VOTERS TO PRODUCE PRESCRIBED DOCUMENTS

HC Deb 28 November 1984 vol 68 cc955-1010 5.15 pm

Mr. J. Enoch Powell (South Down)

I beg to move amendment No. 25, in page 1, line 12, leave out from beginning to end of line 14 on page 2 and insert 'in any case where the provisions of Rule 35, as amended by this section apply, unless the presiding officer decides, after taking into consideration any document produced to him, that there is no reasonable doubt that the voter is the elector or proxy he represents himself to be.'.

The Chairman of Ways and Means

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments:

No. 3, in page 2, leave out lines 7 to 9 and insert— '(1B) With a view to reaching his decision under the foregoing paragraph, the officer or clerk may invite the voter to produce to him a prescribed document or more than one prescribed documents and shall, if the voter complies, take that document or documents into consideration in reaching his decision, without prejudice to consideration of any other evidence which the voter may produce'. No. 24, in page 2, line 16, at end insert— '(2A) The following shall be inserted after rule 36 (challenge of voter)— (36A) At the time a person applies for a ballot paper, a candidate or his election or polling agent may require the presiding officer or clerk to produce to him any document which that person has produced to the presiding officer or clerk under the foregoing provisions of this section.".'. No. 26, in page 2, line 16, at end insert— '(2A) The following shall be inserted after Rule 35(3)— (4(A)) The presiding officer may, and if required by a candidate or his election or polling agent shall, require any person applying for a ballot paper at the time of his application, but not afterwards, to produce to him a prescribed document. (4(B)) Notwithstanding the foregoing paragraph the presiding officer shall be entitled to take into consideration any document produced to him by the person, which is not a prescribed document but appears to the presiding officer to be relevant to the question whether the person is the elector or proxy he represents himself to be.".'.

Mr. Powell

As the House, or what is left of it, proceeds to address itself with joyous anticipation to spending the whole of the remainder of today's sitting until the early hours of tomorrow morning on legislation for Northern Ireland, it is perhaps permissible to remind or inform hon. Members that this arises from no wish of hon. Members representing the Province but from the practice of successive Administrations, which still belatedly persists, of seeking to treat Northern Ireland separately and in isolation from the rest of the United Kingdom. It is as a result of that fact that a day of parliamentary time which other hon. Members might think could have been better used is not available for their purposes.

Your perspicacity, Mr. Walker, has noted that amendment No. 26 and amendment No. 25 form a single proposition. In your wisdom, you have also grouped amendments Nos. 3 and 24 with those amendments. You will be aware, however, that they raise substantially, if not entirely, different issues. I hope, therefore, that you will agree to my dealing with them separately in my speech and that you will accept a formal application at this stage for amendments Nos. 3 and 24 to be called separately for Division when the time comes in view of the fact that they raise substantially different issues.

The Chairman

Is the right hon. Gentleman asking for two Divisions or just one Division on amendments Nos. 3 and 24?

Mr. Powell

I was being greedy, Mr. Walker. Both amendments involve separate issues germane to themselves. I hoped, therefore, that you would be willing to allow them to be called for Division in due course.

The Chairman

It might be sensible for me to see how the debate goes and to reach a decision in the light of that.

Mr. Powell

I am much obliged to you, Mr. Walker.

Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 represent a serious attempt by my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself within the general scope of the Bill to meet the two major difficulties that the legislation presents. One is a constitutional difficulty and the other a practical one.

The constitutional difficulty is that the Bill as it stands creates a new qualification, in Northern Ireland only, for the exercise of the franchise. If the vote can be exercised only on production of a specified document whether or not there be any real doubt as to the identity of the voter asking for it, the legislation in effect creates a new and additional condition for the franchise being exercised at all in that part of the United Kingdom. The fact that it is specific to just one part of the United Kingdom will no doubt arise later in our deliberations when we reach the debate on clause 7 stand part.

Our other objective in framing the amendment is of a practical nature. We fear that this requirement imposed automatically on every voter, irrespective of the circumstances and irrespective of the fact that the vast majority of voters are not merely who they represent themselves to be but are well known to be such persons, will not only cause resentment and loss of votes at many polling stations in Northern Ireland but will result in congestion of proceedings at the polling stations, which itself will cast discredit on the validity of the results of any election. We have therefore sought—within the general concept of the Bill, and accepting for the purposes of these amendments the concept of prescribed documents—to make amendments which will meet both the constitutional and the practical difficulty. In short, what we propose is that it should be competent for the polling agent to insist, and open to the presiding officer in his discretion to decide, that the presiding officer should demand one of the prescribed documents from a voter as regards whom the question has been raised whether he is the person shown on the electoral register. Upon that challenge being made, or that doubt being entertained by the presiding officer, the document would have to be produced. Otherwise, the suspected voter would not be issued with a ballot paper. A ballot paper would be issued only if the presiding officer, decided that there was no reasonable doubt that he was the voter indicated in the electoral register.

This is a procedure to which we on this Bench do not come fresh. On Second Reading the Minister referred to certain consultations which had taken place earlier, and in particular to propositions put forward in the spring of 1982 outlining the thoughts which at that time were unformed in the Government's mind but which eventually led to the drawing up of the Bill. He suggested—by, I think, an unintentional error—that the proposition of prescribing mandatory documents had been accepted on behalf of the Ulster Unionist party.

It might therefore be right for me to put on record what we actually said in a letter written to the former Secretary of State by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) on 6 July 1982. I do so not in order to trespass upon the patience of the Committee, but because my right hon. Friend's words expressed very precisely the arrangements which in the amendments we are trying to introduce into the Bill. My right hon. Friend wrote: It is already, in our belief, the duty of the presiding officer not to issue a ballot paper except to a person who he is satisfied is an elector specified on the register who has not received a ballot paper already…We consider that presiding officers should be fortified with advice from the Secretary of State as to the manner in which they should be so satisfied. We do not consider this advice need be given in the form of law. We are therefore pressing an amendment which is entirely in line with the advice that we tendered to the Government when consulted on this question some two and a half years ago.

As regards our proposal that the polling agents should be given the new right and function of challenging the production of documentary evidence if they are in doubt as to a voter's identity, it is interesting that the previous Secretary of State wrote to my right hon. Friend on 10 March 1983 as follows: The presiding officers will be reminded of the importance of confronting suspected personators and the RUC stand ready to make arrests and prevent intimidation"— that is a matter that we shall consider in relation to later amendments— but they cannot act the right hon. Gentleman was referring to the law as it then existed and now exists— until polling agents challenge. That is what we propose in the amendment, in connection with the documentary procedure. The right hon. Gentleman continued: I appreciate that this is sometimes difficult because of the risk of intimidation in certain areas, but it appears to me that the presence of polling agents in areas where personation is likely to be most prevalent, together with vigorous challenging of suspected personators, should make a substantial difference. It cannot, therefore, be argued that our amendment throws upon the personation agents, as they are called, or polling agents, in certain areas of the Province or in general, an unreasonable onus. On the contrary, it is useful because it does not deprive the presiding officer entirely of discretion. It nevertheless shields him from the direct imputation of any partisanship — of picking on a particular elector to require that he should produce a prescibed document.

We ask the Government at this stage most sincerely and carefully to consider whether they need to incur the risks of fouling up the electoral process at forthcoming elections, and whether they need to perpetuate the addition of a new qualification for elections in one province only of the United Kingdom, when the alternative is as acceptable and as practicable a procedure as is set out in the amendments.

I will not seek to gild the lily but will invite the Minister —who has, I believe, had a day or two to study the amendments—to address his mind without prejudice to the possibility of following this course of action.

I appreciate that the amendment removes the automatic necessity of a prescribed document in the case of every voter. I make no apology for that, because it is that universal mandatory requirement of a prescribed document which in our view creates the two serious points of criticism, constitutional and practical.

To my right hon. and hon. Friends, that is the major point in these amendments. I now move on to consider amendment No. 3, which deals with the situation when the presiding officer is presented with a prescribed document which does not perfectly match the circumstances of the elector whom the voter represents himself to be. I am afraid that this has become the Upper Bann case in the course of our debates, because of the lamentably out-of-date condition of the medical card which it might fall to my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker) in such circumstances to produce as a condition of exercising his franchise and being able to vote for himself.

In response, we have been told that the presiding officer would use his common sense. That is the phrase which has more than once fallen from the Minister's lips. We asked what common sense embraces. The result was far from satisfactory. The Minister said at one stage that of course the presiding officer would know my hon. Friend by sight, and would therefore give him his ballot paper despite the fact that the prescribed document showed the wrong address. That is not satisfactory, because there might be someone in exactly the same situation as my hon. Friend, but who had recently moved from another part of the Province or the United Kingdom and was therefore not so well known to the presiding officer.

Another situation might arise which falls within the scope of common sense but which we believe should be specifically recognised and legislated for in the interests of fairness and of the proper guidance and control of the actions of the presiding officers. Let us suppose that the elector comes along with a prescribed document which, on the face of it, could raise some doubt. The address, for example, might be out of date. The elector has provided himself with the means of rebutting any doubt which such a defect might raise—he has in his pocket, among other things, a rent demand and some letters that have been addressed to him at his new address. He might even have a polling card which shows his name against the new address. As we read the clause, it would not be in the power of the presiding officer to use his common sense and to take note of the extra documents provided by the voter, however genuine the voter might be or however relevant those extra documents might be to the point at issue. As we read the clause, the presiding officer will be obliged to say, "No. I am looking at the document and it is not good enough and you will not get your vote."

5.30 pm

We do not believe that that is satisfactory legislation. We believe that it should be relaxed in the mariner suggested in amendment No. 3, which would permit the presiding officer to take into account another document or other documents, and to consider other evidence which the voter might produce. Surely, if this matter is to be governed by common sense, and if we do not want persons openly acknowledged to be the elector purported to be deprived of their ballot, we have to give some such specific discretion to the presiding officer. Let not the Minister say, "Oh, that would expose the presiding officer to all kinds of intimidation and complaints of partiality," because we are already inviting him to come to a reasonable conclusion. Yet, on the face of the wording of the clause, we are depriving him of the means by which any reasonable man would seek to arrive at a reasonable conclusion on the basis of the prescribed documents which were presented to him.

Perhaps this result could be achieved more economically and deftly by other drafting than that which appears on the Order Paper. I hope that the Minister will be able to recognise that there is a difficulty here and that the nature of the common sense which he invoked on behalf of the presiding officer should be more precisely defined in the wording of the clause. I understand that we have another stage of the Bill to come and that there will be an opportunity for this matter to be considered further. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will give further attention to the wording of clause 1(2)(1B) to avoid apparently exclusive attention to the document which is enjoined by it.

That leaves me with amendment No. 24, the subject of which is essentially different. It in no way involves the amendment, about the acceptance or otherwise—either of the wording or of the principle—of which I have just been addressing the Committee. It is a separate point which stands in its own right. It is that the polling agent —I say the polling agent, but technically the candidate and his election agent are all always included in these functions—may have a sight of a prescribed document which is produced under the terms of the Bill. I ask you, Mr. Walker, to envisage the circumstances in which the polling agent is convinced, from his own personal knowledge, that the person asking for the ballot paper and producing the prescribed document is not the elector whose name appears on the electoral roll. The prescribed document is produced and the presiding officer, without apparently batting an eyelid, proceeds to hand out a ballot paper to that elector. It seems perverse that we should leave matters in that condition and that the polling agent ought not to be able to say to the presiding officer, "Sir, I demand the right to see the prescribed document which has been produced to you." It might well be—in the majority of cases it would no doubt be—the case that there was no ground for reasonable doubt on the face of the document.

Alternatively, there is the case in which the presiding officer rejected a document presented by a person whom the polling agent well knew to be Mrs. So-and-so, whose name appeared on the register. Surely it would be right for him to say to the presiding officer, "I should like to have a look at that before you make your decision to refuse a vote to Mrs. So-and-so." It is an invidious position in which the Bill as it stands places the presiding officer. He is faced with a document that no one else can see and of which nobody else has any notion. They do not know which of the prescribed documents it is. With that and nothing else in front of him he says, "Go away. I shall not give you a ballot paper." Alternatively, he hands over the ballot paper with no possibility of challenge. That cannot be regarded as reasonable and I therefore hope that the Minister will consider that the case for giving polling agents access to the evidence of on which a voter is identified or not is logical and that to concede it would make the duty of the presiding officer under this legislation less difficult than we apprehend that it might otherwise be.

Mr. William Ross (Londonderry, East)

I find it strange and rather sad that the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume), whose party is alleged to have suffered most in recent elections from vote-stealing by Sinn Fein, should be absent from the debate rather than here to ensure that, through a much improved Bill, he will not suffer in that way again.

It is alleged that most of the vote-stealing takes place in relatively small areas, that in those areas it is highly organised and that it is extremely difficult to stop. We have already been through most of the arguments about that, but there is no harm in preaching a good sermon a second, third or fourth time in the hope that the Minister will have borne in upon him the fact that those of us who have experienced these things and have had to be on our guard against them know rather more about it than most of those who read only the newspapers in offices and try to formulate ideas and practices that will defeat the people who do these things.

Some of us are so anxious about what the Government have proposed precisely because of our personal knowledge. We are therefore keen to improve the Bill. So far, the Government have been decidedly reluctant to listen to the real experts. They have preferred to listen to what I describe, with the greatest respect, as interested amateurs. We who have suffered and been engaged in preventing these things believe that what the Government have proposed will not do the job. We are therefore most anxious that amendments such as those which have been proposed be accepted and that the problems of vote-stealers be much increased.

This group of amendments attempts to identify an applicant for a ballot paper as accurately and as quickly as possible. There is no point in having a system which, because of snags, snarls up the process, leads to long delays and, if not in the first election then in later ones, would double or treble the number of boxes required for a corresponding increase in the number of officials. Sometimes it is difficult to obtain a sufficient number of officials to man the polling stations and to ensure that everyone entitled to vote gets a ballot paper and is able to do so.

The difficulty of identifying the individual according to the name on the electoral register will arise again and again in our debates. Even if we do not convince everyone in the Department, I believe that by the time we end those debates we shall have convinced the Minister, who I think is fairly well convinced already, that we are not that wide of the mark.

As well as trying to identify the applicant as quickly and as easily as possible—and trying to make the voting procedure as quick and as simple as possible—we are trying to give some discretion to the various officials involved. That discretion is completely wiped out by the Bill, and it is necessary that they be given some freedom to act. They simply do not have that freedom at present. We are asking for an increase in the power of polling agents simply because we who have had long experience of these matters see them as one of the principal factors in the front line. They are the infantry down in the trenches, fighting the battle and doing their best to stop the evil practices that are now occurring.

Our amendments propose a system that will avoid the considerable danger in the Bill of denying ballot papers to thousands who are entitled to them, but are barred from receiving them only because of the severe restriction on the number of prescribed documents. The Government are as anxious as we are to stop this malpractice, but are surprisingly reluctant to take the vital steps that are necessary to achieve that. In the absence of an identity card, nothing will beat local knowledge. People who live in the area, be it town or country, who know their neighbours and a large proportion of the electorate, are best able to stop such malpractice.

Only those willing to accept this job will act as polling agents. One cannot ask voluntary organisations or call for volunteers to do something which they do not want. People will go into the polling stations to act for party and candidate only if they are committed and prepared to take the risks associated with their mere presence in those polling stations. If people refuse point blank to do this job, we must look for someone else.

I have occasionally had bitter experience of trying to man difficult polling stations, and I know the difficulty of getting people to sit there all day and perform their duties. No one has said that it is easy to get people to take a stand, essentially against the gunmen and their front men. It is not easy to ask someone to make a target of himself in a dangerous area. It says a lot about the courage of those involved that they are prepared to take the risks associated with this occupation to do what is necessary to defend democracy. They should be given the fullest opportunity to carry out that defensive task.

Those who object to polling agents being given this right do not understand what is involved. Such a person must have a detailed knowledge of the area and population, and must be able to identify those who are most likely to indulge in these practices.

5.45 pm

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) explained that if polling agents were given this right it would shield the presiding officer, clerk or any other official in the polling station. This is especially important in areas such as west Belfast, the west bank of the Foyle in Londonderry and certain villages where these practices occur most frequently. In such areas the theft of votes by Sinn Fein is rampant, and it is in those areas that we need public-spirited people who believe in the democratic principle enough to sit all day to defend that principle.

When they do so, they cannot be accused of doing something wrong. Everyone knows why they are there, and by and large there is no real objection to their presence. However, if the presiding officer, who may be the headmaster or a teacher from the school being used as a polling station, lives in an area where Sinn Fein vote-stealing occurs on a massive scale, the only people to whom he will object will be those who indulge in vote-stealing on behalf of Sinn Fein. Inevitably such a presiding officer will be seen as taking a stand against that party and its supporters. He will be accused of doing so and will be placed in a difficult position in the community. That charge cannot be levelled against the representatives of the parties, who will be at the polling stations because they are partisan. Their job is to represent their parties and candidates. They are expected by all concerned to take the risks and to issue such challenges. There is no good reason why they should not be given the right of challenge, which is basically a mere extension of the right they already possess.

