HC Deb 02 April 1979 vol 965 cc1049-63
Mr. Beith

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 3, line 28, leave out 'easily distinguishable in such a manner as the Secretary of State directs' and insert 'a different colour'.

The amendment deals with the vexed question of distinguishing the two ballot papers. The Secretary of State has already given advice and used specimens for the assistance of the House.

It is important that the ballot papers should be clearly distinguishable to each group of people involved in the elections—the polling station staff, the electors and those who conduct and scrutinise the count. At each stage confusion could be caused.

The returning officers' staff will have the least difficulty in issuing ballot papers, but there is potential for confusion. Electors could be confused, especially when there are common names on both ballot papers. The specimens provided by the Secretary of State used the same names. Confusion can be caused if somebody is standing in both elections and his name appears on both ballot papers.

In district and council elections different coloured ballot papers are often used. That has not caused difficulty, and partisan objections have not been made about the colour of the ballot paper. In the district in which I vote, one of the ballot papers in the combined district and parish elections has usually been an indelicate shade of salmon pink to which no party has objected. It is more clearly distin- guishable from the other ballot papers than the proposed ballot papers. In a gloomy polling station and to anyone who has fading eyesight, the two ballot papers will not look much different from each other—except that one has a three-line box around the names and the other has not, and that one is headed "Parliamentary Election" and the other is not. There is potential for the elector to be confused and for him to vote for the person that he did not intend to vote for.

The greatest risk of confusion will arise when the boxes are opened and the papers divided. There could be initial confusion or a failure to detect when something has gone wrong as the papers are returned to the boxes. The counting staff will have little difficulty in separating the ballot papers, but if one packet of papers goes astray it will be more difficult to spot the proposed ballot papers than it would be to spot those of a different colour.

Problems could be caused once the parliamentary ballot papers have been separated and counted and a result has been declared. What will happen if a set of ballot papers turns up during the count for the district council elections? What would happen if the parliamentary election result had been declared and 100 ballot papers turned up in different local election ballot boxes?

Mr. J. W. Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr)

Surely that mistake would be spotted at the verification. If the numbers of grey and white papers do not tally when the boxes are opened, the search will take place before the papers are separated.

Mr. Beith

The hon. Member's experience of close contests is as great as mine. He must know that these things are not always successfully carried out.

One of my hon. Friends discovered about 1,000 papers after the verification process was supposed to have been completed. That sort of difficulty can arise. In my constituency, the returning officer and his staff have developed a fine skill in these matters. At the end of the count, when the total number of votes cast for each candidate is checked against the number of papers taken from the ballot boxes, any problem can be spotted, but the bundles of votes may not have been properly recorded and allocated at the earlier stage.

The potential for confusion exists and we cannot exclude the possibility that it could lead to the embarrassing situation of ballot papers being found after the result has been declared. A subsequent manuscript amendment may help to deal with the perhaps greater threat that that situation could arise if district council ballot papers are taken away before the count is completed.

One of the ways out of the difficulty would be to make the ballot papers more clearly distinguishable. On the face of it, the Government's specimen ballot papers fall within the terms of my amendment because white and pale grey are different colours, but the purpose of the amendment is to press the Government to make the ballot papers more readily distinguishable.

Mr. John

We could happily play around for several months on the question of the colours of the ballot papers. There is no doubt that if we made a proposal for salmon pink ballot papers, someone would would produce an argument against that. Indeed, there is an argument against placing any reliance on colour. We have to remember that about 2½ per cent. of the population—one in 40—have a red-green colour blindness. Distinct colours are not sufficient.

We have consulted the major parties, including the Liberal Party, and the colours that we propose have commended themselves to the parties. We have also ensured that the district council ballot papers will be distinguishable by putting three lines around the outside of the voting slips. In addition, the words "district council election" appear in fairly bold type at the top of the council voting slips.

An elector has a pretty fine sieving mechanism to go through before he can make a mistake. I do not think that electors or returning officers and their staffs will make more mistakes. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) cited many mistakes that had been made in the past, but they are examples of human error occurring with the normal parliamentary ballot papers and no risk of confusion. I do not believe that the distinctive markings and colouring that we propose increase the possibility of mistakes.

The wording of the Bill, which refers to "easily distinguishable" and does not tie distinctions merely to colour but allows for distinctions in printing and the boxing in of some papers, in preferable.

