HC Deb 31 January 1918 vol 101 cc1836-47

  1. (1) A man shall be entitled to be registered as a Parliamentary elector for a constituency (other than a university constituency) if he is of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity and—
    1. (a) has the requisite residence qualification; or
    2. (b) has the requisite business premises qualification.
  2. (2) A man, in order to have the requisite residence qualification or business premises qualification for a. constituency—
    1. (a) must on the last day of the qualifying period be residing in premises in the 1837 constituency, or occupying business premises in the constituency as the case may be; and
    2. (b) must during the whole of the qualifying period have resided in premises, or occupied business premises, as the case may be, in the constituency, or in another constituency within the same Parliamentary borough or Parliamentary county, or within a Parliamentary borough or Parliamentary county contiguous to that borough or county, or separated from that borough or county by water, not exceeding at the nearest point six miles in breadth:
    1. (a) a man, though he may have been residing in premises in the constituency on the last day of the qualifying period, shall not be entitled to be so registered if he commenced to reside in the constituency within thirty days before the end of the qualifying period and ceased to reside there within thirty days after the time when he so commenced to reside;
    2. (b) the residence in a house shall not be deemed to be interrupted for the purposes of this Section by reason only of permission being given by letting or otherwise for the occupation of the house as a furnished house by some other person for a part of the qualifying period not exceeding four months in the whole; and
    3. (c) for the purposes of this Sub-section the administrative county of London shall be treated as a Parliamentary borough.
  3. (3) The expression "business premises" in this Section means land or other premises of the yearly value of not less than ten pounds occupied for the purpose of the business, profession, or trade of the person to be registered.

Where business premises are in the joint occupation of two or more persons, and the aggregate yearly value of the premises is not less than the amount produced by multiplying ten pounds by the number of the joint occupiers, each of the joint occupiers shall be treated as occupying business premises of the yearly value of not less than ten pounds:

Provided that in a Parliamentary county not more than two persons, being such joint occupiers, shall be entitled to be registered in respect of the same premises unless they are bond fide engaged as partners carrying on their profession, trade, or business in the premises.

Lords Amendment:

In Subsection (2), paragraph (a), leave out the words "on the last day," and insert instead thereof the words "during the last fourteen days"; leave out the word "be" ["be residing in premises"], and insert instead thereof the words "have been."

Sir G. CAVE

I beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."

This will revive the memories which we all have of the Debates in this House on the swallow voter. The Bill provides that in order to qualify by residence a voter must, on the last day of the qualifying period, be residing in the constituency, and must have qualified by residence in the constituency or an adjoining constituency during the six months. Objection was taken to that provision on the ground that you might have voters coming into the division a day or two before the end of the qualifying period from some adjoining constituency so as possibly to affect the result of the election. I think my lion. Friend (Mr. R. McNeill) moved that there should be a residence, instead of one day, of thirty days. That was debated, and in the end a suggestion was adopted to insert proviso (a), which disqualified a man wee commenced to reside within the last thirty days of the qualifying period if he ceased to reside within thirty days after he came into the division. I was never quite satisfied with that, because I thought it would put difficulties in the way of registration and necessitate a number of objections. The point was raised in another place, where a decision was come to which seems to me to be a not unfair compromise. They proposed to require a residence, not of thirty, but of fourteen days—the last fourteen days of the qualifying period—coupled, of course, with the other qualification of a residence in the same division or some adjoining division during the whole of the qualifying period of six months. If that Amendment is adopted, we shall have a much simpler electoral law. There may he objections, which I shall be very glad to listen to, but this is a fair and reason- able compromise on a somewhat difficult question, and I suggest that the House should agree to it.

