House of Lords Reform Bill
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
This statement is about the Lords, but the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question on boundary changes is simple. I have said very clearly what we will do: we will vote against the boundary changes coming into effect in 2015. The legislation will continue, after 2015, as it is on the statute book, unless it is changed. I have been very clear about that, and nothing will change my mind.
As for House of Lords reform, it has not happened this time; if it was easy, it would have happened at some point over the past 100 years. I say this to Labour Members, who seem to be enjoying their time in opposition, in which they are taking responsibility for absolutely nothing and delivering on none of their commitments to political reform: one day, one generation of politicians will finally have to introduce a smidgen of democracy in the second Chamber. We in this country and this Parliament cannot continue trotting around the world lecturing other countries on the virtues of democracy while not introducing it in Westminster.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman is right: it is a great pity that we have not made progress in modernising our system. It could have been done, as the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) has just said. The Deputy Prime Minister has confirmed that on 6 August, he said that, the House of Lords Reform Bill having been withdrawn, his party would no longer support the boundaries legislation. Does he recall that on 19 April, in answer to my questions, he told the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform that there was “no link” between the two issues? Does he accept that he cannot have been telling the truth on both occasions?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Since we are trading quotes, I remind the hon. Lady that she—[Interruption.] I will answer the question. She said on her website that we should not be wasting our time on constitutional reform—of almost any description, I think—that is not going to improve the life of a single person in the United Kingdom. I have the transcript of the meeting of the Select Committee in April this year. As she knows, I also said in my exchange with her that we were
“trying to press forward”
on all the issues in our constitutional and political reform package, and that
“I think we are successfully doing so—in keeping with the commitments we both made, both coalition parties, in the Coalition Agreement.”
I made it clear, therefore, that this was an overall approach to a package of measures which we had both entered into solemnly in the coalition agreement. Most people in the country would think it perfectly reasonable that when one party to such an agreement decides to pick and choose the measures that it will support, it is right for the other party to say, “Well, in that case we will need to pick and choose a bit ourselves so that we can continue with the rest of the very important work that this coalition Government are doing.”
Oral Answers to Questions
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
As the right hon. Gentleman knows, thankfully the embarrassment would be spared if a child were born after the date at which the Perth decision was made. The rights of that unborn child are properly protected by the procedures. Just like him, I would love to wave a magic wand and dispense with such outdated and anachronistic rules governing whom a person in the line of succession can marry and those on male primogeniture, but we must move as a convoy with the 16 other Commonwealth realms. For one reason or another, that takes a bit of time.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
The House appreciates the progress that the Deputy Prime Minister and the Government have made with the Commonwealth Heads of Government, but does he agree that, surely, during this jubilee year when people not only in the UK, but right across the Commonwealth, have shown that they hold our Queen in extremely high regard, nobody could possibly argue that a woman cannot succeed to the throne?
The Deputy Prime Minister
On this if not on other issues we have debated recently, I fervently agree with my hon. Friend. The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man is incomprehensible in this day and age.
House of Lords Reform Bill
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
I will make a little more progress and then give way again.
I have heard Lords reform presented as some kind of Liberal Democrat crusade. The truth, as I have said on a number of occasions, is that it made its way into all the party manifestos—in the case of the Labour party, as the right hon. Member for Neath has indicated, going all the way back to Keir Hardie’s 1911 manifesto.
The final myth is this: I have heard it said that the House of Commons should not be concerning itself—
The Deputy Prime Minister
May I first deal with this important point? The hon. Lady has raised it with me personally on a number of occasions, so perhaps she would care to listen to my answer.
The final myth is that the House of Commons should not be concerning itself with Lords reform at a time of economic difficulty. My answer is this: let’s get on with it—proper scrutiny, yes; years of foot-dragging, no. I do not remember this complaint being made when we legislated to create elected police commissioners, or when we were debating local government finance or legal aid reform. It is odd to suggest that Parliament cannot do more than one thing at a time. I certainly agree that jobs and growth are the priority, so let us not tie ourselves up in knots on Lords reform. We do not need to—all the parties are signed up to it. We should vote for the Bill and the programme motion so that we can scrutinise the Bill properly while still allowing ourselves to make progress on other Government priorities.
Mrs Laing
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. It happens that he has just hit on the very point on which I agree with him entirely. We do have a duty to reform the House of Lords, even though we are doing other things at the same time. He is absolutely right about that, but what a pity that he does not accept Lord Steel’s Bill and get on with the necessary reform that everybody agrees with. If all three party manifestos gave no choice on House of Lords reform, is that not a good reason to put it to the people in a referendum, because in the election they had no chance to vote against it?
The Deputy Prime Minister
Following that logic, the commitment to a referendum on House of Lords reform should have been included in the party manifestos.
Sadiq Khan
We are in favour of reform. I will come to the issue of timing in a moment.
I note from his opening statement that the Deputy Prime Minister highlighted areas where the Bill had been amended as a result of the Joint Committee’s report, but he was less keen to highlight those where he has not taken on board the Joint Committee’s views. He knows as well as I do that he has cherry-picked from the Joint Committee’s report, while blindly ignoring its other key recommendations and concerns. Let me turn to the Bill itself. If I was being generous, I would have to say that the Bill as it stands is a bit of a mess.
Mrs Laing
Having sat on the Joint Committee for eight months, I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the report was critical of the Government’s Bill. The alternative report—signed by 12 of the Joint Committee’s 25 members—was even more critical. The Committee agreed that eight months was not long enough to give proper scrutiny to the Bill, so how could 10 days be long enough for this House?
Sadiq Khan
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She reminds us that there are still a number of major deficiencies, which will need to be looked at in Committee, if the Bill is to be improved. Our support for giving the Bill a Second Reading should therefore not be taken as a blank cheque.
We have many concerns—many of them major—about the content of the Bill, but I shall concentrate on three areas.
The area of powers and conventions deserves our greatest attention. With all the focus on form, the Government have neglected function. On primacy, the Government have sought to rewrite the inadequate clause 2 of the draft Bill and dropped any reference to the conventions governing the relationship between the Houses. It remains to be seen whether this will deal satisfactorily with the issue; constitutional experts are no doubt poring over this as we speak. As the Bill will be debated on the Floor of the House, and as new clause 2 was not considered by the Joint Committee, there has been no pre-legislative scrutiny. We simply do not know whether the provision is adequate. Labour Members want to ensure that the Commons maintains its primacy even when a second Chamber becomes elected.
It is impossible to predict what changes might develop in the culture of the House of Lords following reform, but it seems likely that elected Members will expect to play at least a fairly assertive role and that voters may share that view. When the European Parliament went from being an appointed to an elected body, it demanded more powers to reflect its democratic mandate. Why should elected Members of the second Chamber be bound by conventions that bind a Chamber of hereditary and appointed peers? The Bill effectively washes its hands of this issue.
Mrs Laing
Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge that this is not just any Bill? The Bill brings about fundamental change to Parliament. It is a serious constitutional measure and, by convention, the House does not usually put a timetable—a limit—on a Bill of such constitutional significance.
Sadiq Khan
I heard Lib Dem Members chuntering while the hon. Lady, who sits on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, sat on the Joint Committee and spoke for the Conservatives in opposition, made her important point.
The next two days offer an opportunity for views from all sides to be expressed. On previous occasions when the Chamber has debated House of Lords reform, there has been no shortage of opinions from across the full spectrum, all sincerely held and all genuine. I am certain that this occasion will be no different. I understand that more than 115 MPs have already indicated that they want to speak in the debate over the next two days. I know that there are siren voices of concern in all parts of the Chamber. There are those who favour reform, but have concerns about the Bill, and those who favour the status quo.
