HC Deb 02 February 1978 vol 943 cc872-82

Motion made, and Question proposed. That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Snape.]

12.12 a.m.

Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport)

My purpose is to raise the issue of registration for voting purposes by Service men and their families, and in this connection the spouse of the Service man or woman is the relevant factor. I shall talk about Service men and their wives for convenience.

Frequent moves including overseas service have created special problems for Service families in voting and attempts have been made over the years to improve the position. When last considered by the Speaker's Conference in 1973, voting by Service personnel had fallen to 25 per cent. of those eligible. This was a serious situation and the Conference decided that something should be done about it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) introduced a Private Member's Bill incorporating provisions about Service men and their wives agreed by the Speaker's Conference. It became the Representation of the People (Armed Forces) Act 1976. By this Act all Service men and wives for the first time had the right to register as Service voters on the basis of one registration lasting for the whole of the Service career.

But the Act went further than giving the right. It provided that Service men and their wives had to register as Service personnel, failing which they would lose their votes. They were not eligible to be included as civilians on the normal form of registration for voting. A special Service voting form has to be attested by the appropriate person, which includes an officer or non-commissioned officer of sergeant or above, Government official, and so on.

I maintain that the Act has backfired very seriously. I congratulate those who introduced it originally, but defects in the drafting have become apparent. The Act, which was intended to help Service personnel, has aroused fury and bitterness for a number of reasons. First, a wife has to rely upon a husband to provide the special Service form. I am aware that Service establishments have sought to post forms to wives, but the wife still has to rely upon her husband for it. The husband might be away from home on overseas service, or he might be separated or divorced from his wife.

The wife needs to have the form attested. She cannot go through a standard procedure. She needs actually to attest the form and this must worry some people who do not like Government forms. There are some 2 million people in this country who are illiterate or virtually illiterate and do not like Government forms. To them this extra procedure is a disincentive to register for voting.

Then there is the point that when registration eventually takes place the letter "S" is put against the name of the individual showing that he is a Service voter. Many Service wives object to this. Their objection is based on the fact that wives regard themselves as civilians.

I want to quote from some of the very large number of letters I have received on the subject. All of them were unprompted. I am aware of no concerted campaign. They are from individual people expressing their opinions. One correspondent writes: Many of us object most strongly to being referred to as a 'Service-man's wife'—or husband—as we would object to being listed as a dustman's wife, solicitor's wife, etc.—we are people in our own right—my husband would not appreciate it if he were classed as a `Secretary's husband'. Civilians do not have to declare their husband's occupation before being placed on the Electoral Roll—why then should we be discriminated against in this way? Another letter says: This week I have received my form for the electoral register. I find that I am no longer a citizen of Gosport. I am now part of my husband's goods and chattels, for him to decide if I should cast a vote or not. Although I have lived here for 14 years (and voted since I was 21) I am also a householder and ratepayer, I still have to wait for my husband to bring home a form that also has to be signed by an attestor. I am disgusted about this, and until my husband comes out of the Army my vote will be lost. If I can not be treated like a normal human being then I won't act like one. Yet another letter reads: I am a householder and have paid my rates in this town for six years and have always filled in the Register of Electors form and cannot see why I should not carry on in this manner. I am not a Service personnel; I am a civilian and wish to remain that way. Another letter says: It is outrageous that, in 1977, some women have to obtain the right to vote through their husbands. My final quotation is: I am not a Service voter and I shall never vote in such a capacity. I am a civilian and I demand my right to continue to vote as such. As a civilian I have no need to have someone attest my signature on the registration form; neither do I have to wait till my husband gives me the necessary service voters form. I have not seen any news of this form on the media, so I wonder how many wives in my position have no knowledge that their vote is about to be withdrawn simply because their husbands neglect to pass on the form. In August last year, I took up the issue with the Minister of State, Home Office, and received a somewhat bland reply. I pressed the matter, and on 6th September 1977 I wrote to him: There are substantial difficulties involved in the implementation of the present law and this needs to be put right quickly because wives are now being called upon to register as Service voters. I asked for wives to be permitted to register as civilians if they wished. The hon. Gentleman replied on 22nd September: It would, I fear, make the system excessively complex to allow persons with a service qualification the option of registering through the service system or through the Form A system. Having discussed the matter in some detail with certain specialists in electoral procedure and law, I thing that it would be possible to allow the wives of Service men to register as civilians if they so wished. I maintain that it is necessary that action should be taken on this basis because of the scandal now being revealed by the electoral roll. The electoral register of the constituency of Gosport, about which I know most, although it is not exceptional, which will be implemented on 16th February has revealed a voting list so defective as to make a mockery of our electoral system.

In my constituency there are estimated to be 15,000 Service men and wives, of whom about 5,000 have registered. That is 10,000 lost votes. In one ward alone, Rownen, with a high proportion of Service families, there was a check by staff of the electoral registration officer. Rownen has a rising population, with more houses under construction. But the new electoral roll shows a decrease of 1,600 voters, having fallen from 8,700 to 7,100.