Sir W. DICKINSON

I am very sorry the House of Lords has made this change and the right hon. Gentleman has thought it right to accept it. Most of us remember the difficulty of the point before the House. The whole question was how we could preserve the voting right of men who bonâ fide moved from one house to another in adjoining constituencies, and I think the House was quite unanimous in desiring to make that effective. The Bill as originally brought in provided that everyone who was in residence on 15th January should be counted if he had moved from somewhere else any time during the last six months. He could come into his new residence at any moment or a single day before the qualifying clay. By that means you continued the enfranchisement of every man who was qualified and who would only be disqualified by moving his abode. When this came before the Committee a question was raised about the swallow voter, and the House took a very serious view of the swallow voter, much more serious than I have taken, because I do not believe that in England it is a very serious matter, and we discussed how you could prevent people being brought into a constituency at the last moment to swell the majority and then go away. Ultimately we came to the conclusion that the best way to do it was to say that anyone who arrived in a new constituency thirty days before the date of registration should be entitled to be registered unless he departed within thirty days from the time he arrived. That was the test. He was to stay for thirty days. But we were very anxious in doing that not to disfranchise the bonâ fide people who conic in permanently. The Lords Amendment disfranchises these people. Anyone, however bonâ fide he may be, if he happens to move his house within fourteen days prior to the 15th January becomes disfranchised, and cannot get on the register for another six months. I said, when we were discussing this matter before, that I thought it would affect a good many people. I understand that it affects a great many people. In fact, I have been told since then what I did not know before, that there are parts of the country where the ordinary quarter day is the 6th January. I am told on good authority that in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cam- bridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Huntingdonshire, the ordinary person moves his house on the 6th January. If that is so, in all these places anyone who moves his house on the 6th January, although he may have been a voter for years before, will lose his vote, the only reason being that certain people are afraid of the swallow voter. I do not know whether the Home Secretary has been made aware of that fact. From the party point of view I may say that I am much more afraid of the swallow voter than anybody else, because if he is going to he made use of I do not think it is our party that will make use of him. I anticipate that if there is such a thing as a swallow voter it will not be on our side. However that may be, the solution in the Bill was a fair solution. The test of the swallow voter is whether he stays in the place thirty days or not. Having administered that test that is all we are entitled to do. I ask the Home Secretary to reconsider this point, because it really is not fair that a bonâ fide person who has had a qualification for years should be disfranchised because he happens to move at this particular time of the year. I am sorry to have to object to this, but I earnestly hope the Home Secretary will reconsider it, because I do not think the House of Lords really appreciated the point. I listened to a good many of the discussions in the House of Lords, and I do not think they showed as much knowledge of the law of registration as the Home Secretary has shown throughout the whole of these proceedings. I do not think they fully appreciated what they were doing in regard to disfranchisement and the little good the Amendment will be in preventing the swallow voter.

Mr. M. HEALY

I join with the right hon. Gentleman in expressing regret that the Lords have introduced this Amendment. I am not here to take small points against the Government on this Bill. It is a large Bill and it gives large rights, and if this was a small point I would not dream of raising it; but it is not a small point, it is a very large point. If there was one matter in the whole compass of the Bill with which the other House should have abstained from interfering, it was this point, because it is highly technical and one with which necessarily the average Member of the House must be unacquainted, although he may be highly qualified in other respects. It is very easy to make a primâ facie case for the Amendment, but when you come to examine it with knowledge it is perfectly plain that there is absolutely no foundation for this change. It is an Amendment which will affect about 200 constituencies. Take a constituency like the Tower Hamlets. Hitherto a voter could move his residence within the qualifying period, and so long as he remained within the borough he did not lose his vote. It sounds a strange thing to say that one night or one day's qualification will qualify for a constituency, but it is a survival of the state of things which existed when the whole of the Tower Hamlets was one borough. Take the case of Manchester or Liverpool. Hitherto, ever since those great centres of population returned Members of Parliament it was the right of any person living there to change their residence from place to place with impunity at any time within the twelve months, and he did not lose his franchise. Now the House of Lords say that in certain cases if a man crosses the street in a particular fortnight he loses his vote for six months. Is that reasonable? It seems impossible that anybody who understands this question, and who approaches it with a real knowledge of the subject, can submit to such a state of things.

If what my right hon. Friend said is true, this particular fortnight in some constituencies is a very critical fortnight which involves large changes owing to the quarter-day falling within it, and it would be a monstrous thing that any person changing his residence within that period should lose his vote. Taking the case generally, a working man in order to follow his work may be compelled to change his residence. He may cross the street in one case and suffer no harm, but if he crosses the street in another case, and in so doing crosses the boundary of another constituency, a perfectly arbitrary boundary, he loses his vote. Even if that only happened in one case it is a case which ought to be prevented. This House has always recognised the principle that a change of residence within a particular area, no matter how close to the qualifying day, was not to constitute a disqualification. Now for the first time in our electoral history since there has been an occupation vote, the House of Lords, through want of knowledge of the subject, put in this proposal because of the alleged swallow voter. It is a perfectly preposterous idea that a party agent could by merely lifting his hand forthwith get voters to migrate from one place to another in order to please him. Such an idea could only exist in a nightmare. It does not happen in England, and it does not happen in Ireland; but because of this visionary idea the House of Lords insert an Amendment which has the effect of saying that if a workman changes his residence within a particular fortnight he must come off the register. The result of this Amendment. will be wholesale disfranchisement by this great enfranchisement. Act.

