Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville Excerpts

Monday 14th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments. I have lived as an expatriate and, unless you happen to have parents resident where you want to register to vote, it is extremely difficult to get registered, particularly if people are busy with whatever their careers are.

My particular point is this: in most places, you are not entitled to vote in national elections wherever it is that you are living abroad. If such individuals cannot vote in the country of their nationality or in the country where they live, which is indeed the case with this country, then effectively you are denying them any major political vote whatever. No one seems to be concerned about that, but it is an unreasonable thing to do.

I was rather proud that in the most recent French elections London was, I think, the seventh largest-voting French city of the French electorate, as a result of so many French citizens living in London. Clearly there would have to be changes in the way that representation deals with expatriates if we were to adopt permanent voting by passport-retaining British expatriates, and the concept of the local constituency where they might have lived 10 or 20 years before does not work particularly well, but I suggest that for once it is worth while looking at how France runs its affairs because it deals rather more fairly with its expatriates than we do.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville]

My Lords, my noble friend who moved this amendment is a historian, and I wish to add a historical footnote as well as to pay tribute to the chivalry of others involved in the exercise. In the late 1980s there was considerable embarrassment and concern that the amount of money being spent on parliamentary by-elections greatly exceeded the amount that agents, in signing for those expenses at the end of the election, were themselves putting down. It was a risk being run entirely by the agents, and all parties were involved in the problem.

I suggested to my noble friend Lord Hurd, who by coincidence I am sitting next to at the moment although I have not mentioned this to him, that it would be sensible if we managed to pass legislation briskly to correct this problem. He sensibly advised me that the only way in which that could be done would be if I could reach agreement with other parties, and it was sensible that that should occur. He referred me to the shadow Home Secretary, now the noble Lord, Lord Hattersley, who referred the matter to the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, who had some responsibility within the Labour Party for these matters. She and I had a meeting; we agreed that it was a problem and that, were we to recommend legislation to our respective Home Office Ministers and if there would not be a problem in getting it through the House promptly, then it was worth doing. We also determined that the same legislation should in fact increase the number of years from five to 20, and that was agreed between the noble Baroness and me.

I say that this is a matter of chivalry because she and I reached in private extremely rapid decisions on the matter that then went through the House of Commons in less than a month. I simply say that everyone has been involved in this story quite deeply in the past.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate. I realise that a lot of people here are actually waiting for the main event; we are perhaps just the warm-up for that. As has been said, these amendments would, in effect, extend representation without taxation. They would allow people who do not, on the whole, pay council tax, income tax, value added tax or, presumably, any death duties here to continue nevertheless to elect people who decide on the level of those taxes. We also have to remember that this is not just about taxation; it is also about expenditure and these non-residents do not school their children here, use our health service, drive on our motorways or live day-to-day under our laws. Nevertheless, the amendments would give them the right to continue to elect the politicians who run our health and education services and who decide on our drink-driving laws, speeding laws and a myriad of other laws under which the rest of us live.

We supported a period of 15 years, by which people—basically those who tended to move away to study or work for quite long periods—were likely to return. We agreed that they should retain their democratic links here by retaining their votes. However, these amendments are largely about those who have left these shores for ever and do not participate in our civil life; they simply keep a UK passport. It is difficult to understand why they should continue to elect a Government under whom the rest of us pay our taxes and live with the consequences of our votes. Those people do not live with the consequences of theirs.

There is another major issue that needs to be considered. Should these amendments be agreed, these people would also be able to make donations to our political parties—a form of overseas subsidy that I thought we had outlawed. Section 54 of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 allows UK nationals who permanently live abroad to remain on the electoral register for 15 years. By being on the electoral register, they are also categorised as permissible donors to a political party.

Following the controversy in 2007-08 around donations—in that case to the Conservative Party—the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 was passed. Section 10 prohibits a registered party accepting a donation from UK nationals living abroad and on the electoral register if it is more than £7,500 in any 12-month period unless they become resident in the UK and pay UK income tax. That Act also requires such donors to make a written declaration to the Electoral Commission as to whether they satisfy the rules. However, this section of the Act has yet to be commenced; it comes into force on a date to be decided by the Secretary of State under a statutory instrument. The Government have indicated that they do not intend to commence this part of the 2009 Act, which means that those living abroad can continue to give any sum that they like as permitted donors.

These amendments would therefore permit all UK nationals permanently living abroad to give unlimited donations to our political parties. I cannot believe that this House would support that. The Electoral Commission has confirmed to me that the test of whether individuals are permissible donors is whether they are on the electoral register, and that includes overseas electors. Therefore, if overseas electors were to be able to stay on the register for longer than 15 years, they would remain permissible donors for as long as they lived and as long as their money held out.

There are practical issues. The Bill that the Committee is discussing will, if we fail to change it, mean that quite a few people who live in this country are going to fall off the electoral register. It seems extraordinary that we should not be turning our attention to those people, rather than adding to the register those who have long since ceased to live here.

This Bill is important; it is about moving to individual registration, but the only registration for those abroad at the moment is, as has been said, that they have a passport and get someone to certify that they are still alive. Here, those who do not have to go through all this may not realise that there will be all sorts of data matching and checks on their NI, and such issues. It would seem extraordinary if those living abroad could get on the electoral register easier than others.

It is hard to see why those who have left these shores for ever and do not pay tax but simply remember their old address and maintain a passport should continue to elect our Government. As of this moment, we have heard no compelling arguments to support these amendments.