I appreciate that some people will object to polling agents seeing these documents on the grounds that they contain private information which the holder does not wish to be made public, but genuine electors, who have nothing to fear, will not be unwilling to allow their medical card to be seen. What is on a medical card or driving licence which is so private that it cannot be made public? I cannot think of any such information, and I cannot think of any real objection to allowing polling agents to see such documents.

A lady may say that she is 21 when, in fact. she is slightly older, but that should be fairly obvious before the card is produced. That is the only objection which could be construed as valid, but that should not be allowed to stand in the way of those who are determined to stop this Sinn Fein activity.

As we said earlier, only Sinn Fein will practise such vote-stealing in future. The benign personation which has taken place previously will thoroughly become a thing of the past. We are dealing with the hard core who are militant, violent and vicious and the amendments set out the approach that the Government must take in their efforts to stop Sinn Fein continuing its illegal practices. That is what we are asking for and we see no reason why the Government should not accept amendments in an effort to put the blinkers on Sinn Fein for ever.

Mr. Harold McCusker (Upper Bann)

My hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) is concerned that the Bill might not do the job for which it is designed and I am concerned that it may contribute to improvements but in so doing cause more problems than it solves. Like my hon. Friend, I shall rehearse some of the arguments that I advanced when we considered the Bill previously.

In any election in Northern Ireland, between 500,000 and 750,000 vote. We are concerned about 10,000 or, at most, 20,000 votes being abused by being stolen or personated. I shall echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) said. By introducing the Bill, the Government appear to be taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut. We are being asked to lay an onus on 600,000 or 700,000 to prevent 10,000 or 20,000 votes being stolen. A voter acquires a vote by dint of producing a document as distinct from proving that he is a person who is entitled to vote. We are all in favour of assisting the Government to end abuse and we believe that it should be ended by the person who wants to vote being called upon to produce identification and evidence that he is that person, as distinct from merely producing a document.

The hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) has made it clear that he is as concerned about vote-stealing as Unionist Members. He implied that he acknowledges the distinction between personation, as we have known it in the past, and vote-stealing. He intervened in the Minister's speech to make that point. I am sure that he would be happly to see personating eliminated, but he was expressing his concern especially about vote-stealing.

What does vote-stealing amount to? Remember it is vote-stealing to which the Bill is addressing itself. If there had been the same concern about the other form of personating, we would have legislated before now. Vote-stealing has challenged the democratic process in Northern Ireland, or it is threatening to do so.

A vote-stealer has disregard for the democratic process and for the officials who administer elections. He is prepared—this happens usually early on in the day and at specific polling stations—to enter a polling station to demand someone else's vote. He is given that vote without having to produce any evidence.

The Government are saying, "If we force the potential vote-stealer to produce some evidence, that will deter him." I dispute that. If, in essence, there is vote-stealing at the point of a gun, even if the vote-stealer does not have a gun in his hand, the presiding officer will be conscious of the indirect presence of the gun. I address myself specifically to amendment No. 26. If someone is dedicated and determined to steal votes and to continue to do so, he will have with him in the polling station a small buff card. He will present it to the presiding officer, who is probably the local headmaster or headmistress or teacher of the school where the voting is taking place. The presiding officer will probably be a teacher in that school. Alternatively the officer will be a local person in the village. The officer will have a small buff form presented to him and at the same time two eyes will be drilling into him. Those eyes will imply that unless he accepts the document that is offered as a prescribed document and gives the potential voter a vote, there will be something else drilling into him. The presiding officer will deliver the vote.

I suggest that the real deterrent lies with the police officer behind the presiding officer. The piece of buff paper may or may not be a medical card or it may resemble one. It may or may not belong to someone else. It may be a piece of paper that is the size of the medical card with certain information on it. In the present circumstances, the presiding officer has to keep such a document secret. How will he tell the police that it is a false document without putting himself at grave risk? I do not know how he will do that. If the onus is on him to make a judgment on the basis of a piece of paper that is four and a half inches by three inches, with or without printing, he will probably look at it, look at the individual confronting him and hand over the ballot paper. To expect him to do otherwise would be to expect a great deal.

We should be under no illusions about the people with whom we are dealing. A year ago they killed an elected representative. The year before that they killed a Member of this place. In the meantime they have killed other democratically elected representatives. They have shown over the past 15 years that they are prepared to kill anyone who stands in their way. A presiding officer may be confronted with what purports to be a prescribed document. It may be put before him by someone whom he knows to be a paramilitarist or an associate of one. The implied threat on presentation is, "Give me a ballot paper or you will get your desserts". Most presiding officers will hand over a ballot paper in those circumstances, and we cannot blame them for that. We cannot blame polling agents, whether SDLP or Unionist, if they are prepared to let that go by as well.

The practice that I have described is happening. I saw voters entering a local rural primary school in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (Mr. Maginnis). The teacher who was acting as presiding officer knew full well one of the persons who applied for a vote in a particular name. She knew that she was delivering to him someone else's ballot paper. That young woman was not prepared to risk saying anything. She handed over the ballot paper and that was all that she had to do as the law stands. I saw a Unionist polling agent refusing to issue a challenge in similar circumstances. He told me afterwards that he was scared stiff and that there was nothing that he could do.

Even by incorporating in the Bill the powers to allow polling agents to see cards, the system will not be 100 per cent. foolproof. However, if it does not eliminate the abuse it will certainly deter some from practising it. Not every Unionist or SDLP polling agent will be prepared to challenge, depending on who is offering the confrontation, but in many areas there will be those who are prepared to do so. If they are not prepared to go that far, they might at least be prepared to ask a question. A pointed question might just be enough to do what the Minister knows is the important thing, which is to trigger the attention of the police officer. The teeth that are offered in the Bill are police officers in polling stations. We are concerned about the mechanism that is required to excite their interest.

It is unreasonable to ask the presiding officer to present a challenge. Indeed, it would be unreasonable to ask the polling agents to do that. However, by showing concern about something that has been presented, an alert policeman would know that the presiding officer or polling agent had reservations. The policeman might intervene then, or wait until that person was leaving the polling station. He could demand proof of identity, and if that was not provided action could be taken. Even such a limited intervention could not occur if the buff bogus document was presented solely to the presiding officer who would have to exercise his discretion. Confronted by a gunman with murderers for accomplices, the presiding officer would act sensibly.

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Mr. William Ross

Does my hon. Friend agree that if the legislation is passed in its present form, because the medical card is so easy to forge and because many people will be applying for new medical cards, the presiding officer will be presented with fairly large numbers of documents that are new and look very much like proper documents, and will not be able to distinguish between the real and the bogus?

Mr. McCusker

We know, and I think that the Minister knows, that the medical card is the weakest prescribed document. It has little real validity in the whole exercise. It is the document most likely to be held by most people in Northern Ireland. I do not believe that the terrorists will print innumerable medical cards with the intention of stealing votes. I do not believe that they will obtain, as has been suggested, a machine to produce identity cards, or that they will try to obtain numerous identity cards and alter them. Those activities would put them at risk and might leave them vulnerable to police action under clause 3. They do not need to do those things because they rely on their ability to enter a polling station and intimidate the staff, especially the presiding officer.

We are mainly talking about west Belfast, Fermanagh and South Tyrone, Mid-Ulster and Foyle. In those communities the people know the IRA, its accomplices and those acting on their behalf. If a presiding officer is confronted with a piece of paper that resembles a medical card he will accept it. The terrorists may print one or two medical cards, but they do not really need to do that. Indeed, my medical card is in such a decrepit state that it would not require a great deal of effort to duplicate it.

Mr. Peter Robinson (Belfast, East)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the threat or implied threat to the presiding officer will be the weakest link. The hon. Gentleman referred earlier to the role, if any, of the members of the security forces who might be standing near. Such a person would represent the only fear that the personator would experience at that stage. What does the hon. Gentleman see as the role under the Bill for the RUC men? Can they act independently? Are they asked to intervene only by the presiding officer, or can the agents attract their attention?

Mr. McCusker

My understanding—I am willing to be corrected—is that the RUC officer can act at any time if he is suspicious of what is happening. However, there will be some instances when he will need to be given some sign. If there were over-diligent policemen stopping many people who were not personating, there could be allegations of victimisation, harassment and so on. While the police will know some of those who are personating and can act independently, they will also need some assistance. It is asking too much of a presiding officer in Washine Bay and parts of west Belfast to say, "This is not a medical card; get out." To do that would be to push the person into the arms of the police, and it is obvious what will happen to the presiding officer if he does that. If Sinn Fein is prepared to terrorise and smash windows in the houses of the supporters of the SDLP—people such as Austin Currie — who are trying to take part in the democratic system, what will it do to a presiding officer who has caused the arrest of one of its people?

Rev. Ian Paisley (Antrim, North)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in such areas there are threats prior to election day? Strong-arm men visit homes and say, "You do not need to vote, give us your poll card." Could they not also say, "Give us your medical card"? It would be freely given to them.

Mr. McCusker

We are underestimating the character of our people, whether Unionist or nationalist. There is a degree to which our people will allow themselves to be pushed around by the paramilitary or politicians of all colours. However, there are limits when it comes to voting. They might, in many instances, be prepared to hand over a poll card. In sympathetic houses, there may be a willingness to produce a medical card. However, I do not think that 20,000 medical cards will be handed over. Indeed, I do not believe that everyone will be able to produce a medical card. The terrorist may demand one, but the person will tell him what he would tell the presiding officer, "I am sorry, I cannot find it." They will not be handed over on the scale envisaged by the promoters of the Bill.

I do not think that the terrorists will manufacture 20,000 identity cards. They would have to go through the register, weeks in advance, and identify the votes that they want to steal. They would have to produce either medical cards or identity cards with the names of those whose votes were being stolen, alongside their photographs. The terrorists are not in that sort of business—they intend to steal votes through paramilitary threats.

The amendment seeks to widen the possibility of showing that matters might not be what they appear, so that the police constable is alerted. It might be simply by the raising of an eyebrow or by a Unionist making a gesture as he says, "Let me see that card. What is that card?" Such a gesture might alert a policeman without inciting the gunman that night to blow out the brains of the person who put the finger on him. The amendment would allow the polling agent to see the document, and that is essential if we are to gain anything from the exercise.

As I have said, 600,000 people will bear the burden of producing a prescribed document, even though that is wholly unnecessary. We must keep the matter in perspective. Those people are entitled to vote. They will go to a polling station where they will be well known by either the presiding officer, his clerk or any one of a range of three or four polling agents. I do not doubt for one minute that if the Unionist agent did not know the person, the SDLP agent would. If there was any dispute about identity, the polling agent could say, "He is who he claims to be."

The simple production of a poll card would end a great deal of the abuse. There is a danger that the Bill will devalue the poll card. I think that we should be considering ways to enhance it. I accept what the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) said, but the suggestion is that poll cards can be accumulated under threat. The bulk of poll cards are not accumulated under threat, but are volunteered. They belong to the dead, those on holiday, the sick or those who are not interested in voting — a person may have moved home and his poll card may have arrived at his old home. Such a card may be thrown into the party organisation.

However, poll cards of people who are personated may never be in the hands of the party benefiting from the personation. Such cards are not always handed over, for example, by the relatives of the dead. Some people may refuse to hand over the poll card, yet despite that the vote is cast because it is not necessary to produce a poll card. Some thought should be given to the suggestion that the production of a poll card would be a useful means of establishing the right to vote. It is not conclusive. In County Antrim, in parts of County Down, County Armagh and Belfast the production of a poll card and another form of identification should be sufficient to convince a reasonable presiding officer of a person's right to vote.

Mr. Peter Bruinvels (Leicester, East)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is easy to obtain poll cards? His point is defeated because people from certain parties will follow a postman or go into an easily entered block of fiats and pick up a mass of poll cards and use them as proof of identification. Does he agree that such people are then more likely to be believed than if they had to produce a document with a photograph on it?

Mr. McCusker

I am emphasising the 500,000 people who are legitimately entitled to vote. We should seek to reduce obstacles to their exercising the franchise. As was said, they may be known personally. I seek to move towards the Minister's position of requiring specific documents and of expecting some identification from a potential voter if there is a query. In many cases such a document may not be required because the voter is known, and his right to vote is not questioned.

Rev. Ian Paisley

Is it not a fact that the production of a poll card with a proper address would create the balance if the medical card did not show the present address, and that therefore the presiding officer's reasonable doubts would be swept away?

Mr. McCusker

That is what we are aiming for. I take my poll card with me anyway because it makes life easier for the presiding officer. The production of a poll card, which shows my name and proper address and, if the presiding officer insists, which I hope he would not, the production of a prescribed document, such as a medical card, would be a combination that would satisfy him. We seek to build in a means of verification for the hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters and something which will also help to eliminate the benign personation which takes place on the fringes. The production of the Bill itself virtually eliminates benign personation.

I assure the Minister that at every meeting of my constituency association I say that I do not need personated votes. I have a majority of 20,000, and I do not need any more votes, nor do I wish to incur any penalty. I tell them that, no matter how enthusiastic they are or how much they enjoy it, they must not do it — I will issue written instructions so that I do not fall foul of the any of the worst aspects of the Act when it comes into operation.

That brings us back to a person who has the potential to steal. He will be deterred by the prospect of arrest. Our approach and amendments may not be perfect, but I hope that the Minister will consider that the bulk of people wish to vote with least bother to themselves and the staff at the polling station. I hope that it is possible to have a deterrent against benign personation and to smooth the path of democracy for the majority in Northern Ireland. We must involve as many people as possible at the point of delivering the vote, so that more than one person will bear responsibility if the police must arrest a person. We must consider our amendment in that light.

6.15 pm

Mr. Peter Archer (Warley, West)

Like every right hon. and hon. Member who has spoken during ahy of the debates on the Bill, I wholly support its principle and purpose. The stealing of votes is a pollutant that fouls the entire electoral process. If that principle and purpose were in dispute, I would not consider any moment spent in debate as other than well worth while. But all hon. Members agree on the principle. It is the method by which the purpose of the Bill is to be implemented which is in dispute.

The essential question, as the hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) pointed out, is whether the presiding officer should have a wide discretion or a narrow one. That does not seem to constitute a vital issue of principle. It is a mistake to debate every issue as though it were part of the eternal cosmic struggle of good against evil. Then there is no margin for marking out the genuinely vital issues of principle.

There can be legitimate disagreement on the matter. It merits a debate and right hon. and hon. Members are entitled to deploy their arguments. But I hope that the House will forgive me for suggesting that three full debates on the issue is one egg more than the pudding requires. Northern Ireland is denied its proper share of parliamentary time. We spend too few days on the problems which beset its people. We were reminded earlier today that some of our colleagues who, because they have pressing constituency problems, resent even the little time we spend on Northern Ireland. Also, as Mr. Speaker reminded us, Northern Ireland business is too rarely taken early in the day.

I cannot help reflecting on the Northern Ireland matters which we could have debated during these hours—for example, the tragedy of unemployment, the priorities for the budget that the Treasury allocates to the Northern Ireland Office, the balance between maintaining security and intruding into civil rights, the report of Sir George Baker, and the expectations which were dismissed so unceremoniously by the Prime Minister after the summit meeting. We may disagree about the subjects which we should like to discuss, but we can all find topics which merit greater attention than they receive. I hope that the House will understand the spirit in which I say that a full and long day's business after two previous debates on this issue may seem to the public to be a little disproportionate to the issue involved.

The issue is whether a presiding officer is to have general discretion to refuse a ballot paper when he smells a rat, whether he should make up his mind from the accumulation of evidence available to him through his eyes and ears, his memory, his sixth sense and what the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) called his common sense—or whether his function should be confined to applying certain well-defined tests, and, according to their results, to act precisely as prescribed by the rules. I do not believe that the rules give rise to all the absurdities which have been postulated by hon. Members and to which the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) alluded. If a presiding officer knows that a person is the elector whom that person purports to be, there is no reasonable doubt in the presiding officer's mind. At the risk of becoming tiresome, I repeat that, if there is no doubt in his mind, the document produced by the elector cannot have given rise to a doubt, and the condition spelt out in subsection 2(1)(b) is not satisfied.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

rose—

Mr. Archer

I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman, but I hope that my next remarks will assist him. I suspect that the reverse position that was predicated by the right hon. Gentleman is not so satisfactory. If no doubt arises on the face of the document, it seems that the presiding officer cannot refuse a ballot paper whatever doubts he may entertain from other sources and for other reasons. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm that

Mr. Powell

I am grateful for the right hon. and learned Gentleman's support of the wording of amendment No. 25, which is that the presiding officer decides, after taking into consideration any document produced to him, that there is no reasonable doubt that the voter is the elector or proxy he represents himself to be. If I have followed the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument correctly, he would appear completely to agree with that formula.

