draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, deemed applications, requests and site visits) (england) (amendment) regulations 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Alok Sharma)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2017.
The draft regulations will bring forward the 20% increase in nationally set planning application fees that we promised in the housing White Paper, introduce fees for new categories of development and enable development corporations to charge for pre-application planning advice. If approved by the House, as they were in the other place, the draft regulations will come into effect 28 days after they are made.
The planning application regime is the gateway to new homes, economic development and regeneration, so it is important that we support and work with local authorities to promote excellence in their services. We want to ensure that the planning system is valued, resilient and capable of providing the service that local people and planning applicants expect. We also want to provide local authorities with the capacity and capability to support the Government’s objective to build the homes we need more quickly.
I recognise that planning fees have not increased since 2012. The 20% increase in planning fees set out in the draft regulations is a significant step towards addressing the widespread concerns of under-resourced local planning authorities. It is worth noting that the increase is greater than it would have been had it been linked to inflation. In recognising the wider pressures on local planning authorities, we stated in our housing White Paper that we would increase planning fees by 20% for those authorities that
“commit to invest the additional fee income in their planning department.”
Ring-fencing the additional fees in that way will ensure that resources are directly invested to support the delivery of an effective planning system. All local planning authorities in England have accepted that offer.
Based on current activity, that uplift in planning fees could generate more than £75 million of additional fee income annually for local authorities. That is equal to the average salaries of approximately 1,600 planners and other professionals who play a role in the planning process, and should bring total planning application fee income to approximately £450 million a year. The 20% increase will keep planning application fees at a modest level for householders and developers compared with overall project costs, while providing local authorities with the necessary resources to turn around applications efficiently and effectively.
In addition to the 20% fee increase for planning applications and advertisement consents set out in regulation 2, the draft regulations will make a number of other technical changes in relation to fees charged by local planning authorities. In developing the draft regulations, we undertook a technical consultation in 2016 on proposals to increase planning application fees. The majority of respondents from all sectors supported increasing planning fees.
Let me turn to the specifics of the draft regulations. Regulation 1 sets out their scope: they apply only in England and will come into force 28 days after they are made. Regulation 2 provides for an increase in all existing fees for planning applications and advertisement consents, and brings forward four technical changes.
Regulation 3 puts in place the fee a local authority will be able to charge for a permission-in-principle application. Permission in principle is a new route to planning permission, which gives developers up-front certainty that sites are suitable for housing-led development in principle before they need to work up detailed and costly development proposals. The draft regulations will introduce a new fee of £402 per 0.1 hectare for applications for permission in principle. That follows new powers that we intend to provide to local authorities to grant permissions in principle for suitable sites on application.
The same principle applies in regulation 4, which enables any mayoral development corporation or urban development corporation to charge for giving pre-application advice. That provides the same powers to development corporations as already exist for other local planning authorities.
Regulation 5(1) amends a reference to the relevant legislation relating to permitted development rights. In effect, it changes the reference from the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015.
Regulation 5(2) provides for a planning fee to be charged by local planning authorities for applications necessary because a permitted development right has been removed. The right could have been removed through either an article 4 direction of the 2015 order or a condition imposed on a planning permission. That change delivers a commitment made during the passage of the Neighbourhood Planning Act 2017.
Finally, regulation 5(3) expands the scope of prior approval applications, for which a fee of £96 can be charged. The regulations include the prior approvals required as part of the new permitted development rights that were introduced in April 2015 and April 2017. Those permitted development rights include the rights for the installation of solar photovoltaic equipment on non-domestic buildings, the erection of click-and-collect facilities within the land area of a shop, the temporary use of buildings or land for film-making purposes and the provision of temporary school buildings on vacant commercial land for state-funded schools.
We continue to keep the resourcing of local authority planning departments and where fees can be charged under review. The housing White Paper promised a subsequent consultation on a possible further 20% increase in planning fees. We published in September this year local housing needs consultation proposals entitled “Planning for the right homes in the right places”. We consulted on the potential to increase planning fees by a further 20% and how that could be targeted for authorities that are delivering the homes that communities need. That consultation closed recently, and the responses received will inform our thinking on how to ensure that planning fees deliver the resources necessary to support the high performance of local planning authorities. I commend the regulations to the Committee.
