European Parliamentary Elections (Amendment) Regulations 2013

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Teverson (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome these regulations and particularly like the Minister’s optimism about planning for queues at European elections. Let us hope that that problem arises and we can show that this new robust system actually works. Somehow I suspect that it might not be the case but let us hope so. I should perhaps declare an interest in that I am a director of a company that, as a minor part of its business, prints ballot papers, including, probably, for the European elections.

I welcome all the regulations but just wanted to check something around equal treatment. I am particularly pleased that it is now easier for non-nationals of the UK and Ireland to put forward their candidacy, and that there are fewer barriers to that happening. However, I would like to understand whether and how Irish and Gibraltarian—and even UK—citizens are checked for potential disqualification. I can see that we are moving towards national authority where European states other than the UK and Republic of Ireland are concerned, but do we check disqualification for people from Gibraltar, the United Kingdom and Ireland?

The other matter on which I wanted to catch up is the date for the European elections, where a range of dates is set. Have the Government considered moving to a Sunday, like most of the rest of the European Union? That could be an experiment to see whether we could increase voting by holding the election at the weekend. Can the Minister also tell me whether next year’s local elections will go back to June, or the date for the European elections?

Finally, a much more strategic question: when do the Government intend to introduce open lists—as opposed to closed lists—for these elections, so that citizens can make real choices, rather than ones thrust upon them by a clique of political parties—of which, of course, we are all members and should therefore declare an interest.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, on this side of the House, we welcome the regulations, including the provision for telling those whose postal votes are rejected the reasons for such a rejection so that they can correct the mistake next time. We welcome the checks on postal votes. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, we also welcome making it easier for people to stand for election in countries other than those where they are citizens.

Before going on to questions about the actual regulations, I draw the Committee’s attention to the fact—which has already been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, and by the Minister—that this election also covers the people of Gibraltar. With this in mind, we were concerned by the quite false suggestion made by the Minister’s colleague in the House on 10 October—whether on behalf of the Government or the Conservative candidates in the European elections we do not know. The noble Baroness, Lady Warsi said that,

“we are incredibly clear about the sovereignty and the sovereign position of the Gibraltarian people. It is nice to hear that the Opposition now share this view”.

My noble friend Lady Royall of Blaisdon remonstrated with this quite outrageous implication, saying,

“the Minister said that the Opposition now support the people of Gibraltar. I would like to make it clear, and have it on the record, that my party has always supported the citizens of Gibraltar and their self-determination”.

One might have thought that sufficient for the former chair of the Conservative Party, but she added insult to injury by saying:

“It is incredibly heartening to hear that. It therefore puts my mind at rest, certainly in relation to the potential sovereignty crisis”.—[Official Report, 10/10/13; cols. 177-78.]

I therefore ask the Minister, as he oversees all the rules and regulations, including these ones governing the European elections in Gibraltar, to ensure that the administration of the vote is carefully overseen by the Electoral Commission, so that it is fair to all candidates in the South West England constituency.

I turn to the question of the close of poll. Contrary to what the Minister’s then colleague, Miss Chloe Smith, said in introducing the regulations in the other House—words repeated today by the Minister—the Government did not listen to what Parliament said about the queue at 10 pm and being able to vote, and had to be forced to do so by a vote in this House. Sadly, the Government continue to fail to listen, including to the Electoral Commission, which has a certain professional expertise in these matters. They did not listen over that issue and they are not listening now over the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill, where they failed to consult the Electoral Commission before dreaming up Part 2. They are still resisting a large number of concerns that the Electoral Commission has about it, in particular the demands on the commission to make new sorts of judgments and to register a swathe of new organisations and, in particular, its worry that it will not have the resources to do so satisfactorily.

However, this concerns the current regulations which, again, will require the Electoral Commission to produce guidance, particularly on the matter of the time when postal votes can be handed in. As the Minister knows, the commission continues to raise some important questions over that wording. Can he give us a reassurance that the commission will be able to manage all the new expectations being laid on it by the lobbying Bill, together with its work on these European elections, which are to run concurrently with the local elections?

I have two further minor points to raise. In the debate in the Commons, Mr Graham Stringer MP asked:

“Are the European regulations on personation the same as those that apply in our general elections? Is a record kept of ballot papers, as it is in general elections, if personation occurs?”.—[Official Report, Commons, Sixth Delegated Legislation Committee, 12/9/13; col 6.]

The Minister in another place promised him a written response. Unfortunately, I have not managed to locate it, but perhaps the noble Lord will be able to read the answer into the record today.

Finally, in earlier exchanges on other statutory instruments, I thought that every opportunity was going to be used to forewarn people about the forthcoming move to individual electoral registration. I was therefore very disappointed that in my own area, Camden, absolutely no mention of the move to IER is made on the latest registration form, which has been done in time for the European elections; nor, I am assured, do the forms for Harrow or Lambeth. Does the Minister know what action is being taken more generally to prepare for this somewhat hurried change? As he knows, the commencement order to bring IER into force is due to be made on 8 November. Can he confirm that that is still the date, especially as we have yet to see the details of the outcome of the live data-matching trials using DWP records, which took place over the summer? In some instances, they matched fewer than half of the records. We have not seen a list of the particular areas, but it may be that he has that information to hand. Perhaps he could also clarify how much work is due to be undertaken by electoral registration officers on IER at the same time as they are running the combined European and local elections. Most importantly, is he satisfied that they have the resources for both of these challenging tasks?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for that fighting speech which has enlivened our afternoon. I shall try to answer her questions as well as I can. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, asked me about open lists versus closed lists. It is probably fair to say that there is no common view within the coalition on this, nor is there between the Government and the Opposition, so it is a matter on which we hope there will continue to be some form of debate. It is certainly the case that next year the local elections will be held on the same day as the European elections, on 22 May, but will then return to their otherwise normal date the following year.

He also asked about moving polling to a Sunday. All sorts of suggestions have been made for encouraging people to vote and making it easier for them to do so, including possibly having two days of voting over a Saturday and a Sunday. The problem with many of them is that the additional costs in staffing terms would be quite considerable, and thus these suggestions have not yet gained the degree of traction that I suspect the noble Lord might like.

On the question of how far we are checking the qualifications of voters in Ireland and Gibraltar, I had better write to the noble Lord to make sure that I get the answer entirely right. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, proclaimed the depth of the Labour Party’s commitment to the sovereignty of Gibraltar. Perhaps I might be allowed to repeat something that I said some years ago when this question came up. Under the 30-year rule, papers were released on discussions within the then Conservative Government in 1971-72, when a spat with the Spanish over Gibraltar was in full spate. The Foreign Secretary scribbled on one paper that perhaps one ought to consider possible alternatives. One alternative came up from a relatively junior member of the Foreign Office, who suggested that one might perhaps think of assigning the governance of Gibraltar to the Knights of St John on Malta. A senior official scribbled: “Have you ever met the Knights of Malta? You might as well give the sovereignty of Gibraltar to the Young Liberals”. The reason I use this example is that I once intervened on a Question under the Labour Government and the Minister responsible for negotiating with the Spanish Government had been the national president of the Young Liberals in 1971-72. I pass that on as an anecdote for a pub quiz, if the noble Baroness wishes to take part in one. I was very disappointed that the noble Baroness did not ask me how many postal voters there were on Gibraltar for the most recent European elections. I could have assured her that it was probably fewer than 100. The entire electoral roll is about 20,000.