Mr. Archer

I was trying to say that perhaps the amendment is not required because it is already spelt out in the subsection. Perhaps I made a mistake in interrupting my argument to interpose a parenthesis, because I was saying that some of the problems which have been postulated during our debates do not arise in any event.

Mr. McCusker

Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggesting that I need not bring a prescribed document when I vote?

Mr. Archer

The hon. Gentleman must bring a prescribed document, but whatever the content of that document, if he is known to the presiding officer—as he clearly is—the presiding officer does not entertain a doubt and, therefore, the document does not give rise to doubt.

I entirely agree with the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker) that the real sanction is the policeman at the door. If he is suspicious, he may arrest a claimant, which may be an effective way of ensuring that he does not vote. As the hon. Gentleman said, a policeman can act at any stage and on his own initiative; and I do not dissent from the argument that polling agents should have the right to intervene and to draw the attention of the police officer to suspicions which they might entertain. Perhaps I will embarrass the hon. Member for Upper Bann by agreeing so much with him, but I also agree that if the police became too enthusiastic and arrested many claimants who later transpired to be the electors whom they were claiming to be, the fat might be in the fire. Some might argue that the enthusiasm of the police had affected the result of the election.

Whatever solutions are offered in the Bill, there will be problems on one side or the other. The argument that I was seeking to propound is that the essential question is the extent of the discretion of the presiding officer. I believe that there are persuasive reasons for limiting it as the Bill seeks. If a presiding officer is given wide dicretion, as the hon. Member for Londonderry, East pointed out, having been required to exercise his discretion, he may be accused of exercising it so as to favour a particular candidate or candidates. However objective or fair he tries to be, it is almost inevitable that such an allegation would be made. It follows that the more his discretion can be limited, the better. It could be said that the presiding officer was too ready to refuse ballot papers, at least to those with certain surnames, or that he was too gullible and handed ballot papers to all and sundry as though they grew on trees.

However, there is a more formidable objection, which was propounded by the hon. Member for Upper Bann, although he drew a slightly different conclusion from it. If the presiding officer has a wide discretion, some may try to persuade him to exercise it in a certain way. If he resists their suggestions, he may be in serious physical danger. The House should not lightly expose presiding officers to such duress. Is it not better to prescribe a clear criterion with inevitable consequences so that the threats to which the presiding officer may be subjected can hardly affect what happens? Of course, if the threats reach the stage of requiring the presiding officer to ignore any rules and to hand out ballot papers irrespective of the documents produced, the Bill can provide no safeguard. But, short of that, the narrower his discretion, the less subjected he will be to such threats.

Mr. McCusker

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that at the previous election presiding officers must have handed thousands of ballot papers to people in the certain knowledge that they were not the right people? If that happened at the previous election, what will be different at the next election if a person comes in with what purports to be a prescribed document? If the same presiding officer is there, why should he say, -I will not give you a ballot paper because that is a false document"? I do not believe that that will happen.

Mr. Archer

I am not clear whether the hon. Gentleman is advancing a counsel of despair. If he says that we have reached the stage where no rules can affect the presiding officer, there is no point in legislating As I said, the best sanction will be the policeman on the door, I hope that we will not reach the stage of saying,, "Let us give up any attempt to legislate beyond that," because it is something to which the House must direct its mind.

Mr. J. D. Concannon (Mansfield)

Why have elections?

Mr. Archer

As my right hon. Friend says, if we reach that stage, why have elections at all? I have listened to the debate with an open mind, and I believe that the discretion of the presiding officer should be limited in the way described in the Bill. I accept that the price that we must pay is that the rules will sometimes seem artificial. We shall deliberately limit the powers of presiding officers to act on evidence outside the documents even when common sense suggests otherwise. We shall restrict the range of questions which a presiding officer is permitted to ask. But I think that he should have power to ask for an explanation of apparent discrepancies in the documents. If someone is required to produce a document to the presiding officer, it would be odd if he were not permitted to ask why the address on the document did not tally with that on the register. I hope that the Government will consider that suggestion as the Bill progresses.

The Opposition support the Government's general approach to this matter. Unless I hear before the end of the debate more convincing arguments from those who moved the amendments, I shall advise my hon. Friends to vote with the Government, on the balance of the argument, with no great passion, and certainly without pretending that the debate is in any sense an Armageddon.

The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Ernest Armstrong)

It might help the Committee if I were to say now that the Chairman has decided that amendments Nos. 3 and 24 will be called for Division if required.

Rev. Ian Paisley

It has already been said in this and previous debates that there is no difference of opinion among those representing Northern Ireland on the Government's goal. We all want elections to be run properly; we want the scourge of personation to be removed; and we want those who engineer and control personation to be subjected to the law. But if we are to have realistic legislation to achieve that goat, the Government should know that there are two ways in which it can be done. The first is to proscribe and outlaw organisations that practise personation, and the second is to have sufficient safeguards so that the arrangements for the identification of voters at polling stations are made as watertight as possible. It does not seem to me that the action that the Government propose to take in the Bill will achieve its aims.

6.30 pm

At the beginning of the debate I understand that some strictures were cast upon me by the hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) because I was not present.

Mr. William Ross

No.

Rev. Ian Paisley

That was my understanding, but I apologise to the hon. Gentleman if it is not so. I made it clear to the Leader of the Unionist party that a colleague and I had to meet the Secretary of State at 5 o'clock. I had expected this debate to start sooner than it did. I was in the House for a long time before it began and in fact I contributed to the discussion that preceded it.

Mr. William Ross

The only strictures that I directed were at the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) who, as the hon. Gentleman can see, is not present even though he said in the House recently that he and his party had suffered severely from the abuse that the Bill is aimed to correct.

Rev. Ian Paisley

I accept the hon. Gentleman's explanation. I am glad that I have not been mixed up with the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume), because his political views and mine are not exactly in agreement.

I must also tell the Minister that I am not convinced that 20,000 votes were personated at the last election. If they were, I wonder where they came from, because they must have come from people who were never registered at all. I invite the Minister to consider the balance in the areas where votes are likely to be personated—Belfast, West, the Foyle, Mid-Ulster and perhaps Fermanagh and South Tyrone, It could not possibly be done.

I have had some experience both as an election agent for the Official Unionist party and as a candidate for my own party. The idea that it is possible to turn out in the morning, run thousands of people through the polls and personate them is ridiculous. It cannot be done. There are limits to it—[Interruption.] I make that statement about the numbers which can be put through the polling stations, but in the council elections in May, where there can be close-run decisions, it is very important that no votes are stolen. We had an election for the city council in west Belfast, and only a handful of votes decided it. For that reason it is very important that we deal with this abuse, and I support the Bill's objective.

In my view, the presiding officer needs to have a great deal of discretion. He is the man who will sit there and take the decisions. He is a trusted official, a man of some substance and standing in the community and he is not there not to exercise his common sense, knowledge and discretion. He is entitled to use his common sense and discretion. If he knows a person and can swear that he is whom he purports to be, why must he have a prescribed document produced to him and, if the document bears an inaccurate statement, why must he act on that information alone?

It is only right that, as amendment No. 25 says, the presiding officer should have the opportunity to use his intelligence and say that the would-be voter is the person whom he purports to be and that even though his medical card bears the wrong address, it does not matter because people change their addresses, and that he should be entitled to his vote.

I am still extremely worried about the honourable and decent people on both sides of the religious and political divide who want to vote and who come out to vote. It is often said that everyone in Northern Ireland thinks that voting is great and will all come out to vote, but I can tell right hon. and hon. Members that it is difficult to get people out to vote in Northern Ireland, especially as the ballot box in large measure has been debased by the House because no longer do majorities count in the internal politics of Northern Ireland. Many people ask what is the use of voting.

Those who believe in the democratic process and its continuance must be encouraged to vote. When they come to polling stations every safeguard must be provided for them so that they can get in their legitimate votes at the same time as every safeguard is provided to keep illegitimate voters out. We need balance in the Bill in that respect, and I hope that the Minister will apply his mind to that.

The two parts of Antrim do not vote in large percentages. It is difficult to get people out to vote. If a decent law-abiding citizen comes to vote and either he has not the necessary document or there is some query on the one that he produces, he will be challenged. Although the presiding officer knows him and perhaps even taught him at school, he must say, "I am sorry. You cannot vote." If that happens that person will not go back. He will never vote again in Northern Ireland. He will say to himself, "What is the use? I am sick, sore and tired. I have been denied my vote."

There will be some fun in polling stations between presiding officers and those who will be really sore about this provision. The Minister needs to apply his mind to what is likely to happen on polling day when a presiding officer says to a would-be voter, "I know you and was brought up with you, but you haven't the required document," or, "The document that you have produced gives me cause for doubt because your proper address does not appear on it."

These amendments are simply saying loudly to the Minister that the presiding officer should be allowed to use his intelligence and make sure that he is satisfied. If he is satisfied about anyone's identity, that person should be allowed to vote.

Mr. William Ross

Has the hon. Gentleman also considered the possibility that the application of this law, by lowering the percentage of decent people who have always voted but not really reducing the Sinn Fein vote all that much, means that the Sinn Fein vote will appear as a larger percentage of the total votes cast than it has in the past?

Rev. Ian Paisley

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. I believe that the Bill could be self-defeating. Insted of accomplishing what we are setting out to do, the result could be entirely different. We could end up with a bigger percentage of Sinn Fein voters. People who wish to vote Sinn Fein are entitled to, but we are not talking about them. We are talking about people who are stealing votes and personating people who are enemies of the Sinn Fein movement. I want the Minister to tell the House what safeguards he can provide in his Bill which will defend the legitimate voter as well as dealing with the illegitimate one.

There is also a problem about where the police come into this. I wonder what use a representative of the candidate is under the Bill. What does he do? He can no longer sit at the table. If he does, he will see the documents that are produced. Where is he to be put? What is he to see? What is the use of swearing him in and having him there? I understand that the purpose of having him there is that he can see that the person who goes to vote is a legitimate voter, that his name is on the roll, and that he is the person whom he purports to be. He is there to safeguard against personation. Under the present law he is one of the people who are present to safeguard what we are trying to safeguard even more. Is it intended to take away his role? His role should be that which has been suggested. He, too, should be able to see any document that is produced and be satisfied, and he should be able to see how the presiding officer comes to his decision. The Minister needs to apply himself to that.

What role does the Minister see the representative of the candidate playing? Does he see him playing any role? In the past, the representatives of the candidates have been able to check personation, and they have been able to challenge people. If they do not do that, it is because of fear. A Unionist can challenge a Republican, or a Republican can challenge a Unionist, and that still goes on. However, an SDLP representative will be afraid to challenge a Sinn Fein supporter because he knows that there will be a reaction, retaliation and punishment. The Minister needs to tell us why the agent should not have the opportunity of getting the law in the polling station, as represented by the RUC, to support him, as the police need to be involved at that stage. The responsibility of the presiding officer and of the people around the table depends on the police officer.

I assure the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) that the RUC is not enthusiastic to stop people on polling day. It does as little as possible on polling day to interfere. I have found arguments carried on about who got their caravans first before a polling station, and the RUC has left it to be fought out among the arguers. I cannot see the RUC arresting hundreds of people in the polling station. I have not heard a loud outcry against it, even in Republican areas, on election day. The RUC has acted responsibly, so it should have the opportunity to exercise its authority. That is why my hon. Friend and I shall be voting for these amendments.

Mr. Clifford Forsythe (Antrim, South)

I support much of what my right hon. and hon. Friends have said. The object behind the Bill is commendable, and one that everyone would support. Personation should be curtailed and done away with, not because of the things that have happened in certain areas or because of a certain party but because of the democratic principle that a person's vote should be his vote and it should not be used by someone else. It is unfortunate that many things have been said outside the House on the lines that it is fear of the Sinn Fein party and its fellow travellers that has led to the Bill. It is a terrible thing if a Bill has to be brought in because of murderers and those who travel down the same road, and the so-called political party.

In our anxiety to ensure that right is done — the democratic right of every voter to have his or her vote —we must not forget the right also of those who have never personated and who wish to vote in a democratic way, as in the rest of the United Kingdom. In those areas of Northern Ireland where we do not have the same trouble — as has been said, in some constituencies no extra signed votes have been required — we may be disadvantaging some people. Older people and others will resent the fact that they have to provide identification to get what they regard as their God-given right to vote. There will be those who, if there are any difficulties, will refuse to vote in future, and will storm out of the polling stations after creating rows and trouble. Who can blame them for that, especially as the rest of the United Kingdom is treated in a different manner? In certain constituencies it is already difficult enough to get the voters out to vote without putting any further obstacles in their way.

6.45 pm

I draw the attention of the Minister and the Committee to what will happen if and when the Bill is introduced, and if it is not introduced properly with the required safeguards. What will happen when the next election is over and there is no difference in the voting pattern? It has been said in this debate, and by the Minister on other occasions, that a party is the cause of bringing in the Bill. If that party still maintains its position in the voting pattern because of discrepancies in the Bill which allow personation to continue because it has not been brought in properly, that party will be able to say, quite legitimately, "You see, you were all wrong. We did not have personated votes. This is the actual support that we have in Northern Ireland." The end will be worse than the beginning. That is the terrible danger of the Bill if the Minister and the Government do not bring in proper safeguards so that we do not have such difficulties.

When the Minister last spoke, he did not answer my point about the case of the chap who is working but has none of the prescribed documents. He does not drive so he does not have a driving licence. He does not have a passport and he does not need a current book for allowances or pensions. He does not have his medical card or he has lost it, or perhaps it shows the wrong address. How will that person obtain his vote?

Rev. Ian Paisley

He should get his marriage lines.

Mr. Forsythe

In those circumstances, there is something to be said for the polling card, because at least most people receive it. Therefore, there may be some support for such a proposal. I shall be interested to hear from the Minister how that person will obtain his vote.

Mr. Peter Robinson

I support amendment No. 25 and the others grouped with it. Two substantial matters are contained in that group and have to be faced by the Government. It is not enough for the Government to turn their back on responsible and reasoned arguments and chase through the Lobby their ranks of supporters to ensure that the Bill proceeds without amendment. The Minister may not want to accept the drafting of these amendments, although I have no objection. They are better than some of the amendments tabled in my name. In any case the Minister will have to introduce the two substantial principles contained in these amendments at a later stage.

I ask the Minister to address himself particularly to two matters. The first is the principle contained in amendment No. 25, which deals with the sensible argument of allowing some back-up material. The Bill, as worded, requires the presiding officer to do no more than accept, on the basis of the document in front of him, that the person presenting the document is the person on the electoral register. The presiding officer may have some doubts because the person's features on the photograph differ or because the address has changed over the years. It would seem to be a simple, common-sense measure to provide that the person about to vote should produce any evidence he can, whether in the form of a House of Commons pass, as the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker) was prepared to do, a Civil Service pass or any other documentation. The Committee would be happy if the Under-Secretary of State were prepared to concede that the principles in the Bill are not prejudiced by allowing the presiding officer to have that degree of flexibility in accepting certain back-up material from the voter.

I am greatly concerned about the position to which personation agents have been relegated. Until now at elections in Northern Ireland, the personation agents were, to all intents and purposes, the only guard against personation. The Under-Secretary of State may argue that the Committee would not be debating this Bill today if the personation agents had done their job. I would argue that hon. Members would have debated this legislation a long time ago if those agents had not been doing their job. Their presence, apart from any action they take, deters many who seek to personate. I suspect that the people whom the parties choose to be personation agents have local knowledge and expertise that outweighs that of the presiding officer, his clerks or officials.

The Under-Secretary of State has not yet overtly stated the Government's intention towards personation agents. He has said that they will not be allowed to look over the shoulders of the presiding officer to see how much Mrs. Jones is getting in supplementary benefit, to find out about Mr. Murphy in a prescribed Republic of Ireland or United Kingdom passport or to see whether a person's Great Britain driving licence has endorsements. I can understand the Government's sensitivity in not wanting those documents to be seen easily. If there is some doubt in the mind of the personation agent about the identity of the person on the electoral register, it is reasonable that he should have the right to question that person. That may not be necessary in every case. That is a reasonable request, and I hope that the Government will accept the tenor of that argument.

I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will address his attention to the RUC's role. The personation agent will have only half the evidence, because he will see the person going into the polling station and will not be able to check his documents. Can the personation agent ask the RUC to intervene to check a voter's credentials? Will only the presiding officer be allowed that right? The Under-Secretary of State should inform the Committee about those matters so that we can have a more informed debate. I trust that he will accept the general tenor and validity of those arguments.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Mr. Nicholas Scott)

We have rightly had a long debate, because this group of amendments, is central to the Government's approach to the Bill. No doubt, when discussing other amendments, we shall hear more about a number of the points raised during the discussion, particularly the RUC's role. That is the time at which I should wish to deal with those points.