Let me end by saying that we can all agree that no one, except the Deputy Prime Minister, thinks that this is a perfect Bill. We will help the Government to give the Bill a Second Reading tomorrow night, but Government Back Benchers should vote with us on the programme motion so that we can all work together to achieve a better Bill.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson). Although I disagree with a lot of what he says, I have respect for the way in which he says it. I certainly agree with his last point about a referendum.
There is wide agreement in this House and in the other place that we want reform of the second Chamber. Sadly, the Bill before us is standing in the way of measured, necessary reform. If only we had a small Bill that proposed to do what we all know needs to be done, we could get on with it. But we cannot, because the Bill is fundamentally flawed. It undermines democracy in three specific ways: first, it damages accountability; secondly, it has not been subject to proper consultation; and thirdly, it ignores the will of the people.
First, a person who is elected for a 15-year, non-renewable term of office is accountable to nobody.
Duncan Hames
How would the accountability of the Members of the House of Lords be achieved under the proposals that the hon. Lady would support?
Mrs Laing
I do not know what proposals I would support for the House of Lords, because we have not had proper consultation or proper consideration of what ought to be done. I believe that we ought to have a constitutional convention to consider the reform of Parliament as a whole. Once we have done that properly, I will be happy to give the hon. Gentleman my answer.
Worse still on the matter of accountability, a body of people who, having been elected, claim to have a democratic mandate, will behave as though they had one. There will be no stopping them. They will flex their democratic muscles and challenge this House of Commons. No matter what any Bill or any convention says, they will challenge the primacy of this House.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
When these people are elected to the House of Lords, or the House of senators, or the second Chamber, they will be elected by millions. They will therefore say, “Millions of our people have put me here, so I have a better democratic right than MPs to speak for them.” That will mean a challenge to this Chamber.
Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the challenge will be not just here in the Chamber but in every marginal constituency? That is what happens in Australia, where they have the system in question. The equivalent of a Liberal Democrat Senator in a Conservative seat becomes that area’s parliamentary representative, and so it is in every marginal constituency.
Mrs Laing
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Joint Committee took evidence from the Australian Parliament, and Members ought to look at that evidence and pay heed to Australia before giving away our primacy.
The most worrying thing of all is that as the primacy of the House of Commons is challenged, the unique link of accountability between the elector and his or her representative in Parliament—their Member of this House —will be undermined, so Parliament’s very accountability will be undermined as well.
Quite apart from the fact that there is no reasonable question to which the right answer is 450 extra elected politicians, having a second House of Commons at the other end of the corridor will not increase the chances of holding the Government to account. It will do exactly the opposite. A clash between the two Houses and a squabble over when and whether the Parliament Acts could be used will lead to a challenge in the courts, and I for one do not want vital political issues to be decided not by Parliament but by the judiciary. Our electors expect us to take responsibility, and they expect the buck to stop with us, their MPs. We ought to fight to preserve that.
I turn to the matter of consultation. The subject of Lords reform may have been talked about for 100 years, but we are not considering it in a proper, wider context. Reform of one part of Parliament is reform of Parliament as a whole, but we have been able to consider only the narrow proposals that the Deputy Prime Minister has put forward. I sat on the Joint Committee for eight months, and we recommended a constitutional convention so that the subject could be properly examined in context. The Government have ignored that recommendation, and now we face the possibility that we might not even be able to examine the Bill fully here in the House of Commons because of a narrow programme motion. At the same time, the Government are afraid of a referendum. They are afraid to ask the people. No constitutional convention, no referendum, no proper scrutiny in the House of Commons—that is not democracy.
Mr MacNeil
May I do a cursory self-interest check? Will the hon. Lady rule herself out now of ever taking a seat in an unreformed second Chamber?
Mrs Laing
No, I will not rule that out—not that I ever expect to be offered a seat, and certainly not by my hon. Friends on the Front Bench. I am probably not the most popular Smartie in the tube today, but I do not care about that: I am here to do my duty for democracy.
The Bill ignores the will of the people. Only one year ago, we had an expensive nationwide referendum in which the people overwhelmingly rejected a proportional representation voting system. The Deputy Prime Minister now ignores the will of the people. PR for this House was rejected, so he says, “Let’s introduce it for the other place.” What contempt! What duplicity! Why does he do it? The answer to that non-rhetorical question is that a proportional election system will give the Liberal Democrats a permanent hold on the balance of power in the second Chamber. That is not democracy; it is blatant party political advantage. It is short term and small-minded, and I certainly cannot vote for it.
There is very much more to say on this subject, and I hope the House votes to give all the time necessary for proper scrutiny of such fundamental parliamentary reform.
Mr Heath
I will give way to the hon. Lady in a few moments.
We also heard the proposals, from the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) and others, that we should be going for Lord Steel’s Bill. Lord Steel has put forward some small and valuable proposals, but if anyone honestly believes that those small incremental changes that would put right the legislative incapacity of the previous Government actually address the fundamental constitutional issues about the House of Lords, I have to say that they are fundamentally wrong.
Mr Heath
It might be because we were anticipating 14 days of debate on this measure. The fact that the Government acceded to the majority of the recommendations of the Joint Committee shows that the Government have been prepared to listen.
Some have criticised the voting system, particularly this semi-open list. I made the point in an earlier intervention that that was something that the Labour party asked for. Of course, it asks for something and then it votes against it later, but that is par for the course; we expect that. To those who believe that a list with a voting constituency of millions is not better than a closed list with a voting capacity of one—the Prime Minister of the day, putting forward his or her nominations to the upper House—I have to say that I simply do not accept that argument.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
For the sake of clarity, how, under amendment 30, could the Electoral Commission make a report about whether the new registration system had achieved its objectives or not before the Act came into force? I do not understand the timing. The hon. Gentleman seems to suggest in the amendment that before the Act comes into force, the Electoral Commission has to make a report about whether the effects of the Act have achieved the goals or not. How could that happen when the Act, and therefore the new system, has not come into force?
Mr David
We are, of course, talking about a transition period, which is catered for in the Bill. As the Government have correctly argued, the new system is not going to be introduced on a big bang basis, but on an incremental one. As our deliberations on the Bill continue, the hon. Lady will see that we have tabled a number of other amendments that intervene progressively on the transition arrangements. This amendment essentially reinforces, as I said, the role of the Electoral Commission, the relationship between it and the Secretary of State, and the involvement of Parliament as we move as quickly as possible towards a complete electoral register. The amendment goes on to say that the recommendation should be approved
“by a resolution of each House of Parliament”.
That is very important because at the end of the day we are talking about a fundamental change in our democratic process—arguably the most important change since the achievement of the universal franchise. We believe therefore that it is essential that Parliament is fully involved at every step of the way as we move towards the new and path-breaking system.
Amendment 31 relates to the important issue of data matching. Let me provide a little background. In 2011, the Government introduced 22 pilot projects in a range of local authorities in England and Scotland. These pilots were based on a range of national datasets and the Electoral Commission carried out a statutory evaluation of the pilots to assess the extent to which such schemes could help electoral registration officers improve the completeness and accuracy of their registers.
The Government, and particularly the Minister, have said on a number of occasions that these projects went very well indeed, and that the pilot schemes showed that 60% of the current electors should be carried forward. However, in contradistinction, the Electoral Commission is quite scathing in its assessment of the schemes. According to the key findings and conclusions of the Electoral Commission’s evaluation report,
“Our main conclusion is that these pilot schemes do not provide sufficient evidence to judge the effectiveness of data matching as a method for improving the accuracy and completeness of the electoral registers.”
