Prisoners’ Right to Vote

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

No one would have realised, listening to that, that the right hon. Gentleman was ever a member of the previous Government, who also accepted that the law needed to be changed, and accepted the judgment. I have looked carefully at the media reports, and all I can see is an expression by the Government, relating to what they are going to say in a pending legal case, that they must comply with the law. I would not have thought that explaining that the Government had to comply with the law was particularly revelatory. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman shared our view when he was in government. He was quite right to draw the House’s attention to the fact that the Prime Minister is exasperated. I suspect that every Member of the House is exasperated about this, but we have no choice about complying with the law.

The fact that the previous Government failed for five years to do what they knew was necessary has left our country in a much worse position, both because of the possibility of having to pay damages and because case law has moved on. The only thing that would be worse than giving prisoners the vote would be giving them the vote and having to pay them damages as well. That is the position that the previous Government left us in.

I shall now turn to the right hon. Gentleman’s questions. I made it clear in my statement that Ministers were considering how to implement the judgment, and when decisions have been taken they will be announced to the House at the Dispatch Box in the usual way. No decisions have been taken, and I am therefore unable to answer any of his questions at this time. The previous Government took five years to do nothing when they knew that something had to be done—in exactly the same way as they behaved in not dealing with the deficit. This Government have been in office for only a matter of months, but yet again our two parties are having to deal with the mess left behind by Labour.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Will the Minister explain how the damages figure of millions of pounds has been arrived at, bearing in mind that nobody has yet had a payment? If ever we are forced into paying out damages, I suggest that we knock them off the payments that we have to make to Brussels.

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend should know that the European Court of Human Rights is based in Strasbourg, and that this is nothing to do with the European Union. The two issues are completely separate. We have been a signatory to the European convention on human rights for the best part of 60 years. Indeed, British lawyers helped to draft it after the second world war. There are currently more than 1,000 pending cases, and there is a real risk that judges will award millions of pounds in damages to be paid by our taxpayers to prisoners who have been denied the vote. That risk has been left to us by the inaction of the previous Government.

European Council

David Nuttall Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The answer is no, I did not do any of that. I am not quite sure what point the hon. Gentleman is making. Trade between European countries is extremely worth while: just as we sell important goods and services to Germany and France, so they sell to us. I would have thought that even he and the dinosaurs opposite would think that was a good thing.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. Given that the proposed treaty change apparently will not affect the UK in any way, should we not simply leave it to the countries in the eurozone, which will be affected, to sign any new treaty? Should we not keep out of it?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a fair point, but I think the best option for the UK, because this is a very limited treaty change about making this temporary mechanism permanent and because it is in Britain’s interests, as we do not want a eurozone that goes kaput and we do not want to have to join in bail-outs—that is what this is about—it is better that it takes place through existing operations. Also, as I said in the statement, we have to bear in mind the role of London and Britain as a key financial centre. That will be strengthened by what is being done rather than by any alternative.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 20th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. I will look at that carefully; I know that it has been discussed. It is a difficult issue and there are some problems that we need to resolve, but I will look at it and write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that it is completely unacceptable that the European Union is expanding its bureaucracy while here in the UK we are cutting ours?

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Monday 18th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Cash]

I am intrigued by the proposals. The first of the two amendments—amendment 153—deals emphatically with an important question of administrative law. Under paragraph 42(3)(a), the regional counting officer or chief counting officer has a permissive power to give a direction. Importantly, sub-paragraph (3) says:

“The Regional Counting Officer or Chief Counting Officer must then either—

(a) direct the counting officer to have the votes re-counted, or”—

this is the crucial proposal—

“(b) direct the counting officer to make the certification under section 128(5) of the 2000 Act.”

From paragraph 42(4), it is clear that the Government’s intention is that the provision should be permissive only. I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), and for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), for insisting that the provision be not permissive but mandatory. That would put the whole question of the administrative arrangements for such a proposal on a compulsory footing, and that, when applied to the Bill, makes a significant difference. If the provision were merely permissive, almost anything could happen, but if it were compulsory, the regional counting officer or chief counting officer would be under a legal obligation to give a direction under paragraph (3)(a)

“if the officer thinks that there is reason to doubt the accuracy of the counting of the votes in the counting officer’s voting area.”

There will be enormous difficulty and ambiguity if that is done purely on a permissive footing, so I strongly recommend that the Government accept the proposal of my hon. Friends, who insist that the provision be made compulsory.

Under paragraph 42(5), there is a compulsory requirement, in that

“A counting officer who is given a direction under paragraph (3)(a) must—

(a) begin the re-count as soon as practicable, and

(b) if the officer does not begin the re-count immediately, notify the counting agents of the time and place at which it will take place.”

The most extraordinary situation would arise if, under sub-paragraph (5), action was compulsory, while under sub-paragraph (4) it was only permissive. I make the point strongly that a compulsory requirement, enforceable by law, seems the right way to proceed. However, all that would arise

“only if the officer thinks that there is reason to doubt the accuracy of the counting of the votes”.

As is well known, the question is not simply whether the provisions should be permissive or compulsory. We then move on to the question of what is in the mind of the officer.

