REPRESENATION OF THE PEOPLE, SCOTLAND (Hansard, 1 May 1957)

§ The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Niall Macpherson)

I beg to move,

That the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations, 1957, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9th April, be approved.

It may be for the convenience of hon. Members if I briefly explain the effect of these Regulations. They are consequent on alterations made by the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, and due to come into effect on 16th May next. There are two such alterations involved. The first relates to registration areas. Under the Representation of the People Act, 1949, Section 6 (3), in Scotland the assessor of any county or large burgh carries out the functions of the registration officer for any constituency or part of a constituency situated within that county or large burgh.

At present, every county or large burgh has its own assessor and "registration area" is accordingly defined in the Representation of the People Regulations, 1950, as a county or large burgh. Section 1 of the 1956 Act, however, provides that from 16th May, valuation areas are to be counties of cities and counties, including all the burghs within them other than cities. Regulation 4 of the new Regulations accordingly alters the definition of "registration area" to a county or county of a city. The second alteration is in regard to local government franchise. Under Section 2 (1) of the 1949 Act the right to vote at a local government election in any electoral area is conferred upon persons who are resident in the area or have a non-resident qualification therein and are in either case qualified in the other respects specified in that subsection. In Scotland, a person has a non-resident qualification in an electoral area at present if he is the owner, or occupier as tenant, of any lands and heritages within the area which are of the yearly value of not less than ten pounds and in respect of which rates are payable. That is a quotation from Section 5 (1) of the Act of 1949.

290 On the abolition of owners' rates, however, it seemed appropriate that owners should have a non-resident qualification only in respect of premises which they occupy, as, in fact, I understand is already the position in England and Wales. Section 35 of the 1956 Act accordingly amended Section 5 (1) of the Act of 1949 so as to restrict the non-resident qualification to persons occupying as owner or tenant any lands and heritages. Accordingly, Regulations Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 7 of the present Regulations make consequential changes in certain forms used in connection with the registration of electors, and these are detailed in the Regulations. These Regulations have no purpose other than those which I have mentioned.

§ Mr. A. Woodburn (Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire)

We do not propose to vote against these changes, because they are the result of legislation passed by the House. I should, however, like to comment on the Explanatory Note. The purpose of an Explanatory Note is to explain what the Regulations are all about. The very fact that the Minister had to take such a long time to explain what they were all about shows that the four or five lines of the Explanatory Note are inadequate and are, in fact, explanation by reference.

I think that, originally, I had something to do with these Explanatory Notes being placed at the end of Regulations in order to make clear to the ordinary layman what these very technical changes were about, and I ask the Minister to call the attention of his office staff to the purpose of these Explanatory Notes. They are not intended to be merely a repetition of the legal jargon of the original Regulations but must explain to the ordinary person what the Regulations are all about.

As the Minister says, these Regulations bring the registration area into line with the Act. Their other effect, which is incidental, carries my right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) and myself back to the days of the Speaker's Conferences. In those days, not only did the owner of property have a vote and an additional vote for his property, but his wife had a vote, too. He had a vote as a resident and a vote as an owner and his wife had a vote because he owned the property. The Speaker's Conference abolished the spouse's vote, but the 291 owners' s vote remained, although the Representation of the People Act restricted his right to vote to only one capacity. He could choose in which capacity he would vote.

Looking at these Regulations, it has struck me that one of the complaints made in Scotland about the low polls of our municipal and local government elections may not be fully valid. The fact that a person may be registered in three capacities and can vote only once means that, in certain cases, only 30 per cent. of the registrations can be registered as voting. Our poll may therefore be a much greater proportion of the people who are entitled to vote than is apparent in the results of municipal elections.

Nevertheless, we hope that this registration will be carried through effectively and we also hope that those who are entitled to vote will, in fact, cast their votes at the elections which are to take place. We now have practically a manhood suffrage. This right to vote is a very important right and a very important duty for a community in the management of its affairs.

We therefore welcome the change in as much as it is approaching the time when people have votes because they are individuals and citizens in the community and is taking a further step towards removing the right of people to vote merely because they own property. It is true that the vote will now depend on whether people pay rates. Whether they should still be able to choose where they shall vote, whether in respect of their business or in respect of their residence, is a matter which might be debated, but, in any case, this is a step forward in eliminating duplicate rights to vote and to that extent it is a further step forward in the progress of democracy in our country. To that extent, therefore, we welcome it.