I take her point about the demands on the Electoral Commission. We will come back to that in the transparency of lobbying Bill, which I am sure we will all enjoy discussing from Second Reading on 22 or 23 October.

On the question of personation, I am assured that the rules for personation in European elections are the same as those that apply to UK parliamentary and other elections. The intention of the regulations is precisely to reconcile as far as possible the regulations for national parliamentary, local and European elections.

I take the noble Baroness’s point that there is no mention on the papers going out at the moment of the move towards individual electoral registration. Perhaps I may take that back and be in touch with her again, because I entirely agree that we need to make people think about the change as soon as possible, and must consider how best to alert people about our move to it. I admit that, as usual, the effective head of my household filled in our Wandsworth and Saltaire election forms again this year, and that I did not check what she did. Therefore, I cannot tell the noble Baroness whether either the Bradford or the Wandsworth electoral forms alerted us to individual electoral registration.

I hope that I have answered all the questions that were raised in the debate, and I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Civil Society

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lady Prosser for securing this important debate, because civil society matters, in communities, nationally and here in your Lordships’ House, where so many Members draw on their experiences in a range of non-governmental groupings. Such activity, whether in a tenants’ group, trade union, advice bureau, book club, ramblers’ association, parents’ council or faith community, provides the vitality of civil society.

As we heard, my noble friends Lady Gibson and Lady Prosser first earned their spurs by representing fellow workers, while other speakers helped carers, women, consumers, the old, animal lovers, children or families, far away from any governmental structures.

A healthy civil society produces a community that fosters empathy, trust and respect—the most important feature of a good society, according to a survey commissioned by the Webb Memorial Trust, of which I am vice-chair. Civil society is also about citizens having their own space to develop, free from interference by the state and often outside their work environment. It is a good in itself: it should not be part of—in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Rooker—the shrinking of the state. While it can deliver state-funded services, that should be because the Government recognise the importance of community-driven provision, not because they seek to parcel off parts of our National Health Service to the lowest bidder.

As my noble friend Lady Prosser reminds us, the Government have indeed used the words “the big society”, but it is damaging the voluntary, flexible and innovative sector that gives voice to the voiceless and empowers those who are often only at the receiving end of decisions. Governments can support voluntary organisations but they should not see their value simply as an agent for service delivery, particularly as an agent on the cheap.

The cuts in public services and the economic situation are increasing demands on the voluntary organisations, as we have heard, just when their income is falling through a 20% drop in individual donations and half of local authorities disproportionately cutting their voluntary sector funding, despite three-quarters of voters disapproving of such cuts.

The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, who is not in his place, may believe that people go to food banks only because they are there but, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Truro corrected him a day later, people are driven to go. They do not choose to go—they have to go. He described food banks in the 21st century as a complete scandal.

We also face a problem with they way in which services are commissioned. It might suit government but not the voluntary sector, particularly the small charities that comprise 97% of the sector. They have had nothing but a negative experience of the commissioning process. Indeed, only one-quarter of small charities surveyed by the FSI feel that they can carry on bidding for local authority contracts. The issues have been well described today by the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts. If the commissioners fail to respond to what he says, small charities will be excluded from service delivery.

It is not only small charities that the process fails. I am a patron of the Blenheim Trust, which works with alcohol and drug misusers, and I am now going to report its views on the procurement, tendering and commissioning process. As has already been mentioned, the cost for the bidders and commissioners is estimated at £300,000 per tender. That is money that is not going to beneficiaries. Contracts are often one-sided, allowing cancellation with three or six months’ notice. There are often minimum turnover requirements of £5 million or £10 million. These preclude small and medium charities or force them into not necessarily advisable mergers. Providers are forced to compete on price rather than on quality, with no reference to the skills of advisers.

This impacts detrimentally on services and undermines the morale among committed, experienced staff and volunteers. Significantly, we are seeing the demise of local third sector organisations that are attuned to their communities as they are replaced by either profit-driven or growth-driven organisations, as has been described by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby.

I rise to the right reverend Prelate’s defence because the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, referred to conversations in the Bishops’ Bar. I make clear to anyone listening that not only have I never seen a Bishop there but that it is a tea room rather than a bar.

The worry about smaller organisations goes beyond this House. Chris White, the Conservative MP, has criticised his own Government for locking out charities and social enterprises from winning government contracts due to the large size of those contracts.

While under any qualified provider voluntary organisers can bid for NHS contracts, private health companies have won nearly half the bids. As today’s report from the IFG, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, shows, private firms are gaming £100 billion of government services for their shareholders at the expense of the taxpayer. The IFG analysis of outsourcing programmes, such as those to help the unemployed back into work, found private firms creaming off easy cases where they could make profits while parking problematic ones. Furthermore, big outsourcing companies are monopolising services, making it harder for smaller companies or charities to compete. The report says:

“a number of large providers now deliver a wide range of services (commissioned by separate departments) in particular areas of the country. This allows these providers … to undercut competitors, making their services attractive to commissioners”.

The Cabinet Office response was that the Government were encouraging the voluntary sector to get involved in delivering services but, it seems to me, with little understanding that smaller, locally-based organizations are even less able to compete against these giants.

Charity leaders are frustrated and demoralized by being sidelined in the provision of services and are watching aghast as the Cabinet Office’s annual funds for the third sector are being cut by 75% since the Labour Government’s last year in office. The leaders know that their energy is going to be devoted to fundraising rather than responding to their users’ growing needs. If charities cannot deliver services, beneficiaries suffer. Sadly, there is a paradox that civil society flourishes best where it is least needed, and is weakest in areas where there are highest rates of poverty, as the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, described. In the north-east, six out of 10 charities have lost funding.

As the voluntary sector increasingly has to deliver public services, its role in the public eye changes. If it is seen as an arm of the state, civil society risks losing its independence and uniqueness; its ability to enrich lives through connections with others; the informal education of citizenship; the encouragement of plurality and diversity; pioneering ways of doing things; representing users of public services; and holding authorities to account. We must not risk losing these roles.

More than 100 years ago, Beatrice and Sidney Webb set out their belief that the state and civil society should play different but complementary roles. According to them, the proper role for government is to take care of basic needs, guarantee rights and security, ensure a minimum standard of life and provide education and preparation for work. The role of civil society is to operate above this basic minimum and to ensure that citizens participate as full members of society. I could not put it better. Civil society contributes to a healthy, vibrant democracy that neither stagnates nor grows arrogant. We need it and we need the Government to foster, not hamper, its future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I would prefer to write to the noble Baroness rather than give her a half-informed answer now, if she will permit me. There are a number of social investment schemes under way but I do not have them entirely in order in my head at the moment.

