Representation of the People Bill

Lord Jamieson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I must declare my interest as a councillor in Central Bedfordshire.

I am grateful to my noble friends Lady Coffey and Lord Jackson for their amendments and for the amendments from other noble Lords. These raise important questions about the safeguards necessary to maintain public confidence in our electoral system. I echo the comments of my noble friend Lord Hayward: the objective of this should be to increase public confidence in the electoral system.

My noble friend Lady Coffey’s Amendments 10 and 11 concern the exemptions applying to younger electors in relation to the duties of election and electoral registration officers. These amendments highlight a wider question about consistency in the Government’s approach to lowering the voting age and the need to ensure accuracy of the register. As my noble friend Lady O’Neill of Bexley observed at Second Reading, the Government must explain where we draw the line between the rights and responsibilities of 16 and 17 year-olds. If young people are to be entrusted with electing their representatives, it is reasonable to examine how that decision interacts with existing duties and protections in electoral law.

As the Minister made clear in debate on Monday, EROs are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the register. Should not the same tools be available to an ERO, irrespective of age? Can the Minister explain the rationale behind retaining these exemptions? Have electoral administrators been consulted about the practical implications? As I said at Second Reading, electoral law is already overly complex and conflicting. We should be seeking opportunities to simplify its administration, rather than further increasing inconsistencies.

I turn to the amendments tabled by my noble friends Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Lord Frost, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. Amendment 125 seeks to pilot schemes for more flexible voting, including early voting, mobile polling stations and alternative voting locations. Such pilots have already been undertaken locally. Amendment 128 raises the question of piloting electronic voting machines. Our established paper-based system has considerable advantage, in being straightforward and transparent. Electronic systems always raise the issue of cyber security, as we have seen in the Health Bill with the single patient record. Can the Minister tell us what assessment the Government have made of the security risks associated with electronic voting machines, and how the accuracy of an electronic count will be independently demonstrated and verified?

One topic we have debated a lot this morning is in my noble friend Lord Jackson’s Amendment 124: whether counting should begin on the day of the election. Having stood as a candidate on many occasions, I have great sympathy with this and would like to know sooner rather than later. However, as a previous leader of a council, I also have to agree with the comments of many other noble Lords in this Chamber about the difficulties and complexities of doing a count. As a number of noble Lords raised, local council elections are frequently much more complex than a national election, with multi-member wards and an increasing diversity of candidates making the process longer and more complex, along with the potential for multiple elections on the same day. At the same time, many councils are finding it increasingly difficult to get sufficient staff—a matter that has been raised elsewhere in debate on this Bill. Ultimately, I believe that we need to trust the ERO to make the appropriate decision.

My noble friend Lord Jackson’s Amendment 129 and Amendment 136 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Walney, concern undue influence such as religious or spiritual pressure on voters. The secrecy of the ballot is fundamental. Every elector must be able to vote freely without intimidation, coercion or improper influence. I appreciate the comments of many noble Lords on this; so far, there seems to be consensus that it is an important topic and that these amendments need addressing.

At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Udny-Lister raised concerns about family voting and the particular vulnerability of younger electors to the pressure they might face at home. These concerns deserve careful consideration as the Government propose to extend the franchise. Does the Minister consider existing law sufficient to protect voters from coercion, both in polling stations and where postal voting is used? It is not just the law but the implementation thereof that is important. Will there be further guidance given to polling staff?

This also relates to Amendment 123, in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, on improving polling cards. Ensuring eligible voters understand the secrecy of their ballot and the voting process is crucial.

We should remember that those responsible for administering elections must make these provisions work in practice. The robustness of our electoral arrangements is fundamental to electoral integrity. I hope the Minister will address the concerns raised in this group and explain how the Government intend to preserve the security and transparency of the ballot, while avoiding unnecessary complexity.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Baroness Taylor of Stevenage) (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful for this extended debate, which was broken in the middle of the group. I will make a couple of general points before I respond to individual amendments.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, for using his crutch to stand up. If he wishes to remain seated when making his contributions, I am sure the Committee would be very happy with that.