Mr. Beith

The Minister is correct in saying that the Act has a better form of words. The purpose of putting down the amendment was to get the matter explored and to put on record my view, which is shared by some returning officers, among others, that we must try harder to make the ballot papers more distinguishable in a variety of ways. If the Minister of State will look again at the style of ballot papers that he suggests should be used, I am sure he will agree that he could do more. However, I see no need to change the wording of the Act and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Rathbone

I beg to move manuscript amendment C, in page 4, line 12, leave out "shall" and insert "may".

After the immensely complicated debates on the previous amendments, this is a simple amendment. It merely seeks to allow the returning officers in constituencies where there is more than one district council to have the option of having two ballot boxes or one. It does not in any way interfere with the operation of the election. It does not increase the cost of the election.

It may have been brought to the notice of the Committee that my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South-West (Mr. Cormack), who was to move a similar amendment, which, if accepted, would have made it compulsory to use separate boxes, has withdrawn his amendment in favour of mine because of the element of unnecessary cost that his might have entailed.

The purpose of the amendment is purely to allow areas such as my constituency, where there are two districts, to split the vote in each of the polling stations so that it is easier to verify at the verification point and easier, therefore, to get the ballots for the district council elections back to the district council count with more facility than if they are combined in one ballot box.

I suggest that the present wording of the Bill stems from the legal principle that there had to be a change in the law to allow both ballots to take place. The Bill was drawn to simplify exactly that procedure and to make it allowable within the law. The amendment suggests that local council returning officers should have the option of two boxes or one box.

Mr. John

The Association of Returning Officers apparently has represented to the Government that we should not allow the flexibility that the hon. Gentleman seeks as it would allow the wrong ballots to be put in the wrong boxes. That is the result of the consultations that we have undertaken. However, I shall reconsider the matter, although I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman anything. He will appreciate the difficulties that may arise. The possible difficulties led to the withdrawal of the mandatory amendment.

As I have said, I shall give the matter further consideration. I cannot promise that any change will be made or that I shall seek to modify the Bill, bearing in mind the firm representations that have been received, of which I have only recently been appraised. If there is a real problem and if it is possible to take action, I undertake urgently to communicate with the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Rathbone

I am most grateful to the Minister for his response. There is no urgency. The purpose of the amendment is to facilitate the job of returning officers if they feel that it would have that effect.

Mr. John

They do not think so.

Mr. Rathbone

The Minister says that that is not their view, but the returning officer in my constituency takes the contrary view. It is not merely a matter of getting one paper in the wrong box as that will turn up in any event in the centralised verification process. The purpose is to simplify that process.

Mr. John

I do not want to delay the debate. However, there is a tendency to argue from the particular to the general. I believe that we must regard the association as representative of the generality of returning officers, and it has represented a view contrary to that expressed by the returning officer in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.

Mr. Rathbone

I shall be most grateful if the Minister rechecks with the association. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

I beg to move manuscript amendment E, in page 4, line 33, leave out "then" and insert: , after the declaration of the result of the parliamentary election,". The object of the amendment is to secure all the votes cast until the count of the parliamentary election is complete. If the amendment is accepted, the last three lines of schedule 4 will read: The containers shall after the declaration of the result of the parliamentary election be delivered to the returning officer for the election of district councillors, each labelled with a description of the area to which the ballot papers in it relate. 9 p.m.

The arguments for this were adequately rehearsed on Second Reading. They are, in summary, these. It would be grossly inconvenient for everybody if, when a recount were called, it was necessary to get back the district council boxes from as many as six different returning officers many miles away on the Friday, before the bank holiday weekend, when traffic was very heavy, so that boxes could be checked by the parliamentary returning officer to see whether parliamentary papers were included in boxes which should contain only district council ballot papers. That is the gravamen of the matter.

It is mandatory, as I read it, under the Bill for the containers to be delivered to the returning officer after what is set out in lines 28 to 32 has been completed. Lines 28 to 32 say: (3) After verifying each ballot paper account, the returning officer shall separate the ballot papers relating to the election of district councillors for each area, and put them into separate containers together with a statement of the number of ballot papers in each container. We come now to what I regard as removing the discretion which the Minister's circular claims remains in the hands of the returning officer. The Bill says: (4) The containers shall then be delivered to the returning officer"— "then" meaning immediately after the preceding separation. I do not see how "then" can be interpreted as meaning at some time after the preceding process but not necessarily immediately after.

