Commons Sitting of 14 February 1985

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS
BIRMINGHAM CITY COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
CAMBRIDGE CITY COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
C-POULTRY COMPANY LIMITED BILL (By Order)

PRIVATE BUSINESS

  FELIXSTOWE DOCK AND RAILWAY BILL (By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday 21 February.

  GOSPORT BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
  Read a Second time, and committed.
  GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)
  HARROGATE STRAY BILL (By Order)
  LINCOLN CITY COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
  PLYMOUTH MARINE EVENTS BASE BILL (By Order)
  SCARBOROUGH BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL (By Order)
  STREATHAM PARK CEMETERY BILL (By Order)

  YORKSHIRE WATER AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday 21 February.

Oral Answers to Questions
  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Home-produced Food (Consumption)
    Sir Peter Millsasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the drop in food consumption from United Kingdom production over the last four years.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mrs. Peggy Fenner): Agricultural production, at constant prices, has increased by about 12 per cent. over the last four years. During the same period home-produced food has maintained its share of a static domestic market but exports have increased significantly.
    Sir Peter Mills: I thank my hon. Friend for her answer, but is it not true that there has been a considerable drop in the consumption of certain products? Is that not a serious matter for British agriculture? Will my hon. Friend be careful not to over-react in company with the health lobby, which is always saying that certain products are bad for us? Finally, is it not the height of folly to seek to do away with the beef premium, which encourages people to consume beef rather than to put it into intervention?
    Mrs. Fenner: There is no question of over-reacting. The report represents the best scientific and medical advice available to the Government, and the nation's health is of vital importance. My hon. Friend is right to say that the beef variable premium plays an important role in maintaining the consumption of beef in this country.

    Dutch Horticulture Industry
    Mrs. Roeasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what progress has been made in attempts to prevent the Dutch Government from subsidising its horticulture industry through cheap gas prices.
    The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Michael Jopling): The Commission is now considering what action to take in the light of comments received from member states and other interested parties since it instituted proceedings under article 93(2) of the treaty of Rome.
    Mrs. Roe: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his reply, but will he accept that the reintroduction of preferential gas prices for Dutch growers has been a matter of concern to United Kingdom glasshouse growers? Even if it is halted now, a competitive advantage, particularly against the long-season protected crop producer, will have been gained by the Dutch during the winter months because of lower energy costs for produce to be marketed now and in the coming months. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it seems to be a calculated policy of the Dutch Government to create an unfair advantage so that our producers simply cannot compete?
    Mr. Jopling: I have the greatest sympathy with my hon. Friend in her forthright and clear views. That is why the Government have put the strongest possible pressure on the Commission to require the Dutch to suspend the preferential gas price while considering whether the practice is compatible with the terms of the treaty.
    Mr. Torney: In view of the struggle that our horticulture industry will have when Spain and Portugal join the EEC, and as this is the second time recently that the Dutch have kicked the question of fuel prices, thus seriously affecting the United Kingdom industry, does the Minister agree that it is time for concerted action by the Government, without waiting for the EEC to agree, to police the Dutch, otherwise the industry will go bang?
    Mr. Jopling: We have raised this matter at every meeting of the Council of Ministers since it became apparent. The hon. Gentleman is right, in that in 1981 the Commission decided that the practice of a state controlled company operating a preferential gas price for horticulturists was incompatible with the treaty of Rome. I am not aware that matters are at all different now. I assure the hon. Gentleman that we shall keep up the pressure.
    Mr. Hunter: As the Dutch Government are providing comparable assistance for the poultrymeat and egg sectors, what representations does my right hon. Friend intend to make to combat this form of unfair competition?
    Mr. Jopling: If I can be provided with firm evidence of unfair competition by the Dutch in those sectors, I shall be glad to take the matter up with the Commission.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: As the Dutch Government have been found guilty of subsidising their growers, why is it not possible to impose a levy on their products? They are swamping our growers. Growers in my area pay 10p a gallon more for their diesel fuel than anyone else on the mainland. They are going to the wall.
    Mr. Jopling: At the most recent meeting of the Council of Ministers I proposed to the Commission that it ought to take steps to recover the unfair advantage that Dutch growers have had through what we regard as an illegal subsidy.
    Mr. Mark Hughes: In view of that reply from the Minister may I ask whether, if the Government do not get a satisfactory answer from the Commission, the right hon. Gentleman will take unilateral action to protect our growers?
    Mr. Jopling: We shall be prepared to do whatever we can, within the law, to ensure that Dutch growers do not get this type of unfair advantage. We shall press the Commission hard to ensure that the Dutch enact the law.

    Beef and Sheepmeat
    Sir Hector Monroasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will make a statement on the future of the beef premium and the sheepmeat regime.
    The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John MacGregor): In its proposals for the 1985 common agricultural policy price fixing the Commission has made no provision for keeping the beef variable premium scheme. I believe that the scheme has served producers and consumers well and, in the current market situation for beef, should be maintained. As in previous years, we shall be pressing for its continuation. As to the sheepmeat regime, it has worked reasonably well but we shall continue to seek changes which will make it easier for our lamb to be exported to the rest of the Community and which will improve the stability of the home market.
    Sir Hector Monro: Is my hon. Friend aware of the crucial importance of these two subsidies to the livestock areas of the west and north? Is he further aware that, without those subsidies, income from the hills of the west and north will be affected disastrously and that he must make every conceivable effort to ensure that the subsidies are maintained this year and in the future?
    Mr. MacGregor: We had a tremendous struggle last year on the beef variable premium scheme, but my hon. Friend will know that my right hon. Friend the Minister was highly successful in maintaining that scheme, albeit in a somewhat changed form. We shall do everything that we can to persuade other member states of the merits of the scheme, which we believe benefits both producers and
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    consumers and reduces the need for costly intervention. We shall resist any changes to the sheepmeat regime that discriminate against our producers.
    Mr. Nicholson: I welcome the Minister's firm declaration in support of the beef variable premium scheme. I assure him that it has the support of farmers in Northern Ireland, who recognise the great need for it. In view of the continuing delay in the payment of the 1984–85 ewe premium, will he ensure that an interim payment is made to alleviate the hardship that is felt especially by hill livestock producers?
    Mr. MacGregor: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's comments on the schemes. As for the delay in payment, I think that he is talking about the rates of advance payment in less-favoured areas. I know that they are important to farmers at this time of year, but a new method of calculation, which we do not believe is quite right, has been introduced. It is important that we get it right. There have been discussions this week on the advance payment issue, and I hope that there will be progress on the matter before too long.
    Mr. Cockeram: Does my hon. Friend accept that both the beef premium and the sheepmeat regime are vital to the continued viability of farming in hill areas, not merely around Ludlow, but elsewhere? Does he agree that if the two schemes were to be ended it would be a sad day, because many hill farms would cease to be viable?
    Mr. MacGregor: I hear what my hon. Friend says. I am sure that he also welcomed the improvements in the hill livestock compensatory amounts last year for hill farmers, in that they are now also payable in marginal areas.
    Mr. Strang: Is it not scandalous that yet again the variable premium is under threat? Will the hon. Gentleman ensure that it continues and seek to establish it on a permanent basis, so that year in, year out we are not threatened with its removal?
    Mr. MacGregor: The problem is that the scheme is not permanent and it was not this Government who negotiated the position of not making it a permanent scheme. It is difficult to get the beef variable premium on the table every year. As I said, we did it last year, and we continue to believe that it is not in the Community's interest to end the scheme.
    Mr. Andy Stewart: In view of the speech of the president of the National Farmers Union on Tuesday, when he claimed that every success in agriculture, including the retention of the beef variable premium scheme, was due to the union and every failure was due to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, would my hon. Friend care to put the record straight?
    Mr. MacGregor: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It was entirely due to the efforts of my right hon. Friend the Minister, whom I was pleased to assist, and not to anyone else, that we managed to retain the beef variable premium scheme.
    Mr. Kirkwood: In addition to the threat emanating from the European Community Commission's proposals on the sheepmeat regime, will the Minister take careful account of the problem faced particularly by Scottish producers because they do not have access to the new qualifying group of animals?
    Mr. MacGregor: I am not sure precisely what the hon. Gentleman has in mind. One or two points are worth taking up with the Commission, and perhaps the hon. Gentleman will write to me about the matter.
    Sir John Farr: Is my hon. Friend aware that although most beef producers have received the beef premium for most of the weeks of the present year, beef has still been largely unprofitable and people are already leaving beef production? Will he do whatever he can to ensure that the scheme, which is so valuable, continues, otherwise, with the milk quota production, whole sections of the British countryside will change their character as people leave horn and find an alternative?
    Mr. MacGregor: Both the variable premium scheme and the changes in the intervention system have had a beneficial effect on the market this year, in that the returns to the producers have been about 98 per cent. of the target price. I repeat that the variable premium scheme is beneficial to both producers and consumers and ensures that beef is consumed instead of going into intervention.
    Mr. John: Since the schemes are justifiable on their own merits because they benefit producers and consumers, will the Minister resist any attempt to use the retention of the schemes as a lever to get unjust padding in other parts of the common agricultural policy, under which too much subsidy is already paid?
    Mr. MacGregor: Our position on subsidies for products in surplus is extremely clear. The hon. Gentleman will know that we are to enter into negotiations, but these have not yet begun. Last year we had considerable difficulties with the schemes, and obviously we shall have to see how we get on in the negotiations.

    Drainage
    Mr. Yeoasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to publish his review of drainage.
    Mrs. Fenner: We expect to issue the consultation paper on the financing and administration of land drainage, flood protection and coast defence in March.
    Mr. Yeo: I welcome that reply. Is my hon. Friend aware of the urgency of this issue? It is well illustrated by the proposals of the Anglian water authority for the River Stour, which will desecrate the world-famous landscape in Dedham Vale. Does my hon. Friend agree that the only way, ultimately, to prevent that from happening will be to use yet more taxpayers' money to persuade landowners to refrain from growing products which the country neither needs nor can afford?
    Mrs. Fenner: I regret the delay in the publication of the paper, but I am confident that it will now be issued in March. It will not cover conservation issues as such. Its prime purpose is to seek views on financial and administrative issues.
    Mr. Haynes: Is the Minister aware that there is a firm in my constituency which makes pipes for land drainage? Will the Minister bear in mind what I have just said, because that firm has a marvellous record for exports, which are important to the economy, but it desperately needs some help with the home market?
    Mrs. Fenner: The purpose of the paper is to consult interested parties on the present arrangements and to obtain their views on any improvements that are considered necessary. I do not believe that it will affect the hon. Gentleman's firm.
    Mr. Cormack: Will my hon. Friend reconsider the reply that she gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) and accept that conservation is of widespread interest and is extremely important?
    Mrs. Fenner: Yes, I wholly agree with my hon. Friend that conservation is important. I merely pointed out that that was not the purpose of the drainage paper.
    Mr. Beggs: Is the Minister aware of the importance to agriculture of capital grants for land drainage and reclamation schemes in maintaining the jobs of employees of agricultural contractors, quarry operators and those who supply stone and gravel for drainage schemes? Will the Minister advise the House of the estimated number of job losses that will arise from the proposal to cut £13 million from the allocation to Northern Ireland and £27 million from the funds allocated to the mainland for capital grants?
    Mrs. Fenner: Land drainage has had an enhanced rate of grant for some time now, and it is only fair that it should take its share of public expenditure cuts. The paper will review the present grant-aid arrangements, not fix future levels of grant-aid.
    Mr. Mark Hughes: Will the paper deal with the problem of Wakefield, which is in a most difficult position between the hon. Lady's Department and the Department of the Environment? Does she accept that there are major difficulties in balancing conservation and agriculture, and that her answer that conservation is not included is disturbing?
    Mrs. Fenner: I have had a good deal of correspondence on this issue with the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Harrison). I am aware of the problem. I note that the hon. Member for City of Durham (Mr. Hughes) is interested in conservation, and I share that interest. The paper is about financial and administrative arrangements and seeks consultation about changes or improvements.

    Agricultural Smallholdings
    Mr. Ashdownasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards the practice of Somerset and other counties in selling off their agricultural smallholdings.
    Mrs. Fenner: It is the Government's policy to leave decisions on the sale of smallholdings to the smallholdings authorities concerned.
    Mr. Ashdown: Is the Minister aware that such is the opposition of the National Farmers Union to Somerset's attempts to flog off its smallholdings for a little one-off help with the rates that the union is currently considering advice from a QC that there may be a reason to take Somerset to the courts to test the legality of the matter? In view of the Government's recent embarrassment over court decisions, will the Minister advise Somerset and other county councils which are considering agricultural asset stripping to stay their hand, at least until the legalities of the matter are established?
    Mrs. Fenner: I note with interest the hon. Gentleman's statement about the NFU. There is no intention to reimpose any limitation on the freedom of local authorities to act in the way that they think best on smallholdings.
    Mr. Hardy: Has not hon. Member after hon. Member on the Conservative Benches in recent years prated about the need for young people to have an opportunity to enter farming? Is it not the case that those authorities which are selling their smallholdings are merely emulating the dogma of selfish and shortsighted privatisation which is so eagerly served by the same hon. Members who talk about opportunities?
    Mrs. Fenner: On the contrary. Unfortunately, smallholdings have not generally proved effective in providing that first rung on the farming ladder, largely because of the absence of further rungs, which owes a great deal to the Labour party's Agricultural Land Holdings Act 1976. In the 10-year period to 1980–81 only about 14 tenants per year succeeded in making that transition.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Is the Minister aware that the Northfield report said that smallholdings should not be sold in view of the urgent need to retain farm holdings to let? As recent legislation has only too plainly failed to encurage private landlords to let more farming units, has the Government any policy to deal with that?
    Mrs. Fenner: The hon. Gentleman is well aware that the Act has hardly been in force for long enough to have made any considerable difference. It is our hope that it will in time, but that is no excuse for contending that smallholdings have provided that rung, when all the figures show that they have not.

    Protein Crops
    Mr. Keyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what action the Government are taking to promote the output of protein crops such as peas and beans.
    Mr. MacGregor: The Government have actively supported Community action to encourage the protein sector, which includes the payment of a subsidy on peas and field beans production. We fund research designed to produce improved varieties of these protein crops and advice to growers is available from the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service.
    Mr. Key: In view of the need to reduce cereal output next year, to what extent does my hon. Friend regard protein crops such as peas and beans as a viable alternative? As the yield is about 3 tonnes per hectare, but Rothamstead says it should be 8 tonnes, what is he doing to encourage that experimental station?
    Mr. MacGregor: As I indicated, we are funding quite a lot of research into improving consistency of yield and uniform ripening of the crop, and also into high resistance to pests and diseases. On his first point, my hon. Friend will know that United Kingdom pea production increased by 60 per cent. between 1983 and 1984. He is right in saying that it provides an alternative to cereals and other surplus products. That is one of the two reasons why it is sensible to encourage it, the other being that we are still in substantial deficit in protein crops.
    Mr. Haselhurst: Has my hon. Friend made a careful assessment of the extent to which this could be a help to farmers to get out of grain, and thus to deal with the overall problem of surpluses?
    Mr. MacGregor: Farmers must make up their own minds about what they wish to do, but we have been giving encouragement in this area.
    Mr. Mark Hughes: What advice are the Government giving about lupins?
    Mr. MacGregor: As the hon. Gentleman will know, there is quite a lot of discussion about lupins in the United Kingdom. There are still considerable difficulties in growing them successfully, but some day that may be an alternative crop. Some producers are certainly getting interested in it.

    Potatoes
    Mr. Gerald Howarthasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the operation of the scheme for the sale of potato quotas.
    Mr. MacGregor: This is a matter for the Potato Marketing Board. However, at my request the board has re-examined the operation of the quota system and has introduced greater flexibility.
    Mr. Howarth: Given that about half our potato consumption consists of imports, does my hon. Friend agree that it would be best to wind up the board? If the producers want the board, let them finance it out of their own resources, rather than making further calls on taxpayers' funds.
    Mr. MacGregor: Just this morning in Committee we passed amendments relating to the Potato Marketing Board which have had thorough consideration and are supported by more than 97 per cent. of growers. If the proposals go through Parliament as a whole, the growers will be paying a higher levy and the Government's open-ended commitment on deficiency payments will be withdrawn.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: Can the Minister give an assurance to potato producers that the Government have no plans to abolish the Potato Marketing Board?
    Mr. MacGregor: As today, with the approval of the Committee, I have carried amendments in regard to the Potato Marketing Board which will last for five years. I think that the position is clear.
    Mr. Colvin: Now that we have a scheme for the sale of potato quotas, why can we not also have a perfectly controlled scheme for the sale of milk quotas, which is a form of marketing that is favoured by both the National Farmers Union and the Milk Marketing Board?
    Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend will know that that was in response to a paper which we put out recently suggesting various alternatives for greater flexibility in the milk levy sytem. That is one possibility that we will consider in response to all the representations that we have received, but it will have to be negotiated in Brussels.

    Milk Quotas
    Mr. Stephen Rossasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what arrangements he is

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    making for allocating secondary milk quotas in the year following 31 March 1985 and subsequent years in relation to the needs of farmers who are part way through development plans.
    Mr. Jopling: The Dairy Produce Quotas Regulations allow the tribunal to make awards of secondary quota only in respect of expansion plans giving rise to production in the 1984–85 milk year. If we had made provision for plans extending into later years, this would have necessitated a bigger reduction in calculating quotas for other producers, and I do not think this would have been the right course.
    Mr. Ross: Is the Minister aware that many producers, particularly those undertaking development plans, will have a rude shock at the end of March when they find that their quota is 30 per cent. less than they had bargained for? Is not the answer for the Minister to extend the outgoers scheme so that there will be more money to provide a fairer quota for those engaged in milk production?
    Mr. Jopling: I think that we did immensely well to get £50 million for the outgoers scheme, and it has been a satisfactory sum. However, I am aware of the problems of producers who made firm plans before quotas were introduced, but who will not have finished the work until the end of 1984–85. I am prepared to give the matter further thought. The amount of quota available is very limited, and I would find it hard to justify going beyond 31 March 1985, when awards in respect of the current year will themselves be subject to scaling down.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: Will the Minister comment on Mr. Andriessen's proposal that the regional quota be spread over the whole national territory so that this year Northern Ireland will be exempt from paying superlevy?
    Mr. Jopling: We have arrangements that are being discussed in Brussels at the moment, which would allow one to redistribute quota beyond the area of the dairies that were originally in the regulations. Those are still matters for discussion. However, I see that the amount of milk being produced in Northern Ireland is coming back towards the quota level.
    Miss Maynard: In view of the fact that we now know that farm workers, dairy workers and some transport workers are losing their jobs because of the milk quotas, is the Minister prepared to go back to the EEC to get some money in compensation for workers who have lost their livelihood as a result of the milk quota scheme?
    Mr. Jopling: The hon. Lady, to whom I have answered a similar question before, will know that we have arrangements for redundancy payments in this country and that some firms, for instance the Milk Marketing Board, provide redundancy terms that are considerably more generous than those of the state scheme.
    Mr. Phillip Oppenheim: Is my right hon. Friend aware that producer-retailers are still unable to sell the full amount of their production quota direct to the public? Is he further aware that flexibility of wholesale quotas does little to alleviate that situation? Does my right hon. Friend remember that some nine months ago he committed himself to sort out the situation as soon as possible?
    Mr. Jopling: We have been raising that matter at every meeting of the Council of Ministers since the middle of last summer, and I am glad to say that one of the first things that the new Commissioner did was to introduce some
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    proposals that sought to deal with the problem of inflexibility between a direct and a wholesale quota when they are on one farm. We are continuing to discuss that. I hope that we shall be able to sort it out and finalise it at the next meeting of the Council at the end of the month.
    Mr. John David Taylor: Does the facility that makes it possible to transfer quotas from one part of the United Kingdom to another apply to this year only?
    Mr. Jopling: We have limited arrangements, as the right hon. Gentleman will know, for transferring milk from one farm to another. He will also know that my Department recently issued a consultation paper to try to find ways in future of making that simpler.
    Mr. Maclean: Notwithstanding my right hon. Friend's reply to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), is he aware that there are a few farmers in my constituency who are halfway through a development scheme, who will have no quota at all from 1985 onwards? In addition to trying to bring the 200,000 litre men up to full strength, will my right hon. Friend change his mind and attempt to find some quota for those small farmers who will have no livelihood unless they get some quota for 1985–86?
    Mr. Jopling: I am not absolutely clear in my mind about the question that my hon. Friend asks because, as I understand it, the problem concerns quota being available for future expansion after 1 April this year. However, if my hon. Friend cares to send me details of specific problems, I shall have a look at them and see what can be done.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Since the tribunals' recommended allocations of secondary quota are being scaled down by 42·5 per cent. in Scotland and 35 per cent. in England and Wales, and since it is likely that Britain could be 200 million litres short of its national quota this year, which is equivalent to the production of about 40,000 cows, will the Minister now accept that he has made a shambles of this and do something about it by expanding the outgoers scheme and allowing the milk marketing boards to do something about transferring quota between producers?
    Mr. Jopling: The hon. Gentleman has the wrong end of the stick altogether. The awards of the panels and tribunals will have to be scaled down, but that is a function of the extra 2·5 per cent. by which we lowered the primary quotas of milk producers in order to deal with hardship cases. I took advice from the National Farmers Unions at the time on whether it had a better figure than 2·5 per cent. in mind. Of course, we could have helped if we had taken 3 or 3·5 per cent. off milk producers' primary quotas, but the unions told me that they did not have a better figure than 2·5 per cent. in mind.

    Caribbean (Ministerial Visit)
    Mr. Willie W. Hamiltonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what was the purpose of the official visit by a Minister in his Department to the Caribbean in late January; how many persons were in the official party; and what was the total cost to public funds.
    Mr. Jopling: For the purpose of my hon. Friend's official visit, I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply given to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mr. Parry) on 4 February. The party comprised four persons and the total cost is now estimated at £9,900.
    Mr. Hamilton: Was that extravagant jaunt approved by the Prime Minister, or was she on holiday at the time? Was the cost of the Minister's husband, who was in the party, paid for by the taxpayer, and did she bring back with her any banana skins for the use of Ministers?
    Mr. Jopling: I see that the hon. Gentleman is up to his usual rather snide form. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary embarked on that visit on my instructions to ensure that the promised steps were being taken to improve the quality of bananas coming to the United Kingdom—which enjoy preferential access—from the Windward Islands and Jamaica. We have in the past received many complaints from importers about the quality of imports, but I am glad to say that British housewives are already enjoying better quality fruit as a result of our pressures, not least those from my hon. Friend.
    The hon. Gentleman probably does not understand how much help on overseas visits a spouse can be. My view is shared by right hon. and hon. Members on the Opposition Front Bench, because I understand that between 1974 and 1979 Ministers from my Department, accompanied by spouses, took part in 14 visits, to Venice, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Moscow, Amsterdam, the United States, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Martinique, Guadaloupe, Canada, Scandinavia, West Germany, Brazil, Mauritius, India, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong.
    Mr. Budgen: Was the visit perhaps with a view to setting up a banana regime within the enlarged EEC? If banana growers within the enlarged EEC were given what they would call an adequate rate of return, might it not be possible for the EEC to become self-sufficient in bananas? Would that not be in the finest traditions both of the Ministry of Agriculture and of the common agricultural policy?
    Mr. Jopling: There is no intention in my mind of having a banana regime. If my hon. Friend cannot do rather better than that, he would have done better to stay in the Whips' Office.

    Farm Incomes
    Mr. Jacksonasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will consider reviewing the presentation of statistics about farmers' income in the Annual Review of Agriculture.
    Mr. MacGregor: The tables on these matters have all undergone considerable changes during the last two years and now provide more detailed and better information about farming income than was previously available. But I am always willing to consider suggestions for improvements to these statistical tables.
    Mr. Jackson: Does my hon. Friend agree that in the presentation in the White Paper insufficient weight and prominence are given to the many qualifications which the White Paper admits must be attached to the estimates of farm incomes?
    Mr. MacGregor: We have gone to considerable lengths to try to get this right in this particular year, and I believe that that is reflected in the comments on the figures in the media and elsewhere. My hon. Friend is entirely right to say that we should not look at just one figure and that there are very considerable variations
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    between different sectors of agriculture, which are very firmly brought out in tables 26 and 27. He is absolutely right to draw attention to that.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Will the Minister ignore the current cant of the National Farmers Union, which is only bleating on behalf of its membership? Is it not right that for the next 10 years the farmers have to face some pretty rough justice, because, increasingly, money must be transferred within the European Community's budgets from agriculture to industry and they will have to take their fair share of the cuts?
    Mr. MacGregor: We have made it clear that we believe that change has to come in agriculture where we have surpluses in the Community and in this country. That is what we are doing in all the negotiations on price fixing. But it is a great mistake to concentrate on certain sectors of farming. It is very important to stress that there are many farmers with extremely modest incomes who work all hours of the day and night to achieve them.
    Mr. Forth: Will my hon. Friend consider including, as well as income figures for the farming community, the capital value of their assets, which are rarely reflected when these matters are considered and reported?
    Mr. MacGregor: Those figures also are contained in the White Paper. The difficulty is that so much information is contained that it is very important to get the balance right, and that is what we endeavour to do.
    Mr. John: However the statistics are presented, does the hon. Gentleman agree that the 22 per cent. rise in farmers' incomes must mean that the cereal sector, where we are already heavily into over-production, must have done very well indeed? Can he justify the continuance of that?
    Mr. MacGregor: We have made it clear for some time now that we are endeavouring to get a better balance between the cereal and livestock sectors, and we shall continue to do so.
    Mr. Hardyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied with the present structure and balance of farm incomes.
    Mr. MacGregor: I am concerned that broadly there continues to be an imbalance between the arable sectors and most livestock sectors. We will take account of this imbalance during the forthcoming CAP price fixing.
    Mr. Hardy: Will the Minister accept that the large cereal producers, many of whom are to be found on the Government Back Benches, have done extremely well and continue to do well despite the great difficulties the small farmer generally faces? May we take it that the Minister will acknowledge that the small farmer today is for the first time feeling the cold breath of the 1930s, and does the Minister still expect the small fanner to continue to support the Conservative party?
    Mr. MacGregor: Again, one has to look at different types of small farmer and different areas, but I certainly accept that in some areas the small farmer is having a difficult time, and I have made that clear. It is precisely because of our anxiety to help farmers of this sort that we are seeking a better balance between cereals and livestock. After all, the drop in cereal prices this year has undoubtedly benefited the livestock sector, and we shall continue with that approach.