That is a pretty damning indictment of pilot schemes which were intended to point the way to a fundamentally important revision of our electoral process, and it contrasts sharply with what the Government have said—rather complacently, in my view.
Because of that criticism, the Government agreed to conduct further data- matching exercises, and a delegated legislation Committee will meet tomorrow morning to discuss a statutory instrument to introduce the second tranche of data-matching pilots. Obviously we do not know what those further pilots will show, but they may reveal the likelihood of a problem with the new electoral register in the short term. The Government’s own assessments indicate, or at least hint at, that distinct possibility. According to the impact assessment which the Minister himself signed on 8 May this year,
“It is not yet certain what the short term impact on the accuracy of the electoral register will be because there is no clear evidence on the accuracy of electors that are placed on the 2014/15 electoral roll through data-matching. The government is running a second round of pilots to understand the precise impact on completeness”.
That is certainly delicately worded, but even our fantastic civil servants are unable to help the Government much. What they are basically saying is “No evidence is available. The pilot projects that we have organised so far have not shown that the evidence is there. We will organise more pilot projects, but we do not know exactly what they will show. We will proceed on a wing and a prayer.”
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mr Mark Harper)
I should say at the beginning that I was slightly surprised that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) said that the Opposition were in favour of individual registration, as I could have sworn that on Second Reading they not only tabled a reasoned amendment, but voted against the Second Reading of the Bill. That was strange; it is difficult to see how they are in support of it. If they had only voted for the reasoned amendment, I could have accepted it as a principle, but it seems to me that they are opposed to our fundamental position.
I wish to make one or two points that I hope are helpful to the Committee. The hon. Gentleman drew attention to the lengthy period of pre-legislative scrutiny we have had. Not only did we have that, but, as I think he has acknowledged, we made a number of significant changes to our approach as a result. All I say to the Committee is that I hope the progress of the Bill reflects that considerable pre-legislative scrutiny. It is probably also worth saying that, as the Committee may have noticed, we deliberately decided not to use knives in the programme motion for the first two days of debate in order to enable it to focus on points that hon. Members thought were important. I hope that the flexibility that that gives the Committee is used properly and that we make reasonable progress that focuses on where the Committee thinks the important issues are.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) for the amendments that they have led on. They have participated very well in the experiment that the Procedure Committee has asked us to undertake. This Bill is an example of it, because all hon. Members tabling amendments were asked to include explanatory statements to enable hon. Members to understand better the nature of the amendments. I am pleased that they have done so, as it is very helpful to the House. It is just a shame that the official Opposition appear to have ignored the fact that we are conducting that experiment and have not taken that opportunity. I am sure that the Procedure Committee will draw the appropriate conclusion.
Mrs Laing
I thank the Minister for expressing his gratitude. Does it occur to him that the official Opposition might not have wished to publish explanatory statements to support their amendments as they do not want to explain their effects because they are trying to have their cake and eat it by opposing the Bill while saying that they do not oppose it? The more smoke and mirrors that are involved and the less clarity there is about their amendments, the better it is for their purpose.
Mr Harper
I am sorry, but that is a rewriting of history. If I get any details wrong, I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest will correct me. When that Bill was introduced in the House, it did not contain any provisions about individual registration, which is why we tabled a reasoned amendment and voted against the Bill. Those clauses were not in the Bill when it left the House. They were added in the other place under enormous pressure from the Conservative Members there, so this House did not even get a chance to debate them until we considered Lords amendments. I am afraid that Bill was not an example of good parliamentary practice.
Mrs Laing
I agree with my hon. Friend’s recollection of the history of a couple of years ago. The Bill to which he refers was massively changed and we had very little time in this Chamber to discuss the provisions. They were ill thought out and it is fortunate that this Minister has managed to make sense of the previous provisions introduced by the Labour Government.
Mr Harper
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point.
Before I come to the amendments, let me say something about the tone adopted by the hon. Member for Caerphilly, a point to which my hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) drew attention. One of the things that I have been very clear about all the way through is that the Government are as focused on completeness as they are on accuracy, but both of those—getting on to the register everyone entitled to be on the register, and also making sure that no one is on the register who is not entitled to be on the register—are equally important. One is not more important than the other. The hon. Gentleman’s amendments, in this grouping and elsewhere, all seem to be focused on completeness, with no sense that accuracy is equally important.
The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) went further than that and explicitly said that he was not particularly bothered about accuracy; it was all about getting people on to the register. Getting people on to the register who are not entitled to be there is a problem. That is why 36% of the public think there is a problem with electoral fraud. It is also why, when the groups from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe come and inspect British elections, they say that if we have low levels of electoral fraud, it is not because of our electoral system, but in spite of it. That is not good enough, and it is why we need to fix the system. My hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall is right: we should be as focused on completeness as on accuracy. That has informed the proposals that the Government have put forward, and that is why they were well received during pre-legislative scrutiny and why we made the changes that we have.
The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) asked when it would be right to take steps if the number of people on the register fell precipitously. We do not think that that would be the effect of our proposals. I will set out a little more about our proposal for confirmation and say why we think we can successfully move two thirds of electors over to a new register. I say gently to the hon. Gentleman that it was under the previous Government that 3 million people ceased to be on the electoral register, and we know that from the research that this Government commissioned. The previous Government were unaware of that fact because they commissioned no research and did not know what was going on. As a result, they took no action at all. So Government Members will not be lectured about large numbers of people falling off the electoral register, because it happened under the previous Government and no action was taken in response.
Mr Harper
I am not really sure that there is an enormous rush. The Electoral Commission likes to point out that it has been calling for individual registration since 2003—nine years ago. We made it very clear that, as the hon. Gentleman now knows from what I and my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest said, when his Government were legislating for individual registration, having been forced to do so because of pressure from, among others, my hon. Friend, we said that we thought they were going incredibly slowly and we could speed them up. Indeed, it was a commitment in our manifesto.
We have not suddenly speeded up the process. We said from the beginning—in the previous Parliament—that we thought it could be done much more quickly. That is important, because—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says from a sedentary position that we did not object, but actually we did. When the proposal was finally included in the Bill in the other House, my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest gracefully accepted that the Government had moved, and it would have been a bit churlish if, having got the stuff on the statute book, she had then started cavilling about it.
We made it very clear at the outset, however, that the proposal should have been in the Bill from the beginning, but it was not, which is why we voted against the Bill by way of a reasoned amendment. The proposal was inserted in the other place only at the eleventh hour. We have been very consistent; we think that the provision should have been introduced some time ago, and the Electoral Commission has been calling for it for the best part of a decade. No one can really accuse us of going at break-neck speed.
Mrs Laing
With all due respect, the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) is wrong about what my party did in opposition. I happened to be speaking for the Opposition on this issue, so I know what we did. What the Minister has said is absolutely correct.
We accepted the last Government’s proposals because they were better than nothing, but we always said that the matter should be dealt with more quickly and that the relevant measures could be implemented more quickly than the last Government wanted. We always said that we would have a view not only to the accuracy but to the comprehensiveness of the register, and that we would proceed at the right pace. The fact that this Government are very much more efficient than the last one in implementing a necessary policy is a matter on which to congratulate the Government and the Minister in particular, not criticise them.
Mr Harper
There has not been a change in point of view. I did not want to bother the Committee with this again, but I am going to have to now. On Second Reading of the previous legislation in 2009, my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude) made it clear that we approved of the decision to proceed with individual registration, but we thought that it could be accomplished earlier. We said at the time that it could be done earlier, and on page 47 of our 2010 manifesto we made a commitment to implement it swiftly. This is not new news.