I am not a lawyer. There may be a section in one of the interpretation Acts that result in the legal meaning being different from the natural meaning. Unless that is so, I do not see how it may be read other than as a requirement that, after the process set out in lines 28 to 32 on page 4 has been completed, discretion is withdrawn from the returning officer, and he is bound at that moment in time to send the district council papers on this possibly doomed journey, from which their recall might prove such a lengthy and difficult process.

Mr. Beith

The hon. Gentleman knows that in many constituencies this potentially doomed journey is long. In my constituency the other district council centre to which ballot boxes must travel is over 30 miles from the place at which the general election count takes place.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

That is a source of great worry to me. The requirements of the district council elections are, elsewhere in the Bill, rightly subordinated to those of the parliamentary election. Unfortunately that process is not carried to its logical conclusion. The result is that pressure may be put upon candidates who, quite properly, want a recount to agree that it be assumed that no parliamentary ballot papers have been improperly dispatched with district council papers. The moral pressure for that, late on a Friday evening, immediately before a bank holiday, will be great if such a circumstance should arise.

The amendment is necessary to enable returning officers to take the advice which the Home Secretary responded to my original comments by offering to include in the circular. On Second Reading I said that I would accept an assurance from the Home Secretary, an honourable man, to alter the advice given by his Department in the circular. The difficulty I am left in is that if the advice given in the circular is altered to something incompatible with what the Bill says, it will be ultra vires advice. I therefore believe that the amendment is necessary to enable the good intentions expressed by the Home Secretary to be carried out.

When the Home Secretary was responding earlier to me and offering to alter the advice given in the circular, he used words to the effect that "if it appears to the returning officer that there might need to be a recount". This presupposes that these matters are necessarily obvious to a returning officer at a stage several hours away from the completion of the count. The completion of the process mentioned in lines 28 to 32 of schedule 11 could well be several hours before the last moment at which a recount can be called for. I think it is necessary, therefore, to ask that the dispatch of these papers to district council returning officers should be delayed until the last moment was passed when a recount could be called for.

That would then avoid two evils—on the one hand, a quite improper pressure being placed on a candidate to accept a recount which is less than complete, and, on the other hand, expecting returning officers to have powers of clairvoyance which they do not possess.

Mr. John

If I do not accept the amendment, it is because I think that it replaces what the hon. Gentleman describes as a rigidity with a a further rigidity. There is, in my view, discretion at the moment to a returning officer to determine at what point he should arrange to release the ballot papers to the district council. If one were to say in all cases that one could not release any district council papers to the district councils before the parliamentary count was complete, that would be an unacceptable rigidity, taking away a great deal of discretion from the returning officer. That having been said, I recognise the hon. Gentleman's point.

The circumstances will vary, of course, and that is why we have left this discretion with the returning officer. In some cases, the counts will take place in the same building as that which will have the parliamentary count. Others, as the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said, will take place perhaps many miles distant.

I give the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) the undertaking, first, that we shall draw to the attention of the returning officer the need to take the utmost care in the separation and verification of the ballot papers. That seems to be a special need in this case if we are to avoid, as it were at birth, the sort of problem that he foresees.

Secondly, I could ask returning officers to give particular thought to the prospect of the possibility of a recount. In responding earlier to the hon. Gentleman, trying to be helpful and trying to think of an amendment which was immediately attractive, I anticipated a certainty on the part of the returning officer which might not be there at the time when the boxes were dispatched.

If the circular, instead of using the more definite words that I gave, were to emphasise the importance, before releasing the papers, of verification and the need to bear in mind in particular, at the stage at which they are released, the possibility of a recount occurring in that area, it would go some way to meet the hon. Gentleman's points without putting in the unacceptable rigidity that on no account must the ballot papers be released.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

Will the Minister of State, between now and when the Bill goes through another place, take the best legal advice in his Department as to whether my fears about the meaning of the word "then" are correct? If they are correct, could be not by amendment substitute "thereafter" for "then"?

Mr. John

The hon. Gentleman has anticipated me. I gave the word "then" the meaning "thereafter" in an earlier intervention. I understand that "then" means the next step, not forthwith. If it is the next step in the chain—not the requirement to have it forthwith—that would meet the point. I undertake to reconsider this matter. If there is any doubt at all, I shall put it right, because I am mindful of the point made by the hon. Gentleman. I assure him that the guidance will be amended to reflect the anxiety that papers should not be released until people have made sure that the verification is as complete as possible and have borne in mind and considered the question of a recount.