We all share a commitment to a stronger civil society. I hope we all share a commitment to a stronger local civil society. I am very struck by the problems of large communities in some of our cities who feel themselves powerless but do not know what to do about it. As I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser, that is part of what the big society initiative is really concerned with. It will take a long time. For example, in Harehills and Gipton in Leeds the local Methodist, Catholic and Anglican churches used to do an awful lot but almost no one goes to church any longer. Creating alternative social networks and a sense of local empowerment and local confidence is a huge challenge for all of us and the state, society and others have to work together on it.

I hope we are all committed to this. I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I recognise that this is a challenge that will face every Government in Britain for the next 20 years and more.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

There were some more questions about the commissioning of services. It would be really useful if the Minister would undertake to ask other departments, beyond the Cabinet Office, to look at the commissioning process to see whether it can be made better. I do not know what his dialogue with the other departments is but it would be really useful if he was able to play a co-ordinating role.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There is now a commissioning academy. We are working with other departments. We are learning from experience how to work more effectively with local organisations where we can. The social value Act also helps us in that regard. I must not overrun my time; I give way to the noble Baroness, Lady Prosser.

Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill [HL]

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Friday 5th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I think we owe my noble friend Lord Dubs thanks not just for his Bill but, I have to say, for this educational and entertaining Friday morning. I congratulate him on the Bill. I am somewhat aghast that my very dear long-standing noble friend is so keen to add nearly 300 government supporters to the electoral roll as against a mere 217 from the Labour side, which is a 3:2 majority. That just goes to show what a very fair-minded and honourable man he is. As the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, suggested, his proposal would no doubt help national turnout and raise the batting average, because we as a group tend to be rather dutiful and have an excellent record on voting.

Before turning to the Bill, I will take 20 seconds somewhat belatedly to wish the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood, a happy 75th birthday. I also wish the NHS a happy 65th birthday. It was 5 July 1948 when that great institution came into existence, which for mining families like mine in south Wales made an enormous difference to their lives.

The Labour Party has traditionally held the view that Peers are stopped from voting in general elections because, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned, they are very well represented in Parliament, albeit by themselves, and that any such change should take place within the context of a proper and fully reformed form of your Lordships’ House. That, of course, is something that we still await. The Government’s clumsy attempt to reform this House without proper consultation—no proper thought about the role of the House, the respective powers of the two Houses, the 15-year term of office or the ban for those who had political aspirations in another place—means that serious reform has been put not on to the back burner but into a rather deep, cold fridge. Worse, in a way, is that the truculence of Mr Clegg over the burying of his half-baked ideas means that he and the Government will not countenance some necessary, albeit more gradual but we believe essential, modernisation of your Lordships’ House. I speak of course of the excellent work undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Steel, and now by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, in her House of Lords Reform Bill, which she presented in May.

Surely the priority, as my noble friend Lord Wills has said, and which even Mr Clegg should be able to understand, is some rather immediate changes. The first, which I had been completely unaware of until about 15 minutes ago, is to give five Supreme Court judges their vote. The second is to enable erring Peers to be waved off from your Lordships’ House and to find a sensible way of fostering the retirement of those who have served their country well but now wish to step aside. Perhaps offering them the opportunity to vote in the general election is the carrot that we have been seeking.

Of course, if we were granted a vote at a general election and a Peer were subsequently imprisoned and thus lost their seat here, and if the amendment of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Brown, had not come through, they would get their vote and immediately lose it as the prison doors swung shut behind them. Still, that seems to be a matter for another day.

My noble friend Lord Dubs is of course not without friends. Some of them are here today, some of them are in the past, as he mentioned. Benjamin Disraeli in 1868 is an example, although whether that was just to dish the Whigs is not recorded in the history books. In 1936 there was Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede, the grandfather of today’s Member of your Lordships’ House and father of my former and much missed boss. Prior to joining your Lordships’ House, the Hon. Tom Pon, as he was known, including to the noble Lord, Lord Roper, was general secretary of the Fabian Society when I was assistant general secretary. That Lord Ponsonby, remembered, I am sure, by many in your Lordships’ House today, succeeded in his other wish, which was for hereditary Peers to be able to forgo their seat here and thus to be able to stand for the Commons. However, voting in general elections remains on the to-do list.

We are going to be very interested to hear the Minister’s views today on this matter. It was of course raised by my noble friend during consideration of the Parliamentary Voting System and constituencies Bill on 8 December 2010. The other Lib Dem Minister, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, responding on that occasion to my noble friend Lord Dubs, said:

“I encouraged the noble Lord keep on with his campaign. As they say where I come from, a nod is as good as a wink”.—[Official Report, 8/12/10; col. 290.]

We know where the noble Lord, Lord McNally, comes from, other than Blackpool. He was of course assistant general section secretary of the Fabian Society, again when Lord Ponsonby was general secretary. Presumably it remains his policy, along with that of the noble Lord, Lord Shutt, and the Liberal Democrat party, that all Members of your Lordships’ House and not simply the spiritual Members should be able to vote in general elections, just as they can in the elections for the Scottish and European Parliaments, as we have been reminded, the London and Welsh Assemblies and local government and in various referendums, although I have yet to hear from the other place whether we are to have an in/out referendum on Europe.

For our part, we are very content for this Bill to get its Second Reading today, but we would much prefer action on the composition of the House—by which I do not mean the Government stuffing it more—that deals with its size and retirements or expulsions. Alas we must await government action on that. Perhaps in responding, the Minister could give us some indication of his Government’s current thinking about this House, apart from any immediate enlargement. We await his words with interest.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Having sat through several two-day debates, I think the House has made its opinion relatively clear. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Richard, who laboured extremely conscientiously and at considerable length to produce a package which this House would like. Certainly, the sense of the House was, I think, not particularly favourable towards the Government’s proposals. I will leave it at that.

Again, I am sorry to have to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. We will of course be returning to this issue. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, that as she was speaking I thought of the noble Baroness, Lady Symons. The noble Baroness, Lady Symons, has on many occasions used the doctrine of mandate against me: that once a party has in its manifesto a clear commitment, it has the right and duty to carry it through. I think the Labour Party’s manifestos over the past three or four elections have called for an elected second Chamber. I was disappointed that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, went a little behind that.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I was actually quoting the Minister’s noble friend from a very recent debate in your Lordships’ House. I made no mention of Labour Party policy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, will come back but, unfortunately, the Government resist this small, partial proposal for reform of the Lords.

The Future of EU Enlargement

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, today is quite special for me. It is the first time that I have spoken in your Lordships’ House on Europe, yet I am a child of that project, my life having followed the momentous moves that we have seen on the post-war continent. I was born to a member of the occupying forces in Germany in 1949. I worked in Brussels from 1 January 1973, the day on which we joined the Common Market. I have been involved in the EU as it went from six to nine to 12 to 15, and shortly it will be 28. Particularly on that other 9/11, 9 November 1989, I watched as the wall began to fall. Then I worked in the European Parliament as the enlarged Germany took its place in the then European Community.