How are we to establish what the officer thinks there is a reason to doubt? After all, if we are asking in legislation for a potential judicial interpretation—a compulsory requirement to depend upon what somebody thinks—how, short of bringing in the shrink, can we determine whether the person thought that or not? We are faced with an extraordinary situation, which is not uncommon in certain kinds of legislation, where the issue ultimately turns on what is going on in the mind of an official.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Is not the problem the fact that the Bill gives no guidance as to what matters should be in the mind of the returning officer when he comes to his decision? He is given no guidance as to what matters should be taken into account.

[Mr Cash]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that extremely intelligent and useful intervention, which demonstrates the very point that I am making. If we do not establish criteria, there is nothing by which the court, in a judicial action in administrative law, would be able to judge what was going on in the official’s mind. Is it to be merely a matter of opinion or is it to be a matter of judgment by certain criteria?

I notice that those on the Front Bench are watching me with some interest. I have been watching them with much interest throughout the proceedings as we were moving towards clause 6, but we were not getting there, so we will have to see.

I am sure my hon. Friend and others want more elucidation on the point. We get used to the fact that some legislation states “where, in the opinion of a Minister” and subsequently says that the proceedings shall not be challenged in any legal proceedings whatsoever. That occurs in another interesting and somewhat controversial Bill, the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, which I do not need to go into today because we will have plenty of opportunity to examine it on another occasion.

If the provision merely states that if the officer thinks there is a reason to doubt the accuracy of the counting of the votes in the counting officer’s voting area, and does not say “in the opinion of”, we are using different language from the language that the courts are used to in administrative legal challenges, which is the precise wording, well established in the courts and in administrative law, “if, in the opinion of the officer, there is a reason to doubt the accuracy of the counting of the votes”.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South made clear at the beginning, this is a matter of great importance when there is a knife-edge vote. He mentioned the experience of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) in relation to elections. We must bear it in mind that the Bill is not just about an election. It is about a referendum with a range of percentages that may be applied as a result of the threshold provisions. Those will become highly controversial in the context of clause 6, which we will reach later on—much later on.

[Mr Nuttall]

When one is considering whether a recount should be requested, one must take account not just of the number of votes, but of the manner in which the election process has taken place.

[Mr Cash]

I greatly admire my hon. Friend’s perspicacity. He puts his finger on an important point—the context in which these events take place. This is about whether or not, in relation to a matter of such importance as the issue of alternative vote, we end up with a decision which could be on a knife-edge and which is decided merely on the basis of what an officer thinks.

I do not know about hon. Gentlemen in the Committee at large, but sometimes I do not have that much faith in bureaucratic thinking; in fact, I have a strong aversion to it. But if the measure were to say, “In the opinion of the officer,” we would at least know that we were on what I would describe as generally understood judicial ground. The measure does not provide for that, however; it provides for the question of what is in his mind, not his opinion, and there is a very big and important distinction to be drawn between those two things. My hon. Friend is entirely right in believing that there ought to be a context and some criteria.

Furthermore, the measure includes the wording,

“if the officer thinks”—

whatever that means—

“that there is reason to doubt the accuracy of the counting of the votes in the counting officer’s voting area”.

What is or is not reasonable is, again, a question that the courts are well used to determining. There is a whole stream of case law, which I am quite capable of spending some time describing, on the question of what is or is not reasonable, and for that matter what is or is not practicable. I am afraid to say, however, that when the Bill simply states,

“only if the officer thinks that there is reason to doubt”,

it applies yet another spurious objective test, which is actually highly subjective, and that is not the way to legislate.

We want clarity and impartiality, and to be sure that, if there is a knife-edge vote, there will not be some unfortunate mistake in the mind of the officer—and I shall make no mistake whatever about what I say this evening.

Public Bodies Reform

David Nuttall Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

I am sure my right hon. Friend the Work and Pensions Secretary will have heard the hon. Gentleman’s last point and I know that he is addressing the matter with urgency. I welcome the hon. Gentleman into the big tent as far as the British Waterways Board is concerned. That is a good route to follow.

The hon. Gentleman also asked about the future of NESTA, which will become an independent endowment outside the Government. When the Bill that set it up went through the House, I was the Opposition spokesman, and I urged that it should be set up as a wholly independent endowment that is outside, and not in any way subject to the whim of, the Government.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Although I welcome the proposal for a triennial review of the remaining quangos, can my right hon. Friend confirm that if it becomes clear that a quango no longer serves a useful purpose, it will be abolished immediately, without waiting for the completion of the three-year review?

[Mr Maude]

Yes.

Individual Electoral Registration

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Harper]

Our proposals in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill, which will set fixed parliamentary terms so that election dates become more predictable, should enable organisations such as the Electoral Commission and local authorities to run campaigns to improve registration ahead of specific elections. We will know when the date of the election will be. The hon. Gentleman thus makes a valid point. Under our fixed-term Parliament proposals, it should be easier to deliver what he suggests.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the Minister have any plans to improve the process of checking the identity of voters at the polling station in order to reduce the risk of impersonation?

[Mr Harper]

That suggestion has been put forward, and it happens in Northern Ireland. We are thinking about and considering it further. If the Government decide to bring forward any such proposals, we will announce them in the House.