§ Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr. J. Enoch PowellThe Question that you have just proposed to the Committee, Mr. Dean, is the only opportunity, in the light of the rules of order and the selection of amendments, which my right hon. and hon. Friends and I have to record in Committee our views on the fact that the legislation will apply to only one part of the United Kingdom—Northern Ireland.
An interesting development—if that is not too complimentary a word—can be traced in the thinking of the Government on this subject. Earlier the Minister recalled the tentative propositions that were put to the parties in Northern Ireland in April 1982 on the subject of the prevention of personation. During a debate on an earlier amendment I quoted at length the response of the Official Unionist party to the proposal of the mandatory provision of documents. On 10 March 1983, the then Secretary of State returned to the subject, and it is interesting to note that his attitude then was different from what it had tentatively been in 1982, and has finally become in the terms of the Bill. He wrote then—and I shall not trouble the Committee with more than the essential quotations:
There are two broad fronts on which this abuse…can be tackled.1025 The first front was that laid out in the Bill whose consideration in Committee we are just concluding, and I shall return in a moment to what the then Secretary of State said about that.11.15 pm
The second approach was that we should use the present legislation. The words of the Secretary of State were
to concentrate on what more can be done within existing legislation.I want to draw attention to the reasons why, at that time in May 1983, the Secretary of State preferred the latter course of seeing what could be done with the present legislation. It was because he considered that the step of making the production of documents a condition for voting in Northern Ireland would involvea major change in the way in which elections are conducted, and if it were introduced for Northern Ireland alone, there would be a significant difference between procedures in Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the same election.It is pleasant in retrospect to be able to attribute to the right hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Prior) a sensitivity to the susceptibilities of Northern Ireland Members of Parliament and the Northern Ireland people which was not always strongly marked during his tenure of office. I hope that it may come to his attention that this golden sentence from his letter of 10 March 1983 has been exhumed and displayed in this debate to his credit. Quite evidently the Secretary of State did not consider that it was desirable that there should be a significant difference between procedures in Great Britain and Northern Ireland at the same election. Nor do my right hon. and hon. Friends and I, nor does anyone in Northern Ireland think it desirable that there should be a significant difference between procedures in the same election in Great Britain and in Northern Ireland.But the word "procedures" in that sentence is an understatement of the difference which the Bill creates. I do not think that it can be disputed that the Bill is appending to the right to vote a condition which will be applicable only in one part of the United Kingdom if the legislation is passed for Northern Ireland.
On the face of it, it is unconscionable that the right to vote should be qualified in one part of the kingdom only. The qualification is an effective restriction of the right of the exercise of the franchise. We are not talking about measures to prevent or to apprehend persons who might be breaking the law. We are talking about a condition which will be binding upon everyone and which must be fulfilled before he can vote. We are saying that that condition shall be applied only to that part of the electorate which is situated in Northern Ireland.
Even if the circumstances in Northern Ireland in this respect were unique—which they are not—it would still be an extraordinary step for the House to take to qualify the franchise in one part of the kingdom and not in the rest. After all, that is what is happening within Northern Ireland itself. The franchise is being qualified in nine tenths of the Province where the Bill is not required for the effective policing of the electoral process. For the sake of the electoral process in one tenth of the Province a new qualification and limitation upon the right to vote is being imposed on the rest of the Province.
It is apparently thought to be right that to deal with the problems of a minority of the area the same restrictions should be imposed upon the population of the whole of the area, that is, the whole of the Province. If the House was 1026 anxious about the dangers anywhere in the kingdom of widespread personation and vote stealing, rather than break the fundamental principle of an elected assembly such as this that all its Members are elected by electors who have the same franchise and the same opportunity to exercise it, I should have thought that the House would say that this restriction should be imposed upon the whole of the kingdom.
If we are to change the electoral law, let us change it for everyone. No doubt it will not be required in a large part of the kingdom, but nevertheless we shall have maintained the equitable treatment that is the essence of an elected assembly, which ultimately makes this place in which we are all equals, one to the other, because we have all emerged from exactly the same electoral processes in our part of the United Kingdom.
Northern Ireland is, even now, not unique in this respect. There are parts of the mainland where already the circumstances are such that the identification of voters and the substitution of one voter for another is extraordinarily difficult to prevent. Exactly the same arguments for imposing the precondition of presenting a colourable document could be urged as have been urged for the justification of the Bill. I am not intending at any length to stand in the way of the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) or of other hon. Members from other parts of the United Kingdom who may tender evidence to show that the case of Ulster is not: unique. However, if the case of Ulster in not unique, the argument in favour of imposing this restriction on Ulster only is correspondingly weak, and the outrage that it has done to our constitutional principle is correspondingly serious.