Jim McMahon (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. We by and large welcome the proposals. There are areas that we want to see the Government go further on, and I will explore some of those. I also have questions that I would like to put to the Minister, for a response today.
In particular, we welcome regulation 2, which provides for the increase in existing fees to be paid to local planning authorities. We welcome the 20% increase, which will no doubt make a difference. Without the approval of the regulations, planning departments would miss out on an estimated £70 million of additional income in the current financial year. The autumn statement contained measures intended to speed up development, but included nothing to help the resourcing of planning departments, which councils have long called for.
We also welcome the move in regulation 4(2)—that is, proposed new regulation 2B of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012—to allow mayoral development corporations and urban development corporations to charge for advice in their area on planning applications at the pre-application stage. That reflects better the greater use of powers afforded to local mayors, without them having to incur additional costs in delivering those powers.
The heart of the issue is that the planning process is still being subsidised by general council tax payers. Those payments are being asked to cover an increasing shortfall in council budgets. The Institute for Fiscal Studies estimates that councils have been forced to cut planning and development services by 30% when we are demanding more and expecting that more units will be built. While the regulations are welcome, they are a small step towards achieving the house building that we know our country needs.
Councils are working hard to deliver the right kind of home and they are approving nine out of 10 planning applications, but planning departments are severely under-resourced. Taxpayers are subsidising the cost of planning applications by around £200 million a year. That money could be spent on frontline services, which we know have taken the brunt of austerity.
A shortcoming of recent regulations on this issue is that they do not account for inflation. That cannot be acceptable when they are revised so infrequently. As the explanatory notes state, the regulations were last revised in 2012, which is a significant issue. It was five years ago that this issue was last brought before the House in a meaningful way. Since then, we know that the cost of dealing with applications has gone up significantly.
Under the proposals, planning authorities will probably have to wait the same time before another increase, when costs are increasing all the time. We need a fee structure with inflationary increases built in to take into account the natural increases that councils have to bear every year. If we do not do that, the additional pressures that we see year on year through normal inflationary pressures will be passed on to general taxpayers in those areas. With austerity continuing to bite, that means that frontline services will be affected.
The Local Government Association has suggested that provision should be made for fees to increase in line with the consumer price index on 1 April every year, starting in 2018. That would bring the town and country planning fees regulations into line with the Infrastructure Planning Fees (Amendment) Regulations 2017. Those insert a mechanism for fees for development consent for certain types of nationally significant infrastructure project to be increased annually in line with CPI.
Another issue is the method for setting fees. Rather than the Government setting fees, would it not be appropriate and in the spirit of devolution for local authorities to set the fees in their own areas? We know that councils provide for fees and charges across a range of council services: burial charges, trade waste, car parking charges and market ground rents. Councils do that annually as a decision of full council. I cannot see why planning fees should not be done in the same manner, as they would be held to account by the full council meeting and dealt with in the way that the schedule of fees and charges is for the range of council services.
That way, local authorities could plan for their local needs and plan ahead for the developments that they knew would come down the line. They could have staff in place, knowing that they had the security of being masters of their own destiny, rather than having to wait for Government to carry out a five-year review further down the line.
Planning authorities understand the demand for applications, but, importantly, they also understand the nature of costs that can be associated with certain types of application. An example is where there are a number of conservation areas or listed buildings due for redevelopment. The council would know that the specialist skills that were needed in the planning department were more involved than general planning and professional advice services. It would make sense to allow that local determination, taking into account the nature of planning applications coming forward, to be in the control of local authorities, which best know their area.
Colleagues at the LGA have suggested that we should explore the option of piloting full-cost recovery in some areas; I would like the Minister’s view on that. The Government could test a fair and transparent scheme and give councils the flexibility to set appropriate fees, reflecting local circumstance. To me, that is a sensible way to assess whether that is plausible and it would refine how this could be done, creating a pathway for the future.
I would also briefly like to raise concern about the changes to planning regulations set out in the autumn statement. The Treasury has now extended powers of permitted development to allow for the demolition of existing buildings, rather than their reuse. That not only bypasses any form of local consultation, but means that anything can be built without public scrutiny. That is a significant departure from the existing planning development rules and it could undermine local planning authorities even more.
