ELECTION AGENTS, POLLING AGENTS AND COUNTING AGENTS (Hansard, 18 December 1968)

§ Mr. Merlyn Rees
I beg to move, Amendment No. 7, in page 9, line 23 leave out from 'a' to end of line 24 and insert: 'parliamentary constituency comprising the area or any part of it, or in a borough which adjoins the area, or in an urban or rural district or, in Scotland, an electoral division which adjoins it'. 1447 In Committee on 10th December an undertaking was given to the Opposition that we would improve subsection (3), which provides that … the office of an election agent for a local government election shall be within the local government area or in a borough or urban district which adjoins that area. The Committee noted that the subsection was an improvement on the previous provision, but it was pointed out that there could be a further improvement by taking into account that it might be desirable to use an office in an adjoining rural district or local government area which was in the same parliamentary constituency but which did not adjoin the area for which the election was being held.
I think that the Amendment meets the needs of that situation.

§ Mr. Sharples
So far as I can see, the Amendment meets the point raised by a number of my hon. Friends, and we are grateful to the Under-Secretary.

§ Mr. Speaker
The next Amendment is Government Amendment No. 8, with which I suggest we take Government Amendments Nos. 10, 11, 12, 25, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39 and 40, all of which are linked.

§ Mr. Merlyn Rees
I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 9, leave out lines 25 to 28.
The object of the Amendment is to remove the provision designed to substitute the phrase "candidate's observers)" for the phrase "counting agent (s)" wherever the latter appears in the Representation of the People Act, 1949. The other Amendments are consequential.
The Government propose to continue the use of the phrase "counting agent (s)" which is in use at present. The change to "candidate's observer (s)" was made to meet the representations of the Electoral Advisory Conference that there has been some confusion between the terms "counting agent" and "counting assistant". The latter is used to describe a clerk employed by the returning officer to count the votes. I have been told unofficially that in one part of the country it is the counting assistants who sit and watch the votes being counted, which 1448 seems astonishing, but funny things can happen.
The Opposition put down an Amendment to substitute "scrutineers" for "observers". I argued that "scrutineers" had other meanings in elections. It was never our intention to seek in a roundabout way to alter the status of counting agents. It would be a brave politician who sought to do that.
After further consideration, we still cannot accept "scrutineer", but perhaps it is a good thing to leave things as they are. I have been guided by what was said by the Committee and my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) in particular.

§ Mr. Sharples
The Amendment meets a point we raised in Committee, when there was much debate about whether the right word was "observer" or "scrutineer". I think that on balance the Government have made the right decision in retaining the words "counting agent", which are well understood both by those who do that job and by the officials, who recognise their status.

§ Mr. Speaker
The next Amendment is Amendment No. 9, with which I suggest we take Government Amendments Nos. 30 and 36.

§ Mr. Merlyn Rees
I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 9, leave out lines 35 to 40 and insert: '(b) at local government elections in Scotland (as in England and Wales) a candidate may appoint more than one polling agent to attend at a polling station, but neither at parliamentary elections nor at local government elections (in whatever part of Great Britain) shall more than one polling agent be admitted at the same time to a polling station on behalf of the same candidate.' The object of the Amendment is to make it clear that the restriction on a candidate's having only one polling agent at a polling station means that only one polling agent for each candidate may be present at any one time. The other Amendments are consequential.
The Amendments have been introduced to meet the wishes of the Committee, and I think that they will aid voluntary workers on polling day.

§ Mr. Sharples
The Amendment meets a point raised from this side of the Committee, and its wording is probably 1449 better than that which we suggested. We are grateful to the hon. Gentleman.