I agree with the comments that the noble Lord, Lord Pack, made about the interesting situation that we saw unveiling in the United States overnight. It would have been nice to have been able to stay up and listen to those results—I did not, but was very tempted. That points to some interesting issues as we discuss this group, which contains matters that go right to the very heart of our democracy. There were comments made early this morning—for example, by James Talarico —about attempts at enormous financial and other influence on the elections process. We will come on to some of those later in discussing our own Bill. It was a pleasure to see the power of the democratic process overcoming something of that. We need to make sure, as we go through our own discussions, that we retain that faith in democracy and continue, as the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, said, to give the people of this country the confidence that it is the democratic process that takes precedence, even where there are attempts to have financial and other interference. That is very important to all of us in this House.

Noble Lords will have to excuse my sniffles; this is my second cold in two weeks. I am going to have to speak to my friend the Health Minister to suggest that having two colds in two weeks should be banned.

I add my tribute to the EROs and election staff. We have a very safe and secure system in this country, and that is down to a lot of work from our returning officers and election staff, so I am very grateful to them for all the work they do.

I will now address the individual amendments. I turn first to Amendments 10 and 11, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, and her Schedule 1 stand part notice. These amendments would remove measures from Schedule 1 that safeguard those under 16. This would result in electoral registration officers being required to conduct activities such as house-to-house inquiries and making telephone calls to under-16s. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Fuller—or perhaps it was the noble Lord, Lord Jackson—that election administrators are included in these discussions.

These age-based measures are important for implementing the franchise change effectively. In extending the right to vote to 16 and 17-year olds, it is vital that they are given the same opportunities as any other voter to be accurately registered. The Bill provides for people to register to vote from the age of 14, so they are ready to cast their first vote at the age of 16. This arrangement will bring significant benefits, but it must be accompanied by additional measures to protect these young people who are not yet entitled to vote. This is the approach taken throughout the Bill, which includes measures in Clauses 7 to 13 to safeguard young people’s data, mirroring the approach taken in Scotland and Wales. We should take the safeguarding of those under the age of 16 seriously, and these amendments would remove safeguards that we consider vital. I emphasise to noble Lords that it is not those of voting age who are being treated differently but those below voting age. For those reasons, we cannot support these amendments.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Pack, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, for raising the important issue, through Amendment 123, of how electoral information is communicated to voters. We agree that the information provided to electors should be clear and accessible, and I take on board the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Pack, about polling cards. We already recognise that there is scope to improve election documentation, including poll cards, and we intend to consider how their design and clarity can be enhanced as part of wider research into how people learn about the electoral process. However, we do not believe a statutory requirement to report to Parliament within 12 months is necessary to take this work forward. Frankly, we just need to get on with it, and I am very happy to report back to the House when we have concluded our work.

I turn to Amendment 124, from the noble Lords, Lord Jackson of Peterborough and Lord Frost. As someone who was elected many times over 27 years, I recognise the importance of election results being declared promptly, and I have much sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, said about this. We all want to hear our results as quickly as possible. Noble Lords have highlighted very graphically how local elections take place—so I do not need to give any further examples—and, as such, they require greater operational flexibility than parliamentary elections. Decisions about when to begin verification and counting are therefore best made by returning officers, taking account of those local circumstances. This amendment would replace that operational judgment with a rigid statutory requirement, subject only to narrow exceptions for emergencies and safety risks. We do not believe that that restriction is necessary or proportionate.

In speaking to Amendment 124, the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, raised some issues around different elections using different systems. I say to him that I recognise that there was a referendum in 2011 on different voting systems. The Prime Minister has decided the best way to take this issue forward is to initiate a national commission on electoral reform, which is the right way to start a national conversation on this issue.

I turn to Amendment 125, from the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill. Section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2000 already provides powers to pilot changes to when, where and how voting takes place at local government elections—powers the Government used to pilot flexible voting in the May 2026 polls and will use again in a further round of pilots in May 2027. We understand the amendment seeks to go further by enabling flexible voting to be piloted at elections beyond those currently provided for under Section 10, potentially including UK parliamentary elections. We do not believe it would be appropriate to extend the piloting power to parliamentary elections at this stage. Our priority is to continue testing these approaches at local elections and build that evidence base before considering any wider changes. I share both noble Lords’ enthusiasm for more modern and flexible voting arrangements as a matter of principle, but it is important that we test these thoroughly and build the evidence base before we go any further.