Some of the examples given, such as the extension of click-and-collect facilities, seem very passive. Why would anybody want to object to what seems on the face of it a small planning matter? Click-and-collect lockers are generally installed outside convenience stores. That means that people can collect parcels 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The convenience store itself might have restricted opening hours, recognising that it could be surrounded by dense residential accommodation, so extended opening hours could be inconvenient for people who live there.
These extended permitted development rights allow for such lockers to be installed outside convenience stores, which could be by someone’s front door, with people coming 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to open the lockers for their click-and-collect parcels. The idea that the Government will not allow local people to have a say on that is not at all in the spirit of local democracy, and it is certainly not in the spirit of people being able to determine, at a local level, what type of neighbourhood they want to live in.
More generally, I will highlight the benefits of a proper, resourced planning system. We are in the midst of a housing crisis in the UK. I do not want to get into a political argument about why and what the current methods are, but we should all agree that the way to get out of the current situation is to make sure that we have proper planning departments that are resourced and valued, and that can start planning for the long term.
One suggestion put forward—I would like to hear the Minister’s view on this—is to have a proper education and investment programme for planning officers coming into local authorities. It would be similar to a Teach First-type programme, where we would identify people at university, support them and fast-track them into local authorities, and then, when they were in place within the local authority, give them continual personal development training and support.
We should also identify young people within schools who might be interested in this sector. Young people in Oldham would love the opportunity of having what is a professional and respected job, but is maybe a job they have not even considered before. We know that our housing growth requirements will require more planning officers, so it would be advantageous to reach out into our schools, open young people’s eyes a bit and offer them that opportunity.
I know the Government will say they have consulted with the LGA. That may well be the case, and I would expect it to be, but that is not to say that what the LGA said has been taken on board in the way it intended. I will make a cross-party offer. The LGA is a cross-party organisation; it reaches consensus on many of these issues and is not party political. There is no reason this place could not act in the same mature-spirited way, too. If there is room for common ground—where we can advance the planning system, making it fit for purpose and for tackling the challenges ahead—perhaps a way to do that is somewhere outside a statutory instrument Committee, where more informal conversations could take place and we could work with our colleagues in the LGA to make sure that we get this right. If we do not get this right, there is no chance that we can build the housing our country needs.
Alok Sharma
Fees for planning applications have been the subject of successive regulations since 1981, but have not been increased since 2012. The debate is about a timely and essential adjustment of the fees that local planning authorities can charge. It will still be the case that most planning fees represent a small fraction of the full cost of any development to which they relate, and because the increases are being applied across the board, they do not impact more heavily on particular sectors of business or, indeed, the community.
I want to refer to some of the points made by the hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton. First, I welcome his and his party’s support for these vital regulations and changes. I think we can all agree that we want to see local authorities, and planning departments particularly, funded and working efficiently and effectively. That is precisely why we set it out in the White Paper that we would introduce this increase in planning fees.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the need for further funding. As I noted, in our recent consultation we asked for views on an additional 20% increase, and we will of course review the feedback that we get from that. He also raised the issue of the potential linking of the fees to inflation, using the CPI. As he knows, the regulations do not provide for indexed linking, and we would of course need primary legislation to amend the enabling power. As I set out in my opening remarks, the 20% increase that we hope to implement within the 28 days means that the increase will be greater than if a link to inflation as a measure for increasing these fees had been in place back in 2012.
The hon. Gentleman also raised a point about local authorities having the ability to set their own fees. We do not consider that allowing local planning authorities to set their own fees is the answer to resourcing challenges, as there is no guarantee that the additional income would go into planning services or would deliver efficiencies.
There is also a risk that uncertainty in relation to fees in some areas might dissuade homeowners and small developers from undertaking development and introduce unpredictability when we need developers to accelerate the number of homes they are building. However, I fully accept that we need to keep the resourcing of local planning authorities and the circumstances in which local fees can be charged under review.
The hon. Gentleman raised a number of other points. He talked about trialling or piloting full-cost recovery. Full-cost recovery, by itself, does not provide a link to service improvements. Charging at cost recovery removes the incentives for local authorities to reduce their cost, if they know they can pass the cost directly on to applicants.
The hon. Gentleman raised issues around the permitted development impact of click and collect. I want to clarify that this right applies only within a shop’s curtilage. It cannot be outside someone’s home.