    Sheepmeat
    Mr. Colin Shepherdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what he expects will be the total percentage self-sufficiency in sheepmeat production in the United Kingdom for 1984–85; and what is the anticipated self-sufficiency of the European Economic Community.
    Mr. MacGregor: Forecasts are not available for the 1984–85 marketing year. Self-sufficiency for the 1984 calendar year is now estimated at 77 per cent. for the United Kingdom and 75 per cent. for the European Community.
    Mr. Shepherd: Does my hon. Friend agree that the profound changes now taking place in agriculture mean that sheepmeat production will assume ever-increasing importance in British agriculture? Is he aware that his commitment to resist strongly any change in the variable premium schemes will be well received? Will he especially resist the Community proposal whereby any loss of return from the operation of the limited gap in the variable premium is not compensated by an increase in the ewe premium?
    Mr. MacGregor: The Commission has proposed this year to put a ceiling on the variable premium. As this would help our exporters and could save money, we shall need to examine it carefully. We shall not, however, accept any mechanism of the kind to which my hon. Friend has referred, which is known as a recovery bar and discriminates particularly against British interests.

    Milk Quotas
    Mr. Hicksasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has submitted to the European Economic Community Commission any proposals to introduce greater flexibility into the milk quota scheme; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Jopling: As a result of our repeated pressure the Commission has now made proposals designed to provide greater flexibility between wholesale and direct sale quotas. I shall be pressing for the urgent adoption of these necessary measures.
    Mr. Hicks: I welcome my right hon. Friend's efforts in this direction. Is he aware that many producer retailers find themselves in a ludicrous position and look to my right hon. Friend to improve the situation as quickly as possible?
    Mr. Jopling: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comment. We have been pressing for this since last summer and I am very glad that the new Commissioner, almost within the first week of his duties in Brussels, has put forward proposals to make these necessary changes.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 14 February.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This Morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In
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    addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today, including one with the Prime Minister of Italy.
    Mr. Kirkwood: As the flaws in section 2 of the Official Secrets Act have come to a head in the Ponting trial this week, but were originally brought to the attention of the House by Lord Franks in 1972, and as the present Attorney-General and Home Secretary condemned the provisions of that section as long ago as 1978, will the Prime Minister find time in her busy schedule today to convene a meeting with the express and urgent purpose of planning the early repeal of that section so as to create greater freedom of information and reserve only explicitly stated matters which must be subject to confidentiality?
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman has said, the Franks report was produced in 1972 by three Privy Councillors and a number of other hon. Members. A White Paper was issued six years later in 1978. In 1979, when the Conservative Government which I led came to power, we introduced a Bill to implement the Franks recommendations, but that Bill did not find favour with Parliament and we have not tackled the matter since. Many people want section 2 changed, but there is precious little agreement on how to change it.
    Mr. Robert Adleyasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 14 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Adley: In the light of the barrage of allegations following the Ponting trial, does my right hon. Friend agree that the disclosure of intelligence information is inevitably bound to be useful to potential enemies? Will she assure the House that if there is any conflict between disclosure to the House and national security she will give first priority to national security?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I agree wholly with my hon. Friend. There is no right to information which may imperil the safety of the armed forces. Indeed, the Government have a duty to prevent the release of such information, and it is a duty which I shall continue to discharge.
    Mr. Kinnock: May I first say how completely I agree with that last answer on the matter of national security. The Prime Minister will know that I have today written to her, having received her assurances that she was not involved in the joint decision to prosecute made on 17 August 1984 by the Law Officers, and on that point I am prepared to accept her assurances. I have said this to the Prime Minister in my letter of reply, and I have also enclosed several other questions relating to the decision to prosecute Clive Ponting. I now want the right hon. Lady to answer the question which she avoided answering on Tuesday.
    A vetted jury unanimously concluded that Mr. Clive Ponting had not broken the law by exposing the attempts of Ministers deliberately to mislead Parliament and the public. Did the Prime Minister know about the proposed deception of Parliament and, if she did, did she endorse it? If she did not know about it, will she now condemn it, and condemn it strongly? Will she now answer the question?
    The Prime Minister: I have received the right hon. Gentleman's letter. It contained no trace of apology or

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    withdrawal of anything which he said — no trace whatsoever. Indeed, in many respects he repeated the assertion. He quoted from a letter written by—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I shall answer the question.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I say to the House that it is unseemly to shout.
    The Prime Minister: In his letter, the right hon. Gentleman referred to a letter written by the former Labour Attorney-General. The right hon. Gentleman quoted from it, but what he did not say was what the former Labour Attorney-General said at the beginning of his letter. The letter was written to The Times on 26 September 1984. The former Labour Attorney-General, Mr. Sam Silkin, said:
    "the Prime Minister emphatically asserted that 'the Law Officers did not seek the view of, or consult with, any other minister, nor was the view of any other minister conveyed to them, before they took their decision to prosecute Mr. Ponting.'"
    Mr. Silkin continued:
    "As a statement of fact I do not question this assertion."
    Do I understand the right hon. Gentleman to be making a similar statement? [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."]
    Mr. Kinnock: I am more than content to have the whole of Sam Silkin's letter quoted, but unfortunately the right hon. Lady, with her selective tastes, still does not answer the question which I asked.
    As far as my repetition of assertions is concerned, may I say that that is still because the primary points have not been answered in anything that the right hon. Lady has sent to me.
    On the matter of apologies, yes, apologies are in order— [Interruption.] — apologies from the right hon. Lady for the utterly disreputable action of her Ministers in seeking to mislead and let down Parliament, as the documents leaked by Clive Ponting conclusively demonstrate.
    The Prime Minister: I notice that the right hon. Gentleman does not have the grace to agree with the former Labour Attorney-General.
    May I now come to his question, and answer it in my own way. There has been no attempt whatsoever to mislead the House. [Interruption.] I have made it absolutely clear that the Government have a duty not to reveal intelligence which could be of assistance to the enemy or which could imperil the safety of our own forces. I notice that our enemies are very careful not to let us know how much and when they knew of our movements and operations. They are not being questioned in that way. We have a duty not to disclose that. [Interruption.]
    Mr. Foulkes: Rubbish. Everyone knows it.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a very serious matter, of very great interest to the House and to everybody. I ask the House to give the Prime Minister a fair hearing.
    The Prime Minister: Where information has lost its operational significance, we have given a full account of the facts, which have been published in the Official Report and have not been challenged. Other information still has great operational and intelligence significance, especially in a situation where the Argentine has still not ceased permanent hostilities against this country.
    Mr. Kinnock: Wherever the national security or the safety of our troops and sailors is concerned, or wherever they may be imperilled, this House should be at one. Where questions of the integrity of Ministers is concerned,
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    this House should be at one. The knowledge of movements of the battleship Belgrano is now encyclopaedic and detailed, and has been for many, many months. There are now no longer any details that could conceivably be related to any possibility of imperilling our troops.
    Those documents and matters being considered by Ministers have been released. Is the right hon. Lady saying that the documents that were disclosed by Mr. Ponting were forgeries, or is she saying that he committed perjury, or is she saying that the jury was wrong?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman is going right off beam. What I said, and have made perfectly clear—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is right off beam. He clearly knows nothing about intelligence matters. Where information has lost its operational significance, we have given a full account of the facts. Indeed, I think that if there is a charge to be made against me, it is that I have given too many facts that might best not have been given.
    I want to say this to the right hon. Gentleman about intelligence—if an enemy or anyone who has been in hostilities with us has intelligence information and knows not only what it is but the time we got it, he will be well on the way to knowing where we got it and he will take the appropriate action. Those methods are still in existence. To give away intelligence now, when the Argentine still has not ceased hostilities, would imperil our armed forces. It is no earthly good the right hon. Gentleman saying that we are all at one—his actions reveal that we are not at one.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the majority of people in this country feel that the action taken over the Belgrano — whether it was steaming away at 50 knots or sailing round in circles—was the right action to take? Does she further agree that the Leader of the Opposition is naive in thinking that we should disclose how we got the knowledge, when and where, when it still has great military significance for our armed forces?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend has it absolutely right. The interesting thing is that out of the whole Falklands affair, brilliantly conducted and carried out, the Opposition can find only a couple of little quibbles. That shows what sort of people they are.
    Dr. Owen: The Prime Minister must be aware that the charge of misleading the House is not a quibble—it is a very serious charge. Therefore, is it not incumbent upon her to come to the House on Monday to defend the position that she adopted following November 1982, when she became aware of the fact that some of the statements that had been made in this House were incorrect? That is a simple thing. The Prime Minister is, quite rightly, intent on getting a proper apology out of the Leader of the Labour party because there is a convention in this House that we trust each other's word. That convention is also based on the understanding that the record in Hansard is corrected at the earliest opportunity. That the Prime Minister did not do. She, as the head of the Government, should explain why it is that civil servants and Ministers appear to have misled this House and a Select Committee. She should do that in debate on Monday.
    The Prime Minister: The debate on Monday will be taken by the Ministry of Defence and by my right hon.

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    Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. I have already told the right hon. Gentleman, had he listened — I understand that he might not have heard, because it was a bit noisy — that where information has lost its operational significance we have given a full account of the facts. That full account of the facts was published in several columns of Hansard on, I believe, 29 October. Not one single fact or figure there has been challenged.
    Mr. Nellist: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Does it relate to Question Time?
    Mr. Nellist: Yes, Sir. You will no doubt be aware, Mr. Speaker, and the House will be interested to know, that a couple of hours ago Mr. Clive Ponting was sacked by the Ministry of Defence—[HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right."] My point of order is that although Mr. Ponting was cleared by a jury—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that I have anything to do with that. There is a debate on the matter on Monday, and I should have thought that that would provide an admirable opportunity for the hon. Gentleman to raise the issue.
    Mr. Nellist: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman can only raise a point of order that I can answer, and I cannot answer the question that he is asking me.
    Mr. Nellist: My point of order is simply this, Mr. Speaker. Have you received a request from the Ministry of Defence for permission to make a statement that will clear up the question of how a man can be found not guilty in a court of law and then sacked for the same offence?
    Mr. Speaker: I have not.
    Mr. Flannery: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In Question Time there are now so many leaders around us all over the place—[Interruption ]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I got as far as "leaders".
    Mr. Flannery: There are now so many leaders that it is increasingly difficult for a Back-Bencher to be called. Interesting as the exchanges are, will you, Mr. Speaker, take note of that and question yourself about it?
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has raised a very fair point. Indeed, I mentioned it this week, last week and, I believe, the week before that. It would be a great pity if Question Time involved only exchanges between the Front Benches. However, I do my best where I can to ensure that Back Benchers have an equal share of the time.

Business of the House
3.33 pm
Mr. Neil Kinnock: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 18 FEBRUARY—There will be a debate on the sinking of the General Belgrano, which will arise on a Government motion.
Motion on the Agricultural and Horticultural Co-operation Scheme.
TUESDAY 19 FEBRUARY — Second Reading of the London Regional Transport (Amendment) Bill.
Remaining stages of the Water Fluoridation Bill.
Motion on the European Community Document No. 4421/85 on the Milk Supplementary Levy Scheme.
WEDNESDAY 20 FEBRUARY — Motion on the Rate Limitation (Prescribed Maximum) (Rates) Order.
Remaining stages of the Trustee Savings Banks Bill.
THURSDAY 21 FEBRUARY—Remaining stages of the London Regional Transport (Amendment) Bill.
Motion on the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984 (Continuance) Order.
FRIDAY 22 FEBRUARY—Private Members' Bills.
MONDAY 25 FEBRUARY — Remaining stages of the Representation of the People Bill.
[Debate on Milk Supplementary Levy Scheme February 1985:
Document
4421/85 Milk quotas and levy.
Relevant Report of European Legislation Committee
HC 5-ix (1984–85), para. 2.]
Mr. Kinnock: I am glad that the Government have changed their mind and will after all, be tabling an amendable motion for Monday's debate. However, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that my hon. Friends and I consider that the choice of subject by the Government is nothing more than an evasive gimmick designed to distract attention from the main current issues of the conduct of Ministers and the decision of the Government to prosecute Mr. Clive Ponting? The Government will not succeed in their efforts to distract attention by the use of this stratagem.
Will the Leader of the House confirm that we will shortly have the debate on the public expenditure White Paper to which he said he has been giving consideration?
May I ask the right hon. Gentleman once again whether the Government will provide their own time for a debate on the problems that will arise from the closure of a third of the skillcentre network, particularly as we now discover that there is no majority on the Manpower Services Commission for that course of action?
Will the Government provide time for an urgent debate on Britain's immigration laws in view of the disturbing evidence in yesterday's report from the Commission on Racial Equality that our immigration system operates unfairly and unjustly against black families and is a source of tension in race relations?
Mr. Biffen: Perhaps we might pursue through the usual channels the question of a debate on the report of the
482
Commission on Racial Equality on the application of the immigration laws. I make the same comment as I did last week about the possibilities of a debate on skillcentres.
To answer the right hon. Gentleman's question about a debate on the public expenditure White Paper, I understand that the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service will shortly report on the matter. I hope that a debate can take place soon thereafter, and certainly ahead of the Budget debate.
I note that the right hon. Gentleman is happy that Monday's debate should take place on an amendable motion. I listened to his rehearsed trailer for the whole character of the debate on Monday, and I can only comment, in all generosity, that if it is to be a question of an evasive gimmick, he is giving us a generous standard by which to measure ourselves.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Will my right hon. Friend try to find time for an early debate on the need to reform the Official Secrets Act? Is he aware that some of us are disturbed by the somewhat doubtful line which appears to be emerging from the Treasury Bench to the effect that there is no need to tackle this subject again because previous attempts, particularly the 1979 Bill, ran into difficulties? As he will recall that the 1979 Bill was never debated on the Floor of the House but was withdrawn by the Government because of difficulties over the Blunt disclosures, will he agree that that is not a valid comparison and that there is now a new situation which merits an early debate?
Mr. Biffen: As my hon. Friend reminded a radio audience earlier today, he has himself done his time in dock in respect of the Official Secrets Act and therefore he speaks on the matter with added authority. I cannot give him an optimistic reply today, but I shall draw attention of the Home Secretary to the point that he makes.
Mr. David Steel: Will the Leader of the House take note of what I think is a widespread view, not only inside but outside the House, that as the Prime Minister is in charge of the nation's security and is the only member of the War Cabinet still in office it would be treating the House with contempt for her not to take part in the debate on Monday and to clear up the remaining issues once and for all?
Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Gentleman will have heard the answer that my right hon. Friend gave to his master, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). I shall put to her the point that the right hon. Gentleman makes.
Dr. Brian Mawhinney: Has my right hon. Friend noted that the Secretary of State for Social Services has promised a decision on the Government's policy on limited lists before the end of this month? If that decision is made next week, will my right hon. Friend arrange for a statement to be made? Although the House has been promised a regulation for debate, in the light of other factors that have emerged in recent weeks, particularly relating to the behaviour of the pharmaceutical industry and some in the medical profession, will the Leader of the House arrange for a much longer debate than might normally be associated with the consideration of a mere regulation?
Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend underlines the importance of this topic. I shall certainly bear in mind the importance

483
of a statement being made. I shall take account of his representations that there should be a longer debate than is normally the case.
Mr. Tony Benn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Prime Minister's refusal to take part in the debate on Monday will confirm the growing feeling that, when there were military victories bought with British lives in the Falklands, she was very ready to step forward to claim the credit but that when there are criticisms of her conduct she offloads the responsibility on to other Ministers or shields behind an artificial defence of national security? The impression which she gave today and which emerges from her decision not to speak is that under the image of a great war leader, which she so sedulously cultivates, lies the heart of a coward.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must ask the right hon. Member to withdraw that last word.
Mr. Benn: It is not my wish to use unparliamentary language, Mr. Speaker, but I think that I am entitled to draw a contrast between the Prime Minister's conduct when—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member is a very experienced Member of the House. He knows that he may not use that word in relation to another right hon. Member.
Mr. Benn: I withdraw the word "coward", Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Biffen: May I say in the cause of the virtues of anodyne language that, on reflection, I think that I was unnecessarily rough in the comment I made to the leader of the Liberal party about his relationship. It was meant in the kindest of spirits.
The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) is an experienced debater. I have no doubt that he believes that a legitimate part of politics is playing the man, or woman, as well as the ball. I have no doubt that he will be able to do that next Monday. I have no doubt also that the right hon. Gentleman heard the answer that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister gave to the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). I believe that, on reflection, he will realise that that was a perfectly valid explanation.
Mr. Kenneth Warren: Will my right hon. Friend consider the difficulties facing the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, and other Select Committees? When recommedations are made by the Committee of Selection that hon. Members should join a particular Committee, such as the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, there has been an increasing blockage in implementing the Selection Committee's recommendations. For instance, the hon. Member for Gateshead, East (Mr. Conlan) was prevented for three months last summer from joining the Select Committee on Trade and Industry and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Mr. Porter) has been prevented for more than a month from joining the Select Committee because the Liberal/SDP alliance will not accept the membership of those hon. Members on the Committee.
Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend has referred to a real problem. I shall certainly look into the matter, although I have a limited role in this regard, to ascertain whether anything can be done.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: May the Secretary of State for Energy be called here next week to explain why he has refused on numerous occasions to disclose to the House the state of the electricity board's accounts? A member of his own party, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy, has confirmed that the electricity board has lost £2 billion as opposed to its £240 million profit in the year before the strike. Surely it is high time the Secretary of State for Energy made a statement to the House on that matter and disclosed the current state of stocks. The right hon. Gentleman is refusing to answer parliamentary questions that have been tabled continuously since Christmas. There are many aspects of this strike, including costs, about which the House should know. It is high time the right hon. Gentleman was brought here to explain himself.
Mr. Biffen: My right hon. Friend is first for parliamentary questions on Monday. Although the hon. Gentleman may feel disposed to disparage the technique of parliamentary questions, I think that he is rather good at it, and I hope that he will persist.
Mr. John Stokes: On next week's business, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the unwritten constitution can work only if all hon. Members behave as gentlemen and not as cads?
Mr. Biffen: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It would be totally impossible, and out of the character of this place, to try to prescribe with precision how we conduct relationships. We must proceed on the basis that my hon. Friend has suggested.
Mr. Jack Ashley: Has the Leader of the House seen the amendment put down to early-day motion 341 by a group of Conservative Members?
[That this House congratulates the Newcastle Evening Chronicle for its report on Tuesday 29th January, revealing that a meeting of senior National Coal Board officials was held in the National Coal Board Staff College, Longbenton, in September 1981, to hear a statement that it was the intention of the current government to 'privatise' the coal industry, the objective was to make the reduced coal industry attractive to outside speculation, and the future would be with around 100 profit-making pits, largely in the central coalfield of Britain; considers that the revelation vindicates the National Union of Mineworkers' reasons for their splendid defence of the mining industry and exposes the real reasons for Her Majesty's Government's desire to prolong the strike; and accordingly condemns any suggestion that the nation's coal industry assets should be sold off.]
The amendment calls for the privatisation of the coal industry. As the Secretary of State for Energy has now written to me saying that he has no plans to privatise the coal industry, may we be told whether the Government reject the views of their own Back Benchers or those of the Secretary of State?
Mr. Biffen: That is an issue that could profitably be tossed around during Question Time on Monday.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: The famine in Africa has been called the greatest disaster ever to afflict the globe. Will my right hon. Friend try to find time to debate both the issue itself and ways and means in which we can give additional help?
Mr. Biffen: I recognise the importance of that point, but no provision has been made for a debate in the near future. I hope that, in any case, my hon. Friend will try his own luck with such chances as may be offered by the Adjournment.
Mr. Terry Davis: As the Leader of the House is still using the Select Committee as an excuse for his failure to arrange a debate on the public expenditure White Paper, will he have a word with the Chairman of that Select Committee and ask him to hurry up?
Mr. Biffen: I will most happily draw the Chairman's attention to the hon. Gentleman's observations.
Mr. Richard Holt: When is it likely that we shall have a debate on the important subject of the north-south divide in this country, which is gradually manifesting itself more and more clearly in the public mind? Should we not be given an opportunity to discuss the matter?
Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend is a robust campaigner—and properly so—for the region and the constituency that he serves. Alas, however, Government time is at a premium, and I think that it will fall to my hon. Friend to find the occasion for such a debate.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Will the Leader of the House reflect on his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) about the Secretary of State for Energy? May we be given an assurance that, on Monday, we will be given a definitive view by the Secretary of State for Energy—perhaps backed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—on the question whether the exorbitant cost to the nation of the strike is still considered by the Government to be a worthwhile investment?
Mr. Biffen: I believe that Question Time on Monday will provide an opportunity for such questions, but I will buttress that reply by referring the hon. Gentleman's point to my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Did my right hon. Friend have the good fortune to see the excellent inquiry into the need for safe riding hats that was conducted by the BBC programme "That's Life" on the past two Sundays? Is he aware of the enormous concern of those who ride, and of their understanding of the need for proper riding hats approved by the British Standards Institution? Will he ask the appropriate Minister to come to the House at an early date to make a statement to reassure the public and to answer questions with a view to banning unsatisfactory foreign imports?
Mr. Biffen: I think that my hon. Friend has in mind my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport as being responsible for such matters. I shall cheerfully pass my hon. Friend's message to my right hon. Friend.
Mr. Martin Flannery: The Leader of the House will remember that, last week, I raised with him the desperation of miners who are in a dispute that should never have been. The Government's policies have also driven the teachers to desperation. Strike action is imminent and a second front will be opened. May we have a debate on the problems facing teachers, especially on the miserable wages that they are given?
Mr. Biffen: Without going into the merits or otherwise of what the hon. Gentleman has said, may I remind him that, on Tuesday, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science will be top for questions. The hon. Gentleman might find that a useful opportunity to make his point.
Mr. Tim Yeo: In view of the importance of the issues dealt with in the recent White Paper on financial services, does my right hon. Friend think that there is any chance of debating that White Paper in the reasonably near future?
Mr. Biffen: It is an important topic and I am aware that my hon. Friend is not alone in wanting a debate on it. However, I had better say at this stage that such a debate is not contained in the programme for the immediate future.
Mr. Greville Janner: Although I welcome Wednesday's debate on rate capping, which no doubt gave the impetus to the Secretary of State for the Environment to admit the catastrophic errors that he has made in connection with rate capping for Leicester and other cities, surely the debate is far too short for such tremendously important issues for many cities. Will we not be sitting in on another edition of the funeral rites of local democracy?
Mr. Biffen: No; I do not think that it quite bears that interpretation. The hon. and learned Gentlemen will find that the debate is of reasonable length and on an important subject. It will be made that much more sharp and enjoyable if he makes a short speech.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall call those hon. Members who have been rising in their places as they have had rather a rough time today in terms of the time element.
Mr. David Winnick: Is the Leader of the House aware that it would be intolerable if a senior civil servant who put his first duty and responsibility to the House of Commons were witch-hunted out of the Civil Service? Does he agree that it would be wise for the Government to bear in mind the events that troubled the United States which involved Richard Nixon? Perhaps the Leader of the House will ensure that a statement is made about Mr. Ponting's future. We should like such a statement quite separate from Monday's debate.
Mr. Biffen: I shall convey that comment to the appropriate Minister.
Mr. Norman Buchan: Has not the time come for a debate on the arts? [Interruption.] The Government's closing of one of our national theatres is no laughing matter. The crisis has been referred to, in the context of cuts in local authority expenditure, by the chairman of the Arts Council, the director of the National Gallery, the director of the British museum and now by the director of the National theatre. The award that has been given is about one third of the rate of inflation. The name of the play currently being performed in the Cottesloe theatre is "Doomsday", and it seems that the Government intend to bring that about for the arts. May we have a debate soon?
Mr. Biffen: I am afraid that I cannot promise the hon. Gentleman the debate for which he asks. I agree that this is an area of public affairs in which there is, albeit a minority—
Mr. Buchan: Come on.
Mr. Biffen: I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman must be aware that the arts world is a valued but none the less elitist minority.
Mr. Laurie Pavitt: Has the Leader of the House noticed that there are now several all party early-day motions arising out of the report of the chief medical officer that 100,000 premature deaths are caused by cigarette smoking? The motions have been tabled by the hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Roberts) and me. Will the right hon. Gentleman find time for the House to debate this matter before the Budget, with a view to taking some clear action to prevent those deaths?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman is a doughty campaigner on this issue, and on more than one front. However, any debate could more appropriately arise in private Members' time.
Mr. Dave Nellist: Is the Leader of the House aware that his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) was utterly unsatisfactory as, although the Ponting case, which ended last Monday, has occasioned a statement to the House and a debate on Monday, two or three hours ago Mr. Ponting was told that no position is available for him in the Ministry of Defence? That should at least justify a statement from the Minister of State for the Armed Forces on how the dismissal took place.
Mr. Biffen: I am sorry that my previous answer did not satisfy the hon. Gentleman but alas, I must refer him to it.
Mr. Frank Cook: The Leader of the House is already aware of the Government's determination to restrict expenditure in the National Health Service. In the light of disclosures contained in last week's "TV Eye" programme, which highlighted the gross way in which certain consultants are manipulating and swindling the nation of fees that should be paid to the NHS, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is high time we had an early opportunity to explore that position further and to give the House a chance to express its opinion about it?
Mr. Biffen: I did not see the "TV Eye" programme to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. I can offer no prospect of any early debate during Government time. However, I shall refer his point to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
Mr. Tom Clarke: Has the Leader of the House found time to consider the views of his hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Sir A. Kershaw), who offered widely shared criticisms of the European Commission's record on providing food aid to the Sudan? Does he recall that his hon. Friend described that record as representing bureaucratic arthritis? Given the fact that the British public are becoming increasingly impatient about those problems, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that as a matter of urgency the House should have a debate about it?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman raises a point that is broadly similar to that raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack). This afternoon I must rest my reply to the hon. Gentleman on the answer that I gave to my hon. Friend.
Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the north-east county council association understands that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is requesting a cut of 28 per cent. in the grant to the North of England Development Council? Will he ensure that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry comes to the House next week and makes a statement about it, especially in view of the tremendous unemployment problems in the region,, and the fact that this seems to be a cost-cutting exercise in an area that is already devastated by unemployment and cannot afford to lose that money?
Mr. Biffen: I understand clearly the economic factors that give rise to the hon. Gentleman's anxiety. I shall refer his argument to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
Mr. Kevin Barron: Will the right hon. Gentleman find time to rearrange next week's business so that the House can debate with him his problems as Leader of the House, which he discussed at the constitutional Conservative Back-Bench committee last night?
Mr. Biffen: Just as I do not watch much televison, I am a slow reader. I have yet to read any reports of that private meeting. If the hon. Gentleman can enlighten me, I shall do my best.
Mr. Bob Clay: Has the Leader of the House seen early-day motion 364 about the military attack on the Molesworth peace camp?
[That this House expresses its utter disgust at the decision of the Secretary of State for Defence to mount a full-scale military operation against the Peace Camp at Molesworth; and believes that the stark contrast of barbed wire and troops — paving the way for United States nuclear missiles — with wheatfields for the starving people of Ethiopia, illustrates vividly the priorities of the Government; notes that this nocturnal attack is a further major escalation of the harassment and intimidation of Britain's mass movement against nuclear madness; and pledges its support to the continuing resistance to United States nuclear bases throughout Britain.]
In the light of that, the growing anxiety about telephone tapping, the possible destruction of the chapel at the camp, the road blocks, and the fact that the Ministry of Defence denied that a shooting took place at Greenham common on Tuesday night, despite the fact that a tape recording exists, which contains the internal communications of the base and demonstrates clearly that a serious shooting took place, may we have a statement, or preferably a debate, on what is happening at the American bases at Molesworth and Greenham common?
Mr. Biffen: I can offer no prospect of a debate in Government time—at least, not for some time. I shall refer the hon. Gentleman's points to the relevant Minister.
Mr. Alfred Dubs: I thank the Leader of the House for the undertaking that he gave earlier this afternoon to consider the possibility of a debate in Government time on the recent report by the Commission

