Representation of the People Bill

Lord Shamash Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

My Lords, I hope that I can please the Government Whip by indicating that, although I tabled a few amendments in relation to one particular aspect of this group, I could have tabled dozens of amendments on this subject. The subject was possibly best described by someone whom one might describe as a half-Irish lyricist who was brought up in inner south London. Four years ago, when he spoke to this Chamber, he said:

“I hope that, when we get a new Prime Minister, they will look at the whole issue of our electoral law”.—[Official Report, 15/7/22; col. 1709.]

That half-Irish lyricist from just south of the river is, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, who made an observation on the Ballot Secrecy Bill. I gave him notice that I intended to quote from his speech on that occasion.

As noble Lords can see, the one amendment I have tabled to Clause 7, Amendment 13, runs to a whole page. We have to look at a string of legislation, much of which was introduced by my Government and previous Governments. It has been a clear fact for years that our electoral law is a complete mess and is in desperate need of consolidation into one Act. Page after page of this Bill just refers to one piece of legislation or another. I could understand it if it was dealing, as the noble Lord, Lord Deben, referred to on Monday, with devolved powers and therefore devolved legislation, but in far too many instances that is not the case. We have what I would best describe as a complete cacophony of electoral law.

If we think this is a mess, just imagine the sets of circumstances under which the returning officers have to operate. Whereas we can spread out our discussions on electoral law over a number of days, the returning officers are operating, particularly when they do not have notice of an election—for example, a general election—under extreme pressure. It really is astonishing that we have so few cases of an error being made in one form or another. Just think of what we will be coming on to talk about, whether it is postal votes, entitlement to vote from abroad, or registration of votes. Whatever it may happen to be, the poor returning officers are looking at this on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis. It is truly astonishing that we do not get petitions asking that matters do not go to the elections court and challenging the result in one form or another. I have paid credit to returning officers previously, but I will do so again on this occasion. As I say, there are many amendments that I could have put down here, but I chose not to.

On the other broad category of amendments, this is where we have a serious problem. I ask the Minister clearly to identify when she replies why on earth we need all these amendments saying that, instead of a registration officer we have a senior registration officer, or that we have to ensure that councils call in every possible officer to administer the elections. I will come back to that point in a minute.

We are talking here about devolution. One of the great mantras of this Government is that we must devolve power. The Prime Minister went to Lanarkshire the other week to tell the Scots that they are not devolving powers enough. The Minister herself, earlier this week, said:

“As we extend the devolution programme, this Government have made it very clear that we think that it should be people with skin in the game in their local area who take the key decisions about those areas. It is perfectly right that each of the Governments around the UK are free to do what they feel is right”.—[Official Report, 2/11/26; col. 1407.]


If we are devolving powers to local councils, how is it that clause after clause tells local councils what role and status the registration officer should hold within a local council? Birmingham City Council’s chief executive is paid £300,000 a year. Surely, he knows better than the Minister and officials in Whitehall who should be deputed to handle what aspect of elections. It is true throughout the land that we have highly paid chief executive officers, one after another; yet Whitehall seems to think it knows best how an election should be administered. I could understand it if a whole series of elections had gone wrong—but I refer again to the Electoral Commission’s report on general elections. There is not one reference to a general election going wrong; in local elections, there are one or two very minor exceptions. I genuinely believe that this is Whitehall dictating utterly unnecessarily to local councils who should handle what.

The bit of the Bill that astonishes me most is the clause stating that a council should require all its officers, whatever they may happen to be—this is implicit in the phrasing of the Bill—to be called on to administer elections. Are we going to insert in an education Bill that every employee of a council should be called on to help with education; or that every employee should be called on to help with environmental matters or hygiene matters, or whatever it may happen to be? There is no justification for this, given that we do not have a failed electoral system; we have an extremely challenging one, but we do not have a failed one. I see no reason whatever why there is a series of clauses in the Bill suggesting that Whitehall knows best.

In conclusion, I referred to the Prime Minister going to Lanarkshire to deliver his message on devolution. He should go to Marsham Street and deliver the same message in relation to this Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Shamash (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Hayward. I woke up this morning thinking that I would love to quote Martin Luther King—that I had a dream. I will give a tiny bit of history. The Representation of the People Act 1983 is the core legislation that everything has sprung from. It was 18 years from 1983 to the creation in 2001 of the Electoral Commission, in which I, and maybe others here, was involved. It is now 43 years since the 1983 Act came into being, and there have been repeated amendments and additions: the Electoral Administration Act, the Elections Act, and so on. We are getting to the point where, to move election law, you need a pick-up truck. It is completely crackers that we are in this situation.

The most important thing, as mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hayward, is consolidation. I have discussed the possibility of that with others, including my noble friend the Minister, and it is a major undertaking. But there is a new kid on the block, and that is AI. We must get to a situation where we can do this, because it is impossible to operate. I should have declared my interest as a former election lawyer to the Labour Party for many years. Having to deal with this legislation is very difficult, and you can miss things out very easily. My plea to the Minister is to take this idea away to the officials, so that my dream can actually come true and we can have a bit of consolidation in this Act.

[Lord Fuller (Con)]

My Lords, I support the comments made by my noble friend Lord Hayward and by the noble Lord, Lord Shamash. We have heard in the debate so far that we need a consolidation. The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Shamash, are very persuasive. Not only do we not have consolidation but the Bill contains all sorts of contradictory provisions and inconsistencies. I cannot wait to see what the government amendments will be—I am sure there will be several groups of them.