Jim McMahon
Will the Minister clarify whether that includes the outer curtilage—the boundary on the deeds —or just the inside of the property?
Alok Sharma
I will write to the hon. Gentleman to clarify that. The key point is that the impact of this change is not quite as he outlined.
Jim McMahon
I think this is a slightly bigger issue than it has been given credit for. I understood from the advice that this does include the outer curtilage. At a local shop with a click-and-collect service, the locker could be on the outside—right near the front door of a residential property—under permitted development rights in this scheme. This is not for today, but the Government ought to go away and look at the impact of that.
Alok Sharma
If the hon. Gentleman writes to me to set out his thoughts, we will consider them. The changes we are discussing today relate to the permitted development rights regime.
The hon. Gentleman raised the interesting issue of education and investment for planners. We are working with organisations such as the Royal Town Planning Institute to support the education and training of planners through the provision of bursary programmes and other initiatives.
We have debated today regulations and an increase in planning fees that are widely welcomed by local authorities and those who seek planning permission. I reiterate that it is vital we have well-resourced, effective and efficient local authority planning departments to provide new homes and deliver economic growth, as the hon. Gentleman set out. We expect local authorities to match the recommended fee increases with an ongoing improvement of service when handling planning applications. In introducing these changes, we are ensuring that local authorities have the resources to take on and deal efficiently with all increasing demands made of them.
Question put and agreed to.
Draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (amendment) Regulations 2017
Draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017
(6 years, 5 months ago)
General CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2017.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to consider the draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017.
Chris Skidmore
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.
The purpose of the instruments is to modify provisions in the Representation of the People Act 2000 to enable the pilot scheme provisions to apply to combined authority elections and local mayoral elections. The provisions brought into effect in 2000 were used extensively in pilots in 2007. There has been no piloting of changes to the voting process for more than a decade, but new polls have been introduced to other local authority elections, namely elections for local Mayors and Mayors for combined authorities. However, the 2000 Act piloting provisions do not fully apply to the new polls.
Earlier this year, the Government announced that they would conduct pilots for voter identification at the local elections in May 2018 in line with their manifesto commitment to legislate to ensure that a form of identification must be presented before voting. Voter ID is part of the Government’s commitment to improve the security and resilience of the electoral system that underpins our democracy, and will ensure that people have confidence in our democratic processes.
Five authorities have indicated their intention to run voter ID pilots in the local elections in May 2018, including Woking, Gosport, Bromley, Swindon and Watford. Tower Hamlets will also pilot new security features for postal voting. Watford and Tower Hamlets will be holding local mayoral elections in addition to their local council elections.
The powers to alter electoral conduct rules for the purpose of running pilots are contained within section 10 of the 2000 Act. Section 11 enables the Secretary of State to apply measures trialled in a pilot scheme generally, taking into account any report on the scheme provided by the Electoral Commission under section 10. The sections currently make provision to conduct the pilots in local authority and Greater London Authority elections.
As I have indicated, two of the local authorities that plan to conduct pilots in May 2018—Watford and Tower Hamlets—will also hold local authority mayoral elections on the same day. Those polls are normally held in combination for the benefit of both electors and administrators, and proposed changes will allow pilots to be conducted at both. That will ensure that voters have a smooth voting experience. It would be confusing for voters if the provisions were piloted at one poll but not the other on the same day. The changes will also facilitate the effective administration of the polls.
More generally, the statutory instruments we are considering will enable pilot scheme orders to be made that are intended to improve the voting experience for voters, and to make the electoral process more secure. The pilot schemes orders will also allow evidence to be collected for statutory evaluation by the Electoral Commission on the impact of voter ID in polling stations. That evidence and evaluation will inform the Government’s decision about how most successfully to meet their manifesto commitment and introduce voter ID nationally. No pilot schemes are planned for a combined authority mayoral election—elections for metro Mayors, as the media have termed them—but the order will facilitate any pilot scheme orders for combined authority mayoral elections in future.
For the record, I will describe the detail of the proposed changes. On the draft Local Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (England and Wales) (Amendment) Regulations 2017, section 10 of the 2000 Act enables the Secretary of State, as I have explained, to make provision to run pilot schemes in relation to the conduct of local elections in England and Wales by order. Section 11 allows the Secretary of State to apply those changes generally. Currently, section 10 does not enable changes to be made to the conduct of rules for local mayoral elections.