The EU, for many of us, embedded post-war security and democracy, then went on to help Greece, Spain and Portugal shake off their pasts and enter the democratic family. As we have just been reminded, just days away we will similarly welcome Croatia. As the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, the EU’s High Representative, has said, Croatia’s membership is good for it, but also for the rest of the EU.

This is a timely debate. It enables us to pay tribute to those who helped bring this about and to note how this accession of Croatia reminds us of the journey that Europe has made and how far a country like Croatia has come towards a more peaceful and prosperous future. That is not to say that there are no lessons to be learnt. We also pay tribute to the excellent report that is typical of the analysis that your Lordships’ committee brings to its work under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, to which the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, has already paid tribute.

That analysis is much needed when attitudes to Europe are driven by emotion rather than rational calculation of our national interest and when the governing party engages in some meaningless posturing with the European Union (Referendum) Bill, as it will do in the debate in another place next week. Today we are talking not about pulling out, about a smaller Europe, but about EU enlargement, a proud achievement of the previous Government. When Labour came into office in 1997, Europe had dithered for eight years about enlargement after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There was talk of long delays, of eastern countries moving slowly towards membership, with perhaps two or three joining in five years and others perhaps never to join.

Labour took a bolder approach, helped by Lionel Jospin in France, Gerhard Schroeder in Germany and the enthusiastic Commission president, Romano Prodi. Even more, the 1999 Kosovo conflict was a wake-up call, demonstrating the risks that Europe was running post-Cold War. The division of Europe into two opposing blocs had disappeared, but we risked a return of ugly nationalism, ethnic cleansing and mass murder; a risk that the European Union was not prepared to tolerate. Just as, in earlier years, the EU had helped cement democracy in Spain, Portugal and Greece, so now it knew that enlargement could help the new emerging democracies gain independence and self-respect in a framework that guaranteed stability and the rule of law, while the single market and structural funds promoted economic development. Ten new democracies joined in a big bang in 2004, with Bulgaria and Romania set for membership in 2007.

To those who say that the EU can never change, this was the biggest transformation in its history. Did Europe get it absolutely right? The report offers some legitimate points of criticism, albeit in very diplomatic language. Some member states were not as ready as they might have been. There have been concerns about criminal gangs and the functioning of the Bulgarian state. There are allegations of systemic corruption in Romania. In several countries, the legislation for equality of treatment for the Roma has been honoured only in the breach. Some new members even show signs of regression to a darker past. There are concerns about the Government in Hungary. Constitutional changes have packed the courts and the central bank with government cronies, limited the ability of opposition parties to function and even curtailed freedom of the press and of religion. Tragically, anti-Semitism is again literally on the march within the boundaries of the Union.

However, we would not have solved these problems by keeping those countries out of the EU. Indeed, increasing their isolation and inhibiting economic development would have aggravated those very problems. But once countries are in, they must live up to the obligations of membership. There must be no backsliding, to use the words of the noble Lord, Lord Hannay. There is a suspicion around that the Government have pulled their punches in criticising the Hungarian Government because they see Hungary as an ally in their search for some sort of looser relationship with Europe. Shame on them if that is the case. There should be no loosening of the EU’s commitment to democracy and human rights. If breaches of these principles increase, action must be taken.

The EU can be a positive force for change in applicant states, both before and after entry, as has been made clear during the debate. The EU helped Slovakia on to a democratic path and secured fairer treatment of its Hungarian minorities. Croatia will join on 1 July, having accepted that the price of membership was to surrender suspected war criminals to international justice. It has made great steps in order to satisfy the criteria, to the benefit of its people. Serbia has shown flexibility on the Kosovo question, the incentive being the opening of membership negotiations, as described by the noble Lord, Lord Boswell. That is why enlargement should continue.

What about the argument that enlargement has led to more migrants than we can accommodate? Well, we underestimated the numbers who would come here after 2004, and there were adverse consequences for the wages of the low-skilled, and pressures on housing, but the answer is not to blame the Poles or other migrants or the policy of enlargement. It is to build more housing and to ensure that the minimum wage is enforced. It is exactly in order to prevent wage undercutting that Labour will try to get the posted workers directive revised because, I am sad to report, the Government are failing to tackle the exploitation of foreign workers, which leads to the undercutting of local workers. The Government are failing to enforce the national minimum wage. They have taken no action on agencies recruiting only from abroad and no action to extend the gangmasters licensing legislation. Furthermore, they have failed to champion the enormous contribution EU migrants make to our hospitality and healthcare sectors. Indeed, I sometimes think that our social care system would be near collapse without them, while had we implemented UKIP’s policy of EU withdrawal and sent eastern Europeans home, we would have to handle the return of elderly Britons who had retired to France, Portugal or Spain but who would no longer be entitled to live there.

We stand behind enlargement, as we stand behind our membership of the EU. It has achieved enormous good and it can, and I believe will, achieve far more.

Lobbyists: Register

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Thursday 6th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, one of the reasons why it has taken much longer than we intended to produce a statutory register of lobbyists is because the definition of who is a lobbyist is extremely difficult. The Labour Government before this Government also struggled with that. As all who have studied this area will know, the issue is whether one simply limits the register to third-party lobbyists—those who are professional lobbyists working on behalf of someone else—extends it to the category of lobbyists for for-profit companies such as the entire public affairs sector of a major company or beyond there to those who lobby for non-profit organisations such as Oxfam, Christian Aid or the RSPCA. That takes one into an extremely wide area which is difficult to define.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Given that it has been over a year since the consultation concluded, we welcome the announcement today that there will be a Bill before the Summer Recess. However, will the Minister now ensure that his department replies to the letter from my honourable friend in the other place, Jon Trickett, asking for immediate cross-party talks on this issue? There is agreement about the need for a register and for a code of conduct. Cross-party talks on those issues in the immediate future would be welcome. Can the Minister confirm that he will do that?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I take the point. Of course, as in all delicate legislation of this kind, the wider the consensus we can get the better. The lobbying area is immensely more complex than I understood before I began to go into it. This is one of the many areas where we need to work together as widely as we can.

Elections (Fresh Signatures for Absent Voters) Regulations 2013

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 4th June 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction. His speech provided dignity, if not poetry, to the bureaucratic vocabulary and procedure. Refreshing signatures means that we wish to avoid fraud. I would say to the Minister that if we put Wales into a statutory instrument, would we not expect, for the sake of accountability, to be given the full details concerning Wales in the debate in this Committee? The Minister attempted to gain an alibi of the best kind in what he said. I picked that up and I make my protest as gently, honourably and courteously as I can, knowing that he always brings nobility and dignity to our procedures.

I want to raise a point of detail concerning the refreshment and checking of signatures. What is the process here? Does an employee of a local authority literally match the signatures, or is it done by mechanical means? Is it possible for us to be given an explanation of how the signatures are handled? After all, that is the basis of what the Minister has brought before the Committee. I am sure that his department will have spotted such a question coming from noble Lords, and I think it is a reasonable request. In order to make progress, I shall sit down.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask the indulgence of the Committee in order to congratulate the Minister not only on having sung at the Queen’s Coronation 60 years ago, but on his role in the Abbey today to commemorate that occasion. I am sorry that we are not seeing him in all his glory this afternoon. When I was a student, we used to move that the minister “do now sing”; maybe I should not do that.

