HC Deb 15 June 1948 vol 452 cc382-8
Mr. Younger

I beg to move, in page 149, line 28, to leave out "include the words," and to insert "refer to the."

This is a consequential Amendment, following upon the alterations to the City of London constituency.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Younger

I beg to move, in page 151, line 46, in column 2, to leave out "and."

This Amendment, and the next two Amendments to lines 48 and 50 relate to the same matter: In line 48, column 2 after "thereof," insert "and. In line 50, column 2, leave out lines 50 to 54, and insert: "and, if the last day is a Saturday, between the hours of one and three in the afternoon on the day before: Provided that no objection may be made in the afternoon of the said last day (or it is a Saturday at any time on that day) except to a nomination paper delivered within twenty-four hours of the last time for the delivery thereof, and in the case of a nomination paper so delivered no objection may be so made to the sufficiency or nature of the particulars of the candidate unless. They are concerned with the provisions of the Third Schedule, which lays down that any objection to the sufficiency or nature of the particulars of a candidate must be made at or immediately after the time of delivery of the nomination papers. The House may remember that this was criticised in Committee because the time for delivery of nomination papers may now extend over a period of days instead of a very short period, and it was felt that this might cause some hardship.

These Amendments are designed to have the following effect. Except when the last day for the delivery of nominations is a Saturday, which is a rather exceptional case with which I will deal in a moment, objections to nomination papers handed in by the end of the day before can only be made between 10 a.m. and noon on the last day. Papers handed in on the last day will be open to objection at any time on that day, but, after noon, any objection to the sufficiency or nature of the particulars of the candidate must be made at or immediately after the time of delivery of the nomination papers.

That may seem complicated enough, but, unfortunately, there is a further complication which would arise if the last day was a Saturday, because noon is then the latest time that nomination papers could be handed in. Therefore, a special arrangement has to be made for that particular case, and the Amendment provides that, if the last day is Saturday, nomination papers delivered up to noon on the previous day, that is, Friday, can be objected to only between the hours of 1 and 3 p.m. on that day; that is, for a period of two hours on the Friday. Nomination papers handed in after noon on Friday will be open to objection on Friday afternoon or on Saturday, but any objection made on Saturday must be made at or immediately after the time of delivery of the nomination papers.

The result of this is that nomination papers presented in good time will be open to objection for a fixed period of two hours only. I think that it is clear, in the cases where Saturday is not involved, that it will only be between 10 a.m. and noon on the final day, but on the Saturday the fixed time will be between 1 and 3 p.m. on the previous day. In all cases where the nominations are in plenty of time, there will be a fixed period of two hours.

I know that it sounds complicated, but I do not think there will be any difficulty on the part of those concerned in understanding it. The only difficulty arises when nominations are handed in at the very last moment, and that, of course, we cannot help. We have therefore provided that, where the nominations are handed in at the end of the period, objection is to be made immediately after. That seems a reasonable provision.

Mr. Grimston

This seems a most complicated provision. Originally, the objection which we raised was that, with the enlargement of the time during which nominations could be handed in, the old provision that they had to be objected to was impracticable, because it would be necessary to have somebody sitting in the office throughout the period to catch anyone to whom he wished to object. It seems to me that these provisions will result in something very nearly approaching inconvenience. Could we have an explanation why it was necessary to make such a complicated provision to meet the point we raised in Committee? I do not wish to look a gift horse in the mouth in this matter, but this provision does seem so extraordinarily complicated that I would like some explanation why it has to be so complicated. If one reads the Amendment on page 151, line 50: If the last day is a Saturday"— objection has to be made— between the hours of one and three in the afternoon on the day before. That does not make sense anyway, because how can one object to a thing on the day before it is handed in? I do not understand the provision which has effect when the last day is a Saturday. It seems to me that it will be necessary for the parties to have someone continually in the office to watch for a nomination which may be handed in at the last moment on the Saturday. In view of this extraordinary complication, could we have some further explanation from the spokesman of the Government Front Bench?

Colonel Gomme-Duncan (Perth and Kinross, Perth)

May I ask the hon. Member, what happens if the Saturday is a public holiday? Does that affect the case in point?

Mr. Younger

If I may have the leave of the House I will try to explain this again. I think that one may take two types of case—whether we are talking of the case where the final day is a Saturday, when the last time is noon, or the case when it is on some other day of the week, in which case, of course, it is later. In either event, the majority of the nominations will probably be handed in well before the final moment. Most will be handed in a considerable time before the last moment. When that happens, we try to arrange that the objection, instead of having to be lodged immediately afterwards, will be lodged during a fixed period of two hours.

Mr. Grimston

On any day?

Mr. Younger

No. In the case of an election where the final day is a day other than Saturday, the hours will be between 10 a.m. and noon on the last day. Suppose the last day is a Friday, it will be between 10 a.m. and noon on the final day.

Mr. Grimston

That is for the objections to be lodged and, during the same time, nominations can be handed in?

Mr. Younger

Yes. That will be the fixed time for the objections to all nominations which have been put in at that time, and that, of course, will leave a considerable margin for the objection. I do not think one can avoid this—that if nominations are only handed in at the very end of the period, one must retain the provision of objections made immediately afterwards and, therefore, we have to have the two types of provision—the fixed period allowing quite a considerable margin before the final moment for nominations and, in addition, what I might call the last-minute arrangements where the nomination itself is only handed in during the last few hours. In the latter case, the objection must be made immediately afterwards, but the effect of that should be, taking the period as a whole during which nominations may be handed in, that it will not be necessary for people to be standing by to object during the earlier period because they will be able to object during that fixed period of two hours to all the nominations handed in up to that time. Of course, for the final period of a few hours, if they wish to object to last-minute nominations, they will, as at present, have to be standing by, but that is no great hardship because the period is not long; in fact, it is much the same as at the present time.