I hope the House will not support the other House in this proposal. It will be nothing less than a scandal and an outrage if at this time of day the Legislature declares that the workman is to lose his vote because he changes his residence. At the Speaker's Conference our efforts were directed to enlarging the area within which change of residence could be effected safely without disfranchisement, and, accordingly, the Bill as it left this House did enlarge the area within which the elector might change his residence. The whole scheme of this Bill is an enfranchising Bill, and yet at this stage we are faced with this monstrous proposal. In the Clause as it left this House the Government were driven to agree by fair argument. Now, because the swallow voter has been suggested to them, the Lords ask us to agree that this great enfranchising Bill shall be turned into an enormous disfranchising Bill.

Sir RYLAND ADKINS

I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether lie will not abandon this suggestion to agree with the Lords in the Amendment. This goes further in breaking up the agreed results of the Speaker's Conference than my right hon. Friend realises. In that Conference our attention was called repeatedly to the fact that in all the great urban centres of population, in London, South-East Lancashire, on the Tyne, and on the Clyde, disfranchisement resulted from the fact that if a man moves from one side of the street to another his previous occupation did not count. The Speaker's Conference went into that matter with great length and with great care, and there was no difference of opinion upon this point when their Report came before this House. At the present moment a man in Liverpool can vote in any part of Liverpool if he changes his residence at any time in the year, providing he has been in occupation before. The same thing applies to Man- chester, and those of us who represent constituencies in South-East Lancashire know what a real grievance it has been that while a man in pursuit of work can move from one part of Manchester to another, another man cannot move without risking his vote. Our desire was to meet the situation, but it will not have been met if this Amendment is carried. I cannot think the President of the Local Government Board really desires that there should be reintroduced, I will not say wantonly, but, at any rate, at the last moment, the very thing which will give rise to grievances in many parts of England and Scotland. One of the things which commended this Bill to the working men in the districts which have been referred to was that it got rid of those unfairnesses which it is now proposed to put back, and you will have men disfranchised who ought not to be so. That is not the way to commend a great Reform Bill to the public. You ought not to disfranchise large numbers of men who have no chance of having a second vote in any form whatever, but this you will do in the boundaries of places like Liverpool, Manchester and Bradford, if you agree to this Amendment. Does the Government realise the difficulty as to the actual working quarter day in different parts of the country I am quite sure that they do not mean that people who move on the 6th January are to be placed at a disadvantage compared with people who move on the ordinary quarter days in March or September. Will not the Government disagree with the Lords on this matter? If any further safeguard is wanted it ought to be capable of being put in without either involving the loss of the franchise to thousands of people who have got it now or taking away a portion of the new franchise rights recommended by common consent at the Speaker's Conference and not seriously questioned in this House.

Mr. D. WHITE

I would like to associate myself with what has just fallen from my hon. and learned Friend (Sir Ryland Adkins) who has spoken with reference to England, and from my hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Maurice Healy) who has dealt with the case of Ireland. I Would like to associate the case of Scotland with their cases. It would be monstrous if at this stage a Bill which is intended to be an enfranchising Bill were to undergo a change which would in effect disfranchise a large number of working men, because they have moved at some particular time. I submit to the House that the Clause ought to be left as it stood when we parted with the Bill. I am surprised that the Government should even. dally with an Amendment of this character; but if they really look with favour on it, I would suggest that they supplement it by some such proposal as this, that if a working man in moving is not to get his vote in his new constituency, he should at least be secured the vote in his former constituency until he has had time to obtain a qualification in the new constituency. I hope that on further consideration the Government may see their way to adopt a different attitude. If I had the opportunity I would make a strong appeal to the Secretary for Scotland, but in his absence I do earnestly urge the Home Secretary to associate the case of Scotland with that of England and Ireland and to meet our views on this question.

Mr. ROWLANDS

I am not going to depart from the position taken up by this House in regard to this matter when we dealt with it in Committee. There were very few points gone into more thoroughly than this, winch has regard to the effect that these words would have in disfranchising a large portion of the industrial population of the country. I really for the life of me cannot understand what reason there can be for the change which has been made. We all of us in the best spirit have gone through this measure earnestly and anxiously, and one of the main principles upon which we have acted has been that the largest possible number of persons duly qualified shall be put on the register. We ask the Government to adhere to that position on the present occasion. I do not want to argue the question over again. It was pointed out in Committee what the effect would be if at the end of a period of removal you allowed a large number of the industrial classes to be disfranchised. I do most sincerely appeal to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of this Bill to let the measure be put on the Statute Book as it was when it left this House.