I am sure that it would not have been expected that hon. Members returned to represent their constituencies in Northern Ireland, speaking for the electorate of Northern Ireland, would passively accept this discrimination against the Province that they have the honour to represent. 'We shall vote against this clause being added to the Bill as being the only means at this stage of the Bill by which we can place on record our sense of outrage at what is being done and at the inadequate justification for what is itself unconstitutionally untenable.
§ Mr. Peter Bruinvels (Leicester, East)I find myself in something of a dilemma because we are called a United Kingdom, but we do not seem to be supporting the idea of one united voting system. As the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) has already said, there are some concerns in Leicester, East, and in the city of Leicester. I agree with him that the Bill will stop cheating and it will stop people voting more than once, but I regret that clause 7 is defective because it is restricted to Northern Ireland. If it were widened, and made to incorporate the rest of the United Kingdom, it would be a far more easy Bill to understand and accept.
I should not have to give examples of what I describe as voting early, voting often, which occur in other parts of the United Kingdom. What happens is not necessarily vote-stealing, but polling cards are collected and distributed to another party's headquarters. People go in to vote at least twice. Another example is when the turnout in one polling box amounted to 96 per cent., which is obviously scandalous and unbelievable. I feel that I am not the only hon. Member who can say with certainty that personation occurs.
1027 Therefore, we must ask ourselves why Northern Ireland should be treated any differently from the rest of the United Kingdom. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Mr. Spencer) had a majority of seven. The result could have been the other way. We just do not know how the voting went there. In Northern Ireland there are certain constituencies with very small majorities. Yet again, we do not know whether the democratic process has been interfered with in those cases by the use of personation. While the Bill is acceptable in that it aims at correcting the democratic process so as to treat people more fairly, and attempts to stop other people from taking advantage of presiding officers and polling agents, it is defective, no matter how one looks at it. I regret that we cannot have a Bill for the rest of the United Kingdom. We must ask ourselves whether the abnormally high turn-outs in Belfast constituencies should worry us. We should ask ourselves also about the position in the United Kingdom.
With great regret, I find myself in a dilemma. I have to support clause 7, but I can do so only to a limited extent because I hope for more to come. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will take account of this debate and the Committee's views so that it will be possible to bring forward a Bill on behalf of the rest of the United Kingdom enabling constitutionally elected Members of Parliament to be elected fairly without the need for any kind of double voting.
§ Mr. ScottI fully understand the depth of feeling of the Official Unionist party about this matter. Those right hon. and hon. Members feel strongly that a Bill which touches the franchise to this extent should apply to only one part of the United Kingdom. I respect that point of principle, but the fact is that the Bill was brought before Parliament to deal with a specific threat to the electoral process in Northern Ireland. Despite the energetic and not unpersuasive remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels), I have to repeat what I said on Second Reading: the Government have no evidence that widespread personation is practised in Great Britain. Unlike Northern Ireland, there have been no formal representations—
§ Mr. William RossWill the hon. Gentleman give way?
§ Mr. ScottI shall give way in a moment. I always give way, as the hon. Gentleman knows. I should like to be able to complete this point.
We do not have evidence that personation is practised to a significant extent here. We have had representations from all the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland about the level of personation, but no such representations from this side of the water.
§ Mr. RossThe hon. Gentleman used two particular words—"widespread" and "significant" personation. Do the Government have any evidence that there is personation on a small scale or in relatively small areas such as a single polling station or polling box, as referred to by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels)?
§ Mr. ScottI suspect that if the personation had reached a serious dimension, so that it posed a threat to the integrity of the electoral system, the parties here would have made representations to the Government. They have not done so, and therefore I do not believe that the situation exists. Certainly, it does not exist on this side of the water where there are no paramilitary groups organising in a dedicated way on a large scale the personation that we have witnessed in recent elections in the Province. I do not believe, therefore, that there is a case for the extension of the Bill to Great Britain. The Government sincerely regret that it is necessary in a matter as important as the democratic process to differentiate between the treatment of citizens in Northern Ireland and the treatment of those in Great Britain.
The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) mentioned in particular the change of heart between the original letter from my right hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Mr. Prior) and the Government's final decision. The general election of 1983 occurred during that process, and we saw the most determined, sustained and widespread organisation of personation in Northern Ireland. That led us to believe that the powers under existing legislation were not sufficient and that we would have to seek to deal with that dangerous position by legislation.
It is true that electoral arrangements in Northern Ireland, even in parliamentary terms, differ from the arrangements in Great Britain—residential qualifications is the example that springs readily to mind. It is a question of balance as to which is the less desirable—to treat those in Northern Ireland differently from those in Great Britain because of the depth and seriousness of the threat to the electoral system there—
Mr. J. Enoch PowellOn a point of fact, there is no difference in the electoral qualifications for elections to this House between Northern Ireland and the rest of the kingdom.