I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) for the general support he has given to our approach on this front. Like him, I am anxious to make as rapid progress as possible, but I do not think that we should be disappointed that we have engaged in discussion in some depth on this first group of amendments.

The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) explained clearly and fairly the effects of his amendments. There is no difference between us about the effects if the amendments are carried. We recognise the sincerity and care that has been taken. We are at one in trying to deal with the evil which the Bill is designed to tackle.

Despite that, the Government have thought hard about the approach taken by the right hon. Member for South Down in these amendments and, in general, have come to a different judgment about their desirability. The amendments would alter the basis on which the Government have founded the Bill to deal with personation—the principle of universality of application of the requirement to produce documents to obtain a ballot paper. These amendments would remove the mandatory requirement upon all those voting at polling stations to produce one of those listed documents to obtain a ballot paper.

In a sense, nothing in these provisions would be very different from the electoral procedures that apply now, except that new circumstances would be created by amendment No. 26. According to that amendment the presiding officer at his discretion might, or, if required by a candidate, his election agent or polling agent, must, require a voter to produce a prescribed document. The presiding officer could then take that document into account together with any other document in deciding whether the voter was the person on the electoral register he was presenting himself to be.

It is clear that the effect of amendment No. 24 would be to confer upon party political representatives or appointees the same powers of access to personal documents enjoyed by presiding officers. I do not believe that such a provision is necessary, since I see no reason to usurp the powers of electoral staff in this matter. Nor do I think—I have given this careful thought—that it would be desirable to intrude on individual privacy without good reason. I imagine that many voters would resent in principle having a personal document scrutinised by representatives of various political parties. In the special context and circumstances of Northern Ireland, some electors might feel apprehensive about disclosing certain personal details, such as benefits or allowances, to members of a political party which they view unsympathetically or which they believe would regard them unsympathetically.

Mr. McCusker

Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that, if a polling agent has good cause to think that the document produced was false or bogus or was not a document that belonged to the individual involved, he cannot interject in any way to obtain an assurance that it is a prescribed document?

Mr. Scott

A personation agent can still challenge. He cannot ask to see the document. By issuing his challenge, he alerts the constable of the RUC who is present. That right to challenge has not changed because of the Bill. I hope that the personation officers' role has been reinforced by the Bill's provisions. For the reasons I have outlined, I do not believe that it would be right to give personation officers the right to inspect documents. They can alert people and then the presiding officer has to make the judgment.

The effect of these amendments would be to create a new climate of uncertainty among the Northern Ireland electorate. Far from stopping the fouling of the process —that was the phrase used by the right hon. Member for South Down—they would create a new uncertainty. The electorate would not be sure whether they would be required to produce prescribed documents at a polling station before they were issued with a ballot paper or sure about what other evidence they might be expected to produce to support that evidence.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

Will the Minister be good enough to deal with the matter that he raised tangentially just now when referring to the access of polling agents to a document? What is the interpretation that is placed upon the word "produce"? Do I "produce" a document if I hold it out so that the face of it can be seen by the person to whom I am producing, or is it not produced unless I hand it over so that he can go through it and turn it upside down? That is material to the point the Minister was making about the benefit of a document and this might be a useful moment to clarify it.

7 pm

Mr. Scott

It has to be produced to the presiding officer in such a way that enables him to inspect the document. The presiding officer will form his own judgment as to whether looking at the face of the document is sufficient evidence. In the case of a passport, he will presumably want to open the document to inspect the page that contains the photograph. It will depend upon the judgment of the presiding officer whether he is in a position satisfactorily to inspect the document produced to him.

If the amendments were accepted, electors could not be certain whether they would be issued with a ballot paper, whatever document they produced, as the decision would depend on the presiding officer's discretion. I believe that this is a formula for confusion among the electorate and could be applied inconsistently by presiding officers in different parts of the Province. Some hon. Members may feel that the provisions might invite and encourage vexatious challenges by polling agents or those who might have a vested interest in disrupting the electoral proceedings. They significantly increase the risk of allegations of acts of partiality by presiding officers and of consequent litigation. They provide a great temptation for those determined to undermine the democratic process to secure partiality in their favour.

I have no doubt that if the amendments were accepted they would create a greater deterrent for the legitimate voter than the Government's proposals, and would thus increase the possibility, which has been mentioned in earlier debates, of producing a lower turnout.

In contrast, I maintain that the Government's proposals in clause 1 reduce to the minimum the discretion which is to be exercised by electoral staff so that the electoral procedure will be conducted consistently in every polling station across the Province. All voters in all polling stations will be required to produce one of the prescribed documents to obtain a ballot paper. All presiding officers and all clerks will, in those circumstances, be required to deliver a ballot paper unless they decide that the document raises a reasonable doubt as to whether the voter is the person on the register whom he claims to be.

I reinforce the point made by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). I made the same point on Second Reading. If the presiding officer or the clerk knows a person to be the person whom he represents himself to be, no document can then raise a reasonable doubt in the mind of the presiding officer or clerk as to identity of that person.

If we take into account the provisions of clause 3 with those of clause 1 — there is a mandatory requirement upon a voter to produce a prescribed document to obtain a ballot paper — all personators and would-be personators know that they risk arrest for the offence of going equipped to personate. The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker) mentioned that point. If a personator or would-be personator now goes into a polling station, he runs the risk that the presiding officer may decline to give him a vote; the presiding officer may ask the statutory questions; the personation agent may challenge him; and the police, if alerted by the presiding officer or by the personation agent, or on their own initiative, can move in to effect an arrest under the provisions of clause 3. That will be a substantial deterrent to those who would engage in personation.

I am advised that presiding officers are moved around wherever possible into polling stations where they are not well known to local electors so as to provide a form of protection against intimidation from the local paramilitaries.

Mr. McCusker

I do not know about the last point; it is something that the Minister can investigate. The Minister spoke about the necessity for consistency of treatment. I am sure that the Minister will accept that hundreds of thousands of voters in Northern Ireland who go to the polls are just like voters in his constituency. How does he feel his electorate would react—I am talking about the ordinary run-of-the-mill elector—if to vote for the hon. Gentleman they were asked to produce one of the documents?

Mr. Scott

I was corning to that point. I well understand the burden that this places upon the vast majority of legitimate voters. We considered this matter seriously. The Government Listened to the representations made to them by all the constitutional parties in Northern Ireland. We made our own assessment of the growing threat of personation, in particular vote-stealing as it has been described, which subverts the whole democratic process, and came to the view and hold it firmly that that is a price that we must ask the vast majority to pay to eliminate this poison from the electoral system in Northern Ireland.

Rev. Ian Paisley

I was interested in the aside that the Minister made when he said that presiding officers are moved around. Will the Minister study that point and find out how many have been moved around? I know that no one has been moved in my area. They have presided there for a long time. I have experience of what might be called the "dicey" areas. During the EEC elections, my agent said the same thing. He introduced me to the presiding officer and said, "This man has been doing this for 20 years in this area."

Mr. Scott

They have been moved around in the past, and, with the new arrangements provided for my the Bill, I am sure that those who arrange the appointment of presiding officers will bear in mind the position of those who come forward to offer their services in that role.

Mr. Roy Beggs (Antrim, East)

Surely the presiding officer is of great benefit to the community when he recognises those who come forward to vote. If he is placed in an entirely different community, the voters are all strangers to him and he may recognise no one. Any documentation could then apply to anyone presenting it.

Mr. Scott

Presiding officers' discretion, under the terms of the Bill, will be limited. The personation agents will still be there and will still have the right to challenge. The RUC will be there. I think that that will be a balance. I am sure that in making his dispositions the chief electoral officer will take those matters into account.

I am conscious of the care that has gone into devising these amendments, and I am aware of the anxieties felt by the right hon. Members for South Down (Mr. Powell) and for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) which gave rise to the amendments. I must reiterate that they contain a high potential for confusion and disruption of polling stations and do not provide the formidable deterrent against the personation which clauses 1 and 3 taken together provide as they stand. Those provisions are certain and fair, and they will apply universally across the Province. I therefore must urge the Committee to reject the amendments.

Mr. James Molyneaux (Lagan Valley)

The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) seemed to bemoan the fact that we were devoting prime time in the House of Commons to discussing this constitutional measure. I do not deny that there are other matters that we might profitably discuss, but because this is a constitutional measure it is right and proper that it should be taken on the Floor of the House of Commons. I am sure that, on behalf of the official Opposition, he would not seek to deny that.

Mr. Archer

I wish to make the position clear. I am not complaining that this is being taken on the Floor of the House of Commons. I was only venturing to question whether an issue which has been debated twice already should occupy so much of the time which is so happily available to us today.

Mr. Molyneaux

I suppose that if it had been left to the initiative of my right hon. and hon. Friends, we could have chosen to devote time to certain other matters, but we know that the pressure for this measure came not from our party or even from the Democratic Unionist party but from the party represented by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume), who is not here in the flesh. The initiative for the pressure came from what in Northern Ireland is called constitutional nationalism, because it was thought that the hon. Member's party was incapable of holding its own against Sinn Fein. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross)—who at the moment is engaged in his studies beside me—I too regret that the hon. Member for Foyle is not with us, not just because his views would have been of great benefit to the Committee but because, after all, his party is likely to be the main beneficiary of the Bill.

The nationalist spokesmen in recent days, both lay and ordained, have been telling the world that they are alienated because they are excluded from the decision-making processes in the parliamentary system. The opportunity exists here today. We shall do our best in the absence of the two hon. Members elected to represent the minority in this House—the one who will not come and the other who will not stay.

My right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) opened by recording that we had diligently sought to improve this portion of the Bill. In fairness to the Minister, his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and their Department, I place on record the fact that they too have sought some way of meeting our wishes with a view to making this a more effective piece of legislation. So far the Government have not felt able to move sufficiently far in our direction, but we are travelling hopefully. I hope that before we come to the end of the deliberations, the gulf will be less wide and less deep.

It will come as no surprise to the Committee to know that we on this Bench, who have consistently adhered to the line that we took in 1982, before the Bill was drafted, maintain that position. My right hon. Friend has quoted from my letter to the Secretary of State dated 6 July 1982, in which we advocated less rigid requirements on the matter that we are discussing in the amendments. With long experience of the conduct of elections, we instinctively felt that there was a need to tighten the procedures and to make certain restrictions more effective, but we did not feel that there was any need for a fundamental change in the rules and procedures governing elections in any part of the United Kingdom.

For the whole of the period since the former Secretary of State first wrote to me in April 1982 we too have engaged in consultations, and we have found that there was a remarkable consensus on the desirability of candidates' polling agents taking a more robust part in the proceedings. The Representation of the People Acts, which govern all elections that really matter in the United Kingdom, provide for that participation. I believe that polling agents will be much less effective under the proposed arrangements. To be effective, they have to be given whatever information is available, and I cannot understand the justification for refusing to give polling agents such information.

Has it been entirely overlooked that all polling agents make a solemn declaration of secrecy, in the presence of a justice of the peace, before they can be admitted to the polling station to take up their duties? I have to ask how many examples there are of occasions when that declaration of secrecy has been dishonoured or breached in any way.

The Minister, in the light of what he has just said about the undesirability of disclosing personal documents to polling agents, will know that it has been the custom and practice of presiding officers in polling stations to make known what information is at their disposal by way of calling out to the party representatives the name and the number of the elector approaching the table to ask for his ballot paper.

It has to be understood that in polling stations there is far more co-operation and team work than parliamentary draftsmen would imagine. By making the regulations too rigid. I fear that we shall destroy the teamwork which has up to now made the machine work.

7.15 pm

I have seen cases where there has been confusion over duplication of names — the same name has been duplicated on two different pages. The presiding officer, not being certain who is standing before him, will on many occasions seek the advice of the appropriate party agents, and all of them together, to the complete satisfaction of the elector, will come to the conclusion that he or she is the person whose name appears on the register as so-and-so.

There has been objection to the bringing in of polling agents on the ground that they would be intimidated, but by narrowing the field surely we achieve the reverse effect, concentrating the fire entirely on the unfortunate presiding officer, because he is the only one who will make decisions. Good soldiers are always taught that fire is ineffective if it is scattered over a range of targets. There is much to be said for widening the field and thereby sharing the risk over a range of people who would voluntarily take that risk.

I think that the former Secretary of State would agree with what I have just said, because he made it clear in his letter to me that he accepted the view that the co-ordinated effort should make "a substantial difference". That was coordination among all those present in the polling station.

Rev. Martin Smyth (Belfast, South)

As I understand the position, the Government's view is that polling agents should not be able to see the documents. My right hon. Friend has been talking about co-operation. Is he aware that there is a tendency for some presiding officers not even to call out the name and the number, so that it is more difficult for polling agents to do their job? Is that the pattern that my right hon. Friend believes the Government are now inculcating through the returning officers in the various constituencies?

Mr. Molyneaux

I hope that the Government are not engaging and are not likely to engage in any such exercise. My hon. Friend will remember that on Second Reading I said that there was a certain patchiness in the practices observed, and that some of it stemmed from the fact that elections in Northern Ireland are split between the Representation of the People Acts under which we get ourselves elected to this place for our sins, and the Stormont electoral law.

I suspect that the chief electoral officer and his various subordinates seek refuge in the passages of whichever Act seems to be of most benefit to them at any given time. I would deplore any tendency on the part of the chief electoral officer or presiding officer or deputy returning officer to limit in any way the participation of the polling agents who, as I have illustrated, have been of real help in making the machinery work in times past. That is borne out by the fact that there is very seldom any friction within the polling stations.

On occasions I have visited polling stations after having been warned by security officers not to go there. On arrival, I have proceeded to shake hands with everyone at the table, as I imagine you do in your constituency, Mr. Dean. The Sinn Fein representatives invariably stood and courteously shook hands. It was the members of the moderate Alliance party who put their hands under the table and refused to shake hands.

Mr. Peter Bruinvels

Has the right hon. Gentleman carefully considered the role of the electoral registration officer in regard to the electoral roll? One of the most important steps is to check the accuracy of the electoral roll with and in conjunction with the polling officers. Surely that helps to overcome some of the problems that the right hon. Gentleman is highlighting.

The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Paul Dean)

Order. Before the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) is tempted down that road, he will recognise that that question seems to be a little far from the amendment.

Mr. Molyneaux

In fairness, I do not think that I did the leading on this occasion, but I shall refrain from answering the question by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) in the expectation that the hon. Gentleman will be able to find a way of raising it when we debate another amendment.

I was going to say that over the past few years the participation of polling agents had admittedly lessened to some extent in certain areas, but only in certain areas. Although I appreciate the validity of the remarks by my hon. Friend the Member for. Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker), that was not entirely due to overt intimidation in the sense of violence, but was far more attributable to a collapse of morale on the part of what might be termed establishment parties or perhaps one party on the nationalist side. There is a good deal of validity in what my hon. Friend said, but that latter consideration was probably the more significant.

However, that does not in any way relieve members of political parties of their responsibility to fight their own battles and stand on their own feet. If our amendments were accepted, that would go a long way towards achieving and encouraging that. However, those people will stand on their own feet only if morale is high, and that can be achieved only if parties have the drive, initiative and confidence in their own existence without outside assistance or any form of life support system.

Earlier I paid tribute to the Minister and his officials for doing their best to improve this part of the Bill, but for us the difficulty is—I think that the Minister appreciates it —that they have not succeeded. Consequently, not only has there been no reduction in our fears about the inadequacy of the Bill as it stands, but we have greater fears that the measure may result in confusion and chaos at polling stations.

Regrettably, in view of the gap that continues to exist between the Government and ourselves, I have no option but to press the amendment and invite the Committee to support it in the Lobby.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 21, Noes 180.

Division No. 25]	[7.22 pm
AYES
Beggs, Roy	Paisley, Rev Ian
Bermingham, Gerald	Parry, Robert
Clay, Robert	Patchett, Terry
Duffy, A. E. P.	Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)
Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)	Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)
Loyden, Edward	Robinson, P. (Belfast E)
McCusker, Harold	Skinner, Dennis
Maginnis, Ken	Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)
Maynard, Miss Joan
Michie, William	Tellers for the Ayes:
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James	Mr. A. Cecil Walker and
Nellist, David	Mr. William Ross.
Nicholson, J.