Mr. David Howell

I associate myself with the anxieties expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). I think that the Minister has tried to meet his point in a constructive way. I have a strong preference for "thereafter" in place of "then" by way of an amendment in the other place. My hon. Friend has raised a valid point and I am glad that the Minister has indicated that he will seek to help him.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

In view of the Minister's response, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Beith

I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 4, line 35, at end insert— '(5) Any candidate in the district council elections and any candidate in the parliamentary election shall be entitled to appoint counting agents to scrutinise the opening of the ballot boxes, the separation of ballot papers and other matters relating to this stage of the count.'. The amendment calls to mind the many stages of the counts in which we shall be engaged in these unusual combined elections and how they will occur in scattered constituencies.

In Berwick-upon-Tweed we invariably count not only on the night of the poll but on the following day. It has been known for us to declare the result at about four o'clock on Friday afternoon. In this instance we shall follow on from that to engage in district council election counts. On a bank holiday weekend it is highly likely that the staff will be unwilling to proceed with the counts on the Saturday or the following Monday, so it may be the following Tuesday before we count the district council election votes. I take it that the Minister accepts that will create problems for the security of ballot boxes and so on, but that is a consequence of the decision of the House.

We must ensure that district council candidates are not put at an improper disadvantage because of the way that these proceedings are conducted. They may have to wait four or five days before knowing whether they are elected or not. They must also be given a proper opportunity to scrutinise the counting process. The opening of ballot boxes and the verification of the ballot papers are important parts of that process. Great care is exercised.

I do not know about counts in other constituencies, but in Berwick-upon-Tweed it is the practice of the returning officer to spend a great deal of time on that process. Other hon. Members may, like me, prefer to miss the first hour or two hours of the count and have a leisurely breakfast on these occasions.

As I drive to the count, listening to other results being declared on the radio, I become increasingly worried that I may miss the vital moment to thank the returning officer, my party workers and so forth. But when I get there I usually find that they are still engaged on the important process of getting the numbers of ballot papers right and checking that they tally with the returns for each box. I am glad that they do that because, when we have recounts—we occasionally do—it means that everyone is confident that that part of the process has been successfully carried out and there is no likelihood of difficulty there. Therefore, we can start at later stages when any recounting has to be done.

9.15 p.m.

This is of concern to council candidates, because their ballot papers will be taken out of the same ballot boxes. It cannot be right that they should be denied the opportunity that they would normally have to watch that process being carried out. It is a severe restriction on their constitutional rights of scrutiny. The Minister has said a number of times that he does not want to import constitutional innovations into the conduct of these elections, other than the mere fact of having them on the same day. It is a constitutional innovation to tell one group of candidates "You can watch only the final stages of the count. You can either be present yourself or appoint someone to represent you to watch only the later stages of the count. You cannot be present when the ballot papers are taken out of the boxes and checked against the numbers in the boxes."

We must bear in mind that the numbers might be different. Let us not assume that every elector will cast his vote in both ballots. Some people may decide not to vote in both, so differences arise already. Some people have an electoral qualification for the district election and not for the parliamentary election. There are all sorts of reasons why the numbers will differ between the two.

The present procedure appears to be that council candidates will not be given the opportunity to be present when the boxes are opened. The returning officer will receive their ballot papers and they will be present when they are received, having already been opened and checked and the risk having already arisen that some of their votes could have gone astray, or that there could have been some other invalid process.

What I have said is not quite true, because it is also the case that those council candidates who can persuade their parties to make them scrutineers for the parliamentary election might be present throughout. But here we come to the very point that the Minister used against me earlier. He said that it would be wrong to confer an advantage on one section of district council candidates because they happened to be able to align themselves with a parliamentary candidate in the same election.

I think that there was force in the Minister's argument, and I accepted it as an argument against my new clause that it would be wrong to allow them to include literature in the free post simply because their party was also putting up in the parliamentary election a candidate who was prepared to concede to them the opportunity to share in his free postal service. By the same token, it must be wrong for only those district council candidates who can gain this favour from a parliamentary candidate to be allowed to attend as scrutineers at an important stage in what is also their count.

The Minister must do something to resolve this problem, by whatever means he finds most appropriate. It cannot be right that we should import into the arrangements for this election a new constitutional principle that district council candidates, unless they can be brought in on the favour of a parliamentary candidate, are not allowed to witness, are not allowed to make representations about, vital stages in the count of their own ballot papers.

I must ask the Minister to look again at the important innovation that he is introducing here. I do not think that it is his wish to make this change. I do not think that the Committee would wish to make such an important and radical departure in the way in which we conduct elections or in the right that we give to candidates at them.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

I find myself torn in two directions. I entirely agree with the principle of what the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said in moving the amendment. I referred to it on Second Reading. However, I am appalled by the arithmetic of it. In the facilities available for the count, in many rural areas there will have to be far more tellers than usual anyway to do the mechanical job of verification in sorting out the papers. There will need to be closer scrutiny by the parliamentary counting agents to make sure that white ballot papers are not put where only grey papers should be.

The problem is that the two requirements can be met—and they need to be met—only by having district council elections on a different day from the parliamentary elections. The evil that the amendment seeks to remedy is not a necessary evil. It is a voluntary evil. It is the evil that arises purely and solely from the choice to have these two incompatible things on the same day. Therefore, we are left to choose between that which is mechanically imposible and that which is intolerable on principle. That is a dilemma that I think this House ought not to have been faced with. I would be interested to hear how the Minister believes that that can properly be resolved without accepting what is impossible or what is intolerable.

Mr. Beith

I agree with the hon. Member's general observation that this is not a problem which we created but one which the Government created. Does not he also agree, however, that at least a partial solution to this problem would have arisen if separate ballot boxes had been the rule, and that the opening of those separate boxes could properly be regarded as separate counting processes, at which the parliamentary scrutineers and the local election scrutineers would be separately present, and not both together?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop

I agree almost entirely with the hon. Gentleman, but with this reservation: it would need not only separate boxes but separate rooms in the polling booth. One paper, the district council paper, having been issued, the elector to whom it was issued should not have the opportunity of putting it in the wrong box. He would then have to queue in a separate area to get a paper for the parliamentary election to put in that box without having access to the other box. Were that not the case, the scrutineers for the parliamentary election would not see the verification of some of the papers cast in that election because they would be in the wrong box, and vice versa. Therefore, one would need not only another box but in some cases premises of double the size as well, and in some areas, again, that would not be possible. In some areas it would be possible, but it would not be in others. Mention has been made of little huts. Presumably this would require a double dose of little huts.

Mr. John

I quite acknowledge the dilemma. The hon. Member for Berwick -upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) mentioned the situation quite fairly, in the sense that there is a point of principle, whereas there is a point of practice involved as well. I think that the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) really tried to rehearse arguments which the Committee rejected earlier this evening, so I shall not follow him on those.

However, as to the question of practice, the EROs who have been consulted have said that this is the single most important step that we could take to make the two elections possible on the particular day. It may be that hon. Members still do not give up their argument on that, and so on. But I ask them to accept what the hon. Member for Tiverton has said on the practicalities of the matter. When the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed says "Does the Minister want the problem?", I have to say that, of course, as a matter of principle, I would not want it. But the practical steps which would follow from an acceptance of the amendment would be horrific. I have 52 councillors in one of my district councils. The idea of their all having appointed counting agents, plus their wives and friends, at the same time as the parliamentary election was taking place might well result in the number of those overseeing the elections outnumbering those who were actually conducting them—on gross figures, rather than on the sort of figures about which we are now talking.

Accepting and bearing in mind what the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said, and having taken the decision that we have fixed the date that we have, I do not think that we can accede to the amendment.

Mr. Beith

I indeed accept the extreme practical difficulties that would result from the assembly in one room of this very large number of scrutineers. However, I think that the Minister has given the game away. The fact is that in bringing together these two elections he has necessitated the removal of the constitutional rights, which we prize and regard as important in relation to all our elections, of a substantial group of people.

The Minister wrung his hands and pointed out how difficult it was to preserve their rights with this combination of the two elections. By drawing attention to the loss of these rights, we have reminded the House and the country of one of the many disadvantages and unfairnesses that will arise from this manner of proceeding.

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported, with an amendment as amended, considered; read the Third time and passed.

Back to