Provisions in section 11 that enable measures tested in a pilot scheme to apply generally and on a permanent basis do not encompass conduct rules for local mayoral elections. When the mayoral rules were made in 2007, provision was made to apply sections 10 and 11 of the RPA 2000 to mayoral elections. However, a further modification was needed to enable changes to be made to the mayoral election conduct rules, because they are made under the Local Government Act 2000. Sections 10 and 11 only enable changes to conduct rules to be made under that Act, which was a technical oversight. The regulations make those modifications so as to enable pilot scheme orders under section 10 of the RPA 2000 to make changes to the mayoral conduct rules. That will enable pilot scheme orders to be made that will facilitate, in the short term, voter ID pilots during local mayoral elections and, in the longer term, any other future pilot schemes.
Turning to the draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017, similarly to local mayoral elections, sections 10 and 11 of the RPA 2000 as currently drafted do not enable the conduct rules for combined authority mayoral elections to be modified. When the combined authorities mayoral order was made in 2017, provision was made to apply sections 10 and 11 of the RPA 2000 to combined authority mayoral elections. However, a further modification was needed to enable changes to be made to the 2017 conduct rules, made under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009. That, again, was a technical oversight. The order makes those modifications to enable pilot scheme orders under section 10 of the RPA 2000 to make changes to the combined authority conduct rules for the purpose of conducting pilots.
We are also taking the opportunity to address a technical issue concerning subscription of candidates’ nomination papers at combined authority mayoral elections. The order will amend the definitions of “elector” and “local government elector” to clarify who may subscribe a nomination paper. A subscriber must be of voting age on the day of the poll and they must be on the local government register of electors on the last day for the publication of the notice of election, which must be published no later than 25 working days before polling day. It also includes new versions of the form of the nomination paper for use by candidates at a combined authority mayoral election as a consequence of the changes.
The provision for the combined authority mayoral elections did not contain the limitation of the register being the one produced by the last day for publication for the notice of election, which is the case for other polls. That meant that administrators had to check subscribers on the register both up to that date and beyond it, which opened up scope for confusion and error as that was unlike the position for other polls. The change brings the provision in line with that of other polls and thereby also supports more effective administration of polls held in combination. The amendments will make combined authority mayoral elections consistent with other polls on this issue as well as provide certainty to candidates and administrators as to whom they subscribe the nomination paper.
Our principal stakeholders, the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, have been consulted on these draft statutory instruments and are content. Furthermore, the stakeholders have expressed support for voter identification pilots in general. The Cabinet Office and Electoral Commission will undertake detailed evaluation of the pilots, after which the Government will announce the next step to implement voter ID nationally.
We consider, in summary, that these instruments are necessary for the conduct of electoral pilots in respect of local mayoral elections and combined authority mayoral elections and also make the law governing candidates’ nominations at combined authority mayoral elections consistent with other polls. I commend the statutory instruments to the Committee.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
It is vital that our electoral system is fit for purpose. Pilot schemes can be an effective tool to test electoral innovations and identify key learning points through the evaluation process. The Opposition strongly believe in handing power back to communities: not the piecemeal devolution adopted by the Government but real, meaningful devolution complete with the necessary funding to give it legs. We therefore welcome measures to extend the rights to local authorities to make applications to run electoral pilots in local mayoral elections.
It is somewhat concerning that the combined authorities order is amending a drafting error in the original order for metro Mayor elections. It is not the first time that has happened this year: just days before the general election polling day, the Government were forced to table a new set of rules for the election after numerous errors in the 2017 parliamentary elections order came to light. That is hardly a good sign for how the vastly greater and more complicated reams of legislative change required for Brexit will go.
It is also disappointing that we are debating yet another statutory instrument that offers sticking-plaster solutions to an already broken system. The law governing elections is fragmented and flexible, inconsistent and complex. There are 40 Acts of Parliament and more than 170 statutory instruments relating to our electoral legal framework, with some provisions dating back to the 19th century.
It is widely accepted by those involved in administering and competing in elections, including the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, that fundamental reform of electoral law is needed, yet the Government refuse to listen and continue to bury their head in the sand. In February 2016 the Law Commission published its interim report calling for the current laws governing elections to be rationalised
“into a single, consistent legislative framework governing all elections”.