In Rownen, 1,700 wives of Service men have been deleted from the roll, although a check shows that at least half of them are still living in the houses they were living in last year. In other words, names of people known to be living in houses there are being struck from the register.

I am aware that the Minister could say that the position before the 1976 Act was poor in that only 25 per cent. of Service men were voting. But that is not a valid argument, because the people whom we are comparing with the previous number are a different set of people. Previously we were dealing with Service men and Service families overseas. Now we have an increased number of people who must register as Service voters. For the first time, we are taking off the register people we know to be resident in a particular property and who wish to be registered as civilians.

The Minister may say that the wives could have registered and that any difficulties are their own fault. There are two arguments against that. First, I am sure that the wives did not know of the new procedure and that they lost their votes unwittingly. Secondly, I do not think it lies with us to dictate to people. We should make it easier for them to register rather than create an obstacle course for them. The fact that large numbers were not registering should have been known to the Minister and his staff.

Democracy is on trial in this issue. Relatively little may have been heard about it so far, but it the next General Election is held before February 1979, there will be an explosion of rage from those who have been disfranchised. There are 10,000 such people in my constituency. I look at the constituencies of Plymouth, Devonport, where Labour has a majority of 2,259, and Portsmouth, North, where the Labour majority is 1,345, and I wonder how the regulations will affect the elections in those constituencies.

Since the Minister was put on notice that problems were emerging over the new registration for the Services, to what extent has his Department monitored the position in order to obtain warning of the coming crisis and to what extent did he consider what could be done about it? Will the hon. Gentleman, even now, bring forward as an emergency measure legislation drawing up a fresh electoral roll incorporating the spouses of Service personnel who wish to register as civilians? The Minister cannot simply regard this matter with indifference. He must act.

12.23 a.m.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Brynmor John)

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers) for raising this matter. It is plainly one which causes him concern, and I was a member of the Speaker's Conference which examined the problem. I believe that the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester (Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles), who is present for the debate, was also a member of that Conference.

The hon. Member for Gosport has shown the dangers of extrapolating from a particular instance or difficulty into a general attack or tirade. I do not undervalue the hon. Gentleman's remarks or his concern for his constituents, but many of his comments illustrated one of the difficulties. Navy wives are in a different situation from most Service wives. Most Service wives move frequently and the expectation is that their lives will include a number of moves—though perhaps these are less frequent now that there are fewer stations and camps. Navy wives tend, because of the nature of their husbands' service, to congregate permanently in one district.

There is a difficulty in devising any electoral system that bears fairly on everyone. We have to devise a system that does well by most of those it is supposed to help.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that in the aftermath of the 1969 Act, which did for spouses precisely what the hon. Gentleman is asking for, there was a low registration among Service men—25 per cent. There was a dramatic drop in the number of Service men registered for electoral purposes. Clearly, that could not be allowed to continue.

To that Speaker's Conference the Ministry of Defence gave evidence in favour of a once-for-all registration system. The hon. Gentleman said that I had been put on notice. All I can say is that many people were put on notice. The noble Lady, Baroness Vickers, who handled the Bill in the other place, clearly stated the new system a year ago, so it was known that this change was taking place. There was no lobby against it when the Ministry gave evidence or during the passage of the Bill. No hon. Member was approached to raise the matter in Committee, nor was anything raised on Third Reading. I understand that that is not always possible, but in modern legislation there can be almost a difficulty for every solution, and I wonder whether that is what we have here.

The Bill was a Private Member's Bill, introduced by the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow). Although most Private Member's Bills have all-party backing, it was, oddly, supported exclusively by Opposition Members. I was glad to be able to give the hon. Gentleman drafting assistance, but in no sense was this a Government-inspired or forced move. If difficulties have arisen, it is through the best of motives. That must guide our consideration of the problem.

I should like to deal with the question of the principal effect of the 1976 Act, which was to replace annual registration by once-for-all registration for Service men and women and their wives and husbands. This once-for-all registration would be based upon a declaration which would last as long as the elector's Service qualification lasted.

It was believed that the change would work to the general satisfaction of the great majority of those affected. Because of the once-for-all nature of the new arrangements, the beneficial effect should be cumulative, though, of course, in the aftermath of a changeover there will be a ripple. I hope that in a year's time the hon. Gentleman will find less cause for complaint about the Act's working than he does this year. It is too early to say definitely what has happened so far. The new electoral registers will not be published until this month.

Rear-Admiral Morgan-Giles (Winchester)

My hon. Friend raised a most interesting point. I agree with the Minister that the change was made to benefit Service people, but will he make clear whether Service voters can be put on the register at any time of the year if they send the form of which my hon. Friend spoke? From the practical point of view, this is the only way in which they will be able to become registered in the current year. Otherwise, the register is made up, and for this year, which is in all probability election year, they will be disfranchised unless they can go through the Service procedure.

Mr. John

They can be registered at any time by filling in the form. I shall write to the hon. and gallant Gentleman about the matter, but I do not think that there is any great difficulty of that kind.

