HC Deb 29 November 1917 vol 99 cc2289-93

The registration officer shall keep a record of any address which may be furnished to him by any person placed on the absent voters' list, or by the Admiralty or Army Council, as the address which is to be for the time being the address of the voter for the purpose of the provisions relating to voting by absent voters and shall cause instructions to be sent to the voter as to the mode of voting under those provisions.

Mr. GILBERT

I beg to move, at the end, to insert the words, The registration officer shall publish a complete list of such addresses and on application of any person during business hours and on payment of the prescribed fee shall furnish copies to the applicant. That is a matter which was raised in Committee, and really means the publication of the list of proxy holders for the absent voters. I want to urge what was urged in Committee, that I think it is absolutely necesary, if we are to have a proper check, that we should have a public list of the proxy holders. It would be quite impossible to have any kind of check or to canvass proxy holders unless you have a published list. Rule 16 is all very well if you insist that the registration officer shall have a record of the names, but that record will be really useless unless people outside are enabled to obtain a copy of it.

Sir G. CAVE

Perhaps my hon. Friend has not noticed that there is a Government Amendment on the Paper to this effect, which requires a list of addresses of proxies.

Mr. GILBERT

If the Home Secretary is going to move an Amendment which practically covers my Amendment, of course I will at once give way.

Sir G. CAVE

I do not say it covers all the Amendment, but it covers the whole of the hon. Gentleman's argument.

Mr. GILBERT

I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. DICKINSON

I beg to move, at the end, to insert the words, The record of addresses shall be published from time to time and shall be open to inspection under the same conditions that govern the publication of the register. This does not refer to the addresses of the proxies. This is a list of addresses given by the absent voters which, I think, should be published, and I do not see any reason why it should not be published. It is just as essential that persons interested in elec- tions—candidates and others—should know the addresses of the absent voters as it is that they should know the addresses of the present voters.

Mr. MAURICE HEALY

I beg to second the Amendment.

There is an absent voters' list. That, as the Home Secretary has already provided, does not mean that a name shall be taken off its proper place of register and transferred to an absent list. It is provided that it shall remain in its normal place on the register, but, in addition to the ordinary register, there is to be an absent voters' list. There is to be no publication of that list. I would not at all insist on the absent voters' list being published in the way that the lists of claims, objections, or electors are published, but I think it should be published to this extent, that it should be printed; and that it should be open to anyone interested to get a copy of it. I Cannot imagine any objection to that. The best way, I think, of meeting the difficulty dealt with by this Amendment is that the addresses should be published as part of the absent voters' list. I cannot see any possible objection to it. There can be no secrecy about it,, and no one desires secrecy, which is impossible. There must be some publication in the way of the list being open to anyone who desires to get it; consequently, everybody will know who the absent voter is, and I take it there will be no objection to anyone knowing the address to which he wants his voting papers sent. Consequently, I think the best way would be to provide that the absent voters' list should be printed, and that it should be competent for anyone desiring a copy to get such a copy, and that, as part of that list, the address given by the voter should be printed on it.

Mr. FIELD

It is quite evident that something of the nature suggested by the hon. Member for Cork must be done. You must have some address to get at.

Mr. FISHER

I believe. there is real difficulty in this, inasmuch as these addresses will be constantly changing from time to time.

Mr. HEALY

Is it contemplated that there will be a complete list of absent voters?

Mr. FISHER

Yes, that is quite obvious. So far as the proxy voters are concerned, anybody would be able to inspect the list and take extracts from it.

Mr. H. SAMUEL

The rules provide already that the registration officer shall make all necessary corrections in the lists, including the absent voters' list, and do everything necessary to form those lists into a register in time to allow the publication of the list. That means there will be a publication of the absent voters' list. My hon. Friend desires that the list shall include the addresses away from home that the absent voter gives, so that election matter may be sent to him. I am not sure that this can be done by amending the new provisions which the Home Secretary has put down in Schedule 3, because that deals only with the proxy vote. This Amendment does not really relate to the proxy voter, but to the absent voters, who are a much larger class. Whether it is necessary to add an additional address to the list instead of letting the communications go to the voter's home address and readdress them from there, I confess that there is some little doubt.

Mr. ROWLANDS

I think the President of the Local Government Board has rather exaggerated the magnitude of the work put upon the registration officer if this Amendment is carried. Like him, we do not desire to cause the registration officer more work than is absolutely necessary. You have, however, to prepare an absent voters' list, and the registration officer has to have in his possession at the time the list is published the addresses of the men on the absent voters' list. All we ask is that that information shall be inserted in the list in order to give to those concerned in the election the addresses where those men are at that time. Undoubtedly there will be changes. We know that that is a difficult thing which continually arises now, and the larger your register the larger the removal list. There may be a much larger percentage of removals in this case than in the ordinary register, but experience alone can tell us whether that will be so or not. I trust that those in charge of the Bill will see their way to give us this list of addresses printed at a suitable time when the register is issued, so that we may know where these people are.

Sir G. CAVE

I think it is rather unnecessary that this list of addresses should be given out to the whole of the public. What the Mover of this Amendment wants is that there shall be some facilities for persons who take an interest in elections to get at these addresses, and I am prepared to grant those facilities. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cleveland (Mr. Samuel) that the proxy Schedule is not the most convenient place to deal with this point. I am prepared to grant the right to use the list and on payment of a fee to have copies. I think that would meet the right hon. Gentleman's objection.

Mr. DICKINSON

If provision is made that the record of these addresses shall be open to inspection, that will meet my point. I ask leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment made: At the end of Rule 16, insert the words "The record of addresses shall be open to inspection under the same conditions that govern the publication of the register."—[Mr. Dickinson.]