Mr. MCKINNON WOOD

I also desire to appeal to my right hon. Friend to reconsider the view he has placed before the House in the light of what has fallen from those who have spoken on this point. It is not a question which has any party interest one way or the other. Every one of us who has had experience of electioneering knows how acute the dissatisfaction is and what irritation is caused when people lose their votes accidentally. I did not appreciate how many people were likely to be affected in many parts of the country by the difference in quarterday customs. My hon. Friend (Mr. Dundas WHITE) has referred to the case of Scotland, and I agree with him that the difficulty likely to be caused by this alteration is very much increased in the case of Scotland by recent legislation. My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr Burghs (Sir G. Younger) will, I am sure, agree that that is so. It seems to me quite gratuitous irritation will be caused to a lot of people who will be automatically affected in many constituencies. I was surprised to find how many constituencies there are in which the old quarter days, the 6th of January and the 6th July, are practically unanimously observed. They include Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Lincolnshire, and the custom is partly observed in Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Yorkshire. These are places where a large number of people will be automatically disfranchised through pursuing the ordinary course of moving at the quarter day, which is the custom in their district. I am sure my right hon. Friend does not desire anything of the kind, and I trust that, in view of the opinions which have been so universally expressed to-night, he will see his way to disagree. with this Amendment, which deals with one of the matters in which Members of the House of Commons who are accustomed to electioneering are much better judges than the Noble Lord in another place

Sir G. CAVE

I am quite sure that this Amendment was proposed in the other House without the least desire to disfranchise anyone. The only wish was to apply some convenient form in substitution of the thirty days' residence. I quite realise from the speeches that have been made that there is a bonâ fide apprehension in the minds of many hon. Members that the effect may he to lose some people their votes. We have not the least desire to do that, and therefore I shall be prepared to withdraw my Motion, it being understood, of course, that we shall have to restore the thirty days' Clause when we come to the proper point.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Lords Amendment disagreed with.

Lords Amendments:

In Sub-section (2, b), leave out the words, "within the same Parliamentary borough or Parliamentary county, or within a Parliamentary borough or Parliamentary county contiguous to that borough or county or separated from that borough or county," and insert instead thereof the words, "contiguous thereto or separated therefrom."—Disagreed with.

At the end of Sub-section (2), insert the words "measured in the case of tidal water from low water mark."—Agreed to.

Leave out paragraphs (a) and (b).—Agreed to.

In paragraph (c), leave out the words. "parliamentary borough" and insert instead thereof the words "single constituency."—Disagreed with.

In Sub-section (3), leave out the words from "where business premises" to "business in the premises" inclusive.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I beg to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the, said Amendment."

This raises a very instructive but somewhat difficult point, but I think this is the right place at which to raise it. The Speaker's Conference decided, under the heading of reform franchise in Clause 9, paragraph (b), that for the purposes of this resolution no change should be made in the law relating to the joint occupation of business premises. There are many cases among the professional classes of joint occupation which entitle to a vote. Doctors share premises at which they see their patients not necessarily on the same day or at the same hour. Barristers not only in London, but in other large cities, have a system of joint occupation.

Sir G. CAVE

May I interrupt my hon. and learned Friend? This is a mere Amendment to transfer words to another part of the Bill. We are omitting them here with a view to introducing them in. another place.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I asked if it were necessary to raise it here. My point is this. As the Clause left the Lords it does not contain the original words, and it now applies both to boroughs and to counties. The point is raised now because it is sought to leave out words which safeguard the rights of borough voters, and if those words are struck out and it is determined that they should he struck out at this point, the Amendment which I have put down is necessary.

8.0 P.M.

Sir G. CAVE

On a point of Order. Would it not he open to the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Pollock) when we come to Clause A, to move the insertion of these words. I am not asking the House to omit these words here on a point of principle, but in order to rearrange the Bill, and I submit that when we come to Clause A the words he desires to add might be reinserted.

Mr. SPEAKER

If it is really understood that it is a matter of drafting here, and of transposing words from one place to another in the Bill, I think perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Pollock) would move his words then.

Sir E. POLLOCK

I am quite content with that.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Lords Amendment agreed to.