Mr. Viggers

rose—

Mr. John

The hon. Gentleman has talked rather luridly about the effect of the Act and it is only right that I should put on record our experience of a much wider canvas, not of only one constituency and one Service but of all Services and all constituencies.

What I have said must be provisional at this stage, but we believe these to be figures that will come out. The provisional figures suggest that the change effected by the Act has increased Service men's registration from about 25 per cent. overall to about 40 per cent. overall. That in itself contradicts some of the hon. Gentleman's comments. As one would expect, the Royal Air Force has by far the highest registration, but perhaps that is an indication of bias on my part.

At any rate, it is clear that Service men have responded to the change. I believe that wives have responded and will be seen to have responded. It is significant that the highest proportion of wives to have registered under Service registration has been Navy wives. Therefore, there is not the resistance on the part of many Navy wives, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, to being described as Service wives. We cannot compare the number of wives registered as Service voters because there is no comparison.

The change will have a cumulative effect. I hope that next year the situation will be even better than it is this year. I believe that the system will work to the benefit of Service men and their wives. When wives accompany their husbands overseas—the hon. Gentleman did not say anything to contradict this—they are registered as Service voters, which they accept quite amicably. They do not consider that it is an affront to their citizenship to be so registered.

Difficulties sometimes arise with overseas postings that involve those with a considerable amount of expertise in electoral matters in the Home Office. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, having dealt with electoral matters over many years, we are not bereft of expertise ourselves. It is in dealing with those overseas that we experience such difficulties as multiple registration—in other words, people being registered in more than one place. There are those who are not registered in any place because of the falling-between-two-stools or three-stools syndrome in the event of overseas postings. That is the sort of problem that we see precluding the optional registration that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned.

The hon. Gentleman referred to publicity. I have examined this matter with the Ministry of Defence in preparation for the debate. In so far as it is humanly possible to draw to the attention of people the benefits of registration, those steps have been taken. It may be that not every step has been taken, but so far as humanly possible everything has been done in the run-up to the first working of the Act. Service units have devoted a considerable amount of time and manpower to the undertaking of that work and to the information that is sent out.

Wives are not unique in the sense that they depend on their husbands. The head of the household always has to register the voters in his household. That has led to a considerable amount of friction, particularly with children who are left off the register. There is the problem of dependants in the wider sense of the word—the hon. Gentleman will know what I mean.

Posters were prominently displayed as well as advertisements in Service publications, such as "Navy News," "Soldier" and the Royal Air Forces publication. Electoral registration officers in areas with Service establishments or quarters have taken special steps to ensure that they were aware of the new arrangements. In Gosport the electoral registration officer wrote in October and November to all Service married quarters in the borough and followed that up in those households where a Service man had registered but his wife had not. Whatever else is said, I do not think that there can be criticism on the grounds of lack of publicity or of effort. It may be possible, with cumulative experience, to improve on that. However, no criticism of the initial effort is warranted.

I come to the question of phrases such as "losing my right of citizenship". Registration as a Service voter does not involve any reduction in civic or civil rights. Indeed, in many ways it has advantages. The hon. Gentleman, because of the special situation of the wives he has met, in particular, ignored the importance and advantage to many Service wives of having postal or proxy votes by reason of being registered as Service voters.

I have been asked a couple of specific questions. First, I have sufficiently answered the question about monitoring in dealing with the figures. I promise that when we have a more complete picture of what the register will bring forth I shall write to the hon. Gentleman personally to tell him what the proportions are, who have finally registered up to the February completion of the register and what increase in Service votes that has brought forward.

On the question of emergency legislation I must tell the hon. Gentleman quite candidly that I am not prepared to introduce further legislation when the present legislation has had at best an incomplete chance of proving itself. This House does itself no credit if it rushes round chasing its own tail without having had sufficient experience of the subject revoking laws which it has just passed and carrying out new experiments which it discards equally quickly. We must have patience in this matter.

However, I promise to look at two particular matters. First, I promise to look at the question whether any improvements can be made on the subject of information. The Ministry of Defence will consider whether more can be done on a nationwide basis to ensure that all Service men and their wives are aware of their rights. There comes a time when one cannot dragoon possible voters into registering for their rights. It is for the individual elector to recognise that he has a duty in the matter. We would all unite in saying that we cannot take initiative from the individual voter, but we shall consider whether there is something we can do to help in the dissemination of information.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman mentioned several times the question of attestation. Although it is a minor irritant, I take it that he agrees that it can be a real irritant. I promise to consider whether it is necessary for a Service wife to change her declaration of attestation and whether it should be retained.

With those assurances and with the at least provisional assurance that I am able to give on a nationwide basis that the figures, so far from showing a great decline in registrations, are showing some hopeful signs but must be firmed up when we know the final state of the registers, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be content to know that we shall do anything that is reasonable in this matter. However, I cannot promise, particularly in view of the position about legislation, to introduce a new Bill when we realise, having considered the matter, as the hon. and gallant Member for Winchester has, in the Speaker's Conference, that there is no scheme we could devise which would please everyone in every Service situation. We must try to please the majority, and that I believe the Act does.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-one minutes to One o'clock.