction of travel at the moment, because levels of trust in the European project have been falling more widely
Conor McGinn (St Helens North) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that there is a shared concept of European democracy and that that was what defeated fascism in the second world war and totalitarian communism in the cold war? It is important, when we use poetry as a persuader to people here about the value of Europe, that we do not forget that legacy and that history.
John Penrose
That is a very important point and it illustrates the difference that I think we are all gesturing towards in the Committee. Despite all the different heritages around the geographic entity of this continent, the different approaches to how we do democracy, and the different hot buttons and persuasive issues in one country versus another, there is a common commitment to the concept of democracy. It is one of the things that is distinctive about the collective European countries, across the continent. However, we do not all do it in the same way. There is a huge difference between a commitment to the principle and an acceptance that we all think about things in the same way, do them in the same way and cleave to the same issues in, for example, Finland, Spain, Greece or Britain. It is vital not to forget that distinction.
Additionally, the hon. Member for Caerphilly asked me about e-voting and about spitzenkandidaten. I agree with him that e-voting is not yet safe. He asked about the future. What this Government want to do—I hope future Governments do too—is to keep a close eye on the way in which the technology is developing. In the past few years, we have all become used to doing our banking and all other kinds of transactions online. Life is becoming more online and more e-enabled. I suspect we will increasingly look at our voting process and say, “Why can’t that be more online and more like the rest of our lives?” The crucial thing, however, is that because the risks of an e-election are that much higher and the notion of stealing the government of a city, a country or even the leadership of a continent is so profound, we would need to be really, really sure about the security of the technology used and treat it with great care, even though the advantages are manifest in many other parts of our life. We will therefore want to keep close tabs on how that develops and to weigh up the balance of risks and rewards.
Finally, the hon. Member for Caerphilly asked about the details of the EU proposals on how the spitzenkandidaten process could be changed. I could not begin to think myself into the heads of the people who made the proposals in the EU documentation, particularly because the Government oppose those proposals on principle. I am afraid he will have to ask those people what their proposals would involve and why they think the proposals are good. I hope that everyone here has had a relatively clear answer from the Government—it is fairly clear on both sides of the House more broadly—that we do not think those proposals are a sensible idea and that we would not want to go ahead with spitzenkandidaten. With that, I hope I have responded to everyone’s questions and queries.
The Chair
The question is on the motion, which I note does not set up a binary choice between plumbing and poetry.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this Committee takes note of Unnumbered European Union Documents, a European Parliament Resolution of 11 November 2015 on the reform of the electoral law of the European Union, and a Proposal for a Council Decision adopting the provisions amending the Act concerning the election of members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage; supports the Government’s initial view that it is not persuaded of the merits of many of the proposed measures, and that a number of the proposals concern issues that should be decided at a national level; further notes that there is a power of national veto in respect of the European Parliament’s Proposal, and that the Government is therefore not committed to agreeing to any of the proposed measures; and considers that the Proposed Council Decision does not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for the reasons set out in annex 2 to Chapter 1 of the Nineteenth Report of the European Scrutiny Committee (HC 342-xviii) and, in accordance with Article 6 of Protocol (No. 2) annexed to the EU Treaties on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, instructs the Clerk of the House to forward this reasoned opinion to the Presidents of the European Institutions.