As I said, when the Bill for which the Labour party was responsible left the House, it contained no provisions about individual electoral registration; they were inserted in the other place. When the Bill came back, it seemed to me that, having got the Government at least to move on that issue, it would have been churlish to have started cavilling about it.
Mrs Laing
I thank the Minister for allowing me to intervene once again.
I do not understand why the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) thinks she is making a clever point by quoting what I said three years ago from where she is now sitting. My position has not changed; I have been perfectly consistent. The fact is that the last Government put obstacles in the way of bringing this important legislation into practice. The current Government have rightly concluded that it can be accomplished more quickly than the last Government said—they were saying that they would do it, but looking for every reason to delay doing it. That is the point. There is no point in the hon. Lady’s trying to assert that I have changed my position or said anything wrong. I have been perfectly consistent; it is her Government who were wrong.
The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Dawn Primarolo)
I gave the hon. Lady a lot of latitude to correct the record, but she needs to do that only once.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend is right. Again, if there are categories of people who live abroad but do not qualify to vote in this country, they, too, should be included in the system.
In answer to the question that my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths) asked, when people fill in their voter registration form, they should be asked whether they want their details kept on the database, thereby opting in for permanent overseas voting until they opt out of it. That is the way of dealing with the system that he mentioned.
I think we should recognise the loyalty of many of these subjects who live abroad—bearing in mind that there may be 4.3 million of them—and ensure that they are not disfranchised by the voting system, but are able to take an active part in our democratic elections. It was the complication of the system for voters in the armed forces that led to the situation in the 2010 election whereby—these figures are also startling—only 564 votes were received from British military personnel in Afghanistan, even though nearly 10,000 were able to vote. Many people regard that as a national scandal. These brave people risk their lives on a daily basis in Afghanistan and elsewhere to protect this country’s interest and the international norms of behaviour. Surely the least we can do in this Parliament is ensure that they are able to participate in our elections in the United Kingdom.
Mrs Laing
Is my hon. Friend aware that many of us asked the last Government over and over again whether they would take steps to ensure that our armed forces, especially those serving in Afghanistan, could be given the opportunity to vote in the 2010 election? However, the last Government took no action until late 2009, by which time it was too late. Indeed, the figures that he has just quoted prove that they let down our armed forces in a very serious way.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I do not want to alienate Opposition Members, because I want their support on this matter, but she raises a serious issue. Indeed, it is, I would say, frankly a moral issue that we should do something to amend the system, so that what I have described can never happen again. I know that the Minister is aware of this issue, and, in light of what I have said today, I hope that he will consider bringing forward regulations under proposed new section 10ZC(3) of the 1983 Act to improve the system of registering overseas voters. There was method in my madness when I intervened on the Minister, in response to an intervention from the Opposition spokesman, to urge him to bring forward regulations and to praise him for doing so swiftly under this Bill. I know that my hon. Friend perspicaciously knew what I was going to say today, so I will close by urging him to publish the secondary legislation as soon as possible.
Electoral Registration and Administration Bill
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David
My hon. Friend puts it very well.
The Minister told us that details of the civil penalty would be set out in secondary legislation, which brings me to a broader point. With this legislation, perhaps more than any other, the devil is in the detail, but the detail is tucked away in secondary legislation and we cannot see it. Last November, I asked the Deputy Prime Minister, from the Dispatch Box, whether the Government would publish their secondary legislation at the same time as the primary legislation. That was six months ago. Additional information has been forthcoming, including today, but six months later we still cannot properly assess these proposals, simply because we do not know—we have not been told—the detail.
One of the main reasons we have continuing concerns about the Bill relates to the Government’s timetable for implementation. Under the last Labour Government, the Electoral Commission was to play a key role in monitoring and assessing the progress towards a new register. Sadly, that role has been diminished and downgraded. Instead, the Government are rushing pell-mell into a new system of electoral registration that ought to provide the cornerstone of our democratic process. We understand from the Government that they are undertaking a second round of data matching. That is to be welcomed and will show how complete the new register is at the end of 2015. The pilots will indicate whether the new register will be depleted. In all reasonableness, I think that the House should be aware of the conclusion of the pilots before it decides on the Government’s implementation timetable, yet the results of the data-matching pilots will not be available until early next year.
Why are the Government hell-bent on introducing this radical change at breakneck speed? It has been suggested that they are determined to end the carry-over arrangements before 1 December 2015 for reasons of Conservative party self-interest.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
I recall that we first discussed individual electoral registration in the House seven years ago, since when it has been implemented in Northern Ireland—effectively a pilot scheme for the rest of the UK—and it has been looked at over the past two or more years in great detail. How can that possibly be described as breakneck speed?
Mr David
It is breakneck speed. This is the first piece of legislation in the Queen’s Speech to be introduced. The Electoral Commission and many others have said that we must first complete the data-matching exercises. The Government have deliberately introduced this legislation as quickly as possible in their legislative programme to circumvent the evidence coming forward that might highlight weaknesses in the process.
Mrs Laing
I am thinking about the figure of 9 million that the right hon. Gentleman gave. Is it not the case that at present, those 9 million people, if there are 9 million—I think there are 3 million—have to go through their “head of household”, whatever that might mean, to register to vote? When the Bill becomes law, they will be able to register individually in their own right, which will give them a power that they do not have at the moment.
Frank Dobson
I do not think that is what will happen in practice. I admit that it may happen in some cases, but in a very large number of cases, particularly in inner-city areas such as my constituency where people live in houses in multiple occupation, it will be more difficult for people to get on the register. Virtually everyone in the Chamber accepts that that is likely to happen, but apparently regards that reduction as a bit of collateral damage in the headlong pursuit of individual registration.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is a genuine pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), because I totally disagree with everything that he has just said, so perhaps we can have a real debate about the amendment and the party political difference on the matter.
The Bill will improve the electoral register’s comprehensiveness and accuracy. It is long overdue. It is absurd that, in the 21st century, a person’s right to vote depends on the head of household filling in a form. Each individual member of our society should be responsible for registering themselves to vote and should have the vote that they deserve. I have never understood why the Labour party—it is in opposition now, but the situation was the same when it was in government—has been so reluctant for the last two Parliaments to go ahead with that obvious modernisation of our electoral administration system.
Labour Members now want that modernisation to be delayed. I understand their objection a little better having listened to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras, but the arguments of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr David) simply do not hold water. The Government are not, as he said, rushing pell-mell. The proposals have been discussed in the Chamber and other places for seven years, and this Government have taken two years and two weeks to introduce the Bill. That is not “breakneck speed”.
The Opposition amendment is ridiculous. They state that
“the proposals would mean the young, the poor, ethnic minorities and disabled people would face an increased risk of being unregistered and thus excluded from a range of social and civic functions”.
I entirely take the point that measures must be in place to help people who are disabled or elderly, and there is a duty on local authorities to provide such help. The Government are as concerned as the previous one, and Government Back Benchers are as concerned as Opposition Back Benchers to ensure that people who are elderly or disabled get help to register to vote if they need it.
How many hon. Members as candidates in elections or as election managers knock on somebody’s door, find that they are not registered, get them a form and ensure that they register? How many of us knock on a door and find an elderly person who might find it difficult to get to the polling station and offer to arrange them a lift? All Members on both sides of the House do that. We sometimes help if we think the person might vote for our candidate rather than someone else’s, which is fair enough, but there is every likelihood that someone from all political parties will knock on that door. Somebody will help that person to get to the polling station or have a form sent to someone by the local authority to ensure they are registered to vote. We all do it because it is in our interests.