On the two statutory instruments, including the one for Wales, one of the questions is quite similar to one raised by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves: how many absent votes does the Minister estimate are covered by each of these two SIs? In other words, how many that would normally be written out in Wales and England are covered by this?

Related to that, what is the Government’s assessment of the number of likely renewals, particularly given that these are going out in the August holiday period? That has been a worry for the Electoral Commission, and is a worry as, not only is your Lordships’ House on holiday during the first two weeks of August, but so are many other people.

Although the word “stakeholders” was used by the Minister, what is the view of the political parties of this proposal? As I mentioned before in Committee, they are rather expert on all of this, as has been evidenced by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, this afternoon.

In the form that will go out on the mere matter of the refreshment of the signatures, will there be any advance notice about the move to individual electoral registration? In other words, is it part of the preparation that is being made? I know that the Electoral Commission still has some concerns over the October 2013 annual canvass date and what impact it might have on absent voters. We would be interested to know what the Government’s response to the issue raised by the Electoral Commission has been. In general, however, we support the regulations and the order.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her compliment, although the compliment I have really liked over the past two or three weeks has been from those who have said that they find it difficult to believe that I could have sung at the coronation because I look far too young. I am sorry that she missed that one.

These regulations are important because we are all concerned to get the transition to individual electoral registration right. We will in time bring some further regulations back to the Committee. While many of them seem incredibly technical and complex, it is important that we manage to end up with a new register that is as complete and as accurate as possible. The integrity of the electoral register is also an important matter.

I remember many years ago my noble friend Lord Greaves raising in the House the question of postal vote fraud in open elections and getting a very dusty response from almost all Benches on the grounds that this was not considered a serious problem. It is now a good deal better understood that this has, in a number of highly localised areas, been quite a serious problem that was not fully picked up and has not attracted the level of prosecution that one really ought to have seen. However, it is one that these identifiers are intended to pick up.

I will try to answer some of these difficult questions. On dates, and when one does the write-around and the canvass, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, will recall that we had a discussion as to when it was most useful to do the house-to-house canvass, and I wrote to her in the spring to point out that I had in some ways misled the Committee by suggesting that March was a good time to go around house by house, because there was deep snow in Saltaire past Easter Day. Whatever we do, there is never a perfect answer, but we are trying to do our best on all of this.

I will try to answer some of my noble friend Lord Greaves’s questions, and then promise that I will write to him on others. He will of course know that many of these statistics are not collected centrally. Electoral registration officers are local appointees and the administration of voting is still a local authority matter.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I hope that it does. I will do my best to investigate and come back to the noble Lord on that.

I am told that approximately 150,000 postal votes have been rejected at each recent national poll across Great Britain—I hope that does mean across Great Britain—because one or more of the personal identifiers on the postal voting statement did not match those originally submitted or because one or more of the identifier fields had been left blank. Statistics on rejection rates are recorded by returning officers and are submitted, perhaps on Form K, to the Electoral Commission for collation. Although figures for the May 2013 local elections are not yet available, I understand that the Electoral Commission plans to publish information on turnout once all these data have been received and collated.

On the question of getting fresh signatures after five years, we do not hold this information centrally. I hope it will be considered helpful that, according to my team, one ERO spoken to has told us that in his or her area in 2012, out of nearly 22,000 electors sent a postal vote refresh notification, some 1,800 did not respond and 565 said that they no longer wanted one. That gives noble Lords a level of the turnover in 2012, for which there are many reasons. In 2013, of 21,000 electors sent a postal vote refresh notification, some 4,355 did not respond and 934 said that they no longer wanted one.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

That was very useful. However, the Minister said the first figure, 22,000, was from one ERO. He may not be able to tell us now, but is that from one whole constituency? I am trying to work out the percentage each January who would be likely to come up for signatures. The response rate is very useful but it would also be useful, if not now then later, to know what the 22,000 figure is as a proportion of the voters.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I understand that. The noble Baroness will know that the proportion of postal voters varies quite radically from one area to another. It is not a uniform pattern across the country. We will see what we can do to provide some more comparative statistics.

On the third of the questions put by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, it is for individual returning officers to judge whether a mismatched date of birth or signature gives them grounds to report the matter to the police. The Electoral Commission and the Association of Chief Police Officers produce joint guidance for electoral administrators on electoral integrity, which includes such matters. Electoral administrators and the Electoral Commission have noted in recent years that the majority of mismatches appear to arise from inadvertent errors such as a deteriorated signature or the accidental completion of the date of birth field with today’s date.

The Government intend introduce a system to inform electors if ballot papers have not been counted. We introduced a provision in the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013, which will allow regulations to be made setting out the circumstances in which electoral registration officers must inform electors, after a poll, where their postal vote identifiers failed to match. EROs will have discretion not to write to individual electors where malpractice is suspected. This will not include situations where ballot paper numbers do not match those on the postal voting statement as electoral administrators already have the facility to unite ballot papers with the proper postal voting statements for them to be checked and counted where these are returned separately, for example where two people in a household inadvertently swap their ballot papers. We intend to introduce this provision for the polls in 2014.

Electoral Registration (Disclosure of Electoral Registers) Regulations 2013

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I have only a very small contribution to make, but with one practical improvement, which I hope the Minister will take back to those responsible, my contribution might be even more succinct and brief.

I am a member of the informal cross-party group of parliamentarians which advises the Electoral Commission and therefore very aware of the concerns the commission has had during this process. The Minister may know that both here, in Grand Committee, and in the Chamber I have been living with IER even longer than he has and it is beginning to wear me down. I hope that we are not going to have too many more of these splendidly erudite occasions.

My problem is the way in which consultation is undertaken. The Minister referred to the consultation with the Electoral Commission and this is referred to in the explanatory notes on the statutory instrument referring to disclosure of electoral registers in paragraph 8(1), where it reads:

“The Commission has recommended that it should be under an express duty to evaluate the confirmation trials, with a power to require those concerned to provide relevant information. The Cabinet Office and the Commission have discussed this point and have subsequently agreed that the general power to require a report, set out in primary legislation, is sufficient”.

Neither the explanatory note nor the document to which I am about to refer from the commission itself is dated; we do not know which comes before which. If that was the conclusion of the consultation with the Electoral Commission, it is therefore surprising that in the last few days those of us who are interested in these matters received directly from the Electoral Commission a document saying the following:

“We have asked the Government to confirm that it will request the Electoral Commission to evaluate the confirmation trials … in the debate on this Order in the House of Commons on 11 March, the Government did not give such assurances. The Commission cannot undertake the necessary evaluation without a direction from the Government. The Government should confirm that it intends to require the Commission to prepare a report under Section 53(6) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 on the operation of the confirmation process trials under these Regulations”.