On this theme, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough, for his Amendment 128. However, the use of electronic voting machines creates the potential for hacking, computer error and interference. Although elections are not always no-fail events for candidates—we do fail from time to time, as I have on occasion—they must be no-fail events in terms of process, and the integrity of the ballot must come first. That is why we have no plans to introduce electronic voting in the UK, and therefore it does not make sense to run pilots. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Jackson of Peterborough.

I will address the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Walney, as he is in the Chamber.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Pack (LD)]

My Lords, this may be the group on which we have the most widespread agreement from all corners of the Committee. I very much agree with the broad thrust of the comments from the three noble Lords who have spoken so far.

To give one further illustration: in preparing my ring binder of things that I thought might be useful to have with me during Committee, I thought it might be useful to print off copies of the Representation of the People Act 1983 and PPERA 2000, the two pieces of primary legislation that we will, I hope, amend through this legislation. I dutifully downloaded the PDFs for both from legislation.gov.uk. One comes in at 543 pages and the other at 524 pages, which is about the length of the last copy of War and Peace I saw. I decided not to print those off, but it illustrates the problem, which was quite rightly touched on earlier, about how staff and volunteers have to grapple with understanding large parts of what is a very complex legal landscape.

However, I would not want to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, by not taking the chance to quibble just a little over a couple of his amendments in this group. His Amendment 16 would remove a cross-reference, but I would go the other way and say that we need more cross-references in legislation. But he is absolutely right with Amendment 17. I am sure that there is some fine legal brain in this House who will be able to elucidate why the definition that would be removed by Amendment 17 is not simply a rearranging of the words. That definition adds very little meaning.

Overall, it is welcome that we have seen, in one of the more recent government amendments tabled, a tidying-up by the proposal to repeal some previously uncommenced legislation. I hope that the debate on this group will encourage the Government to look at further steps for tidying up as we progress through the Bill.

[Lord Jamieson (Con)]

My Lords, I will be part of the agreement across the Committee on this one. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hayward for introducing these amendments and agree with all of them as a point of principle—to be slightly different from the noble Lord, Lord Pack.

We need this debate on the complexity of electoral law and administrative bureaucracy. I echo the Minister in recognising and thanking electoral returning officers for their job. It is not an easy job, as various noble Lords have made clear, to deal with all the legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Pack, said that just two Acts added up to over 1,100 pages. They are long, complex, inconsistent and, on occasion, in conflict. Electoral returning officers have to deal regularly with new regulations, guidance and changes. It is a surprise that anybody actually wants the job.

In addition to dealing with that, there is the sheer difficulty of running the operation. You may be dealing with 200-plus polling stations. You have to make sure that you get all your polling booths to them. You have to send out thousands of postal votes and rely on the postal system, which itself always has the potential for error. You have to make decisions on the spot in order to overcome all these various things. The Bill then prescribes, as my noble friend Lord Hayward has said, exactly how someone is supposed to do the job and who in the council is supposed to do the job and, as my noble friend raised, includes that specific point about requiring all staff to be made available. What happens if all staff are not willing to be made available? What sanction can the chief executive have? Will it be part of their work contract? What about needing them potentially to be made available to another neighbouring authority that needs more people? The system works. The EROs get the job done. It is a difficult job and, as I said in my previous speech, we should trust them.

I will go through some of these amendments, beginning with Amendment 13 to Clause 7(4)—reiterated in Amendment 16 to Clause 14—which defines “absent voters records”, “overseas elector lists”, “overseas elector’s declaration”, “registration officer” and “voter register”. Subsection (5) then clarifies the roles of a deputy electoral registration officer and a person assisting the electoral registration officer. My noble friend has already raised concerns over how other Whitehall departments determine this. I can go on through all the various clauses—and that is before I get on to the clauses that my noble friend has opposed in order to prompt this debate.

It is clear that our electoral system, local government and layers of administrative bureaucracy are complex. We are fortunate to live in a parliamentary democracy and to work in a system that has evolved, relatively organically, over time. Some legal complexity is perhaps expected, but we are concerned that, rather than seeking to improve the situation, some provisions in the Bill risk unnecessarily increasing the bureaucracy and practical complexity. I will not go through it all, but it is very clear from across the Committee that the Bill is overly complex, adds complexity and does not do what it should do, which is to make life simpler and more certain.

I hope that the Minister will take on board some of the recommendations made by noble Lords on how and where electoral law and administration could be made a little less complex without weakening the system’s strength, especially at the local level. In fact, by increasing consistency and simplifying where appropriate, it would strengthen the system. Perhaps the Minister can give an indication of what further government amendments we can expect.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I am grateful for this debate; it has been a very interesting subject to discuss. Knowing the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, I am sure he will have equally lobbied his own side on these issues before the Bill came to the House. This is the first election law I have dealt with, but I am sure that he will have been urging his own side to consider these issues in all the legislation that has gone through in the previous 14 years.

This Bill came forward to serve three specific purposes: to introduce voting for 16 and 17 year-olds, which is a manifesto commitment from my party; to take steps towards automatic voter registration, so as to tackle the under-registration of some 7 million to 8 million people; and, lastly, to tackle overseas political finance. During the course of the Bill, some of those issues have been the subject of much public debate, and we have had the Rycroft review of political finance, which has added to the Bill. There will be further amendments which will, I think, be laid on 9 November. In response to the request from the noble Lord, Lord Jamieson, he will have sight of amendments before we get to a further day of Committee on this Bill.

The consolidation of electoral law is a key issue. I have heard loud and clear, both at Second Reading and in the engagement meetings I held with noble Lords, the importance of doing this. In the process of the Bill, it is not possible to tackle the whole consolidation of all election law—I am sure it is even more than the number of pages that the noble Lord, Lord Pack, outlined. However, it is important we take that on board and look at what the process is going to be for what is certainly a job that needs to be done. I am going to take that back to the department and, at a later stage of the Bill, I will come back to it, because I understand what noble Lords are saying.

I took very seriously the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, about read-only access to registers, which he made during the previous session, and I pushed for more information on this. There are complexities around the localised nature of the register. In effect, we have 300 separate electoral registers, which is probably the point that the noble Lord was making around data protection. I will do some more work on this and I am happy to discuss it with him further in due course.

I recognise the broader concerns the noble Lord has around the complexity of electoral law and the administrative burdens which are placed on those responsible for delivering our elections. However, removing from the Bill important provisions which contain essential legal definitions, which his amendments would introduce, is not the right way to address either of those concerns. The legal definitions clarify the scope of the provisions so that it is clear who is captured by them—namely registration officers and those assisting registration officers—and confirm that the measures do not attach to absent voting lists which relate only to devolved elections. These clauses are not unnecessary additions. They contain substantive measures designed to improve the operation of our electoral system, as well as definitional information to aid the proper interpretation and application of the law.

The noble Lord asked specific questions about the measures on electoral registration officers and returning officers. Electoral registration officers and returning officers carry personal legal responsibility for functions fundamental to the effective operation of our democracy. Discharging those responsibilities requires access to staff, premises, systems and other resources from across the local authority, often within tightly prescribed statutory timetables and during periods of considerable operational pressure. Requiring ultimate responsibility to rest with an appropriately senior officer will help ensure that the officeholder has sufficient organisation-wide authority and accountability to secure the necessary support and provide effective oversight. This is a proportionate safeguard to ensure that returning officers have the authority and access to resources they need to run elections effectively. It provides a clear minimum standard, while leaving local authorities flexibility over whom they appoint within that framework.

The Committee will have the opportunity to debate all the measures in the Bill as it progresses. The Government will continue to make their case for each of them, but I assure the noble Lord I am listening carefully to all views expressed in the Committee.

I thank the noble Lord for his clause stand part notice on Clause 44. I will explain briefly the importance of this clause to the Bill. At present, political parties cannot withdraw their support for a candidate once the nomination papers have been submitted, even when serious issues arise. Clause 44 enables parties to act where concerns arise during the nomination period. The scope of the provisions is very carefully limited. Support may be withdrawn only up to 48 hours before nominations close, ensuring the candidate still has time to stand independently or for another party, and the party can nominate a replacement. This clause forms part of a suite of new safeguards designed to protect the integrity of elections and prevent and deter personation or false nominations. Removing it would weaken the Bill.

I have listened carefully to the debates, particularly on the consolidation of election law, and I am very happy to continue those discussions.