NOES
Amess, David	Heathcoat-Amory, David
Ancram, Michael	Henderson, Barry
Archer, Rt Hon Peter	Hickmet, Richard
Ashby, David	Hicks, Robert
Ashdown, Paddy	Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.
Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)	Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony	Holt, Richard
Beith, A. J.	Home Robertson, John
Bellingham, Henry	Hooson, Tom
Bevan, David Gilroy	Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)
Blackburn, John	Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)
Boscawen, Hon Robert	Howells, Geraint
Bottomley, Peter	Hubbard-Miles, Peter
Bottomley, Mrs Virginia	Hughes, Simon (Southwark)
Boyson, Dr Rhodes	Hume, John
Braine, Sir Bernard	Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Hunter, Andrew
Bright, Graham	Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Brinton, Tim	Jessel, Toby
Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)	Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Bruce, Malcolm	Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine
Bruinvels, Peter	Kershaw, Sir Anthony
Budgen, Nick	Kilroy-Silk, Robert
Butterfill, John	King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Campbell-Savours, Dale	Kirkwood, Archy
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Knight, Gregory (Derby N)
Chapman, Sydney	Knowles, Michael
Chope, Christopher	Lang, Ian
Clark, Dr David (S Shields)	Latham, Michael
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Lawrence, Ivan
Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)	Lester, Jim
Conway, Derek	Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Coombs, Simon	Lyell, Nicholas
Cope, John	McDonald, Dr Oonagh
Couchman, James	McQuarrie, Albert
Cox, Thomas (Tooting)	Mates, Michael
Cranborne, Viscount	Mather, Carol
Dewar, Donald	Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Dorrell, Stephen	Meadowcroft, Michael
Dover, Den	Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)
Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.	Murphy, Christopher
Durant, Tony	Neale, Gerrard
Dykes, Hugh	Neubert, Michael
Eggar, Tim	Newton, Tony
Evennett, David	Normanton, Tom
Eyre, Sir Reginald	Page, Sir John (Harrow W)
Fallon, Michael	Page, Richard (Herts SW)
Faulds, Andrew	Parris, Matthew
Favell, Anthony	Pawsey, James
Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey	Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Fletcher, Alexander	Penhaligon, David
Fookes, Miss Janet	Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian
Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)	Pollock, Alexander
Forth, Eric	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Fowler, Rt Hon Norman	Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)
Fox, Marcus	Robinson, Mark (N'port W)
Franks, Cecil	Roe, Mrs Marion
Freeman, Roger	Rowe, Andrew
Gale, Roger	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Galley, Roy	Sackville, Hon Thomas
Garel-Jones, Tristan	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Goodhart, Sir Philip	Sayeed, Jonathan
Gow, Ian	Scott, Nicholas
Gower, Sir Raymond	Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Gregory, Conal	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)	Silvester, Fred
Gummer, John Selwyn	Skeet, T. H. H.
Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)	Soames, Hon Nicholas
Hanley, Jeremy	Spence, John
Hargreaves, Kenneth	Spencer, Derek
Harris, David	Stanbrook, Ivor
Harvey, Robert	Steel, Rt Hon David
Hawkins, C. (High Peak)	Steen, Anthony
Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)	Stern, Michael
Hawksley, Warren	Stevens, Martin (Fulham)
Hayes, J.	Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)
Haynes, Frank	Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)
Hayward, Robert	Stradling Thomas, J.

Taylor, John (Solihull)	Wardle, C. (Bexhill)
Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)	Warren, Kenneth
Thomas, Rt Hon Peter	Watts, John
Thompson, Donald (Calder V)	Wells, Bowen (Hertford)
Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)	Whitfield, John
Thurnham, Peter	Whitney, Raymond
Tracey, Richard	Wiggin, Jerry
van Straubenzee, Sir W.	Wood, Timothy
Waddington, David	Woodcock, Michael
Walden, George
Walker, Bill (T'side N)	Tellers for the Noes:
Wallace, James	Mr. John Major and
Waller, Gary	Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd.

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Peter Robinson

I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 1, line 12, leave out 'a' and insert 'the'.

The Second Deputy Chairman

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 14, in page 2, line 1, leave out 'a' and insert 'the'.

• No. 15, in page 2, line 7, leave out `a' and insert 'the'.
• No. 16, in page 2, line 10, leave out 'a' and insert 'the'.
• No. 22, in page 2, line 16, at end insert

'No document shall be required to be produced for voting purposes other than a document issued by or with the authority of the United Kingdom Government.'. No. 17, in page 2, line 16, at end insert— '(I.F.) References in this rule to producing the prescribed document are to producing the document issued by the Chief Electoral Officer which shall bear the name, address, date of birth, signature and photograph of the registered elector.'.

Mr. Robinson

These amendments have properly been linked. Only amendment No. 22 stands on its own feet, as it were, and I shall deal with that separately.

Our purpose is clear. Substituting the definite article for the indefinite article has the effect of requiring just one document to be produced of the type prescribed in amendment No. 17 for issue by the chief electoral officer.

In debates on the Bill so far I have not been impressed by any evidence of willingness on the part of the Government to accept reasonable amendments. The Government bulldozer was put into top gear to reject an earlier, thoroughly rational amendment. That suggests that, however convincing the argument, the Government have no intention of accepting any amendments, that they wish the Bill to go forward exactly as it was presented to us some weeks ago and that the rest of us can like it or lump it. I became slightly optimistic on the basis that the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) must know something that I did not, because he said that he was travelling hopefully. I think that hope is about all that we can have, however, as there is little evidence to suggest that our hopes are likely to be realised in the form of changes in the Bill.

The purpose of the amendments is to have a uniform identification card produced by the chief electoral officer. That would remove much of the confusion which, as earlier debates have shown, will arise on election day if the forms of identification suggested by the Government in the notes on clauses are used.

The drafting of the amendments may not be of the neatest. A cursory glance suggests that amendments Nos. 14 and 16 should have referred to leaving out the second "a" and inserting "the". Nevertheless, the intention is clear and if the Government shock or rock me by accepting the principle I am sure that the draftsmen can make appropriate changes to tidy up the drafting.

The weaknesses of the prescribed documents suggested by the Government are clear. I could speak at length on each of the documents suggested but there is little point in rehearsing arguments that have been made several times already.

A passport bears no address, is not available to everyone and does not allow the presiding officer to check whether the person on the electoral register is indeed the person standing before him. It merely allows him to check that the person before him is the person who rightly owns the passport. As no address is given, the person holding the passport might live at any one of 100 or 150 addresses in Northern Ireland. The person on the register is thus not sufficiently clearly identified.

A driving licence is also not available to everyone and a Great Britain driving licence carries no photograph. Of all the documents suggested by the Government, a Northern Ireland driving licence is perhaps the best, except that it is not readily available to many voters.

The least said about medical cards, the better. As has been pointed out, it is the document least capable of fulfilling the task assigned to it by the Government. There is no photograph on the card, and the address on it is hardly likely to be the address where the elector currently lives. In many cases only the initials may be given, or the name may differ from that in the electoral register. The medical card therefore presents a number of problems, apart from the fact that many of us may not be able to find our card.

I shall leave aside the arguments about the abuse of benefits and the availability of benefit payment books to people who are not entitled to them, and say only that the document does not cany a photograph and that not everyone has such a book.

All those documents have weaknesses, and I suggest to the Government that the arguments for consistency and uniformity are so great that there is no sound reason why the Government should not introduce a document to serve the purpose of an election. The document that we suggest would contain a photograph and would therefore immediately identify the holder with the person standing in front of the presiding officer. It would state the name and address, so the presiding officer could check it against the electoral register.

We suggest two additional features which would extend the information available to presiding officers: a signature, and the date of birth. Those two features can appear on the form submitted by every family to the chief electoral officer when he compiles the register of electors. I understand that in the United States it is possible to have the date of birth and a signature on some forms. It would be very easy for the presiding officer to check a signature. Signatures are much more difficult to forge than any other piece of identification.

Thus far, the Government have given only two hints about why they would not be prepared to introduce a purpose-made identification card. First, the Minister suggested in a by-the-way fashion that it would be costly. He also suggested that some people might not be prepared to present themselves to have an identification card made. Who might those people be? I suspect that they would be the very people who try to have one vote more than they are entitled to, and whom the Minister is attempting to frustrate.

Other people might not wish to apply for an identification card because the police were hunting for them, and because if they presented themselves so that a card could be issued they might find members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary preventing them from leaving the premises. It is well known that people on the run in Northern Ireland still manage to vote. I suspect that such people would not be keen to present themselves lest they should run into the arms of the law.

Given all the evidence available, there is no sound reason why, if the Government intend to make personation more difficult, they should not take the ultimate step of having a purpose-made identification card. On Second Reading and so far in Committee—admittedly we have not dwelt specifically on the subject—the Government have not given any good reason why there should not be such a card. Given the situation in Northern Ireland, I urge the Committee to consider the amendment. If the Government are right in saying that there is a rate of personation of 20 per cent., they will want to make it more difficult, and it has already been made clear to the Government that there are grave weaknesses in the documents that they suggest should be used.

At the back of the Government's mind may be the thought that the identification card might be used for some other purposes. I am not sensitive about that. I would not argue against the card being used for other purposes. If the Government are concerned about the expense, the fact that the card was of value for security purposes might help to offset the expense very quickly. I urge hon. Members to vote for the amendment.

7.45 pm

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

My right hon. and hon. Friends are in sympathy with the arguments which led the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) to propose the amendment. If we vote on the amendment, we shall support him. However, the amendments highlight the difficulties that the Government have created for themselves by the principle of universality. On amendment No. 9, we shall consider the range and identity of the prescribed documents. They all have two things in common. None of them proves what it is required to prove, and of none of them can it be said that every citizen needs to possess it. It is therefore both unreasonable and oppressive to require of every citizen that, as a condition of casting his vote, he should present one or more of those documents.

The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have gone: to the logical point of saying that we should have a document which is as probative as it can possibly be made—they have not suggested a thumb print, but I cannot think of anything else that they have omitted — and that the document should be dished out to everyone on the electoral roll, under the auspices of the chief electoral officer. They say that, if a document is to be required from everyone, this is the form that the document should take.

The hon. Gentleman's reasoning is impeccable, but we should not blind ourselves to the fact that in practice the arrangement might prove difficult and disadvantageous. The chief electoral officer is under an obligation to issue a polling card to every person whose name appears on the electoral register, but I do not know what proportion of the polling cards arrive at their proper destination—and I am not thinking of malpractice.

I have it in mind that one of the purposes of political organisation and electoral organisation is to ensure that one's supporters get a reminder to vote and information about where to vote—even if they have not received a polling card. The polling card is liable to miscarry and, if the person concerned has moved, it is extremely unlikely to be sent after him. I am therefore afraid that this document — ideal though it may be for purposes of identification—could not be assumed to be in the hands of every elector on polling day.

Those comments do not refute the hon. Gentleman's arguments. I am simply entering a caveat that ought to be entered in case we might be supposed to have discovered the philosopher's stone in search of which the Government have set us off by their demand for universality.

Rev. Ian Paisley

We have considered that point carefully. However, we were thinking of the document being issued when the person was photographed, in the same way as a pass is issued in this House. After one is photographed, one is given the pass.

Mr. Powell

I appreciate that if all the electors were summoned for the purpose of being thus identified, that would deal with the danger that the document would not be conveyed to the person who should receive it. However, I am afraid that the procedure would place large obstacles in the way of electors who wished to vote, especially if the election occurred within a relatively short time of the electoral list coming into force.

Mr. McCusker

Would not that mean that the person would have to present himself for a photograph during the qualifying period or immediately after it?

Mr. Powell

The difficulties which are thrown up by the amendment prove the impracticability of fairly attempting a universal demand for a prescribed document. By treading the labyrinth of trying to get the documents produced and into the hands of every legitimate elector, we are exploring once again the ground that we covered when we discussed previous amendments and in earlier stages of the Bill—the consequences of making the right to a ballot paper depend on the production of a document and making that production a universal requirement for all electors. I simply do not think that it will be possible to do that. My right hon. and hon. Friends and I have just registered in the Lobby our belief to that effect and we shall have no objection to re-registering it when this matter goes to a vote.

I do not know whether it was inadvertently that the hon. Member for Belfast, East did not refer to amendment No. 22 or whether you, Mr. Dean, have decided that it should be debated separately.

The Second Deputy Chairman

The right hon. Gentleman is correct. I announced that amendment No. 22 was debatable with the other amendments in this group.

Rev. Ian Paisley

On a pint of order, Mr. Dean. Amendment No. 22 was left to me to deal with at a later stage in our proceedings.

Mr. Powell

As I have been assisted by those interventions, and as my right hon. and hon. Friends and I were not proposing to make a meal of this group of amendments, perhaps I might allude briefly in advance to amendment No. 22.

As one who has strenuously and for some 35 years protested whenever he had an opportunity, against the franchise being enjoyed in Britain by those who are not of British nationality — including those who hold Irish passports and no other — I should not be acting in accordance with that point of view. Although I can see the logic of arguing that, since that is the electoral law, an Irish passport ought to be a prescribed document, I shall give expression to my prejudices on this subject, so long maintained and expressed, by supporting amendment No. 22 should it also go to a vote.

Rev. Ian Paisley

As I said in our discussion on the previous group of amendments, we can do one of two things in this Bill. Either we can try to find as strong a way as possible to help the legitimate voter and hinder the illegitimate voter or, if we proceed, as is proposed in the Bill, with many diverse documents, we shall hinder the legitimate voter and make it possible for the illegitimate voter to succeed in voting.

I agree with the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) that there are great difficulties associated with getting a system and a machinery that fits the bill perfectly. There should be the strictest possible supervision of the presiding officer during voting and, as the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker) said, voters should bring their polling cards with them. Such suggestions are helpful. The same is true of the suggestion made by the absent hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume), who suggested that, at registration, everyone should sign and give their date of birth. Such information could be given in duplicate so that when an elector went to a polling station, the presiding officer could ask him to sign his name and provide his date of birth and compare that information with his copy. The Government might have taken that suggestion on board.

Identification cards could be produced during the qualifying period during which time the elector could be photographed. If people are keen on voting they would have to make that sacrifice. After all, everyone in America has to register personally. I realise that there are difficulties, but if the Government are to achieve what they want to achieve, they must pursue a suitable method.

As to amendment No. 22, I am not having passports from the Irish Republic being produced in Northern Ireland, as that gives credence to the people who want all the benefits of British citizenship and then repudiate it. That is part of the problem of Northern Ireland. Such people will accept every privilege that they can get as a British citizen and then repudiate that status.

I remember going on a deputation from the first ill-fated Northern Ireland Assembly—the hon. Member for Foyle who has just entered the Chamber knows that this is correct —with two of his colleagues who were Ministers of the Crown. When we arrived at passport control they had to go to the foreign passports desk to present their Eire passports while we presented our British ones at the other desk. They were supposed to be Ministers of the Crown in Northern Ireland. I am totally opposed to the production of an Eire passport as a document of credence in an election. If such people cannot produce a British passport and do not like British passports, there are other documents available to them. If they are keen to vote, they could have an ID card.

We feel strongly that if the job is to be done it should be done properly. The proposal advanced by the hon. Member for Foyle that people should register their signature and date of birth is sound. We should not leave gaping loopholes—which are present in the Bill—for Sinn Fein to exploit vigorously as has been the case in the past. What will the Secretary of State do with presiding officers who are members of Sinn Fein? He had better consider that and examine presiding officers and election workers, who are recruited by the chief electoral officer, who are known to be members of or workers in Sinn Fein. How will he deal with them?

Mr. Peter Archer

I apologise to the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) for my absence at the beginning of his speech, especially as I propose to disagree with his thesis. If it helps to mitigate my offence, might I say that I thoroughly agree with the suggestion that he properly ascribed to the hon. Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) that the date of birth and signature of each elector should be given on the returns from each household and be available to the presiding officer.

I see nothing shocking in the principle of requiring people to carry identity cards. I do not believe that it would be the beginning of some Orwellian nightmare, even though the year is 1984. So far as I know, it did not occasion any civil liberty problems when applied to Britain during the second world war, and it does not shock our fellow member states of the EEC.

As I ventured to say earlier, we do not have to debate every issue as though it was a vital matter of principle. Sometimes a question may turn on balancing effectiveness against inconvenience. To me it does not seem to matter that an elector should be asked to produce a document which he or she is not required by law to carry, pace the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), provided that that document is available to produce. A medical card still appears to me to be reasonably good evidence of identity, even though a person is entitled in law to tear it up and bum the pieces.

What alternative should be available as evidence for someone who cannot produce a medical card, and what questions a presiding officer should be allowed to ask about discrepancies, are matters to be decided pragmatically.

8 pm

Nor does it trouble me that among the documents which electors may produce to identify themselves there may be documents issued by foreign Governments, provided that they are a reasonably accurate means of identification. The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) sometimes debates these matters as though they related directly to a cataclysm, but there is nothing wicked about possessing a document issued by a foreign Government. I do not agree that this is a question of fundamental principle. It seems to me that it is a question of what is sensible evidence.

The question confronting the Committee is whether, in order to meet the problem of personations at elections, it is sensible to introduce a requirement that everyone shall carry an identity card, thereby embarking on the whole business of printing them, inviting applications, checking them and issuing them. That is not something on which we should embark lightly if there is an acceptable alternative. As the right hon. Member for South Down said, the difficulties about getting them into the hands of electors seem to be so formidable as to invite us to dismiss the proposal.