My noble friend has laid great stress on the importance of these confirmation trials; I entirely agree with him and endorse everything he said. Who though will judge the validity of those trials if it is not the commission? As I understand it, from this brief from the commission, which as I say is not dated either, I do not know which comes before which. Was there a happy and successful conclusion to the discussions between my noble friend’s colleagues and the commission or was there not?

I am afraid the same problem arises under the other draft statutory instrument that we have before us, although perhaps on a more minor point. This is the very important question of what flexibility is given to the EROs to decide the gap between making their canvass in the autumn of 2013 and the new register in February 2014. The undated Explanatory Memorandum from my noble friend’s department says:

“The Commission recommended … the Order should be amended to specify that canvass activity should not begin before 1^st November 2013, so reducing the period between the start of the canvass and the July 2014 confirmation exercise while still allowing meaningful canvass activity to start before Christmas 2013”.

That is at variance, again, with the advice given in the undated advice from the Electoral Commission in the last few days, where it still sticks to the point that it thinks the gap may well be too long and that giving flexibility to the ERO may actually cause the eventual result statistically to be less accurate and less effective.

My speech could have been cut into a quarter if these two documents had been properly dated. We are always asking for documents put before your Lordships’ House to be properly dated. It would seem to be the most basic and simple administrative convenience for Members of your Lordships’ House to know which document comes before which. I make that plea again and I hope that my noble friend, who is amazingly effective in getting civil servants to do what we expect of them—to be as efficient and effective as they usually are—will be more successful on this occasion than previously.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I have to say that if the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, has really been worn down by all these debates on IER, he is showing no sign of it whatever.

I thank the Minister for introducing these measures. I turn first to the disclosure regulations. The Committee will recall that we welcomed all the efforts made to locate and contact eligible voters absent from the register, and to confirm those already on the household list. We therefore fully support this dry run, which will assist EROs to compare their data against datasets kept by DWP and to test the confirmation exercises.

Noble Lords will not be surprised that I have a number of questions. I had hoped that if the exercise had revealed the names and addresses of people not on the current list, the ERO would then be able to write and invite them to register. The Minister said that there would be no contact, but I do not know whether that means that even if an ERO finds from DWP material someone who is not on the register, the ERO will be unable to approach that person. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that.

We know that the Minister in another place confirmed the Government’s confidence that everything, including the resources, is sufficiently in place for this work to happen within the required timescale. Perhaps he can repeat that assurance for the benefit of the Committee, together with any comfort that he has received from the Electoral Commission.

The other issue that I had intended to raise was that mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—to ask Minister to confirm that the Electoral Commission will be required to evaluate these pilots and therefore to report back to the House.

Will the Minister also confirm that the regulations will give the necessary authority for all the relevant parties to release the data necessary for this work? Perhaps he can also assure the Committee that all the relevant parties involved will be clear about their duties and responsibilities under the Data Protection Act before any data-sharing begins. Perhaps he can set out what safeguards are in place to protect individuals’ data security. We noted in previous discussions on individual registration that some people, including those in your Lordships’ House, tend to register their vote at one address but use another address for correspondence. That will clearly be a major issue when using the DWP material. Perhaps the Minister can outline how this is to be dealt with in the pilots.

I turn to the second measure, on the postponement of the 2013 household canvass, which is now to be published in England in February 2014, and in March in Scotland and Wales. The Minister will recall my sadly unsuccessful attempt to remove from the then ERA Bill the ability of the Secretary of State to abolish the canvass. That is an indication of how important we see this tool in seeking out and registering all citizens with an entitlement to vote. Clearly, this will be even more important in the move to IER, which will fully replace the household register only in 2016. I ask the Minister to confirm that he is confident that the Government’s plans will ensure that by 2016 we will have a better register than we have at present, and that the Government remain clear that there will be no dropping of the household register before 2016.

We are very content that the Government push ahead with locating non-registered but eligible electors, so that by 2016 we have the maximum possible number of individually registered electors by a variety of means and no one is inadvertently denied their vote in 2016. But we seek assurance that any such work is not with the idea of bringing forward sole reliance on the individual rather than household-registered electorate. In the mean time, however, while we remain with household lists, as the Minister has said that registers decline in accuracy by about 1% a month, we are content with the canvass taking place slightly later—provided that the information is then made available to political parties as soon as possible thereafter, so that their work on the lists can begin, as he mentioned. This is key. The Committee knows that much of the business of alerting voters to the fact that they are or are not on the electoral roll is done by political parties, as the voting cards tend to go out only a short time before an election. It will be more and more important, with the gradual shift to IER, for parties to have early and easy access to the new registers so that they can undertake their canvass work and so that anyone left off can be identified in time to rectify that absence. We also need, as early as possible after the delayed canvass, publication, perhaps monthly, of a rolling register, showing IER flags.

We know that the ERA allows for transfer to IER to be completed by the end of December 2016, which is a sensible date. The Committee will understand that we remain a little nervous. The Act retains a power to hurry it through earlier than that, but we hope that the Government are not trying to do that, given the risk of losing eligible voters. We would also query—and this was another point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler—whether there is a satisfactory way in which to judge whether the 2016 date is appropriate to complete the transition. We would like to know what criteria would be applied and what would be the role of the Electoral Commission in such a process. Under the Labour Government’s legislation on IER, the Electoral Commission had a pivotal role in deciding whether progress had been sufficient to create safe conditions for the final move to be made. This Government removed that role, but surely the commission must have a duty to press the “Go” button, if that decision is to clearly non-political and based on solid data.

Perhaps I could use this opportunity to ask the Minister two questions.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

Two more?

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

Yes, but I once asked the noble Lord 16.

First, are the Government committed to the December 2016 timetable? Secondly, will they await a commission pronouncement on whether the conditions are right before making the final transition to IER? We assume that a core criterion for assessing those conditions is whether, as the Minister says, the electoral register is at least as accurate as the current register, but we need that to be judged by an independent body, which surely can only be the Electoral Commission.

Finally, we return to the point of which we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that the Electoral Commission remains concerned about an October rather than November start date. I noticed that, in introducing this, the Minister seemed to say that a later date might be more suitable. Perhaps he could clarify whether that reflects discussions with the Electoral Commission.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I thank the noble Lord and the noble Baroness for their contributions. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, that this may not be the last SI on this subject and it is important, since this is such a key element, that we make sure that we have all-party confidence in the process as we go through. We are dealing with data-sharing in some sensitive areas, so we need to make sure that everyone is carried along.

Representation of the People (Election Expenses Exclusion) Order 2013

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, together with some noble Lords present in Grand Committee today, I was present at the launch of this fund last year. Those of us who were there celebrating the work of the coalition Government, the Speaker’s Conference and, especially, my noble friend Lynne Featherstone MP, who led the work up to the launch of the fund, were horrified to discover that there might be a loophole whereby other candidates might be able to challenge any grant made by this fund as part of election expenses. That was certainly never intended, not least because the representation of disabled people is very low in elected office, whether at Westminster, on councils, in devolved Administrations or any other elected office—although I was glad to hear my noble friend saying that it did not apply for individual elections, such as those for police commissioners and, I presume, elected mayors.