Nearly two years on, the Government are yet to respond to that.
While we in the Opposition do not stand in the way of efforts to extend democracy to local authorities, we do not support this Government’s priorities on electoral pilots. The Government are fixated on introducing a photo identification requirement for electors in polling stations at the next election, and will be running pilots in May. We are deeply concerned by that. Electoral fraud is a serious crime, and it is vital that the police have the resources they need to bring about prosecutions. However, there is no evidence of widespread personation. Last year, there were 44 allegations of personation out of nearly 64 million votes. That is one case for every 1.5 million votes cast.
The introduction of photo ID presents a major barrier to democracy. Limiting acceptable ID to passports and photographic driving licences would potentially leave 11 million electors, or 24% of the electorate, without acceptable ID. Decades of international studies show that highly restrictive ID requirements make it harder for people to vote, reduce turnout and exclude some parts of the electorate, while doing little to stop determined fraudsters. It is disappointing that, rather than combating the real challenge that undermines our democratic process, the Government are creating further barriers to democratic engagement.
Mr Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con)
What, then, would the Labour party do to stop personation? I have seen it in a number of wards and it has proved quite critical in some elections. What would the Labour party therefore do, in those circumstances, for the returning officers?
Cat Smith
Thank you. I hope that, if the hon. Gentleman has seen evidence of personation, he has reported it to the police. It is a serious criminal matter. One of the biggest challenges we face in tackling voter fraud is the cuts to local authorities. Delivering smooth and efficient elections is essential to our democracy, but the cuts we have seen to local authority election teams have pushed a lot of teams to the absolute limit. Without the staff necessary to deliver a quality service for voters during elections, the system is vulnerable. According to a study—
Mr Prisk
I know that the hon. Lady is not well, and I do not wish to push the matter too far, but she is reading out what is in front of her. My simple question was: for a returning officer who faces a challenge and is unsure about someone’s identity, what would the Labour party propose other than a photographic identity?
Cat Smith
One of the challenges, of course, is that our police forces have seen huge cuts. My own constabulary in Lancashire has lost hundreds of frontline police officers since 2010. Without the resources to target people who are determined to be fraudsters in elections, all that introducing ID does is discourage genuine electors from turning out to vote. I am sure that, like me, the hon. Gentleman has campaigned in many elections where he found voters who thought they could not vote if they had misplaced their polling card and did not turn up.
The requirement for photo ID, with the potential for people not having it or not being able to find it on election day, will mean fewer entitled electors turning up, but it will not discourage determined fraudsters. In that situation, if they are determined to commit electoral fraud, we might assume that they are determined to commit identity fraud too, potentially by forging driving licences. I do not believe that requiring photo ID at polling stations will do anything to deter those determined fraudsters. The only real way to deter them is to focus police investigations on people who are known to be committing that crime.
The Opposition have a serious concern about the number of electoral administrators leaving the profession; it has doubled since 2010. Given that core electoral services are generally delivered by a very small team and in some cases by an individual employee, any loss of experienced staff can have a significant impact on service delivery. How can we expect local authorities to deliver electoral pilots when they face such challenges?
As I said, we welcome the measures to extend the right to local authorities to apply to run electoral pilots for local mayoral elections. However, it is not enough, and fundamental reform is needed if we are to maintain the integrity of our electoral process.
Chris Skidmore
I would like to start by thanking the hon. Lady for her remarks today. I want to put on record the admiration of all hon. Members for her having turned up despite not being very well and still managing to make a significant and important contribution. We all appreciate that as part of our democratic process.
I would like to put the Government’s comments on the record in response to the hon. Lady’s specific points. The changes to the order made during the general election period in June were to funding allocations, and many of them were necessary because of errors or inconsistencies in previous claims by returning officers that had been put into the funding allocations. By allowing that process to take place, we could ensure that they have effective and up-to-date funding.