However, I am amazed that the Opposition say ethnic minorities will be less likely to register to vote under the Bill, because the opposite is the case. I am thinking particularly about women in certain ethnic minorities who have their right to vote, or indeed to participate in wider public life, restricted by a head of household who exercises the power of a head of household. In this Bill we are giving greater rights to women in those ethnic minorities.
My greatest concern is the idea that young people will not register to vote if their mother or father does not fill in the form for them. What absolute nonsense! I shall go further: if a young person cannot organise the filling in of a form that registers them to vote, they do not deserve the right to vote—[Hon. Members: “Ah!”] I thought that might be controversial, but I do not mind.
Chris Ruane
That argument smacks of the Conservative’s attitude towards the poor in general—the undeserving poor and the deserving poor, the undeserving voters and the deserving voters. In whose political interest is it? It is in the Tory party’s political interest to keep those poor voters off the register.
Mrs Laing
Not in my constituency, it is not, where a large majority of them vote Tory. I want them on the register. This is simply not a reasonable argument. If someone is responsible enough to exercise their right to vote to decide the Government of this country, or at any level of local government, they should be responsible enough to register to vote.
Mr Stewart Jackson
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Labour party should have learnt its lesson from the Bradford West by-election result? It relied on community voting and this kind of backward-looking, pernicious and frankly slightly sleazy and corrupt approach to registration and campaigning. It bit Labour on the backside and it lost by 10,000 votes. It is over.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I think there was a question in there somewhere.
Mr Harper
Members who do not think that young people will register are being overly pessimistic. When I visited Northern Ireland, I noted that, with IER, electoral registration officers could interact directly with young people. They go to schools and get more young people registered to vote than we do in Great Britain. Members have a huge opportunity to engage with young people in our schools. We know that often young people are more engaged in politics than their parents.
Mrs Laing
I agree entirely with the Minister. Of course, it is relatively easy for electoral registration officers to find young people, because up until 16 they are at school or college, and at that point can be approached, educated, given a form and encouraged to register to vote when they reach their 18th birthday.
The Opposition’s argument simply does not hold water. The Bill will give more individual power to every person in this country, particularly the 3 million—I am glad the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras agreed the figure was not 9 million—who should be on the register but are not. It will be far, far easier for them to register on their own behalf, rather than having to do so through a head of household.
Mrs Laing
Sadly, I do not have time. I am sorry.
Government Members are pleased that the Minister has listened to the consultation. Speaking on behalf of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, I am particularly pleased that he has taken account of some of the points raised during the pre-legislative scrutiny. Once again, the Bill is a good example of how pre-legislative scrutiny works to the advantage of Parliament and the democratic system. In particular, I think of the data matching with the Department for Work and Pensions, keeping people on the register during the transition, and recognising that registering is a civic duty and maintaining a penalty for not doing so. In those areas, the Government deserve to be congratulated on having amended the draft Bill. I also welcome the funding formula for local authorities under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, and I am glad that the Minister will be consulting on accountability.
That brings me to the second half of the Bill, which we have not really debated yet, concerning the powers of electoral registration officers and returning officers. At present, returning officers are accountable to no one. We need a structure whereby they can be ordered to carry out instructions, possibly by the Electoral Commission. We saw during the 2010 general election that the Electoral Commission had no power to direct. On the matter of counting votes at the close of poll, I tabled an amendment, which was supported by the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and subsequently became law. Returning officers had to be directed by an amendment to primary legislation to count the votes at the close of poll. That is not the right way to do it; there should be a much better structure, and I therefore welcome clause 17.
I suggest, however, that the Minister might wish to go further. Something else happened in 2010 that has not been addressed in the Bill. It involved people who were waiting to vote at the close of poll. Eligible electors who are present at a polling station at that time should be allowed to vote if they are within the precincts of the polling station. I appreciate that this matter needs to be carefully defined, but I suggest that the Bill gives the Government an opportunity to introduce rules that would give the presiding officer at a polling station the authority to designate the end of a queue, for example, or the area—not necessarily in the polling station itself—in which people must be present before 10 o’clock in order to vote at 10 o’clock. On the night of the 2010 general election, there was unfair criticism of the Electoral Commission, which did not have the power that the media thought it had to tell electoral registration officers what to do. I hope that the Minister will consider amending the Bill in this respect.
Gavin Shuker
The hon. Lady’s argument seems to be that young people who cannot be bothered to fill in the form should lose the right to vote, but that people who cannot get to the polling station by 10 pm should gain that opportunity—
Mrs Laing
No—that is completely wrong. My point is that if someone is just outside the polling station—in the school playground, perhaps, or the car park of the village hall—but there is not sufficient space for them to get in through the door, the presiding officer should have the power to designate the end of the queue, so that those people can move forward and vote.
Mr Harper
The Government did listen, and the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee agreed with our view that
“careful planning and allocation of resources are likely to be more effective in ensuring all those who are eligible can access their vote without resorting to legislation.”
That was our view, the Committee agreed with us, and that is the position at which I think we will remain.
Mrs Laing
I appreciate the Minister’s position, but perhaps that is something we can look at as the Bill passes through the House.
There is nothing in the Bill that will give party political advantage to any political party. It is a simple, straightforward modernisation of electoral administration. It is vastly overdue, and it will give more rights, not fewer, to the electors of this country. The amendment before us is based on nonsense, and it should be rejected. The House should support the Bill.
Chris Ruane
The Minister has given me half the answer, but why did the Government bring the agreed date of 2015 for IER forward to 2014?
The Tories have mainly acted on such issues with a party political advantage as the main thing that they want to pursue. The equalisation of seats should not have gone ahead with 6 million people missing from the register. I do not want to be too curmudgeonly, however.
Chris Ruane
I am saying that the Electoral Commission’s research into who has been left off the register shows that in the main they are unemployed or low paid; live in social or council housing; are black or ethnic minority people; or are young students. The hon. Lady can draw her own conclusions about which way they would vote, but I do not think they would vote Tory.
I want to get on to a more positive agenda and give those on the Front Bench some praise for what they have done. That have listened, to some degree, and there are four aspects that I shall highlight. I want also to praise the Labour Front-Bench team, the shadow Secretary of State for Justice, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), and my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr David), who has pursued the issue like a dog with a bone. We would not have had the concessions from the Government without his doggedness; I use that word guardedly.
Civic society has rallied on the issue. Two groups in particular answered the clarion call two years ago, when the proposals were announced—the Electoral Reform Society and Unlock Democracy. They have helped take the issue out to wider society, to civic society, and made people aware of it—the judiciary, the police, Operation Black Vote, Scope and other organisations. I pay tribute to all those and to the academics who provided us with research. The progress that has been made is good, as far as it goes. From being a lifestyle choice, which in my view was obscene, the right to register has become a civic duty. I thank Ministers for that.
The annual canvass, which was not in place previously, will be in place for 2014. That is progress. The fixed penalty notice is probably the biggest progress that we have had. Again, I thank the Front-Bench team for that. I hate to say it, but threats and fines work. The hon. Member for Ceredigion referred to Denbighshire county council’s electoral registration form. In the middle of that form, in big bold letters, is a message: “If you do not fill in this form, you are liable to a £1,000 fine.” People will be visited and told three times that they are liable to this fine. The local chief executive, Mohammed Mehmet, will write to the individual—I have the letters and the forms, if anybody wants a copy—saying, “My electoral registration officers have been to your household three times. You have refused to return the form. We are now turning this over to our legal department.” If standardisation is to come about—another aspect that I welcome—I urge the Front-Bench team to look at best practice in Denbighshire.
