COUNTERMAND OF ABANDONMENT OF POLL ON DEATH OF CANDIDATE (Hansard, 10 December 1968)

§ Mr. David Lane (Cambridge)
I beg to move Amendment No. 25, in page 12, line 22, leave out first 'on' and insert '28 days after'.
The effect of the Amendment will be to provide for one extra month's delay before polling takes place after the death of one of the original candidates. It is a simple point which should not detain the Committee for long.
We are considering the situation where a candidate at a Parliamentary election dies at any time between the issue of the writ and polling day. That may be thought to be a rare occurrence, but I understand that it has happened twice in the last 20 years. In 1950, the Conser- 288 vative candidate at Manchester, Moss Side, died during that period. In 1951, the Labour candidate at Barnsley died. In both cases, the polling date was postponed for only 14 days, and, in the circumstances, that seems to be a very short time. I am surprised that in this respect the law has apparently remained for so long unchanged and that we are providing that it should continue to be so if we agree to Clause 13 in its present form.
Looking ahead six months to the warmth of next summer and the even more pleasant prospect that the Prime Minister might decide to dissolve Parliament, let us assume that writs are issued for a general election on 26th June. If we also imagine that on 10th June, just as the campaign is getting under way, a candidate in a certain constituency for X Party dies, under the present wording of Clause 13 the returning officer will have to act as if the writ was received not on the original day but on 10th June, the date of the death. That would mean that polling day would then be on about 1st July, which would be a postponement of only 10 days. X Party would then have to find a new candidate in indecent haste, and that would give a clear advantage to the other parties which are already in the field with their original candidates. If we leave the Bill in its present form, we are in danger of putting electors in this rare contingency in a position of mere rubber stamps as regards the new candidate then chosen to run in the election.
How can this be corrected in a reasonable way? When my hon. Friend and I considered the matter, it was tempting to impose an extra delay of two months. That would allow the party to choose a new candidate properly, give him some time to get to know the constituency, and time to get himself known before the campaign proper started. However, I see disadvantages in prolonging the uncertainty unnecessarily, so, in drafting our Amendment, we fixed on a month's extra delay.
I propose this Amendment as a modest but useful improvement. I hope that it will be accepted. If the Government see any difficulties which have escaped us, I hope at least that they will recognise the real problem here, look at it again, and come forward with their own Amendment on Report.

§ Mr. Speed
I want to support my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) in this non-controversial Amendment. These matters do not occur very often, but they have occurred, and obviously one must make provision for them. That is what Clause 13 intends to do.
If a party is put in the situation where a tragedy of this sort occurs, it seems very unfortunate that, as from the date of the death, it should be taken that the writ has been received and the election only postponed for ten days or so. One can imagine the difficulties and personal problems which a constituency party might face in the event of the death of its retiring Member or a candidate adopted for some time past. It seems not unreasonable to extend the time both to allow for the personal sense of shock to the local party and to give the new candidate reasonable time to be chosen and to try and make some sort of impact on the constituency. Obviously he will be at a disadvantage compared with the other candidates who have survived and will fight the battle again.
I hope that the Government will look favourably on this Amendment. One could have argued that it was unfortunate if a candidate died but that it was not necessarily the problem of Parliament to think about parties and the way in which they choose their candidates because political labels do not apply. However, we have rehearsed that argument in relation to the previous Clause, and it is obvious that one should consider local parties, local people and candidates. My hon. Friend's Amendment is a reasonable compromise to try and reconcile these factors in the unlikely event of a tragedy of this sort occurring.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Norman Buchan)
The House recognises that this is a practical, sensible and non-controversial Amendment. At the present time, provision exists for a poll to be countermanded if, after publication of the statement of persons nominated but before the poll has commenced, proof is given to the returning officer of the death of a candidate. In accordance with the recommendation of the Electoral Advisory Conference, Clause 13 (1) (a) also provides for the poll to be abandoned if the 290 returning officer is satisfied that a candidate has died during the course of the poll. The Clause makes no change in the law which provides for all proceedings with reference to the election to … be commenced afresh in all respects as if the writ had been received on the day on which proof was given to the returning officer of the death. Thus, the arrangements for a fresh election must start again at that point. Incidentally, this is different from the steps to be taken under the rules for local government elections, where a returning officer is required to order an election to be held on such a day as he may appoint.
The suggestion is that there should be a 28-day interval between the abandoned or countermanded poll and the start of the fresh election period. It seems to be a reasonable one. As the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) said, we might have been discussing a two-month delay, and I take his point that an unnecessary delay would not be helpful to anyone. Even acceptance of this Amendment will create difficulties, but the death of a candidate would itself create difficulties, and it would appear to be sensible to have the sort of period suggested as a breathing space.

§ Mr. Goodhart
I am sure that the Committee is grateful to the Under-Secretary of State for the insertion that he has made. However, it has rather increased the feeling of alarm that I had on reading Clause 13. When we are considering this whole subject, we assume that we are dealing with intelligent electors who wish to make the system work. But on reading Clause 13 it seems to me that we are laying ourselves open to sabotage of the political system by a small group if it wished to be awkward.
Suppose a small group of anarchists or fanatics wished to stop the return to this House at a General Election of the Leader of the Labour Party, the Leader 291 of the Conservative Party, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Shadow Chancellor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod). Under our present rules it would be possible for a small band of electors in each of those constituencies to get together and to nominate somebody whom they knew was seriously ill and at the point of death. When those persons died following nomination the elections at Huyton, Bexley, Stetchford and Enfield, West would be invalid. Fresh elections would be called and the same thing could happen again. Such a group could put up three candidates who were at the point of death in each of these constituencies to make sure that a death occurred. It would merely require three candidates in each constituency and £450 per election.
I seek reassurance that this kind of thing could not happen, because in our society we have such groups with the intelligence and resources to bring this to past if they so wished. They could keep out political leaders almost indefinitely in this way. I seek assurance that I am wrong. If I am not wrong, I suggest that, on Report, the Clause should include within it a provision that an election should not be halted unless the candidate who died had been supported on his nomination by, say, 250 or 500 electors. This would mean that when a candidate representing a majority party died the whole election would come to a halt, but not on the death of a possibly freak or malicious candidate.

§ Mr. Buchan
It is a very bizarre concept to contemplate a small group of people searching for someone at the point of death in order to nominate him to defer the return to this House of the right hon. Member for Bexley (Mr. Heath) or the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod). The trouble with dying men is that they sometimes take an unconscionable length of time to die, as every entailed heir knows. He may get a fresh lease of life, come bounding to the poll, and may win it, much to the chargrin of the right hon. Member for Bexley or the right hon. Member for Enfield, West.
I cannot say that I intend to look terribly diligently at Clause 13 to prevent this kind of thing happening. If we were 292 to enter the metaphysical realms of speculation of all possible contingencies in an election, we would have no electoral law whatsoever.