If we fear that some electors, who do not spend every waking moment reflecting on the conduct of elections, may arrive at the polling station without their medical card or with a driving licence bearing a wrong address, that does not allay my fears that some people may have lost their identity card, which it is hoped they will not be asked to produce every day of their lives. They may have lost it within the last seven or eight months without having noticed, or they may simply arrive at the polling station having left it in the pocket of their other coat. I therefore doubt whether, in the words of the hon. Member for Antrim, North, the amendments will help the legitimate voter.

I have listened carefully to hon. Members who have argued for these amendments, because it grates upon my every instinct to find myself repeatedly supporting a Government with a record like the present one. But, the argument ad hominem is dangerous. We must decide each of these matters on their merits, and again I shall advise my hon. Friends to vote against the amendments.

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Douglas Hurd)

The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) and the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) have from the beginning of our discussion been consistent in arguing that the right method of dealing with the problem of personation — which all hon. Members acknowledge—is the issuing of identity cards to electors. Their scheme for dealing with the problem differs in some respects from that of the right hon. Members for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) and for South Down (Mr. Powell), although they have acknowledged the merits of each other's scheme. It also differs from that of the Government.

I note from amendment No. 70 that the proposal now before the Committee is not that a general purpose identity should be issued but that the chief electoral officer should issue an electoral identity card bearing the photograph, name and address, date of birth and signature of the registered elector.

As the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) has just said, this option should not be ruled out a priori. It is not so objectionable in principle that it should not be considered by a sensible Government or a sensible Committee of this House. That option was very carefully considered by my predecessor and his colleagues and also by me, and I should like to explain the reasons for coming to the conclusion that this should not be a path that we should tread and that the scheme which would be erected on that basis would be less likely to produce the result we are aiming at than the scheme in the Bill.

That would be regarded as a radical departure from the tradition of the liberty of the individual and the right to privacy. I readily admit that the scheme in the Bill imposes upon the elector a restriction and requirement which does not now exist and which some will find inconvenient, even difficult. However, the scheme embodied in the amendment would multiply those difficulties.

There is also a genuine practical problem about enforcement and about making such a scheme work without disfranchising a considerable number of electors. Under the amendment, a person wanting to exercise the franchise would be obliged to apply to the chief electoral officer with a passport-type photograph in order to obtain an electoral identity card. If he failed to produce a photograph, details of date of birth and a signature, that would entail disfranchisement.

The right hon. Member for South Down, while supporting the amendment and preferring it to the Government's scheme, courteously drew attention to some of the difficulties that would result from such a scheme. In practice, such a measure would require the willing cooperation of the elector. Those hon. Members representing Northern Ireland seats will clearly perceive that it is not difficult to see how this measure could, for propaganda purposes, be turned against Government and democracy by having sinister motives ascribed to it. It could easily be alleged that the purpose of introducing such a measure was not to do with the right to vote or the need to deal with personation but had more to do with security. The hon. Member for Belfast, East dealt with that point fairly, because he said that he would not object if the electoral identity card was used for other purposes. With that remark, he illustrated the narrow line that we are treading.

I know perfectly well that many hon. Members believe that the libertarian argument against identity cards has been overstated, or that it is out of date, and that most of our electors might be willing to accept identity cards, not just for the purpose stated in the amendment but much more widely. I understand the argument to that effect, but I do not believe that this Bill is the place in which it should be enshrined, because I believe that it would have to be argued more generally in a United Kingdom context.

There would be a worry about a possible mass boycott of the system which the amendment would erect. It would be alleged that the measure was a deliberate Government attempt to disfranchise those who for civil liberty reasons refused to apply for identity cards. If the effort to arouse a boycott were successful, many voters might effectively disfranchise themselves. That would clearly distort the result of subsequent elections, thereby frustrating the purpose of the Bill and, indeed, the purpose of every democratic party in this House. One cannot prove that this would happen but I think that it is a real danger.

There was another argument that weighed with the Government in reaching our decision. We hope—we have never disguised the fact—that we shall be able to take action against personation in the next electoral contest in the Province. The House of Commons will be aware that the district council elections will take place in May 1985. The system that the amendment proposes would be expensive but I do not dwell upon that. It would be cumbersome and it could not be in place in time for the elections in May 1985. A partially implemented system would be arbitrary and unfair and would seriously distort the results. However, we are anxious in the next electoral contest to prevent the distortions which personation brings and the invasion of democratic rights which personation, without the Bill, would possibly and probably bring about.

Having examined carefully the possibility that lies behind the amendment, we concluded that the right course would be to require voters to produce one of a number of specified documents.

We should all be ready to learn from experience. The phrase about launching into uncharted waters has been taken up by some Unionist Members. We should not be reluctant to admit the need for change when that need is proved. The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley may be right — I hope that he is — in supposing that as our debates proceed it will be shown that we have been impressed by some of the arguments which have been brought before the Committee while the Bill has been considered.

We believe, after much careful thought, that the scheme in the Bill is the soundest one that can be put before the Committee at this stage. If, in the light of later experience, it proves to need change, it should be changed. All hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies will be alert to that need and to that experience. However, we believe now, having listened to all the arguments with care, that the scheme in the Bill is preferable to the one in the amendment.

Amendment No. 22 forms part of the group of amendments that we are considering but, as the hon. Members for Antrim, North and Belfast, East have said, it raises a somewhat different issue. It would be unnecessary if the other amendments in the group were accepted. If there were only one prescribed document, the point of amendment No. 22 would have been met. I understand the argument that the hon. Member for Antrim, North produced and which the right hon. Member for South Down is prepared to sustain. That is an argument about the franchise, but the Bill is not concerned with that. I have no doubt that there will be other opportunities to discuss whether those who might under the Bill use an Irish passport as one of the prescribed documents should have the vote, but that issue is not before the Committee. I realise that that is an argument that we shall hear from time to time.

In the course of considering the Bill, I do not think that it would be sensible to make it exceptionally difficult for those in that position to exercise that right. I understand the strength of the argument and the feeling behind it. The right hon. Member for South Down used the word "prejudice" but I would not have used it myself. I am aware of the strength of feeling that underlies the drafting of amendment No. 22 and the support for it, but I do not think that that has a part in our consideration of the Bill. For these reasons I ask the Committee not to accept the amendment.

8.15 pm

Mr. Peter Robinson

I am tempted to repeat the comments that I made when introducing the amendment. The Committee will recall that I talked about the Government's bulldozer being in top gear and suggested that the Bill would be pushed through come what may. One might have expected a crumb of comfort from the Secretary of State. He might have said, for example, "We are not prepared to have purpose-made identity cards as the only prescribed document, but we recognise that there are limitations with the documents that we have suggested and we shall be prepared to include purpose-made identity cards as one of the prescribed documents for those who cannot readily put their hands on any of the others." Not even that crumb of comfort was offered to us.

I am not sure whether it is amazing or amusing that the Secretary of State argues for a Bill that seeks to set out for the people of Northern Ireland rules and standards that are different from those that apply in the rest of the United Kingdom and then complains that the amendment is a "radical departure". If there are radical departures, the Bill is the most radical of all. It seeks to treat one part of the United Kingdom differently from another. If it is enacted, electors in one part of the United Kingdom will be treated differently from those in others. I do not accept that the expense will be such as to cause Government to turn away from the idea. Similarly, I do not accept that the delay that might be experienced before May is a good enough reason far turning down a better way of dealing with personation.

If we intend effectively to tackle the problem of personation, there is no point in proceeding in a halfhearted way. If we are not positive, people will have to suffer for no net result. I urge" the Government to consider, even when the Bill has been discussed in Committee and when they are presenting it to the House of Commons for further consideration, allowing purpose-made identity cards to be used in some small measure. If they are used as just one of the prescribed documents, the benefits of having them will soon become apparent, and other of the prescribed documents might be removed at a later stage. In due course identity cards might become the only prescribed documents. With the Secretary of State displaying his "Not an inch" approach, I am forced reluctantly to press the amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 144.

Division No.26]	[8.18 pm
AYES
Beggs, Roy	Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)
Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)	Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)
McCusker, Harold	Walker, Cecil (Belfast N)
Maginnis, Ken
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James	Tellers for the Ayes:
Nicholson, J.	Mr. Peter Robinson and
Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)	Rev. Ian Paisley.
NOES
Alton, David	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)
Ancram, Michael	Fowler, Rt Hon Norman
Archer, Rt Hon Peter	Franks, Cecil
Ashby, David	Freeman, Roger
Ashdown, Paddy	Gale, Roger
Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)	Galley, Roy
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony	Garel-Jones, Tristan
Beith, A. J.	Gow, Ian
Benyon, William	Gower, Sir Raymond
Bevan, David Gilroy	Gregory, Conal
Blackburn, John	Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)
Bottomley, Peter	Harris, David
Boyson, Dr Rhodes	Harvey, Robert
Braine, Sir Bernard	Haselhurst, Alan
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Hawkins, C. (High Peak)
Bright, Graham	Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)
Brinton, Tim	Hawksley, Warren
Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)	Hayward, Robert
Bruce, Malcolm	Heathcoat-Amory, David
Bruinvels, Peter	Henderson, Barry
Budgen, Nick	Hickmet, Richard
Campbell-Savours, Dale	Hicks, Robert
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Holt, Richard
Chapman, Sydney	Hooson, Tom
Chope, Christopher	Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Conway, Derek	Howells, Geraint
Coombs, Simon	Hubbard-Miles, Peter
Cope, John	Hume, John
Couchman, James	Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)
Cranborne, Viscount	Hunter, Andrew
Dorrell, Stephen	Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Dover, Den	Johnston, Russell
Duffy, A. E. P.	Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Dykes, Hugh	Kennedy, Charles
Eggar, Tim	Kershaw, Sir Anthony
Evennett, David	King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Eyre, Sir Reginald	Kirkwood, Archy
Fallon, Michael	Knight, Gregory (Derby N)
Favell, Anthony	Knowles, Michael
Fenner, Mrs Peggy	Lang, Ian
Fletcher, Alexander	Latham, Michael
Fookes, Miss Janet	Lawrence, Ivan

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark	Soames, Hon Nicholas
Lyell, Nicholas	Spence, John
Major, John	Stanbrook, Ivor
Mates, Michael	Steel, Rt Hon David
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin	Stern, Michael
Meadowcroft, Michael	Stevens, Martin (Fulham)
Miscampbell, Norman	Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)
Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)	Stradling Thomas, J.
Nellist, David	Taylor, John (Solihull)
Neubert, Michael	Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)
Norris, Steven	Thomas, Rt Hon Peter
Page, Sir John (Harrow W)	Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Page, Richard (Herts SW)	Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
Patten, Christopher (Bath)	Tracey, Richard
Pawsey, James	Waddington, David
Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth	Walden, George
Penhaligon, David	Walker, Bill (T'side N)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon	Wallace, James
Roe, Mrs Marion	Waller, Gary
Rowe, Andrew	Wardle, C. (Bexhill)
Rumbold, Mrs Angela	Watson, John
Sackville, Hon Thomas	Wells, Bowen (Hertford)
Sainsbury, Hon Timothy	Whitfield, John
Scott, Nicholas	Whitney, Raymond
Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')	Wiggin, Jerry
Shelton, William (Streatham)	Wood, Timothy
Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)	Woodcock, Michael
Silvester, Fred
Skeet, T. H. H.	Tellers for the Noes:
Skinner, Dennis	Mr. Tony Durant and
Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)	. Mr. Peter Lloyd.

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed: No. 3, in page 2, leave out lines 7 to 9 and inser— '(1B) With a view to reaching his decision under the foregoing paragraph, the officer or clerk may invite the voter to produce to him a prescribed document or more than one prescribed documents and shall, if the voter complies, take that document or documents into consideration in reaching his decision, without prejudice to consideration of any other evidence which the voter may produce'.—[Mr. Molyneaux.]

Question put, That the amendment be made—

The Committee divided: Ayes 12, Noes 136.

Division No. 27]	[8.27 pm
AYES
Beggs, Roy	Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)
Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)	Robinson, P. (Belfast E)
McCusker, Harold	Skinner, Dennis
Maginnis, Ken	Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James
Nellist, David	Tellers for the Ayes:
Nicholson, J.	Mr. A. Cecil Walker and
Paisley, Rev Ian	Mr. William Ross.

NOES
Alton, David	Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)
Ancram, Michael	Chapman, Sydney
Archer, Rt Hon Peter	Chope, Christopher
Ashby, David	Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)
Ashdown, Paddy	Conway, Derek
Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)	Coombs, Simon
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony	Cope, John
Beith, A. J.	Couchman, Jamas
Benyon, William	Cranborne, Viscount
Bevan, David Gilroy	Dorrell, Stephen
Blackburn, John	Dover, Den
Bottomley, Peter	Duffy, A. E. P.
Boyson, Dr Rhodes	Dykes, Hugh
Braine, Sir Bernard	Evennett, David
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Eyre, Sir Reginald
Bright, Graham	Fallon, Michael
Brinton, Tim	Favell, Anthony
Bruinvels, Peter	Fenner, Mrs Peggy
Budgen, Nick	Fletcher, Alexander
Campbell-Savours, Dale	Fookes, Miss Janet
Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)	Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Franks, Cecil	Norris, Steven
Freeman, Roger	Page, Sir John (Harrow W)
Gale, Roger	Page, Richard (Herts SW)
Galley, Roy	Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Garel-Jones, Tristan	Pawsey, James
Gower, Sir Raymond	Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Gregory, Conal	Penhaligon, David
Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Harris, David	Roe, Mrs Marion
Harvey, Robert	Rowe, Andrew
Haselhurst, Alan	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Hawkins, C. (High Peak)	Sackville, Hon Thomas
Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Hawksley, Warren	Scott, Nicholas
Hayward, Robert	Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Heathcoat-Amory, David	Shelton, William (Streatham)
Henderson, Barry	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Hickmet, Richard	Silvester, Fred
Hicks, Robert	Skeet, T. H. H.
Holt, Richard	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Hooson, Tom	Soames, Hon Nicholas
Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)	Spence, John
Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)	Stanbrook, Ivor
Howells, Geraint	Steel, Rt Hon David
Hubbard-Miles, Peter	Stern, Michael
Hume, John	Stevens, Martin (Fulham)
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)	Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)
Hunter, Andrew	Stradling Thomas, J.
Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas	Taylor, John (Solihull)
Johnston, Russell	Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)	Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Kennedy, Charles	Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
King, Roger (B'ham N'field)	Thurnham, Peter
Kirkwood, Archy	Tracey, Richard
Knight, Gregory (Derby N)	Waddington, David
Knowles, Michael	Walden, George
Latham, Michael	Walker, Bill (T'side N)
Lawrence, Ivan	Waller, Gary
Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark	Wardle, C. (Bexhill)
Lilley, Peter	Watson, John
Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)	Wells, Bowen (Hertford)
Lyell, Nicholas	Whitfield, John
Major, John	Wiggin, Jerry
Mates, Michael	Wood, Timothy
Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin	Woodcock, Michael
Meadowcroft, Michael
Miscampbell, Norman	Tellers for the Noes:
Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)	Mr. Ian Lang and
Neubert, Michael	Mr. Tony Durant.

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed: No. 22, in page 2, line 16, at end insert— 'No document shall be required to be produced for voting purposes other than a document issued by or with the authority of the United Kingdom Government.'—[Rev. Ian Paisley.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 10, Noes 135.