§ Mr. ScottIn Great Britain a person has to be resident on the qualifying date. In Northern Ireland a person has to be resident on the qualifying date and for three months before. There is that difference in the qualifications for parliamentary elections.
The question is whether the lesser of the two evils is to treat Northern Ireland differently or to allow an evil to disrupt and subvert the democratic process in Northern Ireland. We are determined to prevent the latter. I therefore urge the Committee to vote for the retention of clause 7.
§ Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
§ The Committee divided: Ayes 126, Noes 13.
1029| Division No. 31] | [11.30 pm |
| AYES | |
| Amess, David | Brandon-Bravo, Martin |
| Ancram, Michael | Bright, Graham |
| Archer, Rt Hon Peter | Brinton, Tim |
| Ashby, David | Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes) |
| Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset) | Bruce, Malcolm |
| Bellingham, Henry | Bruinvels, Peter |
| Benyon, William | Budgen, Nick |
| Bevan, David Gilroy | Burt, Alistair |
| Blackburn, John | Butterfill, John |
| Bottomley, Peter | Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln) |
| Bottomley, Mrs Virginia | Chapman, Sydney |
| Boyson, Dr Rhodes | Chope, Christopher |
| Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford) | Lester, Jim |
| Conway, Derek | Lyell, Nicholas |
| Coombs, Simon | Major, John |
| Couchman, James | Mates, Michael |
| Dorrell, Stephen | Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin |
| Dover, Den | Moynihan, Hon C. |
| Duffy, A. E. P. | Newton, Tony |
| Durant, Tony | Norris, Steven |
| Emery, Sir Peter | Onslow, Cranley |
| Evennett, David | Patten, Christopher (Bath) |
| Fallon. Michael | Pawsey, James |
| Favell, Anthony | Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth |
| Fenner, Mrs Peggy | Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon |
| Fletcher, Alexander | Roberts, Wyn (Conwy) |
| Forsyth, Michael (Stirling) | Roe, Mrs Marion |
| Forth, Eric | Rowe, Andrew |
| Fox, Marcus | Sackville, Hon Thomas |
| Freeman, Roger | Sainsbury, Hon Timothy |
| Gale, Roger | Scott, Nicholas |
| Galley, Roy | Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb') |
| Garel-Jones, Tristan | Shelton, William (Streatham) |
| Gregory, Conal | Shepherd, Colin (Hereford) |
| Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N) | Skeet, T. H. H. |
| Gummer, John Selwyn | Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield) |
| Hamilton, Neil (Tatton) | Soames, Hon Nicholas |
| Hargreaves, Kenneth | Spencer, Derek |
| Harris, David | Stern, Michael |
| Harvey, Robert | Stevens, Martin (Fulham) |
| Hawkins, C. (High Peak) | Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood) |
| Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk) | Stradling Thomas, J. |
| Hawksley, Warren | Taylor, John (Solihull) |
| Hayes, J. | Taylor, Teddy (S'end E) |
| Heathcoat-Amory, David | Thomas, Rt Hon Peter |
| Heddle, John | Thompson, Donald (Calder V) |
| Hickmet, Richard | Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N) |
| Holt, Richard | Thurnham, Peter |
| Hooson, Tom | Tracey, Richard |
| Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A) | Twinn, Dr Ian |
| Howarth, Gerald (Cannock) | van Straubenzee, Sir W. |
| Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk) | Walden, George |
| Howells, Geraint | Walker, Bill (T'side N) |
| Hubbard-Miles, Peter | Wallace, James |
| Hume, John | Waller, Gary |
| Hunt, John (Ravensbourne) | Wardle, C. (Bexhill) |
| Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N) | Warren, Kenneth |
| Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine | Watson, John |
| King, Roger (B'ham N'field) | Wells, Bowen (Hertford) |
| Knight, Gregory (Derby N) | Whitfield, John |
| Knowles, Michael | Wood, Timothy |
| Lang, Ian | |
| Latham, Michael | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Lawrence, Ivan | Mr. Michael Neubert and |
| Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark | Mr. Peter Lloyd. |
| NOES | |
| Beggs, Roy | Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down) |
| Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim) | Robinson, P. (Belfast E) |
| Kilfedder, James A. | Skinner, Dennis |
| McCusker, Harold | Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S) |
| Maginnis, Ken | |
| Molyneaux, Rt Hon James | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Nellist, David | Mr. A. Cecil Walker and |
| Nicholson, J. | Mr. William Ross. |
| Paisley, Rev Ian |
§ Question accordingly agreed to.
§ Clause 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.