I am pleased with the carry-over from the old register to the general election in May 2015, but why could it not be carried over to 1 December, the freeze date for the next boundary review? It is only six months further down the line. Opposition Members feel that it is a boundary review stitch-up, done in the knowledge that the electoral registration rates will go down by 10% in that critical period. That will leave 10% of probably the poorest people in the country off the register. That could be avoided. The Minister could come to the Dispatch Box and say, “Right, we will carry it over an extra six months,” and he would have cross-party consensus on taking these matters forward.
I am concerned about downgrading the role of the Electoral Commission. I have been a fierce critic of the Electoral Commission over the years. The changes that Labour introduced in 2005-06 took too long to implement. We did not insist on electoral registration officers doing the job that they were being paid to do, but in the past year or so the Electoral Commission has been a star turn. It has highlighted what the impact would be if the original proposals had gone ahead, again saying that electoral registration rates would have gone down to 65%. The commission may have been punished for its effectiveness over the past year.
As the secondary legislation unfolds, a lot more political flack may be coming. We need an independent arbiter who can give a straight-down-the-line view. If we downgrade the role of the Electoral Commission, we are taking away a valuable element providing that independent view.
I understand the Government’s predicament on fixed penalty notices. They do not want to create a system whereby local authorities can go out and fire those notices left, right and centre and get lots of money for themselves, which would be wrong, but the local authorities that will spend the most money will often be the poorest in the country. There will be cuts to social services and education. They will be forced to decide whether to prioritise electoral registration, and canvassing is something they are required to do by law, knocking on the doors of non-responders three times, which is costly. Those local authorities need financing for that work. I ask for that to be considered so that some of the money from the Treasury can be given back to the authorities with the biggest work load.
We need the details of the secondary legislation to be published concurrently so that we can judge exactly what the impact will be. I am afraid that trust will not do on this one; we tried trust two years ago and got only an element of it back in the past couple of weeks.
I mentioned online registration in an intervention. I went to see a demonstration of it in the Jubilee Room, and when I asked what happens for those who do not have their number, it was like throwing a spanner in the works. I was told that no one had yet got on top of it. The Minister said that 5% of people will be unable to find their registration number or their national insurance number. What happens to the ethnic minorities who do not have a good understanding of the English language? What happens to people who are functionally illiterate? We will send them letters telling them to go here or there, apply for a form, then fill it in and put it online, but that will not happen. Again, it will tend to be the poorest in society who will be punished as a result.
We need precise details on how the £108 million of funding will be ring-fenced and spent. If it is allocated for registration, it should be spent on registration. We saw in the emergency Budget in June 2010 that the first thing the Government slashed was the participation fund for increasing registration, which was £2 million over three years. It was not a priority then, but I hope it will be in future.
The Government point to Labour and say that we did nothing for 13 years and had 6 million people off the register. There is a golden opportunity to change that, but the Minister said at the outset that after all is done and dusted and all these changes have been implemented they hope to have 6 million people—perhaps a different 6 million—still off the register. I do not think that that is good enough.
Paul Blomfield
I will tell you later.
I want to express my concern about how this Bill will profoundly undermine our democracy by reference to two groups in my constituency, the first of which is those in urban areas. Let me compare my constituency with that of my political neighbour, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). My constituency is at the heart of Sheffield. It is an inner-city, multicultural area with large council estates, two universities, and a high level of electoral turnover. As a result, 17% of households already have nobody on the electoral register. The Deputy Prime Minister’s constituency consists of our leafy suburbs; it is monocultural with large areas of comfortable owner-occupation, a stable population, and only 4% of households with nobody on the register. There is therefore already a huge disparity between the number of people we represent and the number of registered voters. Assuming, on the basis of current boundaries, that we both have an average of 74,000 registered voters, the Deputy Prime Minister is representing an adult population of about 77,000 while I am representing about 89,000 people.
That situation will be exacerbated in 2020 if the 2015 boundary review is based on the register that many people fear. If we do have 60% registration levels, a redrawn Sheffield Central after the 2015 boundary review will have an adult population of up to 123,000—some 50% more than in Sheffield, Hallam. I recognise that the level may not be 60%, but we should consider seriously that significant imbalance in a depleted inner-city constituency. It is certainly not democratic and certainly not right.
Many of the people who will be excluded from the register are precisely those who form a huge proportion of our casework, and their voice in this Parliament will be reduced. Together with the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, the Bill is leading us towards a US-style democracy that excludes the disadvantaged and disengaged at election times and instead focuses on the needs of the more privileged, thereby poisoning our politics. The Deputy Prime Minister has rather grandly compared his ambitions for our democracy with those of the Great Reform Act of 1832. [Interruption.] I understand the reason for the laughter. The Great Reform Act increased representation for our cities, whereas this measure, together with the boundary review and the other reforms, will reduce the voice of our cities.
The other issue I want to talk about is young people, particularly students. Not all students are young, but the vast majority are, and will increasingly be so as a result of this Government’s policies, with reports this week revealing a drop in the number of mature students. Many of those young people are worryingly disillusioned with democratic politics. The Liberal Democrats’ broken pledge on tuition fees has not only damaged their party but damaged the trust in politics of a whole generation of young people. When I talk to students on the doorstep, they are clear that that experience of raised expectations and broken hope has led them to not want to participate in the system.
Both Sheffield’s great universities are in my constituency and 31,800 students live in it. Some of them live there for 31 weeks a year and many for 52. It is their main place of residence and they contribute to the economy and life of the city. They have a right to have their voice heard in elections.
The university of Sheffield, in common with many universities across the country, has a system of block registration for all eligible students in university accommodation. That will end with this Bill. I assume that the Government do not think that our universities are guilty of electoral fraud, so why is there a need to outlaw block registration?
The students union finance officer, Harry Horton, explained the impact to me:
“When students first arrive at University and live in halls, amongst all the other things that are going on, registering to vote often isn’t a priority and it is comforting to know that it’s often done automatically. If this is changed then it would become another form to fill in during the whirlwind first few weeks away from home and some students, particularly those not engaged in democracy, will not be registered”.
Crucially, students will be particularly under-registered in the first term of each academic year. The students unions of both the universities in my constituency run vigorous electoral registration campaigns in the run-up to elections—in February, March and April—and those campaigns work.
The Bill will effectively exclude tens of thousands of students—my constituents—from the electoral roll in December 2015, and therefore from consideration when the boundaries are redrawn, denying them an effective voice.
Paul Blomfield
I am simply reflecting the views that have been expressed to me by the elected representatives of the students, and I take their concerns seriously.
The students at the university of Sheffield have tried hard, but unsuccessfully, to meet their other constituency MP, the Deputy Prime Minister, who represents a smaller number of them, albeit still several thousand. I understand why he is less keen to meet students now than he was during the general election campaign, when he worked the two campuses relentlessly with his party’s unequivocal promise on tuition fees. I challenge him today—I ask the Minister to convey this to him—to agree, finally, to meet the representatives of students in his constituency to discuss their concerns.
There is no good reason to accelerate the timetable for introducing individual electoral registration, other than to have the system in place for the 2015 boundary review in the knowledge of what impact that will have on the 2020 general election. The Minister rightly talked in his opening remarks about the importance of the integrity of the electoral system and of people’s confidence in its integrity. However, the Government’s plans, taken with the 2011 Act, will understandably be seen to be some of the most outrageous gerrymandering seen in this country. That will undermine confidence in the system. The Government are riding roughshod over democracy in the interests of party advantage. I urge them to think again.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I was interested to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) explain why Sunderland nearly always gets its count done first, whereas in Edinburgh we tend to be propping our eyelids open at 5 am, waiting for our results. It is about having the resources—in that case, the resources to get the count done, but in this case the resources to get registration done and so on. Those resources will be important when we implement the proposal.
Unlike a couple of my hon. Friends, I am not saying that individual voter registration should not be happening, and, to be fair, that is not Labour’s position either. After all, Labour introduced legislation on this in the previous Parliament. We are asking, however, why it is necessary, in effect, to re-legislate. There was already a proposal and timetable for individual voter registration. Having heard the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing), my colleague on the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, I have to ask why she has apparently changed her mind about the timetable. When the original legislation was going through, she supported that timetable and said how important it was that it be done carefully and step by step. She now expresses her concern, however, that a further two years have elapsed to get to this point. That was partly because her Government have chosen to re-legislate. If the original timetable had been adhered to, we would have been making the step-by-step progress she appeared to think would be good.
Mrs Laing
I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to answer her question. I have not changed my mind. During the last Parliament, I said that it was equally important to ensure that we improved the accuracy and the comprehensiveness of the register, but that we wished to do it more quickly than the then Government—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) is shaking her head, but I know what I said. I said that those provisions could be brought in more quickly, if it was done carefully and in a measured way, and I have always adhered to that view, because that would bring benefits to the voting people of this country.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank the hon. Lady for clarifying the position, although I still think, given the comments that she made previously, that she had been prepared to support the previous timetable.
The process of pre-legislative scrutiny has been helpful, and the Government have clearly listened to the issues that were raised by the Select Committee, the Electoral Commission and others. That has been an important part of the process. It is an important part of the process for any legislation, and the Select Committee takes it very seriously. We make this comment frequently, and we made it quite vociferously when the opportunity was not given to scrutinise some of the early constitutional legislation in this Parliament. I believe that my fellow Select Committee members agree that that was detrimental to that legislation. The process has been valuable in this case. Even if some of the issues remain unresolved, we nevertheless got a response to the process. I hope that we will see much more of this kind of scrutiny for other legislation. The more debate, discussion and detailed scrutiny we have, the better. That kind of scrutiny is not always possible in Committee, whether on the Floor of the House or upstairs, as time is often limited. The Select Committee process has therefore been helpful.
We all go out and about, and we know just how variable registration can be. That is one of my major concerns about the Bill. When I walk down a street of bungalows and villas in my constituency, I can be sure that I will knock on every door in that street, because all the people living there are on the electoral register. Equally, in other parts of the constituency, the number of registered households can be as low as two or three of the 10 or 12 on a stair in a tenement. Edinburgh is a city of tenements. There are modern flats and also traditional tenements, and many people living in them are not registered.
Perhaps I misunderstood, but the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) seemed to suggest that the fall in the numbers of people registered during the past year was somehow to be placed at the door of the previous Government because they wanted registration to fall. What has actually happened is a substantial change in certain types of housing tenure.
In Edinburgh, the proportion of people living in the private sector was between 6% and 7% in the late 1990s, but it is now 20%-plus and, in some areas, between 30% and 40%. That is important, because the time spent by people living in that form of tenure is shorter. Most private lets are shorter; people have to move on. In that situation, perhaps they do not form the same commitment to their community, and sometimes they have no sooner registered themselves than they are moving on. Not all the tenements have lifts, especially the old-style ones. I think that the highest such building in my constituency is five storeys high—or six, if we are using the British naming of floors. Having puffed my way up to the top, I often find that the people who were registered as living there have moved on, and that the new tenants have not yet registered. It is a particular issue in certain areas.
It is important that the additional money promised by the Government is spent on the process of ensuring that registration happens properly. Even the data matching will be quite differential. My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland Central touched on that, explaining that in some areas the data-matching pilots had shown only a 55% match—not the two thirds that the Government have mentioned.
Why is that important for the size of the register? If the aim is to move people over as a result of data matching—that was not its original purpose, although I accept that it has considerable benefit, helping to ensure that people do not find themselves off the register—areas such as Edinburgh, which has many varied styles of description for tenement flats, help to explain why data-matching will not work. For example, the way in which flats are referred to within tenements is often quite variable. Some flats are referred to in some records as “stair 9/1, stair 9/2, stair 9/3” and so forth, whereas they are called something quite different in other registers for the same address—perhaps strange things like “1F1, 1F2, 2F2” or something rather peculiar like “PF1”, which puzzled me for a long time, as I thought it might refer to a platform, but it refers, in fact, to the ground floor.
Gavin Shuker
I think that the hon. Gentleman has entirely misread my comments, and I wonder whether he has chosen to do so. About one in four young people under 24 vote, whereas about three quarters of people over 60 do so, and that should not be dismissed.
Mrs Laing
We have debated this matter for the past five hours, but does the hon. Gentleman not accept that if a person cannot exercise the personal responsibility of filling in a simple form online in order to register to vote, it is upon their own head that they lose their right to vote?
Gavin Shuker
The hon. Lady has moderated her language since she made her speech earlier, in which she clearly said that those people did not “deserve” to vote. She can look at Hansard to see that. I appreciate that she has moved her position, but her substantive point remains that there are those people who deserve to vote and those who do not. I, for one, do not want to see a system where we start talking about the electorate in that way.
Oral Answers to Questions
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
I share the hon. Gentleman’s view that, although some concerns about the primacy of the House of Commons need to be taken seriously, some are overstated, not least because the changes that we published in our draft Bill would mean that, because the other place would be elected in instalments, it would never have a more recent, fresher democratic mandate than Members sitting in this place. When combined with other differences of mandate, constituency and so forth, that approach will ensure that the relationship between the two continues to guarantee the primacy of this place.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is interesting that the Deputy Prime Minister quoted selectively from the Joint Committee report. That report also stated:
“We concur…that Clause 2 of the draft Bill is not capable…of preserving the primacy of the House of Commons.”
Does he accept that?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I accept that the Joint Committee received evidence, particularly from Lords Pannick and Goldsmith, suggesting that the two Parliament Acts should be incorporated and reflected in clause 2 to clarify this issue of primacy beyond doubt. We are actively considering that and all the Joint Committee’s recommendations.
Debate on the Address
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(12 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Lammy
The hon. Gentleman has taken up those issues in his constituency, and I too underline my support for grandparents, particularly given the complexities within families of drug and alcohol addiction.
But in the end the critical issues for most people, in relation to this Queen’s Speech and over the coming years, will be the reality that we are in a double-dip recession, will be what we are doing to get to grips with growth in this country, to provide jobs and to support small businesses, and will be how we are supporting young people. I am afraid that there has just not been enough in this Queen’s Speech to address those issues.
I do not have to tell the Prime Minister what happened in my constituency, as we have spoken on many occasions, but I say to him that currently in Tottenham 6,500 people are unemployed and 28,000 are on out-of-work benefits. The figures have actually got worse since the riots, and, although I have heard him at the Dispatch Box speaking about the Work programme, the youth contract and apprenticeships, I find that in all three policies there are weaknesses and flaws.