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for Racial Equality on immigration procedures. Will he ensure that the debate is held soon, that it is a whole day debate, and that it is not relegated to an obscure Friday?
Mr. Biffen: I know that the hon. Gentleman is trying to be helpful. My terminology referred to the "usual channels". I object to the concept of an obscure Friday. No Friday is obscure. It is valuable parliamentary time, and its status depends upon the use to which Members of Parliament put it.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Will the Leader of the House ensure that the Foreign Secretary comes here next week to explain his visit to Turkey this week where he said that he firmly supported the restoration of £400 million in EEC aid to that country despite the fact that other EEC countries say that that aid should be withheld until full democratic rights are restored in that country and despite the fact that Amnesty International briefed him on the fact that thousands of people are still being tortured in Turkish prisons and that those prisons hold thousands of political prisoners including trade unionists and peace protesters? Will the Leader of the House ask the Foreign Secretary to explain why the Government firmly support a country which continues to deny human rights to its citizens?
Mr. Biffen: My right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary will be in the House on Wednesday afternoon next week to answer questions. I have no doubt that the hon. Lady will then have an opportunity to make those points. In any case, I shall ensure that he is appraised of her comments beforehand.
Mr. Peter Pike: Will the Leader of the House consider arranging an early debate on housing in view of the Government's 1985–86 HIP allocations which councils throughout the country of all political persuasions
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are saying will create major housing problems? The building employers are also saying that the Government's policies will result in a large increase in unemployment. A debate is needed on that important issue.
Mr. Biffen: I cannot offer any hope of an early debate in Government time. I am not sure to what extent the broad issue might be included in any comments on rate limitation. I shall of course draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to the points that have been made.
Mr. Roland Boyes: Is the Leader of the House aware that the Government's proposed cuts in social security payments for homeless people living in board and lodging hostels will mean that many of them have no money left for food? They will have to choose between a bed and food, between the streets and starvation? Is he not ashamed to be part of a Government who are creating a society in which some people sleep in a bedroom inside a house and others have to sleep outside under arches in cardboard boxes? Is it not time that we had a full debate on the problems of homeless people?
Mr. Biffen: No provision has been made for a debate upon the homeless. I recognise at once that it is a most important topic. The hon. Gentleman might consider the opportunities that are open to him as a private Member to pursue it.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Now that it is clear that the Prime Minister is running scared of coming to the Dispatch Box next Monday and has decided to appoint two Defence Ministers to run up the flag in a most disgraceful way, will the Leader of the House give the House an assurance that the Prime Minister will be in her place during the debate next Monday?
Mr. Biffen: I note what the hon. Gentleman says. I fancy that he is rattling his sabre to drown the knocking of his knees.

Coal Industry Dispute
4.3 pm
Mr. Kevin Barron: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the cost of the current mining strike to the Central Electricity Generating Board, the level of coal stocks and the possible increase in electricity prices to consumers."
I believe that the matter is important in view of the leaked document that was broadcast to the nation at 7 pm yesterday by Channel 4 news that the estimated loss by the CEGB this year will be about £2 billion and that only £450 million of that can be accounted for by interest payments. Its estimate is that £1·8 billion is directly related to the current miners' dispute. I believe that the House should debate that issue in view of the statements made by the CEGB when giving evidence to the Select Committee and by Ministers on the Floor of the House. That issue alone should be debated.
The House should have the opportunity to debate the matter with the Minister responsible for the present level of coal stocks at power stations. I say that for two reasons. One is that we have never been able to get an up-to-date estimate of the level of coal stocks and the other is that in my constituency and the neighbouring one, yesterday, for the first time for 11 months, strike-bound coal that was mined before the dispute started has been moved by lorries that I suspect are non-trade union. There has also been a massive police presence in my communities once again. That presents problems for the communities.
Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box over the past 11 months and told the House that there has been no need to move any of that strike-bound coal and that coal stock levels were adequate to provide electricity. We should be given a chance to debate that issue. The CEGB's estimated loss for the current year implies a rise of 20 per cent. to electricity consumers. It would be intolerable to make that increase in view of the fact that the Select Committee on Energy earlier last year made a report to the House saying that the Government had deliberately put up the price of electricity, and gas by the use of the gas levy, to tax energy.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer has used electricity price increases as a means of raising revenue for the Estimates. He made a statement to the House that he felt that the cost of the strike was money well spent for the nation. Consumers might have a 20 per cent. increase in their bills. I believe that the matter should be debated urgently in the House.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the
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House under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the cost of the current mining strike to the Central Electricity Generating Board, the level of coal stocks and the possible increase in electricity prices to consumers."
I have listened with care to what the hon. Member has said but I regret that I do not consider the matter that he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10. I cannot therefore submit his application to the House.

BILLS PRESENTED
  INTERCEPTION OF COMMUNICATIONS
  Mr. Secretary Brittan, supported by the Prime Minister, Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, Mr. Secretary Younger, Mr. Secretary Hurd, and Mr. David Waddington, presented a Bill to make new provision for and in connection with the interception of communications sent by post or by means of public telecommunication systems and to amend section 45 of the Telecommunications Act 1984: And the same was read the first time: and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 83.]
  RE-ACQUISITION OF PUBLIC ASSETS
  Mr. John Golding, supported by Mr. Jim Craigen, Mr. Reg Freeson, Mr. Gregor MacKenzie, Mr. Harry Ewing, Mr. Alexander Eadie, Mr. Martin O'Neill, Mrs. Ann Clwyd, Mr. Bernard Conlan, Mr. Frank Dobson, Mrs. Renee Short, and Mr. Sydney Bidwell, presented a Bill to take back into public ownership those assets privatised since May 1979: And the same was read the first time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 22 March and to be printed. [Bill 85.]
  REFORM OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS
  Dr. John Marek presented a Bill to abolish the present composition of the House of Lords and to provide for a new membership based solely on an equal directly elected representation from all the regions of the United Kingdom: And the same was read the first time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 5 July and to be printed. [Bill 86.]
  CONTROL OF POLITICAL EXPENDITURE
  Mr. Bernard Conlan, supported by Mr. Gordon A. T. Bagier, Mr. John Golding, Mr. Harry Cowans, and Mr. Hugh McCartney presented a Bill to control the amount of money spent by political parties during general elections; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the first time; and ordered to be read a Second time and to be printed. [Bill 84.]
Orders of the Day

  Representation of the People Bill
  Considered in Committee
  [Progress 13 February].
  [MR. HAROLD WALKER in the Chair]

  Representation of the People Bill
    Clause 12

      DEPOSIT BY CANDIDATES AT PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
      Amendment No. 51 proposed [13 February], in page 16, line 6, leave out '£1,000' and insert '£500'—[Sir John Farr.]
      The Chairman of Ways and Means: With this, we may take the following amendments: No. 70, in page 16, line 6, leave out '£1,000' and insert
      '£500 or such amount as the Secretary of State may by order determine; no order shall be made under this section unless a draft of it has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament'.
      No. 52, in page 16,1ine 9, leave out 'one twentieth' and insert 'one tenth'.
      No. 85, in page 16, line 9, leave out 'one twentieth' and add 'three fortieths'.
      New clause 7—Abolition of deposit and increase in number of nominations—
      '(1) In Schedule 1 of the principal Act, paragraph 9 ("Deposit") shall cease to have effect;
      (2) In paragraph 7(1) of Schedule 1 in the principal Act, for the word "eight" there shall be substituted "at least one hundred".'.
      New clause 8—Nomination papers—
      'In Schedule 1 to the principal Act paragraph 7(2) shall cease to have effect.'.
      New clause 11—Exemption from deposit—
      'In Schedule 1 to the Principal Act (Parliamentary elections rules) shall be added a new rule 1013
      "(8A) A candidate shall be exempted from the requirement of depositing a sum with the returning officer provided that he is the nominated candidate of a registered political party as defined in the Schedule (Registered Political Parties)".'.

      New clause 23—Conditions for nomination—
      'Schedule 1 to the principal Act shall be amended by substituting for rules 9 and 53 the following rule—
      "A nomination shall not be valid unless it is signed by 500 electors of the Division for which that nomination is made; the nomination shall remain valid notwithstanding a margin of error in the number of five per cent.; and any such nomination may be presented for checking by the returning officer during a period of six months prior to the date of a parliamentary election".'.

      Amendment No. 65—new schedule—
      'REGISTERED POLITICAL PARTIES

      (1) The Secretary of State for the Home Department may, by order, establish a scheme for the registration of political parties. No condition of eligibility shall attach to such a scheme, except that a registration fee, prescribed by the Secretary of State shall be payable.

      (2) Any party so registered shall be a registered political party for the purposes of this Act.

      (3) No political party will have to register to be able to participate in an election. Political parties not wishing to register will be able to continue to field candidates by the method otherwise prescribed in the principal Act.'.

      4·9 pm
      Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.
      Mr. David Winnick: The reasons for an election deposit were outlined by the Home Secretary yesterday. I cannot see any objection to a deposit, but, at the same time, I am not over-enthusiastic about such a large increase from £150 to £1,000. I take the point that the equivalent of the 1918 £150 would be in the region of £2,000; nevertheless, a jump from £150 to £1,000 in one go is unnecessary. I think that the point has been established.
      It is important in these matters, which are not dealt with frequently in Committee, for obvious reasons, that we should try so far as possible to reach a consensus. The idea of the collection of a certain number of signatures has some support on the Government Benches, but I do not believe that that would be an adequate substitute for a deposit. It would be easy in some circumstances to collect signatures. As the Select Committee rightly said, the getting of signatures would be an easy step for certain candidates whose interest in the democratic system can be questioned. There are merchants of racial hatred involved in standing for election. Such people know full well how, in certain circumstances, at sensitive moments, it is possible to collect signatures by making the point that people do not have to vote for the person concerned, but that he merely wants to stand as a candidate and should not be denied that right.
      I am not concerned about the frivolous candidate. I accept the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) on Second Reading that there is little evidence that frivolous candidates cause any harm to the democratic system. I do not mind whether Lord Sutch or Lord Double Sutch stands as a candidate. Indeed, it can be argued that such candidates bring a certain amount of gaiety to the hustings—more so at by-elections, for obvious reasons. Like my right hon. Friend, I see no argument that having a large number of these candidates, as there were in the Chesterfield by-election, does any harm to the democratic process. If harm is done, let us see the evidence. Those candidates do not cause me sleepless nights.
      I am concerned about candidates whose motive in standing, particularly at by-elections, but sometimes at general elections, is race hatred. They do not bring any gaiety to the hustings or to any other feature of national life.
      Mr. Eric Forth: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that class hatred would be equally obnoxious? If he is moving in the direction of taking a stance on what he is calling race hatred—I hope he will expand on it if he is to give it any meaning—would he bring into the category people on the extreme Left generally who make class hatred one of their main platforms and who seek to divide society in the same way?
      Mr. Winnick: Not surprisingly, I anticipated such an intervention. If the hon. Gentleman puts his question seriously, I will answer it.
      Mr. Forth: It was.
      Mr. Winnick: If the hon. Gentleman wants an answer, I shall be only too pleased to give him one. If he was just making an intervention for the sake of it, I shall not waste

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      my time. He may not be satisfied with the answer. It can be said in regard to class hatred that the Government need no lessons from anybody, not only on the promotion of class hatred, but on carrying out policies which cause the maximum difficulty to working people through mass unemployment.
      I would have no objection to any party to the right of the Conservative party, which I suppose is possible, which was not concerned with matters of race hatred putting forward an extremely Right-wing point of view. I would not say that that is necessarily an obstacle to, or a difficulty for, the democratic system. I shall try to answer the hon. Gentleman by saying that it is the same with candidates on the ultra-Left, if I may use that term. I know that I may not carry the hon. Gentleman with me, but this is my reasoning. The difference is that the candidates on the ultra-Right, such as the National Front, are concerned with trying to stir up as much hatred, suspicion and xenophobia against ethnic minorities—
      The Chairman: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has not noticed that the revised selection list includes new clause 29, which deals specifically with the matter on which he is touching and which seems unrelated to the amendments that are before the Committee. It might be in the best interests of the Committee to wait until then to raise these matters.
      4.15 pm
      Mr. Winnick: I am pleased that new clause 29 has been selected for debate, but the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) asked me a question which I was trying to answer. If I may say so, it is related to the reasons why I believe that a deposit, and not simply a collection of signatures, is necessary. I think that I have answered the hon. Gentleman. We shall see later whether he has been persuaded by what I have said.
      Referring again to the candidates of race hatred, to save their deposit is a sign for them, though not in our eyes or in the view of the community, that they have achieved electoral credibility. They can say that they have saved their deposits in so many constituencies. This is why I make the same point to the Minister as I made yesterday during the Home Secretary's speech.
      I favour a more modest increase in the deposit. I accept that there should be some increase. It might have been increased to £250 or £300, with the retention of a threshold of 12·5 per cent. of the total votes cast, as now, or a threshold of 10 per cent. I should have thought that that would achieve a wider consensus in Committee than what is proposed. That is why I argued that point of view in the appropriate place, but at the end of the day one has to accept the position outlined by the Home Secretary yesterday.
      I do not want to exaggerate the danger of the National Front. It would be wrong to do so. Fortunately, our society is sufficiently mature not to support candidates who clearly stand for election, in the same way as the Mosley movement stood in elections before the second world war, to stir up as much racial trouble, strife and hatred as they can although they try, usually unsuccessfully, to keep within the law. By and large the latter-day movement, like the pre-war movement, has hardly got off the ground.
      Although I do not have the figures for the last election, in the 1979 contest the National Front obtained more than 5 per cent. of the votes though, fortunately, only in five
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      constituencies. The very fact that it was able to get that amount of electoral support, limited and modest as it was, gives rise to anxiety among people like me who believe that a 5 per cent. threshold is too low. I know that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) does not agree with me because, if I may say so, he is a kind of fanatic for the collection of signatures as a substitute for a deposit. Clearly I shall not carry him with me. There is a divide in the Committee, and why not?
      Mr. William Powell: The hon. Gentleman says that he accepts the need for an increase in the deposit. He wants a rather more modest increase. Can he explain to the Committee why any increase in the deposit is necessary?
      Mr. Winnick: With respect, the hon. Gentleman should direct that question more to his own Front Bench. Ministers were concerned that there should be an increase. I do not usually like to be associated with Ministers in argument, but fairness demands it. The Select Committee looked into those matters and recommended the figure of £1,000. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman is aware of that. As I have already prayed in aid the Select Committee, perhaps I could also pray in aid the fact it recommended a threshold of 7·5 per cent. An amendment along those lines is being taken with this group. In my view, it would be better to have a threshold of 7·5 per cent. I imagine the Committee will agree that the deposit should be £500. However, perhaps the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West will divide the Committee on that. We shall wait and see.
      Mr. Matthew Parris indicated dissent.
      Mr. Winnick: I see that the hon. Gentleman will not do so, as he is shaking his head.
      I hope that on Report the Home Secretary will consider the possibility of increasing the threshold from the proposed 5 per cent. to 7·5 per cent. That would serve the democratic process better. I stress that I speak for myself on those issues.
      It would be difficult to change the threshold and deposit on a later occasion. We all know that they were established way back in 1918. If there were a change in the electoral climate, which I do not expect for one moment, or if there were a danger, as we have seen in France, of a Fascist revival, it would be difficult to change the law, because the people to whom I have been referring would say that the law was being changed purely and simply because of them. These matters should be considered in a proper way, bearing in mind that we are not likely to deal again with the issue of the deposit or threshold for a long time to come. Those are the reasons why amendment No. 85 should be given sympathetic consideration.
      I agree with those who argue that standing for Parliament is first and foremost a serious business. There are advantages to be gained, as was stated last night. Candidates receive about £800 worth of free postage, and there is publicity. Other advantages are given—in my view rightly so—to a candidate. That is why I feel that it is right and proper that, unlike in local elections where those facilities are not given, there should be a deposit. If we cannot retain the present deposit and threshold, we should try to reach a consensus. Presumably we have done so on the basis of what the Home Secretary said last night.
      Before we come to a final conclusion on Report and Third Reading, if I may say so with due modesty, we

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      should bear in mind some of the points that I have raised. At the end of the day we are concerned with preserving our democratic system, with all its faults— and no doubt there are many. Living in any dictatorship, Left or Right —[Interruption.]—though my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) and I may disagree about whether it is really Left—is a nightmare. We have the virtue of living in a democracy, and long may it remain so. Part of our job is to try to ensure that the manner in which we go about our business, laying down rules and regulations for standing at elections and so on, is such that we can say that we, as a House of Commons, are making our own contribution to ensuring that our democratic system survives and is in safe hands, and does not give an opportunity to those whose main motive is—
      Mr. Eric S. Heifer: I cannot for the life of me understand why my hon. Friend should introduce me in a debate about what is Left and what is not. The point that I was making under my breath was that one can say that a candidate gets advantages, but if he does not have the organisation behind him, all the free postage in the world does not mean a damned thing. There is not much of an advantage unless one has support.
      Mr. Winnick: I was praying in aid my hon. Friend because I thought that he would agree with me. I did not want to cause controversy between the two of us. When the Liberals and the smaller parties argue about how difficult the obstacles are, let us bear in mind how our party came into existence. We did not have the aid of television, press coverage or much sympathy, yet despite all the difficulties, within 24 years, fortunately, we became one of the two main parties in the state. I know that my hon. Friend agrees with me that we shall remain one of the two main parties in the state.
      Mr. Parris: What the hon. Gentleman's party did have were the combined financial resources of the trade union movement to draw upon for putting up parliamentary deposits.
      Mr. Winnick: In the beginning the amount of trade union support that we had was minimal. At any time the amount of financial support that we get from the trade unions is a trifle compared with the contributions which the Conservative party gets from big business and other such interests.
      In conclusion, I believe that we should be careful about how we set the threshold and the deposit, bearing in mind that we should not do anything that undermines our parliamentary and democratic system.
      Mr. Parris: One would think from listening to the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) that the way to decide these matters was to survey the range of political parties likely to stand, decide which ones were the most offensive to oneself and set the level of the threshold at such a point that those parties would be most severely penalised financially. The hon. Gentleman has fallen into the trap of using the very argument that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary studiously avoided last night. That argument will be seized upon by parties such as the National Front against what the Government are now proposing.
      Parties such as the National Front will say that this is a measure to obstruct democracy and prevent parties like
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      it from even standing. As they cannot afford to stand they will feel that they have a moral right to take to the streets or indulge in extra-parliamentary action instead. If I had listened to the hon. Gentleman in the frame of mind in which such parties will listen to him, I might have felt some moral authority for such a response. That response would be wrong and dangerous, and we should do nothing to encourage it. My concern is that the measure might encourage it.
      I should like to speak to my new clause 11 and the associated amendment No. 65, which is a new schedule. I do not ask hon. Members to weary themselves going through my wording in any detail. It is sure to be technically defective. It may even be the wrong way of going about what I seek to achieve. I should like to outline my aims and ask my hon. Friend the Minister to reply.
      I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary for the concession that he announced last night reducing the deposit from £1,000 to £500. I do not wish to be churlish about that; it is a major improvement. My concern is for the devastating effect that the loss of all those deposits would have on a small party that wishes to field a respectable number of candidates at a general election and wishes to say that it is at least fielding enough candidates to have a chance, should it receive sufficient support, of forming an important part of the Parliament that follows the election. There would be a devastating effect if that party failed to get the 5 per cent. of votes that it needs to retain its deposit. For instance, I reckon that if the Ecology party decided to field a candidate in every constituency at a general election to show that it was a major national party, it would probably lose the deposits for all 650 candidates, which would come to about £325,000. I doubt whether a small party such as that could afford to risk such a loss at a general election.
      Mr. Douglas Hogg: My hon. Friend is a fair man. He will appreciate that in many elections, particularly by-elections, candidates are not nominated candidates of a registered political party but stand as individuals promoting an individual philosophy. Is not my hon. Friend's proposal likely to give to the nominated candidate a more favourable status than that accorded to the non-nominated candidate?
      4.30 pm
      Mr. Parris: Yes, it is. For that reason my proposals are not perfect. They come to the assistance of a certain class of candidate without necessarily coming to the assistance of every candidate whom I would wish to help. I cannot imagine any system of parliamentary deposits which would assist every worthy candidate or which may not in some circumstances punish a worthy candidate.
      Mr. Winnick: I may be doing the hon. Gentleman an injustice, but I am not aware that he campaigned against deposits before the Bill became an issue. After all, deposits for standing at an election have been around for many years. If I am wrong, obviously the hon. Gentleman will tell me. If it is such a great issue with him, why did not he campaign before?
      The hon. Gentleman said that I was giving assistance, so to speak, to racialist organisations. Will he bear in mind that legislation passed by both Labour and Conservative Governments in the past 15 or 20 years has been directed at race hate organisations. There has been legislation

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      against incitement to race hatred and there is no doubt about who it was directed at. Action was taken before the war to prevent people from wearing paramilitary uniform. Again there can be no question who were to be the victims of such a law. The hon. Gentleman should bear those points in mind.
      Mr. Parris: I do bear them in mind. As long as such laws exist, and they do and should, and so long as political parties are prepared to keep within the law, and they do and they must on pain of prosecution, they should be allowed to field candidates at elections.
      Mr. Winnick: I am not saying that they should not.
      Mr. Parris: Good. The hon. Gentleman is not saying that they should not; he is just saying that he would like to set the threshold and the deposit at such a level that it is difficult or impossible for them to do so.
      The deposit was, I think, introduced in 1918. I was unable to campaign against it at that time and so was the hon. Gentleman. I have never thought that the deposit was a fair test of a candidate's seriousness. The larger the deposit is, the less fair the test. Therefore, the proposal to increase it to £1,000 makes the injustice a more pressing one and I said so on Second Reading.
      I seek to set up a scheme whereby a political party can limit its liability to loss of deposit at a general election. I propose a voluntary scheme whereby a political party may register as a political party. The registration would serve no purpose and give it no privileges, immunities or benefits of any kind, other than the benefit which will flow in relation to the parliamentary deposit. There will be no test of whether a party may or may not register other than its preparedness to pay the registration fee. The registration fee should be set at a level which discourages any but the serious parties from wishing to register—£5,000, £10,000, £15,000 or perhaps £20,000.
      The registration would, in essence, be a tendered group parliamentary deposit. Having paid that registration fee, the party would then be able to field as many candidates as it liked without paying any further deposit for those candidates and without risking the loss of further deposits. For example, if the Ecology party or the National Front could collect the money necessary to register, it could field candidates in every constituency at a general election.
      The payment of that fee would be a serious test of a party's interest in a general election. No frivolous party or candidate would be able to stand. At the same time there would be a limit to the amount that a party could lose by standing at a general election and it would not be open to a party to say that, although it had support in the country, it had been prevented from fielding candidates by the system of parliamentary deposits.
      Mr. Douglas Hogg: My hon. Friend has had a most ingenious idea, but will he consider one drawback? He is talking about a registration fee which he suggests is a sort of collective deposit. However, I think that he will agree that the registration fee would probably not be fixed by statute, whether primary or secondary legislation. If that is right, who will set the registration fee? Assuming that it is done under the diktat of Government, what is to stop the Government, by some form of authority of their own, increasing the registration fee to such a level as to serve as a deterrent?
      Mr. Parris: I envisage that the fee would be set by order. Even if one were to assume that orders passed
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      through the House without receiving the parliamentary attention they deserve, it would, as my hon. Friend says, be within the power of any Government to make it impossible for a small political party to register as a political party. That would not make it impossible to field candidates by payment of the ordinary deposit. I am not suggesting that we abolish the £500 deposit. That will stay within the power of any candidate. That will be an additional benefit to a registered political party. So long as the matter is treated in good faith by the Government of the day, it will be a helpful benefit.
      There has been argument about whether the threshold should be 5 per cent., 7·5 per cent., 10 per cent., 12·5 per cent. or whatever. Five per cent. is better than 10 per cent. Nevertheless, any party must start from zero. A party is likely to start with a level of public support which would not give it even 5 per cent. of the votes cast in a general election across the constituencies in which it fields candidates. Therefore, it does not particularly matter whether the party is blighted at 2, 5, 7 or 10 per cent. Any threshold which makes it impossible for a small party which is just starting up to field a credible number of candidates in a general election is a serious disincentive to small parties. Our first-past-the-post system is already a serious disincentive to small parties and we need not add to it through our system of deposits.
      Mr. Winnick: What about the Labour party?
      Mr. Parris: It is said that the parliamentary deposit was introduced in 1918 as a result of a deal cobbled up between the Whigs and the Tories to prevent the emerging Labour party from emerging any further. I believe that the amount was a working man's wage in a year. If that was so, the deal failed. It failed because the Labour party had the organised trade union movement to draw on, not only for parliamentary deposits but for the 10 or 12·5 per cent. of votes that it needed in every constituency.
      A small party can start up despite a crippling parliamentary deposit if it starts up on the back of an existing national institution or organisation such as the trade union movement, or, perhaps, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It is much more difficult for a party such as the Ecology party, or, indeed, for the Liberal party at one time. I imagine that that party would have been crippled by the proposals had they been in force between the 1950s and the early 1970s.
      My scheme may not be perfect—I am sure that it is not—but I want to see a system that does not stifle small political parties at birth. We are strong enough to tolerate the existence of such parties and to stand against them in general elections. We should not rule them out at the first post.
      Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Let me take the opportunity to welcome the Government's movement away from the original proposal and thank them for having responded to recommendations and represenations that were made to them earlier. I represent a party that has a vested interest. We have far too many lost deposits, and a deposit of £1,000 would have been a real deterrent to standing at elections.
      It is in the interests of democracy in Wales—whether or not people in Wales agree with our policies—and indeed in other parts of the United Kingdom that those who

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      have a coherent view to put forward in a democratic way, or any view for that matter, should have an opportunity to stand at elections. That should be part of the system.
      I appreciate the dangers in some areas, where there has been racial tension arising from the activities of the National Front, but I prefer to have a system in which any party has to stand up and be counted and be shown to be as small as it is, rather than to masquerade under the pretence that it has a greater following by virtue of the fact that it is not standing for election and has an excuse for not so standing.
      I want a system that allows the maximum participation, and the £500 and 5 per cent. is not unreasonable compared with the position in the past. Obviously, anyone who has to fork out a deposit for an election and is in danger of losing it would rather have no deposit at all.
      I incline towards having a number of names attached to the nomination rather than a means test of any sort. I can see the danger that some people would nominate just to allow somebody to stand, without any intention of giving him support. It may be that the vote of the person who nominates should, by virtue of the fact that he has nominated, be deemed to be cast in that process. Alternatively, it may be that a smaller number than the 100 which has been mentioned should be required to be present at the registration office, so that it takes a bit of effort and is not just a matter of signing a piece of paper so that whoever is on the doorstep goes away as quickly as possible. That is one possibility if we are to consider having names instead of a financial disincentive.
      There is the real problem, which has been mentioned by Liberal Members, of having large sums of money tied up. That problem will still arise from this formula. With 38 seats in Wales, at £500 a time, £19,000 would be tied up in deposits. That is a lot of money, and it is money that is needed to fight the election. Over the whole of the United Kingdom it would be that much more.
      The position of the Ecology party should, I think, command a certain degree of sympathy and support within the Committee. That party has a valid viewpoint to put forward, and it should be facilitated in the democratic process. If the Ecology party were to put up candidates for 600-odd seats, that would cost £300,000, which would be totally unrealistic.
      Having agreed so far with the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris), I wish to turn for a moment to the new clause and the amendment. I recoil from the idea of registration of political parties, because that has a flavour of going towards a corporate approach to our politics. I do not like the idea put forward in amendment No. 65 of a registration fee prescribed by the Secretary of State, because there would be a real danger of that being increased as time goes on. The idea appears to be a sort of discount system for those who intend to fight on a wide scale. A deposit of £20,000, for a party such as Plaid Cymru, which wishes to fight only 38 seats out of 600, is unrealistic. I do not see any merit in that, although I recognise the problem.
      It would appear that, for some months, we have been moving towards a compromise. The proposals are not ideal as far as we are concerned. We would rather not see finance coming into it, but; to the extent that finance is
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      going to come into it, we thank the Government for having put forward a compromise that goes some way towards meeting the problem.
      Mr. Douglas Hogg: I wish to speak briefly to amendment No. 70, which stands in my name. Essentially, it has two points. It suggests that the deposit be fixed at £500 and that Parliament should have the power to raise that sum by affirmative resolution.
      I was pleased to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary meeting the views of the Committee by decreasing the proposed £1,000 to £500. That is a very useful concession. I feel sure that most hon. Members will applaud his decision on that matter. The reason is clear. This is a constitutional issue of considerable importance, and I think it desirable that it should receive as widespread support as possible. At £1,000, it did not seem to me that general support was likely to be forthcoming. Therefore, I think that my right hon. and learned Friend deserves the thanks of the Committee.
      My second point relates to the proposal that it should be possible to raise the deposit by affirmative resolution. The chance of primary legislation on these matters coming before the House of Commons in the near future is remote. I hope to be in this place for many years—20 or 30 years is the minimum that we should consider for my presence here—but I should be rather surprised—
      Dr. John Marek: That remark can only be aimed at hon. Members behind the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg)—the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) and others.
      4.45 pm
      Mr. Hogg: The Conservative party does not stab its members in the back. The hon. Gentleman is confusing the two sides of the Committee.
      I am making a serious point. It is unlikely that we shall see primary legislation dealing with this issue in, say, the next 10 or 20 years. Yet, however good the Government's economic policy may be, I shall be surprised if we see no inflation in that period. In the course of time the value of the deposit will decrease substantially in real terms and we shall be facing the same kind of problem as we are facing now, with a deposit of no value. That being so, I should like Parliament to have the power to increase the deposit without recourse to primary legislation.
      I am as aware as any hon. Member of the defects of orders. I recognise that they are unamendable and that, with the Government's majority today, it is difficult to defeat them. Therefore, there are criticisms to be made of making important changes by way of orders. But I hope that the Committee has sufficient confidence in the affirmative resolution procedure to give the Government the power that I have in mind. If we do not do something along those lines, we shall again have meaningless deposits in, say, 15 years' time.
      Mr. Peter Bruinvels: The deposit is a most important way of demonstrating that one wishes to stand in a general election or a by-election. I particularly welcomed the concession made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary late last night when he announced the reduction from £1,000 to £500.
      In amendment No. 99, standing in my name, I had called for it to be further reduced to £250, and I very much wish that it could have been that way, because no one

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      should be deterred from standing. It is a great honour, it costs something to stand, it is not free, and £250, a much higher threshold and a larger number of assenters would make much sense.
      The most important point and the reason why the question of deposits is suddenly very much on the agenda is that in the general election of 1983 2,578 candidates were validly nominated, working out at 3·9 candidates per seat, of whom 679 were from other minor parties or independents. Excluding those who belonged to the Ecology party and other such parties, there were 474 true independents devoid of any known political party. In comparison, in 1979 there were 2,576 candidates standing, working out at 4·1 candidates per seat, with 754 independents or candidates with other non-party definitions. The votes cast for those independents and others amounted in 1983 to over 1·6 million—slightly down on 1979, when the figure was 1,677,417.
      The real problem, however, is in by-elections, when one sees the deposit issue, the problems and the abuse by so many people standing for the most strange reasons. The opportunity might he used to promote the cause of a person in prison or as a public relations exercise to promote the sale of vodka. In Chesterfield, 17 candidates stood—some of them mad, including the one who was elected. [Interruption.] There was even a Monster Raving Loony candidate, so that makes at least two.
      In 1979, 156 candidates in by-elections lost their deposits. Candidates stood for ridiculous and frivolous causes—Reclassify the Sun, Fourwheel Drive, Yoga, Elvis Presley, Soon to be Unemployed and an Official Loony. There is clearly a need to deter such frivolous candidates. Reluctantly, I concede that a £500 deposit is acceptable, but we must consider how many candidates have lost their deposits in the past. In the 1983 general election, 739 candidates lost their deposits — five Conservatives, 119 Labour, five Liberal, six SDP, 54 British National Party, 35 Communist, 108 Ecology party, 60 National Front, 32 Plaid Cymru, 53 Scottish National party, 21 Workers Revolutionary party and 241 others. In other words, a large number of strange candidates lost their deposits and were not elected.
      Mr. Douglas Hogg: Some strange candidates certainly were elected.
      Mr. Bruinvels: I am pleased to see that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is now present. He said yesterday that it would be easy to get 500 people to sign an assentors list. I disagree, although I know that some people will sign anything that is put before them. My hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Gregory) and I have put down new clause 23, which provides:
      "A nomination shall not be valid unless it is signed by 500 electors of the Division for which that nomination is made; the nomination shall remain valid notwithstanding a margin of error in the number of five per cent."
      That seems a sensible way to show that the candidate is not frivolous. Some candidates of that type have obtained more than 500 votes in recent by-elections, so the nominators clearly meant what they said. In Enfield, the Turkish Troops out of Cyprus candidate polled 687 votes. In Cynon Valley the Communist candidate polled 642 votes and an Independent in Chesterfield gained 1,355 votes. Clearly, those who nominated the candidates genuinely wished them to stand.
      Mr. Wigley: The difficulty is that the candidate does not know where the 687 supporters are in Enfield, so 500 signatures still seems too many. Rather than just signing a paper, nominators should have to show that their support is solid, perhaps by going to the registration office. In those circumstances, 100 would seem a more reasonable number.
      Mr. Bruinvels: I am not convinced that 100 is sufficient, although I take the point that one does not always know who one's supporters are. I believe that a requirement for 500 signatures will discourage recklessness and frivolity. One hopes that the 500 voters will then put their money and their vote where their mouth is.
      I wish genuine candidates to be able to stand and not to be deterred by a high deposit. If new clause 23 is accepted nominations will be properly handled, but we do not want difficulties caused by complicated procedures for signing. I hope that, whatever the Committee decision, clear guidance will be given as to the way in which the nomination form should be signed. Even in my own case, one of the 30 assentors did not sign properly. Time is often of the essence, so clear guidance is important.
      Amendment No. 52 deals with the number of votes needed to save the deposit. I believe that the 10 per cent. threshold suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) and myself is reasonable. In the light of the number of candidates who did not lose their deposits, if we are tightening up the rules and preventing some candidates from standing, the rest should still be able to stand. In 1983 there were 2,578 candidates. I want the democratic process to survive and to grow. I want real candidates to be able to stand for real constituencies. Therefore, although I am disappointed that my amendment No. 99 did not find favour, I support the Government's proposal for a £500 deposit.
      Mr. Conal Gregory: I wish to speak to new clause 23 and to develop the theme so eloquently introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels). The new clause proposes that a nomination form should be signed by 500 electors, and I wish to deal with the practical aspects of that.
      First, I should make it clear that the proposal is based not on some quirk of my own but on considerable study of other legislatures. Our proposal is in sympathy with practice in other democracies, whereas the current procedure is not.
      For instance, nominations to the Belgian Chamber of Representatives must be supported by 200 to 500 electors, depending on the size of the constituency. For the Belgian Senate, directly elected Senators must be supported by 100 electors. There are no deposit requirements for either House.
      In Denmark, between 25 and 50 signatures are required for nomination. Again, no deposit is required.
      In West Germany, nominations for candidates for the Bundestag must be signed by 200 electors entitled to vote in the constituency concerned. In the Land party lists, parties not previously represented by at least five members but recognised as political parties — this has been a major theme in speeches from all parts of the Committee in this debate—must have nominations signed by one elector per thousand entitled to vote in the previous general election up to a maximum of 2,000. Again, no deposit is required.

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      In Italy, between 351 and 700 signatures are required for nomination to either House, depending on the size of the constituency. Again, no deposit is required.
      In Canada, at least 25 supporting signatures of electors in each constituency are required for nomination to the House of Commons. A deposit of 200 Canadian dollars is required.
      Finally, although I could spend a long time citing other legislatures that support my argument, in the Netherlands candidates in each electoral district for both Chambers must be supported by a minimum of 25 electors.
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      One can see, therefore, that requirement for support on a far wider basis than the United Kingdom nomination paper, with its simple procedure of proposer, seconder and eight subscribing electors, is in use. A cash sum is not a bar to publicists who are not genuine. I believe that it is a real disincentive to truly democratic candidates who should have the right to stand. I therefore favour removing the outdated £150 deposit and replacing it with a nomination roll of 500 electors. Such rolls could, as now unofficially, be submitted in advance to the acting returning officer to be checked for any errors.
      I deal now with the practical problems that right hon. and hon. Members may raise. There is no problem of verification elsewhere, and I do not believe that our local government staff are any less efficient than others. I therefore allow the period in the proposed new clause of six months for any political agent to offer a list for verification with the provision of a further six months. To overcome the difficulty that would arise if anybody should move away from a constituency or to a higher place—in which case, I understand, such a person does not participate in our elections — I have introduced a provision for a margin of error of up to 5 per cent.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East rightly referred to some of the absurdities who tried to stand for Parliament in the Chesterfield by-election. One accepts that aspect of British eccentricity, but it hardly endears itself to serious candidature for the House of Commons.
      In my view, we should consider five principles. The first is the argument that might have been suggested—although I am sure that in his wisdom the Minister will not do so—that the electoral system is being damaged by an increasing number of candidates standing at parliamentary elections. In that connection, I refer to the evidence submitted by the Home Office to the Select Committee on Home Affairs inquiry into electoral law and procedure in 1983, that there was
      "little evidence of serious abuse of electoral privileges by candidates who do not come from the main political parties."
      Secondly, there is the argument that an increase in the parliamentary deposit would deter frivolous candidates. The Committee should be mindful that at the general election a number of companies and trade bodies considered putting up 650 parliamentary candidates purely for the purposes of publicity and free literature. A bar of £150, or £500, would be no disincentive. Furthermore, such candidates bodies might be looking to the possibility of obtaining television time, and so on. Such abuse will not be dealt with under the present system. Under the proposed new clause, the requirement of 500 assentors or electors will overcome this difficulty. The genuine Conservative in south Wales or the Left-wing candidate
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      who would like to put up on the sunny south coast where prosperity under the Conservatives prevails will thus be entitled to that democratic right, as will the various ethnic and Celtic interests which may wish to be represented in a wider way in the House of Commons.
      Thirdly, it has been suggested that there is no reasonable alternative to raising the deposit. The advantage of my proposed alternative is that it demands political commitment from the prospective candidate. If we go down the road of increased deposits, we will be putting a bar on genuine parliamentary candidates who are not able to afford, out of their own pockets, to stand for Parliament.
      Fourthly, it has been argued on occasion that 100 signatures, or, as I have suggested, 500 signatures, would create problems for the electoral returning officer. I have overcome that difficulty by suggesting that political agents can submit these for verification up to six months before a general election. To counter the argument about the uncertainty of the date of a general election, when somebody is of the view that a general election is likely, he could submit a list and continue to do so on a six-monthly cycle, with an allowance for a margin of error of 5 per cent.
      Finally, the argument has been advanced that £500 is not much to raise for a parliamentary deposit. I believe that all political parties will be faced with the problem of having to put up front significant sums of money to contest elections. If the deposit is increased, the smaller parties, or those which wish to demonstrate a serious intention, will be in difficulties. The answer to all the problems that have been raised are in the proposed new clause.
      Sir John Farr: Having listened to my hon. Friends the Members for York (Mr. Gregory) and for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels), I think that one major disadvantage arises. If there is a requirement for that number of signatures to support a candidate, this will be prejudicial to a candidate who is adopted at short notice. Will not such a candidate be kept out of the competition altogether?
      Mr. Gregory: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. I do not regard that as a problem. If a candidate has the foresight to consider the matter beforehand, he has the relevant period of time in which to obtain the signatures. The vast majority of political parties select their candidates, many months—indeed, years—beforehand. Even the fringe parties have that in mind. The suggestion seems to be that some of the loony candidates, deciding that they have a spare £150—or, as it will be, £500—rather than put that money on a horse race will invest it in a forthcoming general election or by-election. How otherwise could Mr. Piccaro have put up as the Official Acne Candidate, or, indeed, the candidates who stood for "Reclassify Sun Newspaper" or "Chesterfield in Thame"? The serious contender to the mother of Parliaments will have considered this before the calling of a general election or by-election and will have prepared the ground beforehand. I believe that the local government objections will be overcome.
      On those grounds, I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to accept the clause and not to prevaricate. This is not something new that I have thrust upon him, because I have been in correspondence with his Department for approximately a year and a quarter. During that time he

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      will have had an opportunity to compare our system with that of other legislatures, he will wish to bring Britain into line with them, he will appreciate the flexibility that I propose in the suggested 5 per cent. and six months, and, in his wisdom, he will want to accept the clause.
      Mr. Roger King: I have taken time out from the Committee that is considering the Local Government Bill. I apologise to this Committee for the fact that I may have to leave the Chamber after I have spoken to make a further contribution to the consideration of the Local Government Bill by my physical presence, if nothing else.
      I wish to raise a matter that arises on new schedule 65. In my view, there is a growing problem with regard to the masquerading of political parties. Such a masquerade occurred recently in Birmingham. A council faced a problem in the council elections in the Erdington district when a disappointed Conservative candidate stood as a Conservative candidate against the official Conservative candidate. The impersonation of the political party extended to the distribution of almost identical literature. This resulted in confusion among the electorate, who mistakenly voted for the wrong candidate. Had the 350-odd votes mistakenly cast gone to the official Conservative candidate, he would have won the seat. It was not a problem of losing the seat. The problem was that confusion was sewn in the minds of the electorate. Following the election, we questioned many people in that community and found that they genuinely did not know who was the real Conservative candidate because they had been confused by the literature that has been disseminated among the electorate. That is wrong as an electoral practice.
      It is a growing problem, not only with our party, but with the Labour and Liberal parties. People stand as Independent Labour candidates, Official Labour candidates, Independent Conservative candidates and so on. We need to control the image—the brand name—of the respected political parties. Electoral policy has been not to accept any organised political party. Each candidate stands as an individual, although as often as not he may have a party label attached to him. However, a problem arises in the situation which I have described. The addition of the new schedule—although I understand that it is not meant in quite the way that I interpret it, but nevertheless it fits my proposal admirably — together with my small amendment would adequately cover the problem of literature being disseminated among the electorate purporting to be from a political party, when in fact it is not that party's official literature.
      I see no reason why political parties should not register as genuine, bona fide political parties, provided that it does not stop others from organising a political party and putting up candidates at an election should they so wish. At least my proposal would control the labels that we use and would avoid confusing the electorate.
      I hope that earnest consideration will be given to the proposal. The problem has occured in Birmingham and will happen elsewhere, as I know from the many representations made to Birmingham from other parts of the country. The simple addition of this schedule, with my amendment, would adequately overcome what I believe to be a growing problem.
      Mr. Forth: I apologise to the Committee for my brief absence a moment ago. I was necessarily speaking to a
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      group of my constituents who have honoured us with their presence today. I hope the Committee will accept that as a legitimate reason for my brief absence.
      We are discussing two principal matters. One is whether we believe that it is desirable to seek to reduce the number of candidates who stand at elections, and the other, what, if we did so decide, would be the best method to do so. Several colleagues have already mentioned specific examples of elections where a large number of candidates have stood. I want to tell the Committee of my favourite, because it illustrates the point extremely well.
      At one by-election, one candidate was called Mr. Tarquin-Fintim-Linbinwhin-Binlim-Bus Ole Biscuit Barrel F. Tang. He described himself as the candidate for the Cambridge University Raving Loony Society, and obtained 223 votes. We can draw two different conclusions from that. One is that such candidates bring elections into disrepute and that we should seek to discourage them; the other is that is such a candidate can attract 223 votes, the electorate get the candidate and the politician that they deserve. That is a specific example of a candidate standing in a frivolous manner, offering himself for election with no serious intent. He was obviously well able to afford the £150 deposit.
      We must consider whether we should seek to reduce the number of candidates. The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) set the matter in a different context when he referred to parties of the extreme Right offering themselves to the electorate on some sort of racist platform. He failed to condemn, or to draw attention to, the parties of the extreme Left which offer themselves to the electorate on platforms of class hatred and divisiveness, and which on many occasions preach revolution or even violence.
      5.15 pm
      We must consider whether it is our job or duty to seek to deny the opportunity to such small and fringe parties —to say nothing of self-described loony parties—to offer themselves to the electorate. That first question leads on to our second consideration. If we wish to make a reduction in the number of candidates, what would be the best method of doing so? Two possibilities are being considered by the Committee, one of which is financial. The Government's original proposal to introduce a £1,000 deposit was hardly extreme or outrageous. I calculate that £1,000 represents about six weeks average manual wages, or about the cost of a package holiday in the Mediterranean for a family of four. That is hardly likely seriously to discourage people from offering themselves in something as important as a parliamentary election. Therefore, I am at a loss to understand why there has been such concern about the figure of £1,000 and why a compromise figure of £500 has been suggested.
      My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary kindly wrote to me saying:
      "we have accepted all along that there is no figure which is clearly and absolutely right. The figure of £1,000 is the one that was unanimously recommended by the Select Committee on Home Affairs."
      The burden of persuasion is, therefore, on those who argue for a different figure. I believe that £1,000 is a reasonable amount to ask of those who wish to offer themselves in something as important as a parliamentary election. Unless I am otherwise persuaded—and I shall

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      listen carefully to what my hon. Friend has to say when he replies to the debate—on balance I would prefer the £1,000 figure to remain.
      I am not convinced about the requirement for signatures. Those of us who receive petitions from the public know that it is all too easy, unfortunately, to gather a large number of signatures for almost anything one cares to dream up. I have often been tempted to go on to the streets, offer a blank piece of paper to people and ask them to sign it. I am convinced that I could gather a large number of signatures and then use that paper for whatever purpose I chose. I do not believe that an apparently impressive, numerically large number of signatures is necessarily the right and proper way to authenticate parliamentary candidature. I prefer the simple, but effective financial method of discouraging frivolous candidates, which would still allow those who seriously wish to offer themselves to do so. However, I shall listen to what my hon. Friend has to say before finally determining my position.
      Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I assure the hon. Member for Mid-Worcester (Mr. Forth) that he need never apologise for his absence.
      I very much welcome the Government's response to our representations, and to the discussions that we had with them. I shall deal later with the principle involved on clause stand part, but now I deal with the reduction to £500. The figure could, with advantage, have been less, but in our discussions with them the Government began by proposing a higher figure and so we arrived at £500 as a compromise that involved as high a figure as we were ready to accept and as low a figure as the Government were ready to accept. Indeed, that is the way in which compromises are reached. Thus, we reluctantly accept that figure. However, it is very much coupled with the question of the threshold. The present threshold of 12·5 per cent. would have been unacceptable in relation to a deposit that was more than three times as high as the present one. The Government took the view that that threshold could be reduced, but did not wish to reduce it as far as we thought appropriate.
      Once we had decided with the Government on the level of the deposit, we had to decide between us about the level of the threshold. Although the Government originally thought that the threshold should be higher than 5 per cent., I am very glad that, in the spirit of compromise that the Home Secretary referred to last night, they ultimately agreed to our proposition that the £500 deposit should be accompanied by a 5 per cent. threshold.
      The compromise was typical, in that no one is really satisfied with it. But at any rate it is tolerable, and many small parties will find contesting elections a little less onerous than they would have done if the Government's original proposal had remained or if the Government's proposal of a revised threshold had been maintained. I should make it clear once again that the Government's original proposal would not have been in any way politically disadvantageous to the Labour party. A 5 per cent. threshold would have meant that we would have retained almost all our deposits, even in an adverse electoral year. The issue involved not what was convenient to the Labour or Conservative parties, but the right of access to the ballot paper of those advocating minority,
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      eccentric or unpopular views. Indeed, that is what an election is all about. It is because we believed that that principle should be maintained that we proposed the amendment. That being so, we are very pleased that the Government have accepted it, and look forward to its incorporation in the Bill.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) for what he has said. He has not been the only hon. Member to welcome what the Government have decided to commend to the House, which is, of course, an acceptance of the amendment proposed so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr). None of those who have accepted the compromise have thrown their hats in the air any more than I have done. The outcome is not so unsatisfactory as to be unacceptable to all, and is not so satisfactory as to bring great pleasure to all. But, as the right hon. Gentleman has said, that is the mark of a sensible compromise.
      It is interesting that the debate has revealed that, however wide the circle of agreement, there are still some who are determined to remain outside it. We heard a few such contributions this afternoon, not least from the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). He managed to find himself thinking that we had been ungenerous and had fixed the level of the deposit too high, even at £500, and that we had correspondingly been too generous and liberal in fixing the threshold at 5 per cent. If the hon. Gentleman had not been so patently sincere, I might have found his arguments a little contrived, because of his very determination to take issue with what otherwise seem essentially modest proposals. He was the first hon. Member to mention the Chesterfield by-election. It proved to be an interesting diversion for several hon. Members to speculate on the names of the candidates, their numbers and the sanity of any or all of them. However, I should not like to venture into that debate.
      I do not think that it shows an excess of pomposity at the Dispatch Box if I say that I think that the House should address itself a little more seriously to the question of electing Members of Parliament who then go on to form or influence the formation of a Government. After all, we are a democracy. There are barely a few dozen true democracies out of a United Nations' membership of more than 150 countries. There are plenty of people who would like the opportunity to stand in serious elections. I wonder whether it is a sign of maturity or of decadence that we should smile indulgently on those who try to turn elections into farces.
      The Government have always tried to make clear that the issue really involves recognision of the fact that being a candidate at a parliamentary election gives that person considerable advantages in terms of the free distribution of literature, restrictions on the proper coverage of the election, and so on, and that it is appropriate that the community should expect him to be a serious candidate. That does not mean "serious" in the sense that he is addressing the problems of the world seriously, or in a manner that seems to him to be serious, but that he has a serious prospect of obtaining a reasonable degree of support. Therefore, the argument must be about what a reasonable degree of support is.
      We have taken a reasonable view of that in saying that one vote in 20 is not an unreasonable ambition for anyone

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      who is remotely serious as a candidate. Indeed, £1,000 would certainly not have been an unreasonable figure to reflect the financial benefits of candidature. I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) said. I am as attracted to the figure of £1,000 as I was the day that I first advocated it with considerable passion and vehemence, when the House first debated the issue in the summer. However, I have been driven to £500 and I console myself with the thought that at least that is an appropriate recognition of the privileges of being a candidate, even though it is in no way as sufficient as I would have liked the House to accept.
      Of course, I appreciate that there are some who do not agree with that. For example, the hon. Member for Walsall, North and my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) do not agree. My hon. Friend spoke of the devastating effect on small parties. Sometimes our language is abused by using dramatic words to describe relatively undramatic situations. We are used to that in newspaper headlines, but I was not hitherto accustomed to it in my hon. Friend's speeches. His use of the word "devastating" was somewhat hyperbolic in the context of the situation that he outlined to us. He seemed to say that a small party would have aspirations to have a substantial wedge of Members of Parliament and would therefore put up a lot of candidates. He argued that it would be driven into bankruptcy by having to pay lost deposits in respect of each of them. In so far as I followed his argument, I would say that if a party was so unreal in its ambitions that it thought that it would get Members of Parliament by putting up a lot of candidates, and subsequently failed to cross the threshold, it must be concluded that its subjective view of the world was not one that it could expect the rest of us to share.
      We all get sentimental about the Ecology party, but it barely polls more than a few hundred votes in any constituency. If hon. Members accept my definition of seriousness, which is that a candidate has a serious prospect of obtaining a reasonable proportion of the vote and that that is why he is given the privileges that attach to being a parliamentary candidate, we cannot take parties at their own subjective estimates. It becomes even more difficult when, as we know in the case of the National Front, a party obtains party broadcasts on the strength of putting up a certain number of candidates. If we make it easy for people to have the opportunity to address millions of our fellow citizens at prime time in a party political broadcast, we must ensure that only those who have realistic level of support in the community are entitled to that privilege.
      5.30 pm
      It is with some regret—though not for the reasons advanced by my hon. Friend—that I have concluded that his suggestion of using the register would not be an appropriate way forward. It would not be a proper use of the register for anyone who could be bothered to register, even the official Raving Loony party, which, after my remarks yesterday, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has assured me is not yet part of the alliance, nor does he intend that it should be. That registration should give the right to stand, without hindrance or impediment, in any constituency would not begin to be credible.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King) raised the important issue of people
      512
      standing claiming to be representatives of a party of which they are not representatives. That problem concerns not only the Conservative party; it should also concern the Labour party following a recent council election in Glasgow at which two candidates claimed to be the official candidates, as a result of which the Labour party won the seat with a reduced majority.
      The problem could have been resolved by having a register of parties. However, that would have led to consequences which led a number of those involved in the political parties to conclude that it would not be an acceptable price to pay. It is with some reluctance, therefore, that I have concluded that the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Northfield cannot be dealt with in this measure in the manner proposed, for different reasons, by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West.
      I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) that the Government would have been more than content to have taken powers in the Bill to enable a future Government to increase, by affirmative resolution, the level of the deposit. However, that proposition would not have been acceptable to others and, in the spirit of compromise that has emerged in discussing this important measure, which sets the framework under which we all contest elections, we decided not to pursue that line, although it was with some reluctance that we reached that conclusion.
      My hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Gregory) made an interesting speech about signatories, and we know that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed supports the idea of signatories. The fact that somebody has signed a nomination paper does not indicate support; it indicates assent to his nomination. They are very different propositions, as I discovered when, to my surprise, a Welsh National candidate decided to contest my constituency of Putney. I had not hitherto thought that Putney was on the list of promising seats for the Welsh National party.
      Mr. Kaufman: On the same basis, I was surprised to find a Conservative nominated against me.
      Mr. Mellor: In my case, the gentleman concerned, who bore an impressively Welsh name, got nominated in the Welsh National party's interest — thought not, I believe, formally so—and when his list of signatories was put in a number of them were found to be well known for their support for another party, some of them were members of that other party and others denied hotly that they had ever intended to cast their vote for the gentleman in question, but simply thought that it was a neighbourly thing to do to sign his nomination paper.
      We must face the fact, from the wholly unnecessary court case brought by an eccentric candidate — who might not have stood had we had the higher level of deposit—that eccentric candidates are not always fun; that one drew my hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (Mr. Maclean) through the court.
      It was suggested that Screaming Lord Sutch had managed to obtain the signatories for his nomination by spending a few minutes in a pub across the road from where he had to hand in his nomination paper.
      Simply multiplying 10 by 50 does not remedy the fact that some people will sign anything. Indeed, a noted psephologist told me always to bear in mind the American

      513
      experience of the researcher who sent a document through the post to a number of households saying, "Please sign this and return it to me at your earliest convenience." People did so and were astonished to find that they had signed their own death warrants.
      Mr. Wigley: I shall not pursue the Minister's point about the election in Putney because that was a pure freelance operation. Will he consider—perhaps not in relation to this Bill but for future reference — the suggestion that if, say, 10 people were required, as they are now—the proposer and seconder and eight assenters —to attend in person to nominate formally in the town hall and to be identified as those 10 persons, that might give a formality to the procedure which would dissuade people from acting too glibly?
      Mr. Mellor: There are endless permutations, and I accept the sincerity with which the hon. Gentleman makes that one. We must bear in mind that already, as a result of this measure, electoral registration offices are having a great deal of pressure put on them. They must find the staff to perform the various tasks that we are placing on them, for example, in relation to increased absent voting and so on. The thought of 500 people — or however many might be decided upon—queuing up outside the town hall waiting to enter to prove their identity in the limited time available to get one's tackle in order for an election makes such a proposal inappropriate.
      Dr. Ian Twinn: Is my hon. Friend aware that some electoral returning officers have themselves put forward the idea of nominators being present to attest at the time of nomination? As those officers see some merit in that suggestion, my hon. Friend should not belittle the idea. Does he agree that it deserves more serious consideration?
      Mr. Mellor: My hon. Friend has recently joined us in the debate and I am sorry if my words have not met with favour from him, though others in the Committee would disagree with him. It is the nature of this whole area, perhaps uniquely so, that almost everybody has a different view. We have at least succeeded in arriving at a solution, as proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, which I hope leaves most people relatively satisfied that justice had been done, and on that basis I commend the amendment to the Committee.
      Sir John Farr: I have been delighted to hear the remarks of the Minister, of the Home Secretary yesterday and of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) today. Rarely does one get united support for any amendment to any measure
      The size of the election deposit is a key factor—it could be called the linchpin of the Bill — and by selecting £500 rather than £1,000 we are not placing democracy beyond the reach of aspirant candidates. I am grateful to hon. Members for their support and to the Government for accepting the amendment.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Question proposed, That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
      Mr. Kaufman: As the Committee is anxious to reach a conclusion on this matter, I shall explain why my hon. Friends and I propose to divide on the motion.
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      We have just agreed to incorporate into the clause an amendment which will halve the deposit originally proposed by the Government. In our view, it is still £500 too much. We believe that a deposit should not be required at a parliamentary election and that there are other, more valid, ways of dealing with the validity of a candidature.
      The response yesterday of the Home Secretary to an intervention by the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) gained in firmness what it lacked in logic. As the Home Secretary put it, if a candidate places the money down and is prepared to forfeit it, that indicates that he has some reasonable expectation of obtaining the number of votes required for him not to forfeit his deposit. That view would not have met with approval from Socrates. The logic is not easily discernible. Somewhere between the first and second part of that sentence there is a large undistributed middle.
      The Home Secretary has not offered any satisfactory justification. The Under-Secretary of State, in what was, in a sense, a speech on the clause stand part motion, repeated one of the errors of the Home Secretary when he talked about the financial gains that accrued to someone who used a small deposit to become a candidate—for example, free postage.
      Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the argument of the Under-Secretary of State—that because they are small parties they should not be in a position to fight—is fallacious because many of our modern national parties grew from small parties? Therefore, small parties have the right to stand.
      Mr. Kaufman: I agree totally with my hon. Friend. If we make it possible for only large established parties with access to large amounts of money to contest elections, we shall suppress the growth of new ideas and trends. It is a fact that the National Front will have access to the amounts of money that will enable its members to stand for election. National Front candidates would, therefore, be able to afford to trade £1,000 for the £8,000 to which the Home Secretary drew attention as the benefits in terms of free postage. The small parties, including the Ecology party — there are many other small parties, some of which I like and some of which I dislike—simply do not have the necessary money. [Interruption.] I do not refer to the party of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). I never dare take a view on his party. I am referring to small groupings with wide interests. They simply do not have the resources, money or workers to use the free facilities. Therefore, it is an error to believe that this is a worthwhile bargain. The commercial people or those who want the publicity are ready to pay £500 or £1,000 for the greater publicity they will gain.
      I do not agree with the Home Secretary who said:
      "The deposit is founded in principle because the essence of election to Parliament is the contest between people who have serious aspirations to represent a constituency." — [Official Report, 13 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 423.]
      The deposit was invented as a way of imposing upon all candidates in an election a share of the cost of the election. Previously candidates had been required directly to bear a share of the cost of election.
      If we are to have an open democracy in which opinions which are unpopular or which have not yet found their time are allowed to be voiced before the electorate and in which people are allowed to seek votes from the electorate—

      515
      however few votes they may receive—the deposit is not a proper means of validating a candidature. I hope that hon. Members who share that view will join us in the Division Lobby.
      Mr. A. J. Beith: The alliance also feels that it is necessary to vote against the motion. I have never believed that money is a test of a candidate's political seriousness. I differ from the Government on that fundamental issue of how one tests a candidate's political seriousness.
      In a way, I am not surprised that the Government should place money higher on their list of tests than I do. My party believes that it is the breadth of support that a candidate can demonstrate which, if a test be needed, is the best test. That is why we have argued consistently for signatures.
      I welcome the fact that the Government have sought to compromise and have considerably reduced the proposed increase in the deposit. I welcome also the conversion of the Labour Front Bench to the view that there should not be a deposit at all. That conversion has occurred under the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who has exercised a beneficent influence on his party's thinking.
      Above all, I welcome openness, democracy and the opportunity to demonstrate when people are wrong and are not going to win support. I welcome the fact that the Ecology party is able to stand in elections and that we can demonstrate that the Liberal party is a far more convincing proponent of concern for the environment than that party. I welcome the fact that, when the National Front stands in elections, it is shown that it commands only minimal support. I wish those who have views to advance to stand in elections. I do not wish them to suffer under a financial penalty in their attempt to do so.
      5.45 pm
      Mr. Parris: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State said that only a realistic level of support entitles a party to consider itself a serious contender in a general election. I do not agree. I believe that there are such things in politics as ideas as well as support at the polls. I believe that ideas as well as voting figures can be serious. Ideas may have to spend a long time in the wilderness before attracting electoral support. These changes make that wilderness a little less hospitable to ideas. To the extent that the Government have considerably compromised, I welcome the changes and I shall support the clause in the Lobby. I am still sorry that the test of a candidate's seriousness is the amount of money that he is able to put up.
      Sir John Farr: I was a little surprised to hear the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) suggest that the Labour party was opposed to any deposit at all. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) rightly said that, when evidence was given to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the Liberal pary did not say that financial considerations and deposits should not be taken into account. The Labour party is on record, however, in the White Paper, as officially advocating a deposit of £600. It is no good the right hon. Member for Gorton now saying that a deposit should not be required and that that is the official view of his party. It may be the official view of one part of his party, but it is not the unanimous view.
      Question put:—
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      The Committee divided: Ayes 209, Noes 104.

      Division No. 106]

      [10.45 pm

      AYES

      Alton, David

      Kennedy, Charles

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Beith, A. J.

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Bruce, Malcolm

      Penhaligon, David

      Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Freud, Clement

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Godman, Dr Norman

      Hancock, Mr. Michael

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Mr. Michael Meadowcroft and

      Johnston, Russell

      Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth.

      NOES

      Ancram, Michael

      Couchman, James

      Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

      Cowans, Harry

      Barron, Kevin

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Beckett, Mrs Margaret

      Dixon, Donald

      Beggs, Roy

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Dubs, Alfred

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Dunn, Robert

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Durant, Tony

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Emery, Sir Peter

      Brooke, Hon Peter

      Fallon, Michael

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      Favell, Anthony

      Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Budgen, Nick

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Burt, Alistair

      Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)

      Butcher, John

      Forth, Eric

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Canavan, Dennis

      Fox, Marcus

      Cash, William

      Franks, Cecil

      Chapman, Sydney

      Freeman, Roger

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Galley, Roy

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Colvin, Michael

      Gow, Ian

      Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

      Greenway, Harry

      Coombs, Simon

      Gregory, Conal

      Cope, John

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

      Corbett, Robin

      Ground, Patrick

      584

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Nicholson, J.

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Hargreaves, Kenneth

      Paisley, Rev Ian

      Harris, David

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Harvey, Robert

      Pawsey, James

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

      Pollock, Alexander

      Hawksley, Warren

      Portillo, Michael

      Hayes, J.

      Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)

      Haynes, Frank

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Hayward, Robert

      Powley, John

      Henderson, Barry

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Hickmet, Richard

      Raffan, Keith

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Holt, Richard

      Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

      Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

      Robinson, P. (Belfast E)

      Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Ross, Wm. (Londonderry)

      Hunter, Andrew

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

      Irving, Charles

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Jessel, Toby

      Silvester, Fred

      Jones, Robert (W Herts)

      Skeet, T. H. H.

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Skinner, Dennis

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Key, Robert

      Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

      King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

      Speed, Keith

      Knowles, Michael

      Speller, Tony

      Lang, Ian

      Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Stern, Michael

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

      Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

      Lightbown, David

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

      Sumberg, David

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Taylor, Rt Hon John David

      Lord, Michael

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Luce, Richard

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

      McCurley, Mrs Anna

      Thurnham, Peter

      McCusker, Harold

      Tracey, Richard

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Maclean, David John

      van Straubenzee, Sir W.

      Malins, Humfrey

      Waddington, David

      Marland, Paul

      Walden, George

      Mates, Michael

      Walker, Cecil (Belfast N)

      Mather, Carol

      Waller, Gary

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Ward, John

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Mellor, David

      Watts, John

      Merchant, Piers

      Wheeler, John

      Michie, William

      Winnick, David

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Mills, Iain (Meriden)

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Wolfson, Mark

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Wood, Timothy

      Moore, John

      Yeo, Tim

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Needham, Richard

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Nellist, David

      Mr. John Major and

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Mr. Michael Neubert

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Clause 12, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clause 13 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clause 14 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 15

      POSTPONEMENT OF POLL AT PARISH OR COMMUNITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS
      Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 73, in page 18, line 11, at end insert—
      '(1A) Any nomination received for an election at which the poll is postponed under the preceding subsection shall, if otherwise valid and if not withdrawn, be valid as if received for an election for which the poll is to be held on the day prescribed by paragraph (a) of subsection (1) of this section.'.
      I have at heart the interests of the National Association of Local Councils, of which I am a vice-president. This provision was in the special legislation — the Representation of the People Act 1979 — which postponed parish council elections when they coincided with the general election of that year. The national association believes that it is necessary to make express provision to preserve the validity of nomination papers that have already been delivered, to avoid confusion locally in the general rush and excitement of a general election and to postpone the parish elections. If that is not done, there will be conflicting advice. Because of the short time limits involved, some nominations could fail if, for example, people mistakenly withdrew them or if they were sent back and had to be resubmitted.
      I understand that the Home Office takes the view that the amendment is not necessary. Even if it is not strictly legally necessary, it would be of considerable advantage to all if the matter were clear. I have in mind the difficulties that arose when parish elections were postponed in 1983. It is undoubted that people in several parts of the country thought that they were validly nominated, but matters were sufficiently confusing for their nominations to be lost.
      Mr. Forth: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if somebody is a serious candidate for public office and expects to get support at the polls he should be sufficiently aware and intelligent to appraise himself of the rules governing the elections and not be confused in the way that the hon. Gentleman has just described?
      Mr. Beith: The hon. Gentleman is being pompous. A great many people who stand for parish council elections have no experience of political life and do not regard themselves as being engaged in politics. They are usually ordinary local people who have been encouraged, perhaps by a few friends, to stand in the parish council election, the smallest scale of democratic operation. Such people might have dutifully completed the nomination paper, satisfied all the restrictions and delivered it to the returning officer, only to find that they should have resubmitted it because the election had been postponed.

      519
      Genuine difficulties have arisen. The national association's view, which I am sure is supported by the vice-presidents sitting on the other side of the House, is that it would be better for the matter to be set out clearly in law in case similar circumstances arise again.
      Mr. Mellor: The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) is an expert on electoral law and I am grateful to him for raising this issue; it is worthy of consideration. We originally asked for a provision equivalent to section 2(3) of the Representation of the People Act 1979 to be included in the Bill, but parliamentary counsel's view was that it was unnecessary as he saw no reason why a nomination should become invalid simply because the day of the poll was postponed.
      I adhere to the view, on advice, that the common-sense provision advocated by the hon. Member is not prejudiced by the absence of any provision equivalent to section 2(3) of the 1979 Act. In deference to the view that the hon. Gentleman has advanced, I shall make further inquiries, but I hope that he will not be discomfited if the answer remains the same and is cogently argued. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will find what I have said helpful enough to make him want to withdraw the amendment.
      Mr. Beith: I am grateful for the Minister's comments. If indeed a nomination may remain valid, as he has been advised, and that advice is confirmed, I hope that the Minister will make as sure as he can that that is known to returning officers and is among the information that is made available to candidates. If that is done, the problem is solved. On that understanding, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Clauses 15 to 17 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 18

      TIMING OF ELECTIONS
      Mr. Robin Corbett: I beg to move amendment No. 81, in page 19, line 18, leave out 'for' and insert 'after'.
      The Second Deputy Chairman (Sir Paul Dean): With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 82, in page 19, line 20, leave out from beginning to 'and' in line 21 and insert
      'shall be inserted the words "where these are not Saturdays".'.
      Mr. Corbett: The most important person in elections to this place is not the candidate but the election agent. Almost all of the legal responsibilities involved fall on the election agent's shoulders. If the brickbats are flying, the election agent collects them. It is rare for them to gather many bouquets, even if the candidate on whose behalf they have worked wins.
      As the Minister will have divined, the amendments extend slightly the timetable for the bits of the election machine to be cranked into place. The House has made it easier for people to get postal votes and for absent voters to make arrangements to vote. That will put extra work on election agents. It is my experience that all of the pieces of paper that float around in the early days of an election campaign end up on the desk of and under the scrutiny of the election agent, as he must ensure that the applications are completed properly and run no risk of being rejected by the returning officer. The Minister may need time to
      520
      think about what we are trying to achieve, but I anticipate that he will take the point seriously. I hope that he will be able to respond as we should like.
      Mr. Mellor: I welcome the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) to the Front Bench, making his debut on this day of Committee. The timetable concerns everyone involved with elections. It is also a matter of concern to the public. I do not know whether the public's reaction to the contest in which I was involved at the last general election was unusual, but if I was told once I was told a hundred times each day, "Doesn't the election go on a long time?" That starts on the second day of the campaign.
      We must think carefully before including provisions that provide a proper amount of time for a campaign so as not to have arbitrary rules that lengthen a campaign gratuitously. We and, I believe, the public want a fairly tight period between the dissolution of Parliament and the general election. That is why I am a little troubled by the amendments. Although we fully accept that there should be disregard of bank and public holidays, Saturdays and Sundays, we see no merit in adding some other days which are immediately before or after other holidays. The amendments would reinstate the days either side of public holiday breaks. I am not sure that that would be appropriate.
      If there is some worry about Christmas and Easter, during which times special considerations apply, we could add Christmas eve and Maundy Thursday to the disregarded days, but I ask the hon. Gentleman not to press for other days. I am aware that his intention is to ensure that everyone is able to do what he wants to do in the proper time.
      We have thought deeply about this and consulted widely with party professionals and electoral registration officers. We believe that we have provided a timetable that enables such people to do what they want and satisfies the public's desire for election campaigns to be no longer than is necessary. I hope, therefore, that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment. I shall consider whether we should add Christmas eve and Maundy Thursday in recognition of the hon. Gentleman's case.
      Mr. Corbett: I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I am smiling because I know of at least one candidate at the general election who also thought that the campaign was too long from about the second day. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for agreeing to consider Christmas eve and Maundy Thursday. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Clause 18 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Clause 19 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    ORDINARY ELECTIONS OF PARISH AND COMMUNITY COUNCILLORS: INSUFFICIENT NOMINATIONS
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 74, in page 22, line 6, after 'may', insert
    'after a period of 60 days (computed according to rules concerning the conduct of elections of parish or community councillors made or having effect as if made under section 36 of the principal Act) has elapsed from the day on which the returning officer published the names of the newly elected councillors.'.

    521
    Amendment No. 74 relates to clause 20, which was inserted in the Bill at the request of the National Association of Local Councils to save the costs of holding a further full-scale election to fill vacancies caused by insufficient nominations. The clause enables the validly nominated councillors, who are elected unopposed, to fill the remaining seats by co-option if the number of new councillors constitutes a quorum. To deal with the possibility that they may fail for some reason to co-opt, a residual power is given to the district council to fill the vacancies. The amendment seeks to ensure that the newly elected councillors are given a specified time in which to act before the district council can act in their place.
    If no time is specified, councillors may accuse a district council of jumping the gun. The amendment provides for a period of 60 days, computed according to the time limits in the election rules. It would be unreasonable if parish councillors intended to co-opt and were making reasonable local inquiries, only to find that in the meantime the district council had jumped in and exercised its powers instead. I hope that the Minister will consider this suggestion, as it comes directly from the association.
    Mr. Mellor: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). As he rightly said, clause 20 derives from consultations with the National Association of Local Councils, and the position is precisely as he described it. The wording of clause 20 is intended to imply that a district council should not step in until it receives notification from the parish or community council to the effect that the parish or community council has tried to co-opt and failed.
    The hon. Gentleman seeks to provide a period of 60 days. I have thought about that and sought advice on it. It seems that 12 weeks, which would be the effect of his proposal allowing for dies non, may be rather long. However, as the hon. Gentleman has drawn my attention to this point, I shall certainly be more than prepared to require, by means of an amendment that the Government will introduce later, that the power of co-option be exercised within the seven-week period, during which a fresh election must at present be held under section 39(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1983. I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman that undertaking.
    Mr. Beith: I am grateful to the Minister for that helpful undertaking. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 20 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 21 and 22 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Schedule 2 agreed to.
    Clause 23 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Schedule 3

    MISCELLANEOUS AMENDMENTS OF THE PRINCIPAL ACT
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 54, in page 30, line 20, leave out sub-paragraph (3).
    Sub-paragraph 3 states:
    "An alteration made in a register of electors after the last day on which nomination papers nominating candidates at an election may be delivered to the returning officer shall not have effect for the purposes of that election."
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    I raise this matter because my experience during the general election—and I am sure it was the experience of many hon. Members—was that some people found that they could get corrections made to the electoral register but could not cast a vote. The last general election would have been the first one at which the new rules for the correction of the electoral register were in operation. Prior to that, it was impossible to get any change made in the register until the following year. That was most unsatisfactory. The clause was a welcome improvement. However, the general election brought with it a series of disappointed expectations when people discovered that they were not registered, had the mistake corrected, only to find that they could not vote on polling day.
    It may be argued that people should always check the draft lists when they appear in post offices before Christmas to ensure that their names are on the register, and that, during the year, if they failed to check the draft list, they should check that the register is up to date, so that a mistake can be corrected. We all know that people do not do that. Political parties do it to help their supporters, and indeed others, as much as they can. However, an ordinary member of the public tends to discover a mistake in registration only when an election is about to take place, and he wishes to take part in it. It is therefore extremely common that at the time of an election people discover that they are not properly registered.
    6.15 pm
    At present when a mistake is discovered, a correction can be made; but if it is discovered beyond nomination day, the person concerned cannot cast a vote at the election. That sense of disappointed expectation vitiates the otherwise welcome features of the changes in electoral law, from which we have benefited.
    The move towards a continuous register, to which names can be added, is a welcome improvement. However, if corrections to the register cannot be made to ensure that people, who discover that their names are missing at the time when most people are likely to discover that omission can vote, the provision is disappointing in practice. Will the Minister consider that problem? It is a genuine difficulty, and many people came across it at the general election.
    Mr. William Powell: I strongly support the argument of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). One of the blemishes of our system of voting is the fact that it has been impossible for someone to correct the register and cast a vote. Most of those errors are discovered only when a person presents himself at a polling station to cast a vote. It is regrettable to have to turn such a person away in those circumstances. Obviously, the detail must be considered carefully. I urge my hon. Friend to consider carefully the arguments that have been advanced and to try to assist in this matter.
    Mr. Mellor: I take those points, and consider them to be helpful interventions. As the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) made clear and my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) confirmed, a person who wakes up to the fact that he has been omitted from the electoral register only when an election is in the offing is usually too late to do anything about it.
    Impelled by precisely the same feelings that have motivated the two interventions, we consulted on the basis that there was no genuine reason why the registration

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    officer, aided by modern technology, should not be able to alter the register right up to polling day. It was upon that basis that we went out to consultation.
    The proposals met strong opposition, not just from the political parties but from the local authority associations. The local authority associations said that in practice copies of the electoral register for use in polling stations were made ready several days before polling day and that a power to alter the register up to the last moment would wreck the whole procedure.
    Some, if not all, of the political parties said that they wanted a definitive register for canvassing purposes at the start of the campaign. In other words, there was no support for the proposition that we put forward.
    The Government thought that they could not leave the present position as it is; but, equally, it was difficult, in the spirit of accommodation that has informed our consideration of these matters — rightly so— to insist upon going ahead with the requirement that alterations should be accepted up to polling day. Therefore, we decided—and it is given effect to by the Bill—that corrections should be allowed up to the close of nominations, which would be a fortnight before the poll. That would be a marked improvement on the present position.
    We are reviewing the procedures for the making of late claims, and before we make the regulations we shall want to consult the political parties again on this and other matters contained in the regulations.
    I hope that, on the basis that the door is not slammed shut in his face, the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed will withdraw the amendment. There are real difficulties, not raised by the Government but by those whom we properly consulted, in doing entirely what the hon. Gentleman seeks. We have made some improvements, which I hope are welcome, and I trust that he understands why we can go no further at this stage.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I am in agreement with the hon. Members for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) and for Corby (Mr. Powell) in welcoming the enormous improvement in relations with the electorate which rolling registration has brought about. I believe that the Under-Secretary is right to be cautious in any undertaking to continue the rolling of the registration up to polling day. There is, after all, another important person or group of persons whose interests must be taken into account, and they are the candidates.
    For the sake of the candidates and their duty and desire to be available to all members of the electorate—that is to say, all who are entitled to vote—it is important that there should be finality at some stage during the campaign. It seems to me that the close of nominations, which is final for other purposes, is an appropriate point of finality for this purpose and one which gives a reasonable opportunity to all candidates to do what most of them desire to do, and that is to make their own direct approach to all who will be able to vote on polling day. Caution may be indicated in respect of the last fortnight before polling day.
    Mr. Beith: The remarks of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) touch the scale of balance that we have had to address at several points during the Bill —which is more important, the right of the voter to cast his vote, or the right of the candidate to address the voter? They are both important.
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    The other context in which we have had to consider that matter is postal voting. In extending postal voting to those overseas we have to some extent reduced the ability of a candidate to address the totality of those listed on the electoral register, because it will necessarily be difficult to communicate within the time available with some of those registered overseas to vote.
    My judgment on that matter is that the interests of the elector to be able to cast his vote outweigh the interest of the candidate to be able to address each voter. So far as we possibly can, we must give priority to ensuring that the voter can cast his vote, but having done that, we should do all in our power to enable the candidate to address him.
    In making that point the right hon. Gentleman reminded me of what was the most ironic experience at the last election. Some of the people to whom I referred as having been deprived of their vote despite being added to the register, saw their names exhibited on public notice boards in their wards and villages in the course of statutory procedures during the election because the electoral registration officer exhibited the draft additions to the register which had come to him during the election so that objection could be made in the normal way.
    The poor individual who found that he was not on the register and had made his complaint duly walked down to the village the next morning and there saw his name and address listed on the notice board for him, his neighbours and the candidate to see. There was no difficulty in addressing that voter at that stage of the campaign, yet he was unable to cast his vote on polling day. Having gone through the whole process of exhibiting the vote, he was precluded from casting his vote on polling day.
    I feel that we should strike the balance more in favour of the voter and use every possible means to ensure that he can cast his vote. I do not believe that the objections raised on behalf of returning officers or the parties are overwhelming, even that relating to preparing the register beforehand. It is possible to have a supplementary list of names which have been added to the register and to ensure that a copy is delivered to each relevant polling station.
    The objections of the parties are mainly covered by the argument about candidates addressing the voters, with which I have sought to deal. There comes a stage when we must consider ourselves as public representatives representing the voter, and not merely as people who here seek to represent the views of the parties on how the matter has been handled. We have all done a bit of both during the course of these proceedings, but this is a matter where the interests of the individual elector are paramount.
    My one worry is that the Minister, in his genuine attempt to be helpful — clearly he set out from the beginning to widen what was available—may not have left himself a door which is sufficiently open, because what he can do in regulations is severely circumscribed by what the Act says. If the Act says that no name which has been added to the register after nomination day can acquire a valid vote at that election, he can do nothing in regulations to make any difference.
    For that reason, I am not content to leave the matter there. I do not wish to press the matter to a Division, but I should like to record that although I know that the Minister will be as helpful as he can, the Bill will be left in such a way that some people will be disappointed. Their names will appear to be added to the register. They will

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    see their names exhibited on the public notice board, yet when they go to the polling station there will be no ballot paper for them.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Winnick: I beg to move amendment No. 92, in page 35, line 44, at end insert—
    '(iii) leave out "public meetings" and insert "meetings open to any member of the public".'.
    The amendment arises from some difficulties with the words "public meetings". It was not meant, but in practice they allow organisations such as the National Front to exclude all except their own members and then to claim, in effect, that a public meeting has taken place. That is undesirable, because if we are to have election meetings — long may we continue to have such gatherings — members of the public should not be excluded. That is not the case with race hate organisations, which is why I have moved the amendment.
    To the extent that meetings, in effect, are peopled only by those who are followers of the organisation, it is possible for remarks which probably break the law to be made. If not the electoral law, they probably break other laws affecting race relations. That would be less easy if people unconnected with the organisations were able to get in.
    As I believe the Minister must be aware, there have been a number of difficulties over this point. The amendment substitutes the words on the Notice Paper for "public meetings". The problem would be easier to deal with if the wording were:
    "meetings open to any member of the public."
    There is no ambiguity there. The wording is simple and clear and it can be enforced. Although the matter is important, it will not preoccupy the Committee for long, and for the reasons I have given I hope that the amendment will be accepted.
    6.30 pm
    Mr. Alex Carlile: I applaud the sentiments behind the amendment. I suspect, however, that we will hear from the Minister that those sentiments are met by the words already in the statute. If so, we would be grateful to hear that, because it will be on the record and available to all registration officers, all parties and candidates.
    The purpose of the special provisions which entitle those participating in elections to hold public meetings in buildings which are either owned by the public or funded out of public funds is to show that elections are fully public exercises, that all members of the public are entitled to participate and that for that purpose publicly owned buildings will be thrown open and will serve to achieve that end.
    It may be that the amendment is a "belt and braces" operation to achieve that, but there is doubt at present. I should have thought that in every constituency there were private buildings which could be hired out for private meetings. Public buildings should not be available for that purpose, and the amendment goes some way towards making that clear.
    Mr. Mellor: If I say, as I shall feel bound to do at the end, that I cannot accept the amendment, I want the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) to know from
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    the outset that it is not because I do not have considerable sympathy with it and would be content, if some of the points that I raise could be met, to consider the matter again while the Bill is going through Parliament. I hope that I shall assist him by going through the arrangements as I understand them and setting out what I see to be the difficulty in his proposal.
    What the hon. Gentleman raises is eminently proper and I share his sentiments about one or two meetings that have given rise to concern. As he knows, candidates at parliamentary, European Parliament and local government elections have in general a right to the free use of school rooms and other meeting rooms for the purpose of election meetings which are described in the statute as
    "public meetings in furtherance of their candidature".
    The only qualifications and limitations on that right are that meetings have to be held at reasonable times and on reasonable notice, and must not interfere with the use of a school for educational purposes or with prior lettings of the meeting room. The Bill does nothing to change the substance of the law.
    We know that a number of disturbances were provoked in the 1970s by election meetings called by the National Front. A particularly appalling example was the Southall disorder in April 1979 which was the result of such a meeting. These meetings tended to be held in areas of high ethnic minority population and admission was limited to National Front supporters who for the most part were not electors in the division in which the meeting was being held but were bussed in from other areas. Having heard those facts, if someone says that this is damaging to respect for electoral law, far be it for me to dissent from that. Indeed, I do not dissent from it. The question is, what can we do about it?
    The 1979 public order Green Paper included a question which was posed to obtain assistance from those who bothered to reply to us—whether it was right for the ratepayer to subsidise what were in effect private meetings from which local electors were excluded, and whether as a consequence the candidates' right to use any school or meeting room should be limited to take account of public order considerations. The Select Committee which reported on public order law in 1980 recommended that
    "an appropriate legal formula should be devised"
    to require a substantial proportion of the seats at an election meeting to be open to the public. The Select Committee recognised the difficulties that even at the best conducted public meetings which are genuinely intended to be open to the public some rowdyism is to be expected. Therefore, the Select Committee added a proviso to the effect that the candidates' stewards should retain the right to refuse entry at an election meeting to those intent on breaking it up and remove them if they gained entry.
    The hon. Gentleman's proposal does not include any such equivocation and would make it difficult to keep order even at a proper meeting that did not fall under the umbrella. Indeed, it might be one of his own meetings to which National Front supporters or other people had come with the purpose of breaking it up. The hon. Gentleman must recognise that that would be the consequence.
    The difficulty with these provisions is enforcement. The law explicitly allows candidates the free use of rooms only for public meetings, yet the question whether a meeting is a public meeting is a question of fact which can be determined only after the event. There are public order considerations which require that there should be a right

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    on the part of the organisers and, indeed, on the part of the police to refuse entry to such meetings and to act to eject people so as to maintain order. But those legitimate responses to normal meetings or to meetings which only a small minority wanted to make abnormal would be precluded by the amendment.
    I have tried to set out the position as squarely as I can. If someone who is provoked by what I have said can come up with a formula that would enable us to exclude those meetings that, as it were, creep in as public meetings but in reality and substance were never intended to be public, without threatening the proper carrying on of legitimate public meetings which a small minority have to be prevented from trying to break up, I shall be glad to hear it. The amendment does not achieve that. It is on that basis that it is not acceptable. I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment, but we could come back to it later.
    Mr. Winnick: If the Minister is telling the Committee that because of all the difficulties he has outlined he cannot come back on Report with a different wording, I will not withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Kevin Barron: I beg to move amendment No. 95, in page 37, line 20, leave out '£10,000' and insert '£5,000'.
    The Second Deputy Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 96, in page 37, line 23, leave out '£5,000' and insert '£2,500'.
    No. 97, in page 37, line 27, leave out '£10,000' and insert '£5,000'.
    No. 98, in page 37, line 30, leave out '£5,000' and insert '£2,500'.
    Mr. Barron: Amendment No. 95 seeks to change the amount for security of costs for any action taken in court in relation to elections to bring it within the reach of the ordinary common man. The amount of £10,000 proposed for parliamentary elections is too high. The amendment seeks to bring it down to £5,000.
    My hon. Friends and I also wish to reduce from £5,000 to £2,500 the security needed for local government elections. I understand the Government's wish to ensure that people do not initiate litigation for frivolous reasons at elections. In many instances elections are frivolous in themselves—as we can see when we look at some hon. Members who are in Committee. We should make sure that the amounts required as security are in the reach of ordinary people. The amounts proposed by the Government are far too high for the ordinary man or woman.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: I fear that it is my view that both the Government and the Labour party have got it all wrong in relation to the amendments. A more far-reaching change in the law is required. By section 136 of the principal Act and by the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), both the Government and the Labour party appear to accept that it should remain possible for an election petition based on a corrupt or illegal practice to be brought as a civil proceeding; and for alternative proceedings to be taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions by way of a prosecution.
    Mr. Bermingham: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that it is sometimes extremely difficult to persuade the Director of Public Prosecutions to take action in these matters?
    Mr. Carlile: I shall deal with the hon. Gentleman's point in due course, if he will bear with me.
    The only issue between the Government and the Labour party in relation to this group of amendments is one of quantum. How much should be deposited by way of security for costs? The Government say £10,000 for a general election and £5,000 for a local election, and the Labour party says half of those figures. Of course, if inflation had been applied since the last time the figures were adjusted, they would be £14,200 for a general election and £7,100 for a local election. Therefore, in that sense both the Government and the Labour party have got their sums wrong anyway.
    The Liberal party and the Social Democratic party oppose the principle of the provision and the amendment, because we consider that it has three fundamentally offensive features. The first is that something as potentially serious as a corrupt practice, corruption, or even as serious as an illegal practice, should be open to a merely civil action. The very word "corruption" speaks of its essence eloquently without needing elaboration. If corruption occurs at an election, proceedings should be taken through the criminal courts only, as the appropriate sanctions for the conduct surely fall within the criminal law.
    The second fundamentally offensive feature is that alternative jurisdictions should be available; and that it should be a lottery as to whether a person is proceeded against by way of election petition, or by prosecution with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions. If one looks at the Richmond GLC election case and at another case from the north-east which involved an hon. Member, one sees that, although the allegations that were made in the two cases were of the same general type, one proceeded by way of election petition and resulted in a massive bill of costs being faced by a candidate who was cleared of every corrupt practice alleged; whereas the other led to proceedings in the Crown court by way of a prosecution authorised by the Director of Public Prosecutions, resulting in a proper acquittal and an order for costs which did not leave the candidate involved in anything like as disadvantageous a position.
    The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman is straying a little wide. The amendments deal with amounts. The hon. and learned Gentleman is now going wider into the principles involved.
    Mr. Carlile: I was seeking to keep in order by making the point that I regard the amounts in the amendment as being quite wrong because the concept of setting a quantum for such proceedings is in itself wrong.
    The third fundamentally offensive feature about the concept behind the amounts stated in the amendment is that it is wrong—I am surprised that the Labour party should accept it as a concept—that money should be the measure of whether an allegedly corrupt or illegal practice is to be considered by the court. Even if the amendment is accepted, if the Labour party is able to lay its hands on £5,000 of union money to present by way of security for costs so that it can bring an election petition, it can bring

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    it; but if, as is the case in most areas, the Labour party cannot raise the £5,000, then however serious the corrupt practice of which it wishes to complain, it cannot bring it. That is an odd and unacceptable state of affairs.
    6.45 pm
    In accordance with the broad views of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of District Councils and the Association of County Councils, "I suggest that we should not be faced with choosing between the amounts set out alternatively by the Labour party, and the Government. Rather, we should have a single procedure whereby allegations of corrupt and illegal practice are brought to the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions. As the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) said, it is sometimes difficult to persuade the Director of Public Prosecutions to bring prosecutions, but that restraint is only right and proper. He rightly exercises his discretion carefully and authorises proceedings only in cases when he regards it as more than 50 per cent. likely that a conviction will result. That kind of restraint is needed in relation to election disputes.
    Therefore, although I do not intend to force a Division on the amendment, I ask the Under-Secretary to reconsider the principle behind the provisions and realise that we should be talking not about amounts but about the whole cumbersome procedure of election petitions and whether it is right for that cumbersome procedure to continue.
    I can speak of one episode from my own experience. I was once instructed to appear in a local election petition on behalf of, as it happens, the Labour councillor who was elected against whom a petition had been presented by another candidate. I saw it as a fantastically expensive, extremely elaborate, grossly wasteful and long-delayed procedure. My view is that the whole procedure of election petitions, often unmerited, which can take so much longer than the relatively simpler course of a criminal prosecution in appropriate circumstances, leads the post-electoral process into disrepute.
    Mr. Bermingham: I listened with care to what the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) said. He surprised me considerably because one would have thought that such an honourable and learned Member would know that there is a world of difference between an illegal practice leading to the presentation of an election petition and corruption. The two arms are needed. I agree that the corruption procedure is much speedier and less expensive to the party—
    Mr. Carlile: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that corrupt practices should, in principle, be dealt with only by way of prosecution, and not by an election petition? That seems to be the import of what he said.
    Mr. Bermingham: I agree that any corrupt practice in any election should be dealt with by way of criminal prosecution. I do not believe that any hon. Member would think otherwise. However, I know from experience that it is often the presentation of a petition and matters that arise from the examination of the petition that lead to the subsequent corruption trial or the subsequent trial for perjury.
    The Second Deputy Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not be led astray. We are dealing with amounts.
    Mr. Bermingham: I would hate you to think, Sir Paul, that my turning my back on you was in any way discourteous, but it allowed me to make my point to the hon. and learned Member. I shall now return immediately to the sums of money involved.
    It is right that people should be able to present a petition against election practices. It is equally right for those who have stood for election, whether they were successful or not, to be protected from the utterly frivolous petition. The idea of security of costs is aimed at protecting against spurious and ill-founded allegations or petitions.
    I concede that in this modern day and age £500 or £1,000 is no deterrent to the frivolous petition, but we need not go as far as the Government have gone in raising the limits to £5,000 and £10,000. That will eliminate a number of well-founded petitions brought by individuals, perhaps independent candidates, without any particular means. To tailor the limitation to take into account the discouragement of the frivolous and still leave it within the means of the honest and honourable petitioner would be a sensible compromise. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) in his amendment to reduce the sums to £5,000 and £2,500.
    Dr. Marek rose—
    Mr. Mellor: Let me save the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) from feeling the need to push at an open door. I understood him to realise that it is wide open and that I am accepting the amendments. I want to put hon. Members out of their misery before the hon. Gentleman makes a speech that might persuade me that I am wrong to do so.
    Dr. Marek: The amendments are about right. This is a Government Bill. If the sum is too low, frivolous applications will be encouraged. One wants to keep it above that level.
    Mr. Mellor: That ringing endorsement of the amendment will be welcome to the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) and it has not persuaded me that it is wrong. Therefore, I shall accept the amendments.
    The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) knows, as was pointed out, that the arguments that he adduced go to the basic principle and are the result of his frustration that new clause 17, which would have given him the opportunity to dilate on those matters without objection, was not selected. I shall honour the fact that it was not selected and not be led into the path of disorder.
    It is eminently appropriate that someone who does something as grave as bringing an election petition should have to show that he is capable of withstanding the consequences of failing in order to recompense the candidate who is brought before the court for his costs. To put up security for costs is eminently right, particularly given the recent example of the application in respect of the Penrith by-election, which showed us just how the procedures can be abused. There is nothing wrong with the principle, but the sum of £1,000 was fixed as long ago as 1868. I am surprised that the result of inflation since 1868 is only £14,000. The hon. and learned Gentleman's mathematics may not be as good as his law. I suspect that I may be right about that.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: I could have got the figures wrong. It could be £142,000.
    Mr. Mellor: It was a mere guess and speculation, as one should have anticipated from that Bench. In any event, the sum has not been increased since 1868. We are now doing so and I am sure that we are pleased about that. Perhaps in our zeal to increase the amount we might have gone too high. The eloquence of the hon. Member for Rother Valley has carried the day.
    Will you grant me a moment's indulgence, Sir Paul? When I replied to amendment No. 79 late last night, in an anxiety to deal with the issue quickly I said something which may not have been completely accurate. I am writing to the hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) about it, but it might be appropriate to mention it now. I telescoped the argument and I should like to put the right position on the record.
    The point related to the penalties for making a false declaration to become an overseas voter. I suggested that that was an offence under section 61 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 which was punishable as an illegal practice and the penalties would therefore include disqualification from voting. What I should have said was that the making of a false declaration would not be punishable under section 61, but it would need to be only if the result of the declaration was that the person got his vote and excercised it. That is the mischief. If he got his vote as a result of a false declaration and exercised it, that would be an illegal practice under section 61 and would be visited with the penalties which the hon. Gentleman wanted.
    I hope that that explanation does not make the hon. Gentleman regret his withdrawal of the amendment. I am glad to have had the opportunity to put the record straight and I am grateful to you, Sir Paul, for your indulgence.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendments made: No. 96, in schedule 3, page 37, line 23, leave out '£5,000' and insert '£2,500'.
    No. 97, in schedule 3, page 37, line 27, leave out '£10,000' and insert '£5,000'.
    No. 98, in schedule 3, page 37, line 30, leave out '£5,000' and insert '£2,500'.—[Mr. Barron.]
    Mr. Bermingham: I beg to move amendment No. 100, in schedule 3, page 38, line 40, after 'relief)", insert—
    '(a) in subsection (1) the words "else if in respect of a payment made in contravention of section 78(1) or (2) above paragraph 1 of Schedule 4 to this Act" shall be omitted and
    (b)'.
    The amendment may seem complicated, but it effectively alters section 167 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 by deleting in the second line of section 167(1) the words "High Court" and substituting the words "County Court". The object of the exercise is to allow the applications for relief to be brought in the county court.
    Before I go further, I thank the Minister for reading into the record the matters that he did. My view has not been altered. I accept the undertaking. I realise that the casting of the vote is the matter that causes the problem, and I am satisfied on that point.
    A considerable number of agents are often amateurs and things can often happen in the heat of the preparation of the papers. It is certainly the case in all major parties that people who are not professional agents can make innocent mistakes when calculating election expenses, whether for a parliamentary or a local government election.
    Applications for relief under section 167 have to be made in the High Court, which is an expensive procedure.
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    In some cases, it is incredibly expensive. The amendment seeks to allow applications in respect of errors made in good faith — it is a prerequisite to show that the omission is not a criminal act — to be made in the county court where, in my experience, the quality of the judiciary is equally as great. The county court is well capable of dealing with such applications. It has always seemed strange that such applications have to be made in the High Court. The amendment merely seeks to allow those applications in future to be made in the county court.
    Mr. Mellor: The position, as the hon. Gentleman has made clear, is that for the most part the jurisdiction is exclusively that of the High Court, and only some trivial applications for relief may be made to the county court. I understand that a number of applications under section 167 of the 1983 Act are made by candidates whose election publications have failed to include the name of the printer and publisher, and so on. Therefore, I understand why some of those should not involve going to the High Court, which is an expensive procedure.
    My difficulty is that it is not easy to say from the outset what will be trivial. Even in the instance that I have given of omitting a mark, that may be a legitimate mistake for which relief could be granted immediately for literature that was otherwise perfectly well within the limits. But there are circumstances where one could envisage that a candidate, desperate to secure election or re-election, might ride a coach and horses through the restrictions on the amount of money that he could spend on publicity. He could publish a great deal of expensive literature without the proper mark and then not be entitled to relief, even though he would be applying on precisely the same basis as the individual who had left a mark off one piece of literature only.
    We must recognise that illegal practices are potentially serious. Indeed, an election can be declared void if a candidate is found to have committed them. The danger of giving the county court jurisdiction over applications for relief is that it might well be asked to entertain, and perhaps grant, an application for relief while at the same time an election court, which has only a limited number of High Court judges, was considering the same issue on the trial of an election petition. That might well arise if the abuse were as wholesale as I have suggested.
    7 pm
    I am not anxious to involve people in any more difficulty than is absolutely necessary when dealing with inadvertence, but it is not easy, until one has heard the facts of the particular case, to separate out in rules what is inadvertence and what is perhaps more sinister. I believe that in order to preserve the gravity and seriousness of an illegal practice—since a bad case undermines the whole principle of free and democratic elections and is therefore treated very seriously by the courts—it is right for the High Court to retain this jurisdiction.
    I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but we are strongly attached to the present arrangement.
    Mr. Bermingham: I appreciate the point that the Minister is making. However, does he agree that there ought at least to be written into the rules—this could be done with no great difficulty — that the county court judge, who is a circuit judge since the new rearrangement, shall also have power to refuse to consider the matter further? These are men of great integrity. He then could

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    refer the matter to a judge of the High Court, and the normal procedures would have to apply. In other words, the relief he could give would be yes, no, or referral, in which case it would then pass on. In a case where what appeared to be a minor infringement gave rise to a much more serious matter, as I am sure the Minister is well aware, the judge would have the power to refer it either to a full election court or to the Director of Public Prosecutions, which of course is what happens.
    Mr. Mellor: But the result would still be that a judge on a lower level of the judiciary than has customarily dealt with these matters would be being invited to exercise discretion that would be conclusive of the matter and might oust the jurisdiction of the High Court in a case which a High Court judge might have wished to consider had the matter been put before him.
    Because we are dealing with technical matters and because we want good and common sense to govern these rules, I am always open, as the hon. Gentleman knows, for further application to be made. If the hon. Gentleman wants to set out in writing any more detailed points, there is time in the further progress of the Bill to consider them. But at the moment, for the reasons I have given, the Government are attached to the continuation of the rule whereby, save in only a very small number of trivial instances, jurisdiction to deal with illegal practices remains firmly vested in the High Court. I am sorry that I cannot give the hon. Gentleman any more satisfaction than that.
    Mr. Bermingham: I propose to ask leave to withdraw the amendment at this stage, because, if I do not, I realise that subsequently I may not be able to bring it back. I shall take the opportunity offered by the Minister and write to him in the intervening period.
    I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 55, in schedule 3, page 40, line 45, leave out 'desirable for publicising it' and insert
    'best calculated to afford information to the voter'.
    The Second Deputy Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No 56, in page 41, line 5, leave out 'desirable for publicising it' and insert
    'best calculated to afford information to the voter.'
    No. 94, in page 41, line 6, at end insert
    'In the case of an election to fill a casual vacancy the returning officer shall also deliver a notice to those persons entitled to receive free copies of the electoral register under regulations issued by virtue of this Act.'.
    Mr. Beith: Amendment No. 55 relates to the public notices which are displayed during an election by returning officers. The wording which I have proposed simply reinstates a bit of wording which was in the parent Act which the Government are amending. The reason for suggesting that we go back in part to the original wording is that I believe it is stronger than the Government's proposed wording. I believe it to be tighter as it places a more systematic demand upon the returning officer.
    The words "desirable for publicising it" are extremely loose and subjective and allow for considerable difference of interpretation by returning officers. One might say that
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    it was desirable to place a notice outside every church, chapel and public building, as is the traditional arrangement, while another might say it was no longer desirable to go to such lengths and that only a limited number of notices were required.
    My proposal,
    "best calculated to afford information to the voter,"
    is more capable of objective test than the wording that the Government now propose. It is for that reason that I ask the Minister to consider changing the wording.
    Mr. Mellor: I welcome you, Mr. Lamond, to the Chair of this Committee.
    I take the point made by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). He wants to put back what appears in section 200(1) of the 1983 Act—wording that goes back to the 19th century. We thought that it was more appropriate to recognise the changes in circumstances that have occurred since it was first thought that the form of words to which the hon. Gentleman is attached should go into legislation. We believe that the electoral registration officer, as an experienced person, will have a view on the manner in which proper publication should be made and that, therefore, we should give him the discretion to do so. In effect, it is clear that in most cases he will use local newspapers for the additional publicity and that the scope for making a different decision is limited.
    I am not persuaded that the hon. Gentleman has a point of substance in preferring the antique phraseology he wants to bring back to the simpler and, I think, better formulation that we have adopted of "desirable for publicising it". I do not think that there is a major difference between us, and I hope that it will not break the bonds of amicability that have characterised our relationship over the past two days.
    Mr. Beith: This is the narrowest difference that has arisen between the Minister and myself in the course of these proceedings so far. However, I am not convinced by the general proposition that his current civil servants are better in their use of English than those who served his Department in the 19th century. Generally, the reverse appears to be the case. When I see the words on the amendment paper I am even more convinced. However, I have not convinced him or, I suspect, the armies that he could bring into the Lobbies were I to press the matter to a Division, so I will not do so. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. James Lamond): Owing to a misunderstanding, amendment No. 57 has been altered so that, as well as leaving out words, it now proposes to insert the word "tenth". Members will see that that would not make sense. I shall therefore allow the amendment to be moved in its original form—that is, to leave out the words
    "10 at night on the".
    The same applies to amendment No. 58.
    Mr. Kaufman: I beg to move amendment No. 57, in page 41, line 38, leave out the words
    '10 at night on the'.
    The Temporary Chairman: It will be convenient to discuss at the same time the following amendments: No. 58, in page 41, line 39, leave out the words
    '9 at night on the'.
    No. 59, in page 41, line 42, leave out '10 at night'.

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    No. 60, in page 41, line 43, leave out '9 at night'.
    Mr. Kaufman: I wish, first, to thank the Clerks for the assistance that they have given my hon. Friends and myself in ensuring that these amendments are in order and suitable for outright inclusion in the Bill, which is our objective, to which I hope the Government will be able to respond in a receptive manner, thus strengthening the bonds of unity and amicability which were slightly slackened before, but which can now be tautened to the maximum.
    As the Government will know, this is one of the aspects of the Bill which, in its original form, most offended us in the Labour party and on which we were most determined to secure amelioration. It seems to us that at a general election, which may be held only once every five years, it is an absurdity that, for the convenience of polling staff and returning officers, an hour should be removed from the hours of polling. After all, one hour in five years does not seem to be a very great price to pay for democracy in return for perhaps a little additional fatigue on the part of returning officers and their staff.
    There is no doubt that the provision to close the poll at 10 o'clock rather than 9 o'clock is of great importance to people who would not necessarily qualify for an absentee vote or who might not know until much nearer polling day that their working hours would interfere with their opportunity to vote. Shift workers and long-distance lorry drivers wishing to vote in person might be inconvenienced by such a limitation of polling hours.
    Mr. Forth: The polling stations will still be open between 7 am and 9 pm. Is the right hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that some people cannot vote between those hours, but are able to do so between 9 pm and 10 pm?
    Mr. Kaufman: Yes.
    Mr. Forth: As polling stations will be open from 7 am, the right hon. Gentleman's argument loses much of its validity.
    Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Gentleman clearly does not understand the social habits of certain parts of the country, as anyone who represents or lives in a north of England constituency does.
    Mr. Forth: I was born in Scotland.
    Mr. Kaufman: Scotland cannot he blamed for that. I am referring to the social habits of the north of England, where I was born and part of which I represent. When we go round knocking on doors on polling day, many women say that they will not vote yet. They wait for their husbands to come home, have a bath, change their clothes and have their meal before going out to vote. Voting is a family occasion and many people in the north of England treat the act of exercising the franchise with the concern and respect that it deserves. The husband is the operative person in these family arrangements. If he comes home late, the wife may not be able to vote either. They may be unable to find a baby sitter. All kinds of problems may arise.
    An election should not be about limiting people's opportunity to vote. It should expand the opportunities to vote within sensible limits. The additional hour until 10 pm has been available for a number of years and it is widely used. As I said at earlier stages of the Bill and in the debate on the White Paper, Dr. David Butler's survey
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    showed that in the 1979 election 4 per cent. of the electorate voted between 9 pm and 10 pm. That one-hour period represents only 6·66 per cent. of the polling time available, so a 4 per cent. vote is not a bad proportion. Secondly, 4 per cent. is 1,250,000 people. It may be argued that if polling stations close at 9 pm some of those people may find a way to vote earlier. Nevertheless, all those people found the hour between 9 pm and 10 pm the most convenient for them. That being so, it seems gratuitious folly to take that hour away for the sake of tidiness or the convenience of polling officials. The opportunity to exercise the parliamentary franchise comes to each person on so few occasions in his or her lifetime as an adult citizen that to curtail it for no sensible reason is, in its way, an attack on democracy.
    I very much hope that the Government will accept the amendment, to which the Labour party attaches great importance. We believe that the Bill will be vastly improved by the inclusion of this amendment and the consequential amendments which will complete it.
    7.15 pm
    Mr. Michael Brown: I endorse all that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has said. When I supported the Bill as a whole on Second Reading, I found this aspect of it rather difficult to understand. When I first sought election in 1979, I stood in a constituency with a large proportion of shift workers. Shifts in the steel industry ended in the early or mid-evening, so a large number of votes were cast between 9 pm and 10 pm. People anxious to vote, come what may, might be prepared to suffer inconvenience to vote earlier, but the electoral system should not impose that necessity upon them. We should make it as convenient as possible for people to cast their votes. Some of my political opponents even suggested that the decision in the late 1960s to extend polling hours from 9 pm to 10 pm led to my winning my seat in 1979 because so many votes were cast in that last hour of polling. That is no reason to limit or to extend polling hours, but I believe that on this one day in every four or five years we should make things as convenient as possible for the electors rather than for the returning officers and their staff.
    As a Member representing a constituency with the peculiar voting habits that prevail in the north of England, I endorse the view expressed by the right hon. Member for Gorton. He will no doubt agree that in his constituency, as in mine, only a small proportion of votes are cast before 6 pm or 7 pm and that the vast bulk of the votes in Manchester, and in the north-west and north-east generally, are cast from 6.30 pm onwards. It would be most helpful if my hon. Friend the Minister would accept the amendment.
    Mr. Beith: I believe that we should retain the 10 pm finish, for many of the reasons given by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). Many people in my area are in precisely the position that he described. Women waiting for their husbands to come home from work cannot be certain at what time they will arrive. Drivers and building workers working away from home may leave home before 7 am and may be considerably delayed in the evening. The disadvantages to returning officers and candidates are simply not worth the discouragement and difficulty that would be placed in the way of those who wish to cast their votes later in the day. I believe that we should stick to the 10 pm finish.
    Mr. Peter Bruinvels: For a change, I support the Labour amendment. I see no reason to reduce polling hours. In Leicester people vote right up to 10 pm and it is important that they should continue to have that right. People working in the mines some distance away may leave home before 7 am. There are also many shift workers in the knitwear industry. I hope that the motive for the proposed change was not the wish of certain Members to get their results on television the same evening. I know that traditionally there is some competition and results from places like Torquay and Guildford are rushed to the screen as quickly as possible. That is not my aim. I entirely support the Opposition amendment which would allow everyone the right to vote at any time up to 10 pm on polling day.
    Mr. Mellor: Historically speaking, the 9 o'clock end of polling time has much more tradition behind it. That was the position until 1969. The Speaker's Conference of 1965 to 1968 was very much in favour of retaining the hours then laid down, but the Government of the day insisted on an amendment to extend the hours to 10 o'clock. That has remained the situation. The Select Committee, no doubt persuaded by the evidence of Dr. Butler among others with regard to the 4 per cent. who voted in that last hour, considered that there was no party advantage either way. The Select Committee recommended that polling hours should be brought into line for parliamentary and local elections and should run from 7 am to 9 pm. Acting in good faith on the Select Committee's recommendations as representing an objective cross-party view, we decided to include this in the Bill. We were fortified in so doing by the fact that many of the people who voted in that last hour could vote between 7 am and 9 pm without great inconvenience. However, if they were to vote only in the last hour, the arrangements that we have made for absent voting could be applied to them without any difficulty.
    As the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has said, he is much attached to this. In the spirit of amicability and partnership that has governed proceedings in consideration of the Bill, it would be churlish of me to refuse him this. I am therefore content to recommend that the Committee accepts the amendment.
    Mr. Corbett: I apologise for the temporary absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), who has duties elsewhere in the House. I thank the Minister for what he has said. We attach great importance to this matter, and I am delighted that he has acknowledged that.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendments made: No. 58, in page 41, line 39, leave out the words '9 at night on the'.
    No. 59, in page 41, line 42, leave out '10 at night'.
    No. 60, in page 41, line 43, leave out '9 at night'.—[Mr. Corbett.]
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 61, in page 43, line 34, leave out
    'YOU MAY VOTE FOR ONLY ONE CANDIDATE'
    and insert
    'VOTE FOR ONLY ONE CANDIDATE AND PUT NO OTHER MARK ON THE BALLOT PAPER, OTHERWISE YOUR VOTE MAY NOT BE COUNTED'.
    The Temporary Chairman: With this we can discuss amendment No. 62, in page 43, line 39, leave out
    'YOU MAY VOTE FOR ONLY ONE CANDIDATE'
    538
    and insert
    'VOTE FOR ONLY ONE CANDIDATE, AND PUT NO OTHER MARK ON THE BALLOT PAPER, OTHERWISE YOUR VOTE MAY NOT BE COUNTED'.
    Mr. Beith: The last time that the Minister and I disagreed on a form of words a couple of amendments back, it was a fine matter of judgment. However, in this instance, I think that the Government have got the wording seriously wrong to the extent that it would be misleading to leave the words on the ballot paper in the form that they now propose. As I understand it, the intention of the Government must be the quite reasonable one of explaining to voters that they have only one vote to cast and, as it says in the fuller words appearing in the guidance to voters, if they try to cast more than one vote their vote may well not be valid.
    It must be the Minister's experience, as it is mine, that quite a lot of electors have the impression that they have more than one vote. Perhaps they have taken part in a local election in which there are two candidates or more and they have put two crosses on the ballot papers. Maybe they are pioneers of the single transferable vote and, as I have seen one or two people do in most elections, they have put numbers down on the ballot paper. Perhaps they have used the system in trade union elections or somewhere else. Certainly there are always some people who are confused on the point.
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman presumably precludes any possibility of proportional representation in allowing people to cast only one vote for one candidate.
    Mr. Beith: If the hon. Gentleman will wait until we consider a later amendment, he will find his curiosity satisfied.
    It ought to be common ground in the Committee that, in whatever form the Bill finally emerges, the ballot paper must be intelligible to voters. As the Minister has said several times, the exercise of a franchise is a serious matter. People must have the opportunity to cast their votes in conditions that enable them to do so.
    It is my well-founded suspicion that the Government have not the slightest intention of changing the voting system in the Bill but intend to continue with the present one. Should that be so, we should ensure that the instructions to the elector explain the matter properly to him. I ask the Minister not to treat the matter lightly because it can cause genuine confusion.
    I wondered for a moment in my appraisal of the words
    "You may vote for only one candidate"
    whether I was taking a view based on my own experience of the English language, having been brought up in the dialect of Cheshire and living now in the rich dialect of Northumberland. I looked at the Oxford dictionary. I did not bother going to the fuller Oxford English dictionary, or even the shorter. Had I done so, I think that I would have had even greater variety. The Oxford paperback dictionary defines the word "may" in several ways: expressing possibility, "it may be true", or permission, "you may go", or wish, "long may she reign", or uncertainty, "whoever it may be". There is an enormous range of possibilities surrounding the word "may". In simpler more everyday terms, it is frequently used in a permissive sense rather than one directing that somebody should act in a particular way.
    I am convinced that if the words
    "You may vote for only one candidate"

    539
    appear on the ballot paper as now proposed, there will be more and not fewer electors who think that they have some choice in the matter and can vary what they put down. It must be for that reason, I think, that the guidance for voters is a great deal clearer and more explicit. That will contain the wording that I have sought to include in the amendment.
    It is not part of my case to say that the amendment is the only way of resolving the problem. I hope that the Minister will concede that there is a real difficulty. I do not know how he uses the word "may" when he addresses his children at home, but I shall be very surprised if it is not at times used in a permissive sense rather than in a mandatory sense as he seeks to use it here. I plead with him to look again seriously at these words because, if he does not, he will cause more confusion than he started with.
    Mr. Mellor: What the hon. Gentleman said about the word "may" I cannot help feeling was an unwelcome return to the chalk face of his previous incarnation because there was a bit of pedantry about it. With the greatest respect to him, if one says to somebody
    "You may vote for only one candidate",
    I do not think that that can be seen as an invitation to vote for two, three or four, or that more of them will do so. This is not to say that there is not a case for issuing further guidance in appropriate places.
    I was wondering what the hon. Gentleman would say as he made his opening bid for attention by suggesting that the wording was seriously defective. When it all turned on the little word "may", I thought that his argument lost some credibility. However, it may be that I am getting churlish as the hours go on. The hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) is indicating agreement, which makes me even more resolved in my view that an outrageous proposition has been put before us.
    The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) would have the ballot paper say
    "You may vote for only one candidate and put no other mark on the ballot paper, otherwise your vote may not be counted".
    There is limited space on the ballot paper. I think that those words, although correct in their proper place, are too many to put on the ballot paper. Having taken issue with the hon. Gentleman over his assault on the use of the word "may", I should say that on more general points the cloak of pedantry slips off and he is on better ground.
    7.30 pm
    We have become aware of the fact that the notice of guidance to voters displayed at every polling booth has the same appearance as it did 100 years ago. I do not know whether that makes it attractive to the hon. Gentleman, especially bearing in mind what he said in an earlier debate about antique language — however, I suspect not. No doubt he will support the new form, using simpler language, that will be displayed at future elections pursuant to some of the work that we have carried out. The words that he has suggested will be included. I hope that the newer and more attractive format will mean that the words are more heeded and noticed by people than had they been buried in the old form.
    The hon. Gentleman knows that in each polling compartment appears the words
    "The voter may vote for only one candidate"
    in addition to a similar invitation on the ballot paper. If, to meet the hon. Gentleman's point, the words that he
    540
    wants on the ballot paper should be the words in each polling compartment, and if he tabled an amendment to that effect on Report, I should be happy to accept it.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: The Under-Secretary has gone part of the way towards meeting the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). It could be argued that if the words are good for the polling booth, they are good for the ballot paper.
    I agree with the Minister that the suggested wording contains far too many words to print on the ballot paper and that they would not be read by the elector in that flurry of anxiety that accompanies the groping for the pencil on the end of the string. The Minister is right to insist that the additional part of the words proposed by the hon. Gentleman should be confined to the notice in the polling booth.
    I do not know why the Minister is so insistent in his use of the word "may". In some voting circumstances that word is capable of a different meaning. It can mean that plumping is permitted. If we were electing a different kind of body from this, there might be a question whether or not the elector could plump. I do not know why there should be any objection to putting the words "Vote for one candidate only"—which is simple and unambiguous—at the bottom of the ballot paper. I thought that I detected a sign pass between the Minister and the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed. I hope that those words will appear before the House on Report and be accepted.
    Mr. Beith: I am grateful for the intervention of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). I also welcome the Minister's comments. As we are in Committee, we can have a useful exchange of views and make useful progress. I am ready to concede that the number of words in the amendment is too many. I had the precise intention of relating what appears in the Bill as likely to be on the ballot paper to what I understood to be the Government's intention—and in no way was the Government's intention expressed more clearly than in the guidance to voters. I wished to draw the attention of hon. Members to what I believed to be a potential difference between what the Government were doing and what they intended.
    The Minister must not throw around charges of pedantry. We are trying to design a form of words that people will understand, so we must ensure that the words are in a form that will be understood. If it is pedantic to ensure that Government forms and documents are intelligible to the people, I should be very happy to be a pedant. The Government have failed in their duty to do that on many occasions. I know that the Government are seeking to improve matters, and I am unhappy to see them making matters worse. The Minister made a useful suggestion about the wording that should appear in each booth at polling stations. I want to meet him on that by tabling an amendment on Report, which I hope will be accepted.
    The right hon. Member for South Down has hit on the ideal solution to the problem of what should appear on the ballot paper. After all, most people read only the ballot paper. If we get rid of the ambiguous word "may" and give the instruction, "Vote for only one candidate", we will greatly improve the ballot paper while satisfying the Minister's criterion that there should not be too many

    541
    words. I gain the impression that in echoing the view of the right hon. Member for South Down, I find acceptance in other parts of the Committee.
    Mr. Mellor: Although I did not intend deeply to wound the hon. Gentleman, I think that he may have stated his case more emphatically than the merits deserved. That is not to say that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) is not capable of persuading me that there is a real point involved here. Having considered what has been said, if the injunction were merely, "Vote for only one candidate", or "Vote for one candidate only", and if an amendment were tabled to that effect on Report, the hon. Gentleman might think that it was worth being wounded in the interests of triumphing in the end.
    Mr. Beith: Such is the lot of politicians through the ages that, on the basis that we can make such sensible amendments, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move amendment No. 75, in page 45, line 2, at end insert—
    '(aa) in paragraph 3 after the first "candidate" there shall be inserted the words "other than any candidate at an election where the number of candidates remaining validly nominated at the date of election was equal to or less than the number of vacancies to be filled at that election.".'.
    The amendment is supported and encouraged by the National Association of Local Councils. Its purpose is to absolve candidates in an uncontested election for parish or community councils from having to make a return of their expenses to the returning officer. That is a burdensome requirement on those who stand at local elections in their first-ever election, and who seldom incur expenses. They do not dream that they are committing an election offence by failing to certify that they spent nothing at all. The piece of paper is, in most circumstances, of no significance to anyone. It is a simplification of procedures designed to help the ordinary councillor who is not a professional politician.
    No change in the law is suggested for contested elections, where it is right that a requirement is placed on every candidate to show what expenses he incurs in contesting the election. That is when the matter becomes significant. However, if the candidate is unopposed in an election to a local council, the association believes that the requirement to file a return of election expenses should not be placed upon the candidate.
    Mr. Mellor: The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has a great interest in these matters. I welcomed his interest in and the comments that he made during our earlier discussions on parish council elections. A number of hon. Members want parish elections to be put on the same basis as other elections, to ensure that their importance is not underestimated. That is why the Government have taken the very proper step of extending postal voting facilities to those elections.
    If we are invited to move towards bringing parish and community council elections into line with other elections, we should be cautious about any suggestion that we should in other ways open a divide between those elections and others. I do not want to make too much of the point, but
    542
    fundamental to our election rules is the rule that candidates must comply with the regulations and give a full account of what they have done during the election period.
    While it may be my turn to be pedantic—although I hope not — even if an election is uncontested, as a number of parish council elections are, I believe that candidates should still enter that election with appropriate solemnity and fill in the appropriate forms. We move away from that requirement at the peril of appearing to underestimate the fundamental significance of the rules for the proper conduct of each and every election in this country.
    I do not want to overstate the case, because if I were to do so I would fall into the trap which I have, in a very lighthearted way, accused others of falling into. I do not know whether the amendment has the support of the National Association—
    Mr. Beith: Yes, it does.
    Mr. Mellor: I was unaware of that. Of course, one always continues to think about these matters and one does not close one's mind, but I am still not attracted by the amendment, and I hope that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed will not press it.
    Mr. Beith: I recognise the consistency in what the Minister says. The amendment was suggested by the National Association of Local Councils to deal with the problem as it saw it. But as I was one of those who strongly pressed the Minister to put parish council elections on all fours with other elections, particularly in respect of postal votes, I would be the last person to want to give the impression that we should make them less than full elections in every sense of that phrase.
    I suppose that it inevitably becomes one of those slight bureaucratic absurdities that people have to make a nil return. It might have been attractive to simplify that arrangement, but it is certainly my view that parish councils should be treated on all fours with other local authorities, together with their elections. The National Association of Local Councils has done a great deal of work in ensuring that that is the case. Indeed, I pay tribute to that work.
    On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
    Clauses 24 to 26 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Clause 27

    CITATION, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT
    Mr. Mellor: I beg to move amendment No. 83, in page 24, line 1, after 'Act', insert
    '(except section [Amendment of other enactments] (1) and the entry in Schedule 4 relating to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984)'.
    The Temporary Chairman: With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government new clause 27 — Amendment of other enactments — and Government amendment No. 84.
    Mr. Mellor: The right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) has scurried into the Chamber—oh, he has left again. I thought that he was going to look with considerable delight upon my discomfiture, because

    543
    I am obliged to propose an amendment to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. The right hon. Gentleman teased us several times about the efforts that we had to make to get one or two technical matters right.
    The point is that in removing rule 36 of the parliamentary election rules in schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, we went a little too far. I shall briefly explain why. Personation is rightly an indictable offence punishable with a maximum of two years' imprisonment and an unlimited fine. Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, a person who in England and Wales is suspected of having committed an offence punishable with less than five years' imprisonment may usually be arrested only if what the Act calls the general arrest conditions are satisfied. I think that most members of the Committee thought that that was a step in the right direction. I see the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) nodding his head, although he may not have agreed with all the details. That was why the Act repealed rule 36.
    7.45 pm
    A voter who was suspected of personation at the polling station would usually be arrestable under the general arrest conditions. That is fine, but in repealing the special power under rule 36 the Act also repealed, for England and Wales, the polling agent's power to challenge the voter and the presiding officer's power to order the arrest. Those were useful safeguards, because the polling agent could challenge a voter whom he suspected of personation, and he had to undertake to substantiate the charge in a court of law. The effect of the challenge was that the presiding officer could order the voter to be arrested, although he could not be prevented from voting. We want to keep that provision. I very much regret that it was inadvertently swept away in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. I invite the Committee to put that provision back into the legislation. I apologise for the fact that it was taken out in the first place. I hope that the Committee, without too much trouble or difficulty, will agree to the amendment.
    Mr. Alfred Dubs: It would be ungracious not to accept the Minister's apologies. I hope that this is the last time that the Government have to apologise for matters connected with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act. In this instance, we should accept the Minister's apology. He has eaten humble pie, and no more needs to be said.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I beg to move amendment No. 63, in page 24, line 3, leave out 'and for different purposes'.
    My hon. Friends and I come before the House as earnest seekers after information, for we fail to understand how the words proposed to be left out make any difference to the sense of the subsection. I take it that the word "provision" in page 24, line 3, means a provision of a measure that is separately designated in some way, whether as a clause, a subsection or a paragraph of a subsection. If that is the correct interpretation, it is not clear how there can be "different purposes" within the same provision or how—supposing that there could be "different purposes" within the same provision—it could possibly be right to bring the provision into force for one purpose or set of purposes and not for another.
    It may be that somewhere in the Bill, hidden from the eyes of the laity, there are provisions under which different
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    purposes can be pursued. But, even if that is so, it would be highly inconvenient for the Act to come into force, not even section by section or provision by provision, but purpose by purpose, where several purposes were contained within one provision. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will explain the intention behind the words, and will also find it possible to advise the Committee that they are not really necessary and might in practice prove an inconvenience.
    Mr. Mellor: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) for giving us the benefit of his formidable experience of legislation and for making that point. I shall look at what he has said and, if I find that my immediate response has missed some of his points, I shall make that clear at a later stage.
    It is intended that there should be the maximum flexibility, because certain points will arise about the implementation of the Bill that we will need to contemplate. That is why clause 27(2) is framed in that way. I believe that it allows the Secretary of State to bring the provisions into force by order, to bring different provisions into force on different days, and to appoint different days for different purposes. Therefore, certain free-standing provisions of the Bill can be brought into force after the minimum period of two months or so has elapsed, but other provisions cannot be brought into force until after the regulations have been made. That will obviously be a time-consuming process, because other consultations must be proceeded with. That deals with the question of different provisions.
    The reference to "different purposes" is designed to ensure that the commencement orders may, for example, include a proviso that the provision being brought into force would not affect an election of which, say, notice had been published before the appointed day. Otherwise, we might find that a candidate had already paid £150 deposit, but clause 12 having come into force before polling day, he would have to deposit a further £350. The reference to "different purposes" would enable us to decree that he would not have to pay that.
    I do not know whether that explanation is coherent enough for the right hon. Gentleman. I shall reflect on what he said. If he raised other points, I shall consider them. Perhaps, for the record, I should reassure him on a point that he did not raise. There is no question of that provision giving power, say, to introduce arrangements for Northern Ireland on a different day from the rest of the United Kingdom. I assure him that all the provisions will be brought into effect at the same time throughout the United Kingdom.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I thank the Minister both for his final remarks and for his conciliatory preamble. I am greatly excited by the news that the Bill contains free-standing provisions—the term used by the Minister. It would be fascinating to know which parts of the Bill are free-standing. That is a term of art which, despite my years, I have not hitherto encountered in legislation, and it would be interesting to discover its meaning.
    I followed carefully the Minister's substantive explanation. It still seems inherently undesirable that a date should be fixed for the coming into force of "section something, subsection something", when that provision, from that day, would be enforced for only certain purposes. I hope that in the consideration that he has

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    promised to give to this matter, the Minister will instance in the Bill where such a subdivision, for the purposes of commencement of a single provision, is necessary, and whether it will be convenient.
    It seems remarkable that the Secretary of State should, by order, provide that a provision shall come into force for only certain purposes and not for others. He will then need another day for the same provision to come into force for different purposes. I hope that the Minister will have leisure to consider those issues before the next stage of the Bill.
    Mr. Mellor: I shall look at the points that the right hon. Gentleman made with his usual cogency and authority. My reference to "free-standing provisions"—it may not have been the most felicitous of phrases—simply meant those provisions that did not require regulations to be made to give them the necessary effect. They could be brought into force without the need for further regulations. A great deal of the Bill relies on regulations subsequently being made to give the whole arrangement coherence.
    In my final remarks, when I was giving the right hon. Gentleman reassurance about Northern Ireland, perhaps I should not have referred to "all the provisions", thereby implying that I was referring to everything in the Bill. I meant to say that any provision that was brought into force would be brought into force throughout the United Kingdom as a whole and that there would be no question of using any power in clause 27 to differentiate on any provision between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. I hope that that is helpful to the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. J. Enoch Powell: This is a moment for rejoicing. We have a new technical term, "free-standing," which will be of great advantage. Many of us have an inherent and instinctive objection to provisions in a Bill which, for their operation, depend on regulations — subordinate legislation.
    We now know that our desire is for more free-standing legislation—something that might almost feature in an election programme. The Conservative party is for free-standing legislation, and more of it. If this short debate has done nothing else, it has provided for a certain lifting of the heart and an enrichment of our parliamentary vocabulary.
    I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 27, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  New Clause 27

    AMENDMENT OF OTHER ENACTMENTS
    '(1) Section 26 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (repeal of statutory powers of arrest) shall not apply to rule 36 in Schedule 1 to the principal Act (power of presiding officer to order constable to arrest person suspected of personation) and, accordingly, in Schedule 2 to the 1984 Act (preserved powers of arrest) there shall be inserted at the appropriate place—

    "1983 c.2.

    Rule 36 in Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983".

    (2) In section 3(7) of the Elections (Northern Ireland) Act 1985 (certain offences to be corrupt practices under the principal Act) for "168(2)(b)" there shall be substituted "168(1)(a)(ii)".—[Mr. Mellor.]
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    Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to the Bill.

  New Clause 1

    PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
    'In Schedule 1 of the Principal act, for paragraph 18 ("Poll to be taken by ballot") there shall be substituted:

    "(1) The votes at the poll shall be given by ballot, and the result shall be ascertained according to the principles of proportional representation, whereby the proportion of votes cast for each party approximates to the proportion of seats won;

    (2) The rules by which sub-paragrapgh (1) above shall be implemented shall be specified by order made by statutory instrument by the Secretary of State; but no such order shall be made unless a draft has been laid before and approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament; and each such order shall expire at the commencement of the parliament next after the one in which it was made.".'.—[Mr. Beith.]

    Brought up, and read the First time.
    Mr. Beith: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
    The Bill is titled "Representation of the People Bill" and it seeks in a variety of ways to improve the representation of the people. However, it fails to improve their representation in the most fundamental way of all. It does not ensure that the votes cast are reflected in the seats allotted in Parliament at the end of the day.
    The Bill takes a variety of actions to tidy up and improve our electoral procedures. Most of it I welcome, and some of it I disagree with. The drift of its provisions is to ensure that the voter has the full facility to vote, is able to go to a polling station and cast that vote—or, if he is abroad or on holiday, to cast his vote by post—has the facility to vote in secret, is assured that when the vote is placed in the ballot box it will not be interfered with but will be taken under careful guard, and that the votes will be counted under the strict supervision of impartial returning officers who have a reputation for the fair way in which they conduct the procedures.
    In every possible way the Bill seeks to ensure that the vote is cast in a way which confers no undue advantage on individuals who stand or on the parties they represent. However, it is as if, at the end of the day, everything is tipped out of the ballot box in a heap and the votes are picked out like raffle tickets at a constituency bazaar. That is the degree of relationship that we are now getting between votes cast and seats won. As the Representation of the People Bill, it fails to meet the criteria of its title.
    We need only look back to recent general elections to see how what I have described is the case. For example, at the last general election—this is but one of many examples of the situation — the Conservative party received 42 per cent. of the votes and has 61 per cent. of the seats in the House. It received fewer votes than it did in the previous election, but it has 58 more seats that it had before.
    Many of my constituents find this state of affairs baffling. The question is usually expressed by them in the most simple terms: "How is it that Mrs. Thatcher has such a big majority? Why did all those people vote for her?" I do not need to explain in detail why some people voted for her. It is sufficient to explain to my constituents and others that nothing like that proportion of people voted for her.