Division No. 28]	[8.37 pm
AYES
Beggs, Roy	Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)
Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)	Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)
McCusker, Harold	Walker, Cecil (Belfast N)
Maginnis, Ken
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James	Tellers for the Ayes:
Nicholson, J.	Rev. Ian Paisley and
Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)	Mr. Peter Robinson.
NOES
Alton, David	Benyon, William
Ancram, Michael	Bevan, David Gilroy
Archer, Rt Hon Peter	Blackburn, John
Ashby, David	Bottomley, Peter
Ashdown, Paddy	Boyson, Dr Rhodes
Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)	Braine, Sir Bernard
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony	Brandon-Bravo, Martin
Beith, A. J.	Bright, Graham

Brinton, Tim	Knowles, Michael
Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)	Lang, Ian
Bruce, Malcolm	Latham, Michael
Bruinvels, Peter	Lawrence, Ivan
Budgen, Nick	Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark
Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)	Lyell, Nicholas
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Chapman, Sydney	Meadowcroft, Michael
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Miscampbell, Norman
Conway, Derek	Nellist, David
Coombs, Simon	Neubert, Michael
Cope, John	Norris, Steven
Couchman, James	Page, Richard (Herts SW)
Cranborne, Viscount	Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Dorrell, Stephen	Pawsey, James
Dover, Den	Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Duffy, A. E. P.	Penhaligon, David
Durant, Tony	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Dykes, Hugh	Roe, Mrs Marion
Emery, Sir Peter	Rowe, Andrew
Evennett, David	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Eyre, Sir Reginald	Sackville, Hon Thomas
Fallon, Michael	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Favell, Anthony	Scott, Nicholas
Fenner, Mrs Peggy	Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey	Shelton, William (Streatham)
Fletcher, Alexander	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Fookes, Miss Janet	Skeet, T. H. H.
Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)	Skinner, Dennis
Franks, Cecil	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Freeman, Roger	Soames, Hon Nicholas
Gale, Roger	Spence, John
Galley, Roy	Stanbrook, Ivor
Garel-Jones, Tristan	Steel, Rt Hon David
Gower, Sir Raymond	Stern, Michael
Gregory, Conal	Stevens, Martin (Fulham)
Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)	Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)
Harris, David	Stradling Thomas, J.
Harvey, Robert	Taylor, John (Solihull)
Hawkins, C. (High Peak)	Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)
Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)	Thomas, Rt Hon Peter
Hawksley, Warren	Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Hayward, Robert	Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
Heathcoat-Amory, David	Thurnham, Peter
Hickmet, Richard	Tracey, Richard
Holt, Richard	van Straubenzee, Sir W.
Hooson, Tom	Waddington, David
Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)	Walden, George
Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)	Walker, Bill (T'side N)
Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)	Waller, Gary
Howells, Geraint	Wardle, C. (Bexhill)
Hubbard-Miles, Peter	Watson, John
Hume, John	Wells, Bowen (Hertford)
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)	Whitfield, John
Hunter, Andrew	Wiggin, Jerry
Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas	Wood, Timothy
Johnston, Russell	Woodcock, Michael
Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Kennedy, Charles	Tellers for the Noes:
Kershaw, Sir Anthony	Mr. John Major and
King, Roger (B'ham N'field)	Mr. Peter Lloyd.
Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

Question accordingly negatived.

Amendment proposed: No. 24, in page 2, line 16, at end inser— '(2A) The following shall be inserted after rule 36 (challenge of voter— (36A) At the time a person applies for a ballot paper, a candidate or his election or polling agent may require the presiding officer or clerk to produce to him any document which that person has produced to the presiding officer or clerk under the foregoing provisions of this section.".'— [Mr. Molyneaux.]

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 12, Noes 126.

Division No. 29]	[8.47 pm
AYES
Beggs, Roy	Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)
Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)	Robinson, P. (Belfast E)
McCusker, Harold	Skinner, Dennis
Maginnis, Ken	Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)
Molyneaux, Rt Hon James
Nellist, David	Tellers for the Ayes:
Nicholson, J.	Mr. William Ross and
Paisley, Rev Ian	Mr. A. Cecil Walker.
NOES
Alton, David	Hunter, Andrew
Ancram, Michael	Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas
Ashby, David	Johnston, Russell
Ashdown, Paddy	Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)
Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)	King, Roger (B'ham N'field)
Beaumont-Dark, Anthony	Knight, Gregory (Derby N)
Beith, A. J.	Knowles, Michael
Benyon, William	Lang, Ian
Bevan, David Gilroy	Latham, Michael
Blackburn, John	Lawrence, Ivan
Bottomley, Peter	Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)
Boyson, Dr Rhodes	Lyell, Nicholas
Braine, Sir Bernard	Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin
Brandon-Bravo, Martin	Meadowcroft, Michael
Bright, Graham	Neubert, Michael
Brinton, Tim	Norris, Steven
Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)	Onslow, Cranley
Bruinvels, Peter	Page, Richard (Herts SW)
Budgen, Nick	Patten, Christopher (Bath)
Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)	Pawsey, James
Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)	Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth
Chapman, Sydney	Penhaligon, David
Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)	Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon
Conway, Derek	Roe, Mrs Marion
Coombs, Simon	Rowe, Andrew
Cope, John	Rumbold, Mrs Angela
Couchman, James	Sackville, Hon Thomas
Cranborne, Viscount	Sainsbury, Hon Timothy
Dorrell, Stephen	Scott, Nicholas
Dover, Den	Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')
Durant, Tony	Shelton, William (Streatham)
Dykes, Hugh	Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)
Emery, Sir Peter	Skeet, T. H. H.
Evennett, David	Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)
Eyre, Sir Reginald	Soames, Hon Nicholas
Fallon, Michael	Spence, John
Favell, Anthony	Stanbrook, Ivor
Fenner, Mrs Peggy	Steel, Rt Hon David
Fletcher, Alexander	Stern, Michael
Fookes, Miss Janet	Stevens, Martin (Fulham)
Franks, Cecil	Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)
Freeman, Roger	Stradling Thomas, J.
Gale, Roger	Taylor, John (Solihull)
Galley, Roy	Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)
Garel-Jones, Tristan	Thomas, Rt Hon Peter
Goodhart, Sir Philip	Thompson, Donald (Calder V)
Gower, Sir Raymond	Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)
Gregory, Conal	Thurnham, Peter
Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)	Tracey, Richard
Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)	van Straubenzee, Sir W.
Harris, David	Waddington, David
Harvey, Robert	Walden, George
Hawkins, C. (High Peak)	Walker, Bill (T'side N)
Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)	Wallace, James
Hawksley, Warren	Waller, Gary
Hayward, Robert	Wardle, C. (Bexhill)
Heathcoat-Amory, David	Watson, John
Hickmet, Richard	Wells, Bowen (Hertford)
Holt, Richard	Whitfield, John
Hooson, Tom	Wood, Timothy
Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)	Woodcock, Michael
Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)
Howells, Geraint	Tellers for the Noes:
Hubbard-Miles, Peter	Mr. John Major and
Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)	Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd.

Question accordingly negatived.

Mr. Molyneaux

I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 3, line 1, leave out 'satisfactorily answering' and insert answering to the satisfaction of the presiding officer". This is a probing amendment. It deals with that very narrow ground of tendered ballot papers.

The new rule 4O(1B) seems to provide for the case where a vote has already been stolen or alleged to have been stolen and then the real elector turns up to claim his or her vote and presumably produces one of the prescribed documents.

We have to accept that the person who had stolen the vote would also have produced, say, Mr. McCusker's out-of-date medical card or some such document. If the person whose vote has been stolen already then persists in claiming the vote, presumably the presiding officer will put the statutory questions contained in the Representation of the People Act, the first one being: Are you the person registered in the register of parliamentary electors for this election as follows,"? and then he will read the entire entry from the register. He then puts the second question, which is: Have you already voted, here or elsewhere, at this by-election, otherwise than as proxy for some other person? I am genuinely seeking clarification in this probing amendment. Presumably, at that point the presiding officer is acting on his own initiative and puts the statutory questions on his own initiative, without having any requests from any polling agents.

We take the view that the statutory questions would not add greatly to the presiding; officer's store of knowledge. If the person applying for a vote is an imposter and not the genuine voter whose name appears on the register, human nature being what it is, the imposter will not say, "Goodness me, I am not the person whose name appears on the register and for whom I am attempting to vote. I am a very naughty boy." Having stolen one of the prescribed documents from the real voter, the imposter will not forsake his evil ways and confess his crime simply because he is required to give two answers, in which case he would give the answer yes to the first question and no to the second.

9 pm

While the statutory questions were no doubt considered adequate under the procedures and practices applying in times past, and even up till now under previous legislation, they are a little ridiculous in the context of this Bill. I have no wish to delay the Committee, but my right hon. and hon. Friends would appreciate some clarification from the Minister.

Mr. Scott

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) has correctly set out the procedures that will be followed in the polling station up to the point where the statutory questions are asked and a tendered ballot paper is produced for the elector who alleges that his vote has been stolen. He would then be asked to complete a tendered ballot paper and sign it. Those tendered ballot papers would be collected separately from the ordinary votes and would only then have their validity adjudged in the event of an election petition. It would then be for an election court to decide on the identity of the voter and whether he was the person whom he claimed to be. The fact that he has signed the ballot paper should be a substantial additional help to the election court in making up its mind whether the person is who he says he is. The right hon. Gentleman is right, in that the presiding officer has to ask the statutory questions of the person seeking to pass a tendered vote.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

Will the hon. Gentleman clarify a further point? I was not sure which side of this question my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) was taking. It appears to me that the person referred to in subsection (5) (1C) is a person who has been refused a ballot paper on the ground that the document raises a reasonable doubt whether he is that person. That appears to refer to the person in subsection (5) (IB), next preceding, and that person is the person to whom the presiding officer has refused to deliver a ballot paper.

Mr. Scott

If the right hon. Gentleman looks back earlier in the clause, he will see that that is only on the grounds that someone else has already passed a vote.

Mr. Molyneaux

During this complicated procedure, which is almost a double procedure, in which a document is produced by the real elector as opposed to the personator, and the statutory questions are put, do the polling agents have access to the information? Is that presiding officer entitled to say, "Here is a chap who says that he is John Simpson; what do you feel about that?" It would be difficult for such an operation to take place. The polling agents representing the candidates have some knowledge of the matter. To avoid difficulties at a later stage, it would be useful if we could have clarification on this point. Subsection (5) states: The following shall be inserted after rule 40 (1) (person entitled to mark a tendered ballot paper after another has voted)". It seems to me that paragraphs (1A), (IB) and (1C) all descend from that parentage. Is that the position?

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

I am, perhaps, revealing my incomprehension another stage further. I have difficulty in fully accepting that interpretation. Line 41 on page 2 which states Paragraph (1C) of rule 37 is surely a reference to (1C) in line 7 on the same page, because we have written it into rule 37. An elector who is refused a ballot paper under paragraph (1C) of rule 37 is a person to whom it has been refused because of the reasonable doubt raised by the document. If that is so— I seem to discern certain signs of assent from the Undersecretary of State— we are apparently engaging in a charade. The person says, "I would like to offer a tendered vote." The presiding officer, who has already told him to his face that he is not the elector in question, proceeds to put the statutory question to him: "Are you the elector on the electoral roll?" Knowing that he can lie as well as tell the truth in answer to a statutory question and that the answer is still deemed to be satisfactory on the interpretation of the statute, the elector says, "Yes." Thereupon, the same presiding officer who has refused him a ballot paper on the ground that he is not the elector in question and who has been lied to in the answer to the statutory question says, "Here is a tendered ballot paper. Fill it out, old chap, and sign it." That seems to be a piece of pantomime.

Mr. Scott

That decision of, and judgment exercised by, the presiding officer can then be overturned in an election court on a petition. That is inherent in our approach. I apologise to the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) for intervening too quickly with my previous answer. The presiding officer has the opportunity to provide that tendered ballot paper and insist that the elector is the person he says he is. Only then can an election court overturn the judgment of the presiding officer.

Mr. Powell

Just imagine Sinn Fein doing all that.

Mr. William Ross

May we carry this a stage further? What happens if there is a large number of ballot papers? My right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) has asked: what if Sinn Fein did this on a large scale? That is not inconceivable. Surely that would cause severe problems in the election in question.

Will the Government consider the whole area of tendered ballot papers more deeply than appears to be the case so far? If I recall correctly words spoken in this debate, a record is kept of the number of tendered ballot papers. A record is not kept of the number of people who were turned away when they applied for their vote and either found that it had been taken up, or were challenged in some way or another. If we are to arrive at a real understanding of personation, would it not be a good idea to keep a record of the number of tendered ballot papers and the number of people who apply for a ballot paper but, being refused, simply go away without filling in the tendered ballot paper?

Mr. Scott

Presumably, an "election" petition might be considered only if the number of tendered ballot papers applied for exceeded the majority. That avenue would be open in other circumstances as well. I think that it would be likely that that action would be taken only in those circumstances where the result of the election was likely to be overturned because of the validation and then counting of the tendered ballot papers.

It is open to any elector who arrives at a polling station and finds that his vote has been cast to ask for a tendered ballot paper. A large number decide that the game is not worth the candle and go away. If they have that opportunity, I can detect no useful purpose in having a separate record.

The right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) asked whether any point was served by asking statutory questions. Someone who could be shown to have falsely answered a statutory question to the presiding officer would then be open to prosecution.

Mr. Molyneaux

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

I beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 3, line 13, at end add— '(7) In this Act "a prescribed document" means one of the following documents, that is to say,

1. (a) a current GB or Northern Ireland driving licence;
2. (b) a current United Kingdom, United Kingdom Visitors, or Republic of Ireland passport;
3. (c) a current book for the payment of allowances, benefits or pensions issued by the Department of Health and Social Services for Northern Ireland;
4. (d) a medical card issued by the Northern Ireland Services Agency; and
5. (e) a marriage certificate issued by the Registrar-General for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, in the case only of a woman married since the qualifying date for the register used in the election;

(8) the Secretary of State may by regulation under section 201 of the 1983 Act remove from or add to the documents listed in the preceding subsection.

The Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Harold Walker)

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments to the proposed amendment:

1. (a), leave out paragraph (a).
2. (b), leave out paragraph (b).
3. (c), leave out paragraph (c).
4. (d), leave out paragraph (d).
5. (e), leave out from 'woman' to end of line 11.

Mr. Powell

I can be brief in moving this amendment if for no other reason than that the contents of subsection (7), which are the principal part of it, are not of my own composition and are shamelessly pirated from a document provided by the Governmen—for which, of course, I take no responsibility.

The purpose of the amendment is to do what I submit should have been done from the beginning—to write on to the face of the Bill what the Government intend shall, at any rate initially, be the prescribed documents for the purpose of the Bill.

The purpose of the Bill, as we know exhaustively, is to make it mandatory upon all electors as a condition of casting their vote to produce satisfactorily one of the prescribed documents. Consequently, the nature of the prescribed document—what they ar—is central to the efficacy of the Bill. It would not be satisfactory, in the view of my right hon. and hon. Friends, that they should only be stated by prescription which takes place under regulation. The making of such regulations would not permit of the proper examination of the documents to which they have been subjected hitherto, and your decision, Mr. Walker, that we can at the same time discuss amendments (a), (b), (c), (d) and (e) will facilitate that for the Committee.

I hope that the Government will make an honest woman of the Bill by accepting the amendment. If the amendment is accepted, there will be no additional constraint or limitation upon the Secretary of State's opportunity to modify by addition or subtraction the prescribed documents, because subsection (8) of the amendment gives him the power to do that by regulation under the principal Act.

If experience so dictates, the Secretary of State can, therefore, remove some of the documents or add to them subsequently. I am sure that the Committee was interested to hear the Secretary of State, on an earlier amendment, explaining that following the first experience of the implementation of the Act he would be alert to consider whether amendment of its provisions was justified. Presumably that will include the amendment of this provision, if it becomes a provision of the Bill itself.

It had occurred to some of us that Governments, when they have a Bill on the statute book, are more reluctant to find time for amending it than they were initially to find time for putting it on the statute book. The worry here is that there might be a Secretary of State—one hopes that it might be this Secretary of State — who, after the experience of next May, would say to himself, "Those hon. Members were right in Committee. I must go back to the House of Commons and amend the Bill, in such and such a respect."

I do not believe that a Secretary of State who went to his Cabinet colleagues and the Legislation Committee and asked for an urgent slot in the Government's legislative programme would receive an encouraging welcome. They might be inclined to make snide remarks about his original legislation. They would certainly be inclined to say, "You have had your ration of legislative time for a Session or two. Now keep quiet and put up with whatever it is that you have got on to the statute book." How can that be remedied? It could be remedied— perhaps this is something which we could consider at a later stage—if this legislation, as with so many provisions which apply to Northern Ireland, had a limited time validity so that in any case it would be necessary to come back to Parliament after a lapse of one, two or three years either to renew it or to amend it. That surely would give the Secretary of State a stronger hand, if lie had himself come to the conclusion that amendment was necessary.

9.15 pm

However, in the case of a prescribed document, the Secretary of State will not need to legislate if the amendment is accepted, since he can add to or subtract from such documents by legislation. I hope that the value of the amendment will be brought out by the contributions of my hon. Friends.

Rev. Martin Smyth

In speaking to the amendment I should like also to refer to sub-amendment (c), which stands in my name.

I welcome the general tenor of the amendment because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) has said, we believe that it is important to have the provision within the Bill rather than to leave the matter to regulation. My right hon. Friend talked about milking an "honest woman" of the Bill. Perhaps in these days of equality it would be just as; easy to make an honest man of the Bill.

I believe that one of the main reasons for the Bill is to have the legislation in being before next year's local government elections. Therefore, it is possible that there has not been sufficient time in which to reach a conclusion as to what would be satisfactory documents. For that reason, it is most important that subsection (8) should be added to clause 1. It would give latitude to the Secretary of State in the coming days; to make, under section 201 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, a change to more accurate and purposeful documents.