The hon. Lady is absolutely correct that the law governing our elections is fragmented and complex. The Law Commission’s interim report was an important contribution that has had the wide support of the electoral community. As a Government, we are determined to work with the Law Commission on what can be introduced at this stage, given the restriction in primary legislation. As she will be aware, many of the laws governing electoral conduct are in primary legislation. On Monday, when I held the first electoral summit, which included representatives of the Association of Electoral Administrators, the Electoral Commission and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives, I announced that we will be taking forward further work with the Law Commission, particularly on rationalising 25 statutory instruments on the conduct of elections into two single statutory instruments. We hope that that work can progress. While we are unable to move forward with primary legislation, we want to maintain the relationship and show the commitment of this Government to rationalising that complex tangled web of electoral law.
Regarding the pilot of voter identification at the poll, that is obviously a package of measures that was announced in the Government’s response to Eric Pickles’s report, “Securing the Ballot”. When it comes to considering electoral integrity, the identity pilots will form just one part of the Government’s overall package, which in future will also include legislation to look at postal vote harvesting, so that we can ensure there is confidence in the whole system. It is not just to do with identification at polls.
The hon. Lady also mentioned photographic ID. These pilots are determined to ensure that we have evidence-based policy making, so some of the pilots will be photographic, some will be non-photographic and some—for example from Watford, which has been mentioned as one of the mayoral authorities—will involve people bringing their polling card, which will have a barcode on it that will be scanned through. That may provide interesting opportunities for a marked register, which currently is a manual one, to show how people voted, and that would eventually be digitised from the bottom up.
There is a potential for innovation. We want to trial all these different methods, but I want to make assurances to the House, because I am obviously committed to democratic engagement, and I will be publishing a democratic engagement plan this month, looking at how we can ensure that those groups that are under registered have the right to vote. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of women getting a right to vote, and the 90th anniversary of women getting an equal right to vote. Our democracy is still a very young one, despite our being in the austere surroundings of this place, and we want to ensure that everyone gets that right to vote. If there is anyone who does not have the identification that is needed, there will be a significant communications campaign in advance to ensure that people are aware that they need to bring ID and if anyone does not have the required ID, certificates of identification will be able to be issued. I am assured that no one will be disenfranchised by these pilots. We will listen to the evaluation process from the Electoral Commission and it is right that we take this managed and staged approach to looking at how identification might work.
The hon. Lady mentioned the small number of cases of personation and electoral fraud. That is a debate that we have had in the main Chamber. Yes, the number of cases of electoral fraud that have been reported is relatively small—I think 1,974 cases were reported to the Electoral Commission between 2010 and 2016. But there is a broader point about the confidence in our electoral process. I want to put on record the comments of Sir John Holmes, the chair of the Electoral Commission, who gave a seminal speech to the Institute for Government on 6 December in which he stated that
“there is a persistent and widespread perception of a significant level of fraud. More than one third of respondents to our surveys after the 2017 general election thought some fraud had taken place, and less than half believed that there were sufficient safeguards to prevent it.”
The Electoral Commission has recommended that solely photographic ID should be used. As I said, the Government wish to trial various forms of ID. The Electoral Commission made the case that photographic ID has been used in Northern Ireland since 2003. Sir John Holmes went on to state in his 6 December speech:
“This has some public support—when asked what single measure would be most effective in preventing electoral fraud, 52% of voters polled in 2016 said ‘a requirement to show photo ID at a polling station’.”
I agree with the Electoral Commission and Sir John Holmes: we must always act ahead of the curve on electoral fraud and electoral integrity to safeguard our electoral process.
Sir John Holmes also stated:
“We want to address this before it becomes a problem, and part of a wider reduction of trust in the system. It does not seem unreasonable to demand proof of identity before voting, if we have to do so simply to collect a parcel, for example. It is certainly something which many other countries do routinely.”
With that in mind, the Government are piloting measures that are proportionate and fair and will be fully evaluated as part of the process of bringing forward our manifesto commitment on identification at polling stations. However, they will not be taken alone: other measures will be taken to address issues with electoral integrity and postal voting. The Government do that not to disenfranchise people or to restrict voting rights, but to ensure that the voices of the vulnerable are protected, that every elector has an equal right to vote and, above all, that no one’s vote is stolen from them.
Question put and agreed to.
DRAFT COMBINED AUTHORITIES (MAYORAL ELECTIONS) (AMENDMENT) ORDER 2017
Resolved,
That the Committee has considered the draft Combined Authorities (Mayoral Elections) (Amendment) Order 2017.—(Chris Skidmore.)