The Work programme is straining at the edges, particularly with the third sector attempting without funds to provide placements, and in Tottenham 90% of those who are unemployed are not eligible for it. How can it be the biggest programme since the 1930s, when most people who are unemployed in Britain are not eligible to participate in it? While the right hon. Gentleman lauds the youth contract, I warn him of a previous era, when we saw the failed youth training scheme and, as a consequence, many young people who graduated with certificates but no jobs. People in my constituency have a long memory, and what they want are genuine jobs.
As a former skills Minister, I am pleased to see the growth in apprenticeships, but the right hon. Gentleman will know that the scheme, to reach the figure of 450,000, includes many that people would not recognise as an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship should surely be a programme that lasts for at least one year. Currently, apprenticeships last for a maximum of 16 weeks, and many young people do not want something that is, in fact, a very short opportunity in customer services dressed up as a genuine apprenticeship, so I ask the Prime Minister to look at what is behind such apprenticeships if we are genuinely to retain the trust of young people.
I and other Opposition Members will of course scrutinise the enterprise Bill in its entirety, but, when I think of those shopkeepers on Tottenham high road who saw their businesses destroyed, I recall, as will the Prime Minister, that they faced hardships even before the riots. There were hardships with business rates and with footfall on the high road, and they were concerned about issues such as regulation—2,900 of them in the Tottenham constituency, paying their VAT and employing 30,000 people.
The number of self-employed people in my constituency has fallen from 14% to 7% in the past year. It is going in the wrong direction. I warn him that his absolute dedication to slashing public services is having a major effect in adding to the dole queues in constituencies such as mine.
We are not seeing more businesses flourishing or coming in and taking up the slack from the public sector; we are seeing something much worse. Look underneath the figures. The whole House should have serious concerns about anyone—young people, particularly—who faces unemployment. However, when the unemployment rate is three times higher among young black men, we should be gravely concerned.
We should also be particularly concerned that many women—older women, often black—are now joining their sons on the unemployment queues, having been employed in the health service, local government or other areas. I say to the Prime Minister that some communities depend on those mothers being employed and I am worried about the emergence of a picture worse than some of the scenes that hon. Members will recognise from the United States of America.
That is why we needed a Queen’s Speech that would seriously address those issues—stimulate the economy in the way required; wrestle with the issue of growth; and move our economy from over-dependence on financial services and retail. When I heard the Business Secretary arguing the case for the Sunday trading Bill, it was again apparent that the Government would rely once more on retail, consumerism, shopping and spending to get us out of this mess. We will need far more than that in this economy if we are to respond to the problems in constituencies such as mine.
What about the gaps in the Queen’s Speech? Given the importance of higher education to the UK economy and all we have invested to support young people making their way to university, why have the Government decided that a higher education Bill is not appropriate? The issue has been kicked into the long grass. Vice-chancellors and young people face uncertainty because we have not seen any Bill in that area of policy at all. Why are we going to spend hours, in this House and the other place, debating House of Lords reform when every Member knows that no one raised that issue with any political party on the doorstep during the campaign of the past few weeks? Is House of Lords reform really where our priorities should be?
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the whole matter of House of Lords reform could be dealt with quickly in this House if, as the Prime Minister said a short while ago, the Government brought forward a Bill that simply brought the House of Lords into the 21st century without trying to create another House of Commons at the other end of the corridor?
Mr Lammy
I get where the hon. Lady is coming from, but I want to bring the Government into the 21st century. For that to happen, we need some real answers for the millennial generation who face decades of unemployment in this country. We have to say something about what we can expect for our graduates; we must not just talk the talk in terms of families, but recognise that the cost of living is going up, and we expect a Queen’s Speech that will address those issues.
Against that backdrop, this Queen’s Speech fails. I suspect that there are areas that the Opposition will be able to accept, but there are many holes in this Queen’s Speech. As the Prime Minister reflects and gets into the detail, I hope that the House can expect a bigger, more ambitious and more visionary legislative framework in the next Queen’s Speech.
Mr Davis
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, because he goes right to the central point. The House of Lords is not perfect, and there are many things that it has wrongly allowed to happen. I am in favour of reform of the House of Lords, but we must be very careful to get it right. If, in our reform, we do away with, or weaken or mitigate to any great extent, the check that it provides, that check will never be returned, because no Government will ever bring back a restraint on their own powers.
I think it was the Deputy Prime Minister who characterised his preferred state of the House of Lords as being one that more reflected the political composition of the House of Commons. That is precisely what I would not want it to do. A House of Lords that exactly reflected the political composition of the House of Commons would not be very much of a check on the Executive, and that would be a really serious problem. We must be very careful about what we do.
I do not believe that a referendum, of itself, will solve the problem, because it is a subtle and difficult matter and will be very hard to argue in public. However, it is very important.
Mrs Laing
I agree with my right hon. Friend that providing a check on the Government is Parliament’s most important role. Does he agree that having an elected House of Lords would undermine the position of the elected Members of the House of Commons and make them less likely to be able to hold the Government to account in this House, where the Prime Minister sits?
Mr Davis
I take my hon. Friend’s point, although I believe the greater problem would be legislative gridlock if too much legitimacy were given to the House of Lords. The simple fact is that over the course of the past century, these Houses have managed a pretty effective balance without crippling government. The position that we have arrived at still needs reform, but very careful reform.
Party Funding
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Maude
The investigation is not fundamentally about ministerial propriety, but about party funding. No money changed hands, nor was it ever likely to, because what was suggested by Mr Cruddas was fantasy and could never have come to fruition. If it was good enough for a former general secretary of the Labour party to investigate the Labour party’s scandal over donations by proxy, it is good enough for a distinguished lawyer to conduct the investigation into this matter.
On the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about the breakdown of the talks with Sir Hayden Phillips, I refer him to what was said by Peter Watt, the then general secretary of the Labour party, who represented the Labour party with the right hon. Gentleman. He said in absolutely clear terms how frustrated he was that it was the Labour party that was blocking reform. Those are not my words, but those of Peter Watt.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Will the Minister confirm that the Prime Minister has voluntarily disclosed far more information about his meetings and meetings held by his Ministers than any previous Prime Minister? Will he tell the House what the Government’s policy is in this matter and explain how it compares with the policy of previous Governments?
Mr Maude
I simply confirm what my hon. Friend says, and what I said earlier. This Government have by a quantum leap disclosed more information about Ministers’ activities and their meetings with outside organisations and individuals than the last Government ever contemplated. They operated behind closed doors; we have let the sunlight in.
Oral Answers to Questions
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Harper
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has studied our response to the Select Committee’s report, so he will know that one of the things that arose from our data-matching pilots was that there is a good opportunity to use a pre-verification process to ensure that we, in effect, put a floor under electoral registers to reduce the risk of people falling off the register. We will test that further and no doubt debate it when the proposed legislation is going through the House. That can give us a great deal of confidence that we will not see the problems the hon. Gentleman mentions.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
9. Does the Minister agree that all rights should be exercised with responsibility and that where people have the right to vote they should exercise their personal responsibility of registering to vote, and thus, through the Minister’s introduction of individual electoral registration, the completeness and accuracy of the electoral register will be improved?
Mr Harper
I very much agree with my hon. Friend, who is a prominent member of the Select Committee that looked at this in great detail. I absolutely agree with her. Registering to vote and voting is an act of personal responsibility, but we are also looking to make sure that we reduce the risk of people falling off the register and increase the tools at the disposal of registration officers to ensure that the register is complete.
Diamond Jubilee
Eleanor Laing Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
I am very happy to verify the story of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Sir Stuart Bell). In supporting the Humble Address may I say that those of us who strive to show that there should be no barriers to a woman being able to achieve all that a man can achieve have in Her Majesty a shining example and a wonderful inspiration?