I should like to put on record my misgivings about: the reference in subsection (7)(e) to a marriage certificate issued by the Registrar-General for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland". I am not altogether convinced that it is needed. I am somewhat befuddled as to why a person whose name appears on the register should then have to give proof of being married. Especially in this age, there are many women who continue to exercise the right, after marriage, to use their maiden name. As long as it is clear that the person is the person on the register, I do not think that the name is so important. I am, however, concerned to know why the qualification should be a marriage certificate issued by the Registrar-General for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland". I understand the argument to some extent, because on Second Reading it was said that it had been decided that it should be a document issued by the registrar general. I cannot speak with authority for England, Scotland and Wales but I understand the tradition in Northern Ireland to be that the certificate issued by the priest, the clerk in holy orders or the minister is, strictly speaking, a document issued by the registrar general. I know that during my ministry there was a small change in that, in that copies of the marriage certificate printed under the title of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland were not accepted by some people. We had to use copies of certificates issued by the registrar general. I am not quibbling with that. I understood that it was said on Second Reading that the certificate had to be issued strictly by a clerk in a council or the registrar general's office. Apart from the problems of getting the records through to those people, which would cause at least three months' delay, I wonder why that restriction is imposed. Is it indirectly casting a slur—I do not believe that that was the Government's intention, but I must tease out the reason for the restriction —on priests, clergymen and ministers? Are the Government saying that they might be prone to issue such certificates too freely without querying whom they were giving them to? If that was the reason for the restriction, it does not stand up to the light of judgment.

As I understand the practice, anyone can go to a registry office and, on due payment of the correct sum, request a copy of the marriage certificate. We shall not curtail the circulation of such certificates to prevent them being misused by people with a malevolent purpose by restricting the issue of the document to a clerk in a council office or the registrar general's office. Therefore, I query why the Government need to make that restriction. I suspect that there is less likelihood of a local priest or minister issuing the document to someone whom he knows is not the person to whom the certificate refers. I have discovered in 25 years of parish ministry that there are such practices in the issuing of death certificates and marriage certificates by council officers. Many people get certificates solely on payment of the appropriate fee.

Therefore, I ask the Government to reconsider the requirement for the marriage certificate to be issued specifically by the registrar general. If it means that the tradition in Northern Ireland, which has been an accepted method of issuing certificates, is no longer acceptable, that is a slur on many fine men and at the same time calls in question the Government's real purpose.

I should like to draw attention to subsection (7)(c), which refers to a current book for the payment of allowances, benefits or pensions issued by the Department of Health and Social Services for Northern Ireland. I can understand that there are those who hold on like grim death to their pension book, social security papers, benefit books and so on, but I am not convinced that these in themselves are sufficient safeguards to prevent people from misusing those documents. I say that for several reasons.

First, the people against whom I understand the Bill is directly aimed, those who have carried on a military campaign of personation, are capable of borrowing such books. It is not beyond their capacity so to do. One might say that people will not give their books away, but they will have little choice if that is done as a military operation. We might be told that the measure will at least allow people to give evidence that the books are being misused—if Paddy Malachy or, to keep it non-sectarian, Willie and Alec turn up and happen to have on them some of those documents. However, in the Ulster situation, it appears difficult to prove that those people had the documents for the purpose of personation. I say that because I know that Ulster people are remarkably friendly. It is a closely interconnected community and an extraordinary number of people draw old people's pensions for them out of sheer kindness. It would be extremely difficult to get anyone to give evidence in a court of law to prove that a pension book had been used for personation because the consequences for people living in the community might well be too horrible to contemplate.

I believe, therefore, that it would be much better to have a defined document. That is why I support the principle of the amendment and I hope that the Secretary of State will agree that the Bill should be altered accordingly. I hope that the Government will confirm that no slur on ministers, priests or clergymen was intended in seeking to restrict the definition of a marriage certificate to documents issued by the registrar general. I also question whether pension and benefit books, which often go astray in the post, are an effective use of identification.

Mr. William Ross

My amendment (a) seeks to delete the reference to a current GB or Northern Ireland driving licence". I understand that there are about 500,000 driving licences in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland licence carries the name of the holder and his address at the time of receipt. A photograph is pinned into it and the licence is valid for three years, renewable for a further three years. I understand that it is shortly to be replaced by a 10-year licence. We all change quite a lot in five or six years. Given the type of photograph that usually goes into a passport or driving licence, after 10 years the person may well be unrecognisable from the photograph.

The licence has space for one or two changes of address which are supposed to be filled in and the relevant authority notified as soon as the person changes his address. It should be noted, however, that it is not the authorities who fill it in. The person concerned merely has to notify them. Therefore, anyone getting hold of a licence could fill in a new address to match that on the electoral roll and then present himself at the polling station with the licence, possibly having replaced the photograph. When challenged, he could say that he used to live at the original address but that the new address was shown over the page. Any objection to the document would then vanish.

Many people in Northern Ireland, including my right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), have Great Britain driving licences which do not have photographs attached. The idea that a driving licence is in any way proof positive that the individual standing before the presiding officer is the person on the register that he claims to be is simply not correct. It is possible to get hold of driving licences and to alter them in such a way as to make them acceptable, especially in hard-line areas where personation takes place on a massive scale.

I am simply drawing the attention of the Committee once again to the fact that none of these documents are documents which the citizen must possess, and that they are all defective to some degree in identifying the individual.

There is also the possibility that a person might have lost his driving licence, which could be the only prescribed document that he would normally possess. The driving licence could have been sent away for renewal. There could be half a dozen reasons why the individual may not be in possession of his licence, and he could then be deprived of his right to cast a vote.

9.30 pm

Amendment (e) to amendment No. 9 takes up what the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) was talking about a few moments ago. I should like to ask the Minister whether a marriage certificate means a certified copy of a marriage certificate, or something less than that. It is not difficult to obtain a marriage certificate. One can write and ask for one just as one can write and ask for a birth certificate. As far as I am aware, there is no great difficulty in that and there is no reason for the certificate to be refused.

There is also the problem of the change of name which arises whenever a woman is married between the qualifying date, 15 September, and the date of the issue of the new register, which is 15 February. Hundreds of marriages, or perhaps a couple of thousand, take place in the intervening period, and the women who change their names will have to take along their marriage certificates in order to prove that they are who they say they are. Perhaps that is all very well.

However, let us suppose that, although a woman has lived in Northern Ireland for a number of years, has become a British citizen and is entitled to vote in Northern Ireland, her original home was in the Irish Republic. She wants to get married on Christmas day or shortly thereafter, and she and her husband-to-be go off to County Donegal to get married. Later, she goes to vote, taking notification of her change of address and name, and she is asked for her marriage certificate. Under the Bill, the marriage certificate must have been issued by the registrar-general for England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. This lady was not married in any of those countries. Her marriage certificate is a perfectly valid document but it is not acceptable for this purpose. In that respect, the legislation is defective.

It is astonishing that, although the Government were so anxious to add to the legislation a reference to the passport of the Republic of Ireland, they have not thought of including the marriage certificate of the Republic of Ireland. It seems as though those who were thinking through the legislation stopped thinking whenever they reached the end of (b) or perhaps (d).

There are a number of other difficulties. Let us suppose that the girl who gets married after 15 September happens to be aged under 18 on 15 September, which is the qualifying date. If the girl who gets married after 15 September is under 18 and her family move house between 15 September and her marriage, or if her name was omitted from the electoral register and the family moved, it would be possible under existing registration procedure for her to ask to be entered on the electoral register before her marriage. She would then register at her parents' new address. Her parents would still be registered at the old address. Our party agents face such difficulties. How will all that be sorted out if she is married in County Mayo rather than Donegal? There are unforeseen difficulties which the Minister might not like but must face.

Examination of the prescribed documents leads one to the conclusion that the only satisfactory one is an identity card. Anything else runs into severe difficulties. My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (Mr. McCusker) has had a sore time ever since he produced his medical card.

No doubt the Minister has often looked at hi—I have not seen mine for 25 years. It probably looks worn. Although it might be difficult to produce drivers' licences or identity cards, it is not difficult to make many medical cards, which are the simplest and most effective available form of identification. The only possibility of stopping large-scale personation with those cards is to catch somebody with them. That is extremely difficult. On receipt of a blank medical card a person has only to fill it in with information that does not have to be truthful. It need only look truthful.

Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody (Crewe and Nantwich)

That is nonsense.

Mr. Ross

Well, medical cards are simply pieces of printed card showing certain information. That information includes a medical number but there is no medical number on the register of electors so there is nothing to compare it with. It is so much gobbledegook. Nobody will start checking the numbers at 6 pm on election day. The cards will be accepted.

Mrs. Dunwoody

Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman tempts me. I am quite prepared to accept that it is possible to fill in a medical application form without difficulty and that there is a chance of it being inaccurate or imaginative. However, medical records of people who are on a general practitioner's list are one of the few statistics that can be checked accurately, as they are the basis on which doctors are paid.

Mr. Ross

It is clear that the hon. Lady has not paid attention to the debate or to the issues before the Committee. I am not talking about properly issued medical cards or about medical records. I am talking about forgeries. There is no way in which such cards can be checked, because as soon as someone leaves the polling station, the card will be thrown into the bin and will be lost for evermore.

This card is easy to forge. It is easy to make it look realistic. Like myself, many people will realise that a new medical card is the one document that can be easily obtained, and I suspect that between now and May hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of new medical cards will be sought in Northern Ireland for the purposes of this election.

Mr. McCusker

My hon. Friend may be right.

Mr. Ross

It is better to travel hopefully, but no doubt the evil day will arrive in May. When it does, I suspect that the Government Front Bench and the Opposition Front Bench, who have been so assiduous in welcoming the Bill, will have egg on their faces.

Mr. McCusker

If there are any eggs left in Northern Ireland.

Mr. Ross

My hon. Friend says, "If there are any eggs left".

Mr. McCusker

My hon. Friend should not get involved in that argument.

Mr. Ross

I shall follow my hon. Friend's advice, and proceed.

The series of documents mentioned in the Bill will not be completely watertight, foolproof or effective. Some of them can be stolen or borrowed. For example, we are all aware of what happened on the west bank of Londonderry in recent elections. People were asked for their poll cards and were willing to give them up, only to find that when they went to vote the only ballot paper to which they were entitled was pink.

These same documents can be handed over to others, and some of them can be forged. The situation will be wide open to abuse, and at the end of the day the honest people will suffer. This will make it more difficult for the honest folk of Northern Ireland. It will no doubt cause some difficulties for the dishonest, but not enough to stop the evil that we are trying to prevent. For that reason the Government have got it wrong. They should look at our proposals and take meaningful steps to amend the Bill to bring it more into line with the thinking of those with real experience of Northern Ireland, and who for three days have tried to advise the Government on the right way to proceed instead of continuing bullheaded down the wrong road.

Mr. Beggs

My sub-amendment (b) seeks to leave out paragraph (b) which refers to a current United Kingdom, United Kingdom Visitors, or Republic of Ireland passport". We all recognise the need for Government to take appropriate action to prevent personation and the widespread vote-stealing which has occurred. Some of us take great exception to the comment, which from time to time receives much publicity, that there is nothing new about personation and that it is peculiar to anywhere where there is an Irish population. It has been said that it has happened in elections in Chicago and New York. I do not believe that personation is an Irish-only export. We have heard it said that there should be positive Government action on the mainland and personation should not be attributable only to Irish residents or representatives of the population.

9.45 pm

It is not compulsory for United Kingdom citizens to hold United Kingdom passports and it is probably assumed that more people have United Kingdom passports in Northern Ireland than is the fact. I remember a recent occasion when a school made arrangements for a Continental education tour. The teacher who was to accompany the tour was taken ill and it was found that only one other member of staff in that large school had a current passport. It was that member of staff who made it possible for the tour to take place although it had been planned nearly six months earlier. It was necessary for a teacher to accompany those on the tour to ensure adequate supervision and to assist the tour leader. It seems that in a professional group there are few who have full United Kingdom passports and it is reasonable to assume that those who have less need for a United Kingdom passport, or are likely to have less need, will not have one.

Northern Ireland is not known for high earnings that permit travel to other parts of Europe, the United States or the far east. That reduces the need and demand for United Kingdom passports for foreign travel. The Province goes overboard with British campaigns to the extent that the majority buy British and believe in spending on British soil. The people of Northern Ireland visit England, Scotland and Wales in large numbers for their holidays. Probably a smaller percentage of the Northern Ireland population holds a United Kingdom passport compared with the mainland population.

Most of the elderly who participate in the democratic process do not hold passports. They would not benefit by the inclusion of a current United Kingdom passport in the list of prescribed documents and would be only disadvantaged by its inclusion. When an application for a passport is received a considerable time elapses during which the application is processed, with all the necessary checks and safeguards being carried out, before it is issued. There are seasonal queues for passports. The staff who are responsible for issuing passports would be unable to cope if those who do not presently hold United Kingdom passports were suddenly to apply for them.

I am aware that the United Kingdom passport is highly regarded, but it is not foolproof. There is a belief that some have been successfully forged in the past. The United Kingdom visitors' passport, which is referred to as the quickie passport, is sometimes obtained as a means of jumping the queue or beating the backlog for a full passport. The visitors' passport needs frequently to be renewed and for other reasons is less acceptable than the full passport.

Should passports issued by the Republic of Ireland feature among the prescribed documents? In certain parts of west Belfast, Londonderry and Strabane the production of a United Kingdom passport would identify the holder and perhaps provoke the wrath at a later date of those not sympathetic to holders of United Kingdom passports. There would be resentment in certain parts of Northern Ireland towards those foolish enough to flash around an Irish Republic passport. We must remember that our objective is to assist the democratic process; it is our wish to avoid confrontation.

We must consider the position of the minority in Northern Ireland. Many would conclude that holders of the Irish Republic passport could be supporters of the "Brits Out" campaign. That means every one of us. If we allow our imagination free reign, we might think that some of those holders of Irish Republic passports could also support the bomb and the bullet campaign. That could contribute to conflict in certain areas, which is something that we wish to avoid.

We have no influence on the issue of passports from the Irish Republic. Therefore, we must not place undue confidence in the reliability of that document. Only authentic identity cards produced in Northern Ireland for Northern Ireland electors should be valid and acceptable.

Mr. William Ross

It is possible for a Northern Ireland resident to hold two passports. If he drove to Dublin he could obtain a passport of the Irish Republic, and he could also hold a British passport.

Mr. Beggs

It is important that my hon. Friend's point is noted. What he outlined will contribute to the conflict that we are trying to avoid. It is resented in Northern Ireland that some people could, if the Bill is passed, present an Irish Republic passport and so influence the future of those of us who wish to maintain our British links. Such people may not even live in Northern Ireland or the United Kingdom, yet they could use such a passport to affect the futures of ourselves and our children.

Mr. Clifford Forsythe

Under the Bill the Secretary of State can, by regulation, introduce other documents and so add to the list. If the Government are not willing to introduce identity cards with a photograph, date of birth, address and so on, could there not be a system of voluntary identity cards for those who wish to use them to prove their identity? They could be registered on the electoral register with stars by their names, and they would have to produce that card if they wished to vote. Various other cards could be provided or made available if people did not wish to have a photograph taken. Cards similar to bank cheque cards could be taken to polling stations and put through a machine, which would show whether the information was correct. A British Airways commuter card is supplied if one sends a photograph.

The object of the Bill must be to make identification foolproof and to ensure that the person coming to vote is the registered person. That must be clear. I remind those who object to the use of identity cards, either voluntarily or otherwise, that people wishing to drive a car in Northern Ireland must apply for a driver's licence which has their photograph and address on it, and that those who wish to have a passport must also apply with a photograph and their details. It seems peculiar that, if we must have them to drive a car or leave and re-enter the country, people should object to identification for polling purposes. Those who wish to have an identity card with their photograph and details on it should be entitled to have one.

Mr. McCusker

The debate exposes the Bill's weakness and the nonsense of some parts of it. My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) talked about making identification foolproof without introducing identity cards. The entire business of producing a prescribed document is as strong as the weakest prescribed document. The weakest prescribed document is that which is held most generally. Medical cards were included because they were most generally held. Almost everyone can be expected to have a medical card, which is why it is the weakest document. In no sense is it an identity card.

The theory is that a person values that document so much that he will not hand it over easily, and that if a person arrives at a polling station with it it is further evidence that he is the registered voter identified on the medical card. Therefore, the inclusion of passports, driving licences and Department of Health and Social Security booklets are only a bonus. The Minister may argue that that makes it easier for those who have driving licences, passports and so on, but in essence it is only a bonus.

That all boils down to the fact that the medical card should have to be produced by everyone. If that is so, I should have preferred the Minister to say that it was to be the prescribed document. A vigorous campaign could then have been mounted in Northern Ireland to ensure that everyone's medical card was up to date. By having a series of alternatives, we are diluting the possibility of having one card. I regret that we are not basing identification on medical cards or poll cards. The list is a sham. Virtually all of the documents, except medical cards, are available only to a limited number of people. They are included because some of them have photographs, which will help with identification. The medical card does not have a photograph.

This is another evasion of the issue. The Secretary of State has refused to consider issuing identity cards. I look forward to the Minister addressing the point that the clause is as strong or as weak as the weakest document, which is the medical card.

10 pm

Mr. Scott

The amendments under discussion have two purposes. The first is to incorporate—

It being Ten o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress.