European Union Referendum (Conduct) Regulations 2016
Lord Hayward Excerpts(10 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, I say at the outset that I genuinely have no issues with the regulations before me. They are what I would expect to ensure a well-run, efficient referendum, and ensuring a well-run referendum is in everyone’s interest. We must never allow the conduct, or otherwise, of any ballot, election or referendum to become the story. However, I have a number of questions for the noble Lord, Lord Bridges of Headley, and I will go straight into them.
How will the noble Lord ensure that counting officers and their staff have sufficient resources in place to conduct this referendum properly? What plans do the Government have to impress upon the chief counting officer, the regional counting officers and the local counting officers the importance of delivering a well-run referendum and of avoiding past mistakes in elections? Do the Government intend to impress upon the chief counting officer the need to use her powers of direction at any point where she feels that confidence in the running of the ballot could be undermined by poor practice by counting officers and their staff?
We need an absolute guarantee that ballot papers for every single voter in the UK will be printed and available at the polling station—not just an estimated number that the local counting officer thinks may turn up to vote. How will the Government ensure that this happens? In the past, problems have been caused by people arriving in the last 30 minutes and not being able to vote. What specific actions will the Government be taking in this referendum to ensure that there are sufficient staff on duty at each ballot station to cope with a last-minute surge of people?
We have all cast a vote many times in the past. Let us think back: is the polling station we normally use adequate if a large number of people come in to vote? How will the Government ensure that polling stations can cope with a larger number of arrivals than normal? I know that you cannot change where the station is, but it may be that, instead of the usual smaller room, you could move to a bigger room in the school or whatever is being used.
What discussions will the Government have with the police about their role in ensuring that the referendum is free and fair? What discussions will the Government have with the police and crime commissioners to ensure a free and fair referendum?
How will the Government address the problem of a very close overall result and the calls for a full national recount that will inevitably follow? There will be local counts with a big win for one side and, frankly, all the people could have packed up and gone home. Is that something in the hands of the chief counting officer, or is there no provision for it?
When is the counting of votes going to take place? I hope the noble Lord will confirm that counting will start as quickly as possible after 10 pm. It is necessary for this to be done expeditiously, with counts starting at the same time across the UK.
Can the Minister explain the thinking of the Government on the regulated period? A 10-week regulated period would overlap with the elections for the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. If a seven-week regulated period was in place then the elections and the referendum would be separate, which would be much clearer for everyone.
How are the Government going to ensure that the more than 2 million British citizens living abroad are able to register and vote?
Those are the points I have at the moment, but I hope that if the Minister responds to those, he will not mind if I put other points to him later. As I have said, I have no issues with the regulations as they stand. My questions arise only from reading the documents and wanting to ensure that we have a proper referendum and that the process does not become the story.
Lord Hayward (Con)
May I ask, following on from that question, about the counting of postal votes? I noted that the Minister had a look of horror, concern or surprise—I am not sure which it was—when I came into the Room. He was fairly sure that I would ask one question or another. Under normal circumstances, postal votes are counted over a number of days and, despite the Electoral Commission’s best guidance which is being implemented by most councils, it is sometimes possible to see the results of those postal votes. Given that, in these circumstances, any leak of information will be seriously market sensitive in relation to the value of the pound and other aspects that might impact on the City and the world’s stock markets, could my noble friend say whether postal votes will be counted on the day, thereby minimising the chance of leaks in advance, or, as they normally are in other elections, over a series of days?
Lord Bridges of Headley
I thank both noble Lords who have spoken, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who speaks with a lot of experience. I will try to answer his excellent questions. Like him, I wish to see this referendum being conducted properly, fairly and efficiently. I will answer his questions in the spirit in which he asked them.
The noble Lord asked how the Government plan to ensure that counting officers and their staff at polling stations have sufficient resources to conduct the referendum properly, and about what plans we have to impress on chief, regional and local counting officers the importance of delivering a well-run referendum and avoiding past mistakes in elections. Those are fair questions. The Electoral Commission’s planning for the referendum, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, is already well under way; a management structure of groups and the regional counting officers is in place to ensure effective planning. I am sure that the noble Lord, having himself been an electoral commissioner during the 2011 referendum, will be aware of the approach taken by the chief counting officer and her team to ensure that that poll was well-run, and I am sure that she is taking on board and learning from that experience in planning for the poll on 23 June.
A related question was how the Government intend to impress on the chief counting officer the need to use her powers of direction at any point when she might feel confidence in the running of the ballot could be undermined by poor practice by counting officers and their staff. On this point, I am also sure that the chief counting officer and her team at the Electoral Commission will be playing very close attention to the debate and to the remarks that the noble Lord has just made, and will note the legitimate concerns here. This goes without saying, but I will make the obvious point that we are in very close touch with the Electoral Commission on the operations of the poll, and government officials and I will ensure that the noble Lord’s points are flagged up with it directly.
Another related point was about ensuring that ballot papers for every single voter will be printed and available at the polling station and what the Government are doing to ensure that the polling stations are of sufficient size to cope with larger than normal numbers. As the noble Lord will know, the detail of how the polls are run is a matter for the chief counting officer. We are aware that numbers of ballot papers and the logistics of polling stations are among the delivery matters that the Electoral Commission has already considered and planned for with directions and guidance. For example, the chief counting officer has indicated that she will require ballot papers to be printed to cover 110% of the eligible electorate, to ensure that sufficient papers are available, and that contingencies will be in place.
As regards the declaration of the results, the votes will be counted overnight. The conduct rules specify that counting officers must begin counting the votes as soon as practical after polling closes at 10 pm. As well as the overall result of the referendum, which will be decided by a simple majority, separate results will be announced for each voting area and region. Separate results will be declared for each local authority as well as for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar.
Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 (Transitional Provisions) Order 2015
Lord Hayward Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hayward (Con)
My Lords, I rise having listened to the full debate and, like many in this place, having fought many elections. In fact, my noble friend Lord Cormack referred to having canvassed in every election since 1959. I have fought a fair number of elections and the House of Lords Information Office has been good enough to produce biographical details on me. According to its information, I first fought Kingswood in January 1900 and in the same month it says I fought Christchurch, so, according to the Information Office, I somewhat outdo most Peers in this House. That will be corrected at some point.
I start on an aspect of harmony. A number of noble Lords on both sides, but originally the noble Lord, Lord Wills, identified that we should produce ID in voting. I wholeheartedly agree with all those who made those points.
On elections, a number of those who know me know that I have been interested in this subject for many years. In fact, and this is to some extent an admission of guilt but I hope of impartiality as well, I was the second new entry in the 1983 intake into the other House to vote against a government three-line whip. I did so on the paving Bill in relation to the abolition of the GLC because I thought it inappropriate. My comments today in support of what the Government propose are against the background that I have taken and still take a very dispassionate view on these matters.
I will pick up a number of points covered by other Members of this House. First, the noble Baroness, Lady McDonagh, commented on registration fraud. Unfortunately, it would appear that she has not read the verdict, statements and analysis of the recent case in Tower Hamlets where there is clear identification of that position. Also, the Electoral Commission in 2012 made the point that there should be improvements in electoral registration in Tower Hamlets. It identified that Tower Hamlets had a policy and administration that were above the practice of many of the London boroughs.
I turn to the question of “ghost” voters. I choose to call them that because having tried to contact these people nine times, they must be pretty close to being ghosts. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, referred to the fact that there may well be people among that 1.9 million—dropping to 1.4 million or 1.2 million—who voted in May. I could understand it if the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, had made particular reference to that and said that this order should not be introduced until there had been that sort of matching process. Instead, we have a catch-all that we will do away with it completely or delay it until 2016.
However, these people have been called on nine times. I now speak from personal experience. I currently live some 200 yards from where the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, went to primary school. When I attempted to be a candidate in the last London elections, I visited my neighbours. They were not on the electoral roll. I visited the neighbours four doors down, and they were not on the electoral roll either. When I first moved into my current address, I had eight years of having somebody on the electoral roll who had never lived there. That is the essence of this debate. We are talking about removing people who we have attempted to contact nine times as against those people who a number of noble Lords have said we need to get on the electoral roll. Those are two different groups of people, and that should be recognised in this debate.
I also listened to a number of contributions in which there have been criticisms of what happened in Northern Ireland. They said, “It happened like this”, or “It happened like that”. That seems to be a justification not for delaying but for not having IER in the first place. You cannot have both. If you are to have IER, then you will face some of those problems. They have to be tackled through better collecting of registration.
In his opening remarks, the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made comments about shop stewards which a number of people who have backgrounds as shop stewards would consider a little unfortunate. He suggested that the AEA was the “shop stewards’ fora”—I think that was the phrase he used. He then went on to quote the Electoral Commission’s report. On page 3, under acknowledgements, there is only one acknowledgement and it is to that same group of people for their work.
I turn to the question that he identified about primarily urban or rural communities and their retained electors. Taking the top 20 authorities with the worst record on retained electors, it is not, as has been suggested, filled purely with Scottish or London boroughs, although there are a lot of London boroughs among them. The deprived London borough of Kensington and Chelsea is third on the list. The equally deprived borough of Windsor and Maidenhead comes out 12th. Harrow and Scarborough appear in the same block. None of them is an area that one would identify as being either deprived or necessarily totally urban.
Lord Wills
The noble Lord raises the question of statistics. Is he aware of the relative registration rates in Conservative and Labour constituencies? I should be interested to know what his figures are for those national data.
Lord Hayward
I am, but I have not got them with me. I am happy to write to the noble Lord with the answer. They are not particularly relevant to the point I am making which is the one cited by the noble Lord, Lord Tyler about the difference in registration from one place to another in relation to those who would suffer if those ghosts were removed. I have just mentioned those areas where the level of retention would appear to be worst, if I may use that word.
On the other hand, there are authorities at the other end of the spectrum which have tackled this issue incredibly well, including the deprived areas of Hartlepool, Halton, Redcar and Cleveland, Barrow-in-Furness, Chesterfield and Bridgend. I am pleased to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, because one of the authorities with a reasonably good record so far is Liverpool. Knowsley, which nobody can argue is anything other than deprived, has a strikingly good record. So there is no correlation between the two. There is a correlation between some parts of the country and others. I would like to identify some of the other places—
Lord Wills
Actually, I know the answer to the question I asked the noble Lord. I was about to tell him. There is roughly a 6% difference between registration levels in Conservative-held seats and Labour-held seats. That might have changed a little in the last general election, but I doubt by very much. There is a significant difference.
Lord Hayward
I do not challenge that. The noble Lord has made the point for me. We are talking about people who are registered or not registered and not about the ghost voters whom we are talking about in this debate.
There are other areas of deprivation where they have cleansed the register very effectively. There is a whole series of authorities in Wales—places such as Bridgend, Cardiff, Swansea and Rhondda Cynon Taff. All of them have low figures of problems, if I may use the term, in cleansing their registers. I have not raised this, but if it is right that it was possible in Wales to have cleansed the registers in those sorts of authorities, why is it not the case in London? If it is suggested that this is to do with boundaries, then the places that will suffer are the valleys of Wales because they have cleansed their registers. The boroughs of London which have not cleansed theirs will benefit.
In conclusion, we have been talking about this group of people—these ghosts—as if there is no burden. There is a substantial burden on local authorities. They have to print the electoral rolls with all these people on them, many of whom should not be there. They issue polling cards. They issue ballot papers. There has to be freepost provision for these people for some elections. There is an attendant burden. No wonder the AEA makes its views clear on what it thinks would be the best position. It recognises that there is an unnecessary burden on a large number of local authorities. If one removes retained voters from the register, we will not be sending out all the unnecessary cards, ballot papers, freeposts, et cetera, during the upcoming election.