I shall not repeat the points that the noble Lord, Lord Low, made, but my real anxiety is about the Electoral Commission’s concern about the phrase,

“barriers to seeking elected office”,

being wide and novel wording. It has to be, given how wide and novel varying disabilities are. We cannot legislate at this stage for every dot and comma of what is necessary. The point has already been made about Braille leaflets for checking before an ordinary leaflet is printed; about the need for British Sign Language interpreters; about having a palantypist at a conference where someone who may or may not be reliant on BSL but may be reliant on lip reading cannot keep turning around to see contributions from the back of a conference room. One young candidate whom I talked to a couple of weeks ago said that he had had to get a very expensive modification to his wheelchair. The first time when he stood for Parliament, he was invisible because his head was always too low; now he can come right up to shoulder height and have conversations with people. Suddenly, he has become visible. I am not suggesting that he would have made an application to the fund, but the fund needs to be able to think as flexibly as possible to overcome the barriers, and in this young man’s case a very physical barrier to having a dialogue with his electorate.

The other reason for the fund is that because candidates are not employed there is no other recourse to public funds for any costs associated with their disability. Just as an aside—this does not relate to this order—there is a problem for Members of the House of Lords with disabilities, because they, too, are not employed and there is no access to public funds for them if they need adaptations in their workplace here.

I end by saying that the Liberal Democrats have taken the issue of the under-representation of disabled candidates very seriously. We have launched a leadership programme for candidates from a range of under-represented groups, with 10% of places on the scheme reserved for those with disabilities. In the first 40 recruited, five have disabilities, some visible and some invisible. We hope that by the time we get to the other side of the general election, we will have some more disabled MPs in place to represent the wider country. In particular, I am looking forward to the first BSL first language MP, or, frankly, even Peer, to be able to work alongside us in creating legislation. It is a real disappointment that there has not been one to date.

I have two questions for the Minister. Given the Electoral Commission’s concerns about challenge and that some grants have already been awarded, will the order be retrospective? Secondly, Scope has raised an issue about the expenses repayment; the 35-day deadline may be very tight in some circumstances, particularly in relation to the short campaign of a general election, where deadlines are actually very important, and they may suddenly find that they have it. Is there any scope—I am sorry to use that word—to make it slightly more lenient or generous?

Finally, I hope that on the sunset clause of June 2014 the Government will ensure that there is no gap if they decide to move ahead. At that point, most candidates in key seats will have been selected and will be fighting the long campaign for election in the general election of 2015. It would be absolutely appalling if there were a gap in their ability to apply for grants.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, in responding to points from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we hope that they are very successful in selecting their candidates. Noble Lords will not be surprised, however, if I do not necessarily wish them success in being elected. But it is a challenge to my party to make sure that we can similarly find some candidates. It will also come as no surprise to the Committee that we broadly and warmly welcome this draft order which, as the Minister says, will enable disabled candidates to apply for and use the fund specifically created to encourage them to be candidates by excluding those moneys from the schedule of election expenses. It is clearly a shame that it was not thought of when the fund was established, but we are pleased, as the noble Lord, Lord Low, said, that it will be done by 26 March, in time for this year’s election. Unsurprisingly, the charities representing people with disabilities, most notably Scope, are also supportive of the thrust of the measure.

The Minister will have read the discussions of the House of Commons committee on this. Perhaps it is a bit late to regret, along with it, that the fund does not cover parish council elections. Indeed, for many people, that is their first attempt at the ballot box, and it might have encouraged more disabled people to make that same first attempt. However, this is a pilot, and we hope that if it is successful it will be rolled out in a comprehensive way.

My questions, therefore, are not about what might have been but about this specific order, which allows the fund expenditure to be excluded. Will the Minister confirm that anything that the fund agrees to finance will then automatically be covered by the exclusion? In other words, there will be no additional formality to be gone through? We do not want the fund saying that it is covered and then being told afterwards that it is not. There needs to be just one lot of decision-takers, and I assume that it will be the fund decision-takers. It would be useful to have that confirmed.

What is being done to promote awareness of the fund? In preparation for today, I did the usual thing and tried to find out about it. I found it impossible to locate the fund through the Electoral Commission’s less-than-helpful website. Google was rather more helpful and got me on to the relevant site. Given that the Electoral Commission wants to be involved in this, I would have thought that it would do more to make knowledge of the fund better known, rather than simply being able to find out about this specific order, which is not of interest to disabled people once it is done.

Information on the fund itself was not brilliant. I could not get hold of the application form from the website although it has now been sent to me. It also was not clear how quickly a decision would be made, which I should have thought was also quite important for candidates to decide whether to go ahead. They need to know that before they start spending too much of their own money. Although we are keen for the Electoral Commission to be involved in encouraging and helping disabled people to be candidates, we hope that it will smarten up its own access via the web in time to do this.

We very much support the exclusion of fund expenditure but rather like the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, we wonder whether this leaves a transparency gap. It would be useful to know what disclosure of such funds and their use will be made. Mention was made of a voluntary system, and I wonder whether that is sufficient or whether the fund should itself be transparent. It would be useful to know the Government’s thinking on that. Finally, can the Government assure us that if this pilot proves a success, it will be rolled out fully and with money following intent? As we know, the groups who will benefit from this are highly underrepresented at the moment. Indeed, I cannot believe that this Government would have so undermined the lives of so many disabled people as they have done both under the Welfare Reform Act and now the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill had we had more people as MPs, or indeed Peers, but especially MPs, from those particularly affected groups. We very much want this fund to be a success and we hope that its administrators, the Electoral Commission and the Government will play a very full part in helping disabled people to find out about the fund and then stand for and be elected to public office. I am sorry, but I hope that they will all be Labour if they get elected.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank those who have spoken for their general welcome for this order. I stress that this is a pilot and an experiment in some ways. I also stress that it is absolutely an all-party initiative. We very much hope, as the noble Baroness has suggested, that all parties will want to take this up and make use of it, and that part of the way in which information will spread out is that all parties will wish to inform their local associations to look more actively for potential candidates for whom this would make the crucial difference.

In the disability world, the communications strategy is already a good deal better known than in the general outside world. I had not heard of it until a few weeks ago but I am told that the Government have a comprehensive communications strategy in place. There have been a number of news stories in the press, and in tweets, blogs and the like, targeted very much at the disability community. This will continue as the pilot rolls on.

As for the question of what happens in August 2014, this is a pilot over which we will want to consult as we go along, as well as seeing how many people come forward. Once the SI ends, we will ensure that there is a smooth transition to the new regime, if by then a decision is made that the fund is seen as worthwhile and is to be extended. So far there have been about 30 applications for the fund, and the average per application is between £4,000 and £6,000. We are not talking about enormous amounts. Noble Lords will recall that there is a £20,000 maximum per application under the fund at the moment. However, we hope that this will be shown to make a crucial difference in making it easier for people with different disabilities to put themselves forward for election.