This will not be very difficult to understand when one knows which of these two cases it is to be—the Saturday case or the non-Saturday case. It is rather difficult to explain when one has to explain all the alternatives, but in the individual election there will not be the difficulties and the fixed hours will be quite well known.

Mr. Orr-Ewing

I am a little worried about this. I understand what the Under-Secretary has said, but it seems to me that the point at which objection should be made simple and time given for it, is the last minute of nomination. I know perfectly well that under this procedure it will be extremely difficult because objection must be made within two hours of the nominations being lodged, during the same period. There would always have to be someone standing by. I thought the matter was to be so arranged that a longer period was to be allowed for objections; that is to say, that nomination had to be lodged before a stipulated time, and that after the stipulated time a longer period would be given for objection before the nomination would be accepted. As it is now it would appear the time is shorter than anything we have heard. Possibly that can be explained, but if anything funny is to be tried, anything dishonest or faked, it would be more likely to be tried at the last minute rather than at any other time, because the possibility of examining the papers, and so on, would be less. I should have thought, therefore, that the last moment for nomination should be sufficiently long for proper examination to be made. I should like some reassurance on that point.

Mr. Ede

The arrangement in the Bill is to meet the convenience of candidates and returning officers. It is notorious that hitherto candidates' agents have sent the nomination papers to the returning officer to have them checked, and he has made some pencilled marks by the side, and returned them to the candidates' agents with a notification. If there is any informality or invalidity in the paper the agent then has ample opportunity to get that altered, and to turn up on nomination day with papers which have already been checked. Then, in some constituencies, the farce is gone through of re-examining papers which have already been marked as correct. The new provision in the Bill is that instead of having only one day, with a certain limited number of hours on that day during which nomination papers can be handed in, when the nomination paper is completed the candidate's agent can send it along and it can be lodged at the place of election. All those nomination papers which have been received prior to 10 o'clock in the morning of the last day, except on a Saturday, are open to inspection between 10 and 12 o'clock, and no other hour.

Let us assume that a candidate has sent only one nomination paper. Although in the preliminary check that has taken place it has been passed as good, during those two hours it is found, on some objection, to be invalid. The candidate who would by that means have been prevented from standing has between 12 and three o'clock either to get that paper corrected or to get another valid paper to the returning officer. I hope the House will feel that this is the kind of arrangement that we should desire to encourage. It enables this work to be done with greater accuracy, and I think that, in some respects, it avoids some of the difficulties that have occurred in the past when the validity of this kind of arrangement has been questioned. Therefore, I should hope that most candidates would avail themselves of this arrangement.

10.30 p.m.

Perhaps, a candidate turns up on the afternoon of the last day with his paper, although he has had some weeks during which he has known the date of the election. If he likes to run the risk of turning up with his paper after twelve noon on the last day, then I think he must stand the racket of having his paper objected to immediately. And if he likes to delay it till a quarter to three or five minutes to three before turning up with his paper, and the returning officer will not pass it, I think the consequences must be on his own head and he has no great entitlement to sympathy. I hope the House will think the arrangements we have made in response to the general request of the House is a reasonable one, which will allow people who conduct elections reasonably to get a great deal of assistance from it. Anyone who turns up at the last moment knows that if his paper is objected to, his nomination will be invalidated and I do not think he is entitled to any sympathy.

Colonel Gomme-Duncan

I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman about Saturday. Presumably limitation of work on Saturday is due to Saturday being recognised as a half-holiday. What happens if Saturday is a whole holiday?

Mr. Ede

I think that when the day is a public holiday it is a dies non for the purpose of these arrangements. I should not like that to be taken as final, but will get the answer and let the hon. and gallant Gentleman know.

Mr. Manningham-Buller

I understand from the right hon. Gentleman's explanation that if a candidate puts in his nomination paper at the last moment, there is really less opening for objection to it than in the case of the nomination paper being in at any previous time. Does that not mean in the case of a late nomination paper, that people will have to be standing by all through the last 24 hours to stop any wrong nomination papers being put in and to make objection directly that paper is put in? Really the effect of the provision will be to give an advantage to the candidate who likes to leave it till the last moment, because then, unless the objection is made immediately, no objection can be made.

Mr. Ede

On the last day, if a paper is handed in, then it will have to be objected to when it is deposited with the returning officer. I think we have gone as far as we can to meet people in this matter, and while I will consider any representations that may be made to me for further improvement, I think we have generally endeavoured to meet the spirit of the Committee in the matter, and I think the arrangement will be found entirely reasonable in practice.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: In page 151, line 48, column 2 after "thereof," insert "and."

In line 50, column 2, leave out lines 50 to 54, and insert: and, if the last day is a Saturday, between the hours of one and three in the afternoon on the day before: Provided that no objection may be made in the afternoon of the said last day (or if it is a Saturday at any time on that day) except to a nomination paper delivered within twenty-four hours of the last time for the delivery thereof, and in the case of a nomination paper so delivered no objection may be so made to the sufficiency or nature of the particulars of the candidate unless."—[Mr. Younger.]