In the pilot we decided not to include parish councils. A great many parish councils do not have elections. At my party’s spring conference, I talked to a local activist from West Yorkshire. He told me how deeply unpopular he has made himself with a number of other politicians in his ward, because he keeps insisting that there should be elections for the parish council. Others think that elections are an unnecessary expense and that co-option is much to be preferred, this being a predominantly Conservative parish council. Perhaps one of the questions that we will investigate and discuss further, and come to a different decision on as we move forwards from the pilot, is whether we include parish council elections, in which many people first cut their electoral teeth, as the noble Baroness rightly says.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asks whether it will be retrospective. The answer is that it will not, but those who have already approached the fund for support for this coming May’s elections will be able to roll their applications in and it will not go back further than that.

Charities (Incorporated Church Building Society) (England and Wales) Order 2013

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for introducing a very welcome statutory instrument. As he indicated, the National Churches Trust, the only national, independent charity supporting religious buildings, does a great deal of valuable work. As he outlined, for two centuries it and its predecessor have been key players in the construction and maintenance of a great number of churches and chapels. Its work has provided places for worship, as well as supporting church buildings of historical and architectural value. In recent years, the charity has given Christian places of worship an average of £1.5 million a year in grants, allowing them to conduct vital repairs and modernisation, including increasing access, which clearly we welcome.

The work of the charity goes beyond religion and benefits the whole community. Every year, millions of people use church buildings for a range of activities, including classes for art, music and health—and even Labour Party meetings. The churches are also spaces for people to seek help. More than half of all Alcoholics Anonymous meetings take place in churches, as do 40% of Women’s Institute meetings. I am sure that the Minister, wearing one of his other hats, knows that one polling station in six at the most recent general election was in a church building. I fear that, for some of us, it is the only time we cross the threshold of a church. With pubs, social clubs and libraries closing, churches are often the last remaining community buildings. Therefore it is clear that the Incorporated Church Building Society provides a great deal for people of all faiths and of none.

As the Minister explained, as time rolled on, its constitution sometimes got in the way of its good work. As he suggested, by the 1980s its activities had shrunk and the trustees discovered, as had those of many other charities, that a greater administrative burden and awkward membership arrangements took up a lot of time as they tried to maintain it as an independent charity. The cost of administration became disproportionately high. We hope that the new scheme will address that. The statutory instrument, drawn up at the request of the current trustees, will allow the charity to update its structure. Importantly, as the Minister said, it will make the trustees the sole members, as opposed to the current arrangements which include anyone who donates a guinea. However, I realise that some people will not have his and my age and I thought I should explain that that is £1.05p. Or they could make a single donation of 10 guineas, which I worked out was £10.50p. The change would modernise the trust’s governance arrangements, simplify the administrative requirements and help to free up the charity to concentrate on its core business. I take this opportunity to congratulate the National Churches Trust on its work. We wish it well and are grateful that this SI has been introduced.

[Lord Jones]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his commanding introductory remarks and my noble friend for her youthful remarks. I have read the helpful policy background in the Explanatory Memorandum which the department has composed, and for which I am grateful. Paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Memorandum, headed, “Policy background”, states:

“The purpose of the Charity is to provide for the better collection and application of voluntary contributions for the purpose of enlarging, building and repairing Church of England churches and chapels situated in England and Wales”.

It has occurred to me that those churches and chapels in Wales are not Church of England, they are Church in Wales. So the question I have for the Minister is: has the department come forward with this order not knowing that there is an error in the Explanatory Memorandum? Is it therefore proceeding in error on that basis?

It was nice to hear the Minister refer to churches in Saltaire. St Ethelwold’s of the Church in Wales is a splendid church in north-east Wales in the town of Shotton. Would this order enable the tower of St Ethelwold’s to be completed or allow for that possibility?

Elections: Voting Age

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on securing this debate. It is an issue that we are happy to support. It is true that in our most recent manifesto our support was limited to granting a free vote on the issue, but I am glad to report that we have now moved on. In part this was because we found that the roof did not fall in when our Scottish friends gave the referendum vote to those aged 16 and over—and, as we have heard, to crofters. I hope in part that the amendment I moved to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill, to allow 16 and 17 year-olds to vote in the AV referendum, pushed the issue up the agenda. I suspect in part it was also because we have a younger leader than we had at the time of our last manifesto. However, I think that it was mostly because it is the right thing to do.

The Electoral Reform Society has long argued for this. Unsurprisingly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Young, said, the UK Youth Parliament supports votes at 16, as did the 2006 Power inquiry. As was said, we allow people at 16 to do other things that are consistent with being an adult such as consenting to medical treatment and entering work or a civil partnership—and indeed, joining the Army and paying taxes, so we do have taxation without representation. Perhaps more importantly, these people cannot vote for the Government that decides which wars to fight. More than 4,500 16 and 17 year-olds were serving in the Armed Forces in April 2007. Of the first 100 soldiers killed in Iraq, six were too young to vote. Do we not owe to their memory the right to vote at 16?

Historically, it always takes time to understand that younger people are more capable of doing things than we thought. In 1918 we gave women the vote—but only from the age of 30. It took until 1969 to bring that figure down to the current age of 18. Even in the 1960s when we discussed the issue, two-thirds of people thought that the voting age should be 21 and not 18. Exactly the same arguments were used in 1968 against lowering the age from 21. Today, of course, the reduction to 18 is completely accepted—but that was 40 years ago.

The Power inquiry received evidence that 16 to 18 year-olds—and, perhaps more interestingly, their teachers—were in favour of the change to 16. Those aged between 16 and 24 are increasingly political. In 2011, 63% had some interest in politics. That figure was up from 56% in 2002. It may be low, but the trend is in the right direction. Only 12% said that they had no interest. Therefore, while I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Norton, that this is not a way to promote political engagement, that is not the reason for it. The reason is a democratic one. People of 16 have this right. If we are not careful, politics will lag behind other areas. The Companies Act 2006 allowed 16 year-olds to become company directors, often with bigger decisions to make than voting. Anyone can join the Labour Party at 16 and vote for our leader.

Turning to the Government, I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on having this proposal in their manifesto. When we discussed my amendment to the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill that would have allowed 16 year-olds to vote on AV, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, said only that the Bill was not the right place to do it; now we have the right place.

For the senior partners in the coalition, unfortunately Chloe Smith in the other place said that there had to be compelling evidence before any amendment to the electoral franchise would be made. I do not know whether she wants demonstrations in the street or, as we near the centenary in June of Emily Davison’s death, some act of martyrdom. The Government have to give a better reason for saying no than simply that there is no evidence in favour of it. I hope that we will hear from the Minister a more reasoned argument than the one given by Ms Smith.

We have seen youth unemployment rise yet again—up by 11,000 in the most recent quarter. I am beginning to think that if young people had the vote, the Government would take the issue of youth unemployment much more seriously. Perhaps that is the best of all reasons for giving young people the vote.