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    A substantial minority of the British electorate voted for the right hon. Lady and her party at the last general election. They are fully entitled to the substantial representation that 42 per cent. of the votes accords them. It is reasonable that, as the largest party represented in Parliament, it should have first access to the reins of Government. But let nobody pretend that the Conservatives have anything like the command of the electorate that they have of the numbers in this place. It is a total distortion of the way in which people voted at the last election.
    Another example is the position of the Opposition parties in this place. The Labour party and the alliance each received about a quarter of the votes. The Labour party received slightly more votes than we did, yet it finished the election with 200 seats, while the alliance won only 23 seats. [Interruption.] There is no immediate evidence in the Chamber of the vast numbers that were accorded as an additional increment to the Labour party. There are a small number of Labour Members and few Conservative Members here now.
    Dr. Marek: I do not wish to make a party political point, but I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman should get away with that. During most of the debate on this Bill there has been only one alliance Member in the Chamber. For this clause, the hon. Gentleman has somehow managed to rustle up four alliance Members. If the hon. Gentleman is proud of that, he is satisfied with the position.
    8 pm
    Mr. Beith: I cannot remember many debates in Committee on the Bill when one twenty-third or one twenty-fourth of the membership of the parliamentary Labour party has been present. I cannot remember many occasions when one twenty-third or one twenty-fourth of the membership of the Conservative party has been here, except during a Division. A small band of entertainers of sorts from the Conservative Benches have taken part in these proceedings. Assorted dilators and the type of people who might suitably attest a passport application have given their views. One or two of them are still here. The attendance during this Committee stage on both sides of the Chamber has not been great. I acquit of that charge the Under-Secretary of State. He and I have been present during almost the whole of the proceedings.
    The outcome of the last election was that the Labour party and the alliance won similar proportions of the vote, but one group won only a tenth of the seats won by the other group. That is another respect in which the voting system distorts the effect of the votes cast and fails to represent in Parliament those whom the voters sought to elect when they went to the polling stations.
    The system has other curiously unrepresentative effects. The Labour party is in such a bad way in the south of England that there is not one Labour seat south of a line from London to Bristol. The whole of southern England has no Labour Member of Parliament. That is a mark of the drastic decline of the Labour party in the south of England. I must concede, however, that the Labour party's decline has not reached the point where it is totally extinct in that spread of country. Under any proportional system, there might be a handful of Labour Members of Parliament representing that vast area in which they are now totally unrepresented.
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    The Conservative party has no Members of Parliament in Glasgow or Liverpool, and only one Member of Parliament in the whole of Manchester.
    The Conservative party's representation has fallen, especially in Liverpool—my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) is one Liverpool representative—but not to the point where it deserves to be wholly unrepresented on the basis of the votes cast during the last election. The same phenomenon is found in relation to my party in most parts of the country, where our number of parliamentary seats does not reflect the proportion of votes cast.
    The authority of the Government is undermined by the way in which we place in office minorities which then behave as though they are majorities. I was interested to hear the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry re-read a comment that he made in March 1983. He said:
    "What distinguishes a democracy is that there are free and fair elections and that the majority control the Government."
    The majority do not control the Government. A minority has assumed the total authority of the Government and in the House of Commons has been given a degree of power that should be attracted only by a large majority of the votes. It is, therefore, no longer possible to conclude, as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry concluded:
    "That is why this Government have the right to legislate in accordance with the proposals that they put before and had endorsed by the people".—[Official Report, 8 March 1983; Vol. 38, c. 695.]
    The people do not endorse the Government's programme in this grand way. The degree of support enjoyed by the Government comes from significantly less than half the electorate.
    When the right hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher) was in opposition she asked the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan) what right he had to continue to govern. She answered her rhetorical question by saying:
    "The right of a minority Government; the right of a supposed mandate based on 38 per cent. of the votes cast or 29 per cent. of the electorate? They govern by no right except the arrogant right of Socialism."—[Official Report, 23 March 1977, Vol. 928, c. 1285.]
    What ringing words from the right hon. Lady, but they apply with the same force to her Government, with only a slight adjustment in the figures. By what right does the right hon. Lady continue to govern the country? She governs by the right of a supposed mandate based on 42 per cent. of the votes cast. The Conservative party governs by no right, except the arrogant right of Toryism—that is but a small change in the words which the right hon. Lady so grandly uttered from the Opposition Front Bench.
    The authority of the Government is substantially undermined when we pretend that minorities are majorities. There is nothing to be ashamed of in the Conservative party being but a minority, but it is no basis upon which to found the assumption that Conservative Members, and they alone, should have the unrestricted direction of the affairs of state. Parliament exists to control Governments, and Parliament's ability to control Governments is undermined by the fact that it does not represent the votes cast by the electorate.
    There are other ways in which the system makes Parliament unrepresentative. Although they are not the main thrust of my argument against the system of government which now operates, I think that they have significance and relevance. One of the features of our electoral system is that it tends to discriminate against

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    certain groups of people. The system has had the effect of making it more difficult for women and ethnic minorities to gain entry to the House of Commons. That is a consequence of a combination of the electoral system and the processes of selection.
    Compared to other countries, we are well down the league when it comes to the representation of women in Parliament. The proportion of women in this Parliament is far smaller than in most other countries. One of the merits of the single transferable vote system which we advocate is that it makes it much easier for electors to ensure, so far as they can, that a person from an ethnic minority or a woman is elected. Our system makes it easier for electors to express that preference, while still having the opportunity to express their wider party preference and ensure that their preference—for example, for a woman candidate—is not turned into an unalterable preference for the party from which that candidate comes.
    Mr. Forth: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us the extent of his party's dedication to the cause of women by enumerating the number of women in the House who represent his party?
    Mr. Beith: The hon. Gentleman has walked into it. If he would be kind enough to provide us with the system that I advocate, he would see the serried ranks of women Liberal Members of Parliament among the more than 100 Liberal Members who would be sitting here as a result of the general election. I could take the hon. Gentleman around the country and show him some of the women who would now be Liberal Members of Parliament if we had had a system that ensured that the votes cast were reflected in Parliament. That is an extraordinary argument to advance against a party which has been so grotesquely unrepresented in this House. My right hon. and hon. Friends are but a fraction of those who should be here and of the numbers who received the electorate's support at the last general election.
    The weaknesses of the system are not confined to their effects on central Government. They go to local government as well. The Bill seeks to draw together considerably the electoral rules applying to Parliament and those applying to local government. It is, therefore, relevant to consider, at least in passing, that the absence of a fair electoral system for local government has an even more exaggerated quality of distortion.
    During the present Parliament the Government have taken away more and more of the powers of local authorities and have restricted their freedom. They are abolishing local authorities, on the ground that they do not like the people elected to run them. It would be wrong in principle under any system for central Government to abolish local authorities, or to take away their powers, because they do not like those who have been elected. However, the Government have only themselves to blame, because the power enjoyed by some of those whom they most dislike in local government was bestowed on them by the unrepresentative nature of the electoral system in local government. If local government had a fair and representative system such as the single transferable vote, there would not be minorities in local government wielding the power of majorities. There would not be single-party local authorities, or local authorities in which
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    the Opposition consist of a handful of Members who are unrepresentative of the much larger proportion in the community of opponents of the party in power.
    Weaknesses in local government are glaringly apparent. The Government could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble, and saved our constitution a great deal of damage, if, instead of taking power away from local authorities and abolishing authorities such as the GLC on the ground of party political disapproval, they had simply ensured that the votes of the electors of those places determined the shape of the council that governed them. That would be the way to ensure responsible conduct, responsible financial control and responsible behaviour in local authorities. By their attitude to local government the Government have moved in completely the wrong direction. By centralising—by garnering more power to the centre—they have permanently harmed the system.
    Unless there is a proper relationship between votes cast at elections and representation, whether at local or national level, the country will continue to suffer. At national level, we have only to look back over the years since the war to realise how damaging the system has been. By, time and time again, giving a minority the power of a majority, the system has allowed party preference and the prejudices of one minority to be imposed on the country, only to be replaced shortly afterwards by the prejudices of another minority.
    Over the decades there has been nationalisation and denationalisation, nationalisation and denationalisation again, as in the case of the steel industry. Prices and incomes policies have been imposed and lifted again and again. Such have been the activities of alternating Governments not one of which have had the support of the majority. If the Government had to depend in the House of Commons upon the support of a majority that was genuinely representative of the majority in the country, government would be sounder and better, and would command the confidence of the people.
    Those who argue that it is a mark of strong government to have a large majority in the House of Commons are thinking purely of what can be done in this place. It is certainly true that a large majority enables a Government to ram through large amounts of legislation. Incidentally, although when in opposition the Conservatives opposed such behaviour, they have sought to add hugely to the statute book since they came to power, encouraged by the freedom provided by a large majority.
    Strength in government does not repose in the ability to put large numbers of hon. Members through the Division Lobby at 10 o'clock at night. It reposes in the ability to bring into force measures which command the confidence of the people of the country, and command it so well that they will not be overturned by the next Government, who will be equally dependent upon the support of the majority and will wish to retain legislation built on such firm foundations. That was the experience of the wartime coalition. Much of the legislation produced in that period, when historic circumstances brought the parties together, lasted far longer than any of the legislation of the post-war Governments. I suspect that it will also outlast much of the legislation brought in by the present Government.
    The Government's ability to use their voting majority to push through their prejudices does not represent strength

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    of government. Strength of government rests in the ability to unite the country. Under the present electoral system, I see no sign that that can be done.
    8.15 pm
    Mr. Forth: In the context of the Bill, it was inevitable that there would be a re-run of the proportional representation argument. I am pleased to have an opportunity to participate in that argument, because it is important that it should be heard and considered from time to time. I am confident that PR will be rejected tonight as it has been in the past.
    I have always been puzzled by the obsession of the proponents of proportional representation with the need for the number of seats in the legislature slavishly and arithmetically to reflect the number of votes cast by the electorate. That idea has a certain neatness and symmetry. It has a certain aesthetically pleasing quality. However, I suggest that it means nothing at all in terms of political legitimacy, or of political sensibility in terms of running the country and legislating properly.
    The proponents of PR must provide not only a coherent argument for the principle but a coherent system or approach. They rarely do so. There are almost as many different systems as there are proponents of the principle, each of which, incidentally, would provide a quite different result in terms of seats. It is well known that, if one hypothecates the results of the 32 or 33 known systems of PR, they all provide quite different party representations in the legislature.
    Mr. Russell Johnston: With respect, the hon. Gentleman is talking absolute nonsense. It is absurd to say that there are 32 systems of PR. Secondly, when the hon. Gentleman talks about political legitimacy, is he not affected at all by the knowledge that we are the only country in western Europe that operates our kind of system and that all the other Governments are elected by proportional systems that despite what the hon. Gentleman has said, all produce approximately the same results?
    Mr. Forth: The hon. Gentleman would say that, would he not? I do not share the hon. Gentlmen's obsession with matters European. I had the honour of serving for five years in the European Parliament, and I will shortly talk about my experience there. First, however, I draw attention to the United States of America, a great bastion of democracy that shares our Anglo-Saxon traditions and does not have a proportional system of elections. Why should we look eastwards to the continent of Europe for inspiration? We are equally entitled to look westwards to the United States for a reaffirmation of the fact that an electoral system need not be proportional to be effective and legitimate.
    Recently there was a good illustration of one of the main problems that arises with a proportional system of election, and one of the great strengths of our own system. In the elections to the European Parliament last year, the National Front party emerged from France and gained strong representation in the European Parliament. It did so on the basis of a proportional system.
    The proponents of proportional representation must address themselves to the problem of that system giving an opportunity for extreme parties to be represented.
    Mr. Beith: Is the hon. Gentleman arguing that, in determining what electoral system we should have, we
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    should have regard to the extent to which a system will enable us to prevent the election of parties with whose views we disagree?
    Mr. Forth: I did not say that. I said that those who argue for proportional representation must accept that the legislature will include political parties which they may find unpalatable. I did not say that I prefer a system that excludes such parties.
    Mr. David Penhaligon: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the number of Marxist or neo-Marxist hon. Members would increase if we had proportional representation?
    Mr. Forth: It is idle to speculate, but I shall take the hon. Gentleman's question at its face value. I suspect that there would be many small parties, many of which would express views that the hon. Gentleman would find difficult and distasteful. That might or might not be a good thing, but it would be an inevitable result of proportional representation.
    Mr. David Alton: The hon. Gentleman said that there are many forms of proportional representation. I oppose the list system such as that which operates in Italy or Israel as, in Britain, it would be destabilising and would result in parties being elected on a tiny number of votes. With a single transferable vote in multi-Member seats, however, what the hon. Gentleman is suggesting would not happen as an hon. Member would have to get at least one sixth of the votes to be elected.
    Mr. Forth: That is possible under one of the systems of proportional representation, but even then the size and geography of the area might alter the results. There might still be extreme representation from some areas.
    In regard to the stability of Governments elected by proportional representation, we can look to continental Europe for examples. One of the great strengths of our system is that it provides a predictability and stability which many people have come to value. An inevitable result of proportional representation is a greater incidence of coalition Governments. That gives rise to many new possibilities—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—which I would find undesirable. If, under PR, neither major party got a working majority and one had to seek coalition with a third or more parties, policy would be dictated by back-room wheeling and dealing such as most people would find repugnant and unpredictable.
    Alternatively, we might have the type of Government found in West Germany, where a tiny and unrepresentative party can dictate policy to parties with much greater electoral representation. The result is the exact reverse of what the now absent hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) argued for. He made great play of the unrepresentativeness of what he called minority Governments on the ground that they are supported by a minority of the electorate. In Germany, a party that represents as little as 7 per cent. of the electorate can dictate policy.
    Mr. Alton: Can the hon. Gentleman give an example of the FDP dictating to the Government, whether to the Social Democrats for 13 years or now to the Christian Democrats? Does he agree that there have been good examples of parties working together in Britain in the interests of the country, especially in wartime?
    Mr. Forth: I should be pleased to give an example which affected politics in Germany and the rest of Europe. It is well known that the West German Government's obsession with the common agricultural policy and their unwillingness to reform it arose directly from the fact that a tiny minority party—the Liberals—held the agriculture portfolio for many years. Because they believed that their representation depended largely on the rural and agricultural vote, the Liberals refused to countenance any reform of the CAP. That is a classic example of the disproportionate effect of a proportional system.
    Mr. Hogg: If my hon. Friend wants another example, he need look no further than Israel where the extreme religious parties influence the policy of the Likud to a wholly unacceptable extent.
    Mr. Forth: If hon. Members bent their minds to it, they could come up with many examples of proportional systems producing difficulties such as instability, unrepresentativeness and not being understood by the electorate.
    Mr. Johnston: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that our system, under which the Conservatives obtained 750,000 fewer votes and 58 more seats, is fair?
    Mr. Forth: Yes. I am saying that we must look at all of the factors and weigh them up. Proponents of proportional systems are obsessed with the arithmetical reflection of votes in seats. [HON. MEMBERS: "It is fair."] It is not necessarily fair. It is an arithmetic point and there is no point in arguing about it. Our system scores highly on the comprehensibility of government. Proportional systems are poor on that and for stability and predictability.
    However, the most damning feature of proportional systems is their tendency to produce coalition Governments. The Liberal party has lived through the Lib-Lab pact and suffered from it. I should have thought that Liberal Members would understand better the difficulties of coalition as, even now, Liberal Members have to look shamefacedly at what happened during that coalition. If they are offering an electoral system that would give nothing better than what we had under the Lib-Lab pact, they are deceiving themselves, the Committee and everyone else if they believe that it will receive serious support. For that reason, I am confident in suggesting that, although the Committee will reconsider that possibility this evening, it will inevitably come to the conclusion that a proportional system has no support in the country, and will not benefit the country, and for those reasons the Committee will reject it.
    Mr. Winnick: This subject is one of the Liberals' hobby horses. Indeed, it may be the main one. There are others, such as site value rating, but certainly new clause 1 has brought Liberal Members into the Chamber. We have not seen them in such large numbers in Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where were you this evening?"] I certainly know where I was. I was speaking and listening to debates on many clauses. The Liberal Chief Whip knows the position well.
    8.30 pm
    The present electoral system has its faults. I shall not argue that it is accurate and faultless. However, it is tried and tested, and far superior to the system with which the Liberals seek to replace it. One of its strengths is the way
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    in which a Member of Parliament is linked to his constituency. No matter what system of proportional representation were adopted, that linkage would not remain the same. The link between an hon. Member and his constituents is important for both the Member of Parliament and those he represents here. Hon. Members hold constituency surgeries, and constituents know who their Member of Parliament is. If the hon. Member holding the surgery is not a person's Member of Parliament, he will pass the case on to the appropriate colleague.
    Mr. Alton: Like the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), the hon. Gentleman is advancing arguments and then tilting at them and telling the Committee that those arguments are the reason why proportional representation will not work. The system of proportional representation that we advocate is based on multi-Member seats and single tranferable votes—we have made that case again and again to the electorate and during the debate this evening — and the linkage between the elector and the member of Parliament that the hon. Gentleman rightly said should be retained would be retained.
    Mr. Winnick: The Committee is not likely to come to the conclusion that the present linkage between an hon. Member and his constituency will be maintained in quite the fashion that the hon. Gentleman suggested under a multi-Member constituency system. At present we have one hon. Member per constituency, about which the hon. Gentleman knows, although he does not believe in its retention.
    Mr. James Molyneaux: May I illustrate the breakage of that vital link between an electorate and its hon. Member by illustrating what happens in my old constituency of Antrim, South, which I and nine others represent in the Northern Ireland Assembly? When I hold my surgery and a constituent is departing, if he is truthful—many are not—he will say, "By the way, I have been to nine other surgeries." The Minister responsible will then reply to nine Members who have fed different aspects of the information to him. It is a complete muddle.
    Mr. Winnick: I much appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's comments, which I certainly believe to be valid. There is no doubt that if the same system operated on the mainland, we would have a similar experience.
    Mr. Beith: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the system should be abandoned in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Winnick: Northern Ireland is undoubtedly a unique case—[Interruption j It would have been quite simple for me to bolster my argument by saying that I did not agree. Then Liberal Members would not have been able to ooh and aah. The nature and unique position of Northern Ireland, which fortunately does not apply to the mainland—and, I hope, never will—demands something different. I do not know why Liberal Members ooh and aah as though they are pleased at the position in Northern Ireland — [SEVERAL HON. MEMBERS: "Come on."] Whatever line we take on Northern Ireland, that position causes all hon. Members anxiety, as it must do, including Liberal Members, I assume.
    As the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire said, proportional representation would make it virtually impossible for any one party to form an Administration,

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    and coalition government would be permanent. When he said that, Liberal Members seemed extremely enthusiastic. Let there be no doubt that, in effect, they are saying that there should be permanent coalition government. Whatever the system of proportional representation, the Committee can reasonably conclude that after an election it would be virtually impossible, except in the most unique circumstances, for any one party to form a Government, and we all know what would then happen.
    Mr. Johnston: The hon. Gentleman is perfectly right. The only country that operates proportional representation and where a majority Government have operated since the war is Sweden. Coalition Governments have operated in every other country in Western Europe that has a proportional representation system. In the hon. Gentleman's opinion, has that resulted in poor economic performance or bad administration?
    Mr. Winnick: I am not in favour of coalition Governments, and I shall explain why. After an election in which no party has a majority, all the back-room intrigues would have to take place behind the electorate, and some sort of agreement would have to be reached to cobble together a Government. Sometimes it takes weeks before sufficient agreement can be reached to form a coalition Government. That happens in virtually every country that operates proportional representation, and it is the almost inevitable result of it.
    Mr. Barron: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. Does he agree that we have glaring examples of that in the so-called alliance party? The differences between Liberal Members and Social Democratic Members on many major issues of British policy are all too glaringly obvious. When the hon. Member for Rochdale (Mr. Smith) read a list of hon. Members who supported his ten-minute rule Bill, it included only Liberal Members, and not one Social Democrat.
    Mr. Winnick: I do not know one Social Democratic Member who defected from the Labour party who urged on the Floor of the House a change to proportional representation. As in other matters, such as industrial relations, their present line is very different publicly from that which they took when they were Labour Members. After they defected they became, like Liberal Members, the most enthusiastic supporters of this proposed change in the electoral system.
    I am not in favour of what I can only describe as the shabby and cynical deals and arrangements that inevitably occur when no party can form a Government after an election under the PR system. I was asked whether I approved of coalition Governments in Europe. It is interesting to recall the recent uproar, and rightly so, in Austria about the Defence Minister. All the details are not relevant at this moment, so I shall not go into them. However, after he did what he did in such a shameful manner—it is most unfortunate that he can retain his office—it was made clear, when calls were made for his resignation, that if he resigned, his party, which is included in the coalition, would walk out. Therefore, PR introduces that element of blackmail.
    It is not just Austria. Let us take Israel. Apart from all the other matters, recently we have had the shameful experience of a person who is clearly a Nazi—I cannot see any distinction between other kinds of Nazis and the
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    one who has been elected to the Israeli Parliament—winning a seat. Of course, Liberal Members say that that is a different form of proportional representation from the one that they want. However, it is a form of proportional representation. It is a system that allows a hate merchant to put across his point of view in the Israeli Parliament. The same is true in other countries, but fortunately to a more limited extent these days.
    Israel's proportional representation system also permits blackmail by religious parties. Other parties have had to give way time and again to such behaviour, because it is impossible for any party in that country to form a majority Government on its own.
    France has been given as an example. Fascists have been elected to the European Assembly. When the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire gave what happened in France as an illustration of the defects of proportional representation, Liberal Members said, "What is wrong with that? They were elected." No one denies that they were elected, but unfortunately France has an electoral system which allows hate merchants to be elected in such numbers.
    Why change a well-tested electoral system for one which, apart from the other reasons that I have given, gives greater opportunities to the hate merchants who have been elected in France, Israel and in other countries? If Liberal Members are genuine, as I hope they are, whatever disagreements we may have, in our common detestation of Fascism, it is not a serious argument to say, "So what if the system is changed and some Fascists are elected? If they are elected, so be it." Is that all that we have learnt from our experience of the 20th century in Europe?
    Mr. Alton: The hon. Gentleman is putting up arguments which are self-defeating. The Liberals have already made it clear that they do not favour such a system. Does he accept that people can be elected under the first-past-the-post system whom he might describe as hate merchants? What about people like Mosley and some of the Members of the present House of Commons?
    Mr. Winnick: I do not believe I am defeating my argument, but the hon. Gentleman has clearly defeated his. His interesting intervention is self-defeating. He said, "What about Mosley?" We should appreciate the common sense of the British people. Once Mosley left the party to which he unfortunately happened to belong at the time—
    Mr. Forth: He belonged to the hon. Gentleman's party.
    Mr. Winnick: Yes, unfortunately he did belong to my party. I cannot deny the obvious. Before he belonged to my party he was however, in the Tory party —[Interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen on the Liberal Benches should listen.
    Mr. Alton: I am listening.
    Mr. Winnick: Mosley was never in the House except as a Conservative or Labour Member. When he tried to form his own kind of Nazi movement—
    Mr. Alton: Mosley was here.
    Mr. Winnick: Mosley was not here after 1931. The strength of our electoral system is the very point about which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) is misleading the Committee. Whatever the faults

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    of our electoral system, it did not permit Mosley to come here after 1931. Is it not far more likely that if we had had the PR system in the 1930s Mosley would have stood a greater chance of being here? Presumably Liberal Members would have said, "If he were elected, so be it."
    Mr. Alton: Under the system that my right hon. and hon. Friends are advocating, it is highly unlikely that Mosley would have been here if he had run under the type of colours ascribed to him by the hon. Member later in his political life. Under the present system people like him can be elected to the House. Is he saying that he does not regard any of the present hon. Members as being from the extremes of politics?
    8.45 pm
    Mr. Winnick: I was saying—the hon. Gentleman has not contradicted me—that Mosley was never elected to the House after he ceased to belong to one of the two main parties. Neither he nor his cohorts ever succeeded in having any of the blackshirts elected to Parliament. The National Front has not been able to secure Members, unlike the examples that I have given of France in the Euro-elections, Israel or one or two other countries.
    Of course, it is possible under our present system for extreme racist organisations to win seats, but that is part of the argument that I was advancing in earlier debates about thresholds and other matters, to try and ensure that that does not happen.
    I do not believe that any case has been made out for a change to a different type of electoral system. I can assure Liberal Members—if they are in any doubt—that no party is more keen than mine to relieve the country of the curse of this Government. We want to get the Government out, but we do not want to be bad losers and change the electoral rules because we happened to have lost two elections. We have sufficient confidence in ourselves and the country to be sure that we will have a different Government. When we can secure a majority we will be able to form an Administration on our own. The Conservative party succeeded in the last two elections and formed the Government. The answer is to ensure that we do not have a Tory Government elected next time.
    This proposal would mean a change to a system that has all the defects that I have outlined. It would make it easier for the parties promoting race hatred to be elected and it would undoubtedly weaken the link between a Member of Parliament and his constituency. For all those reasons, I hope that the new clause will be voted down by a large majority.
    Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Thank you for calling me, Mr. Lamond, in this cheap party political debate on new clause 1. It is clear that the new clause is a phoney way to try to promote the Liberals. I have listened, as I am sure you have, Mr. Lamond, to what the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) has said. I had been expecting massive Liberal party propaganda, but I have not heard it. All I have heard is, "We was robbed." That is the point that comes through clearly.
    I must pick up the point made by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick). Unlike him, I am fully confident that the Conservatives will be returned with an even greater majority at the next election.
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    The arguments put forward by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed were phoney. I have agreed in the past with some of the points that he has made. I am disappointed that the consensus in the Committee this evening has been thrown suddenly into a panic by Liberal Members appearing in their droves. They have not been in the Chamber for much of the debate. There are many more present now compared with earlier.
    After considering the new clause carefully, as we all have, I see no description of the rules that the Liberal party wants to see played. It has not recommended an electoral system. If it is to be the single transferable vote, everyone's second choice will be the result. Such a system brings about an indecisive Government. What kind of an electoral system is that? Conservatives will vote first for a Conservative, second for a Liberal and third for Labour. A Labour supporter will vote Labour first, Liberal second and Conservative third. A Liberal would obviously vote Liberal first. The Liberals would come out as everyone's second choice because the other two parties are not too bad. That does not seem the right way to control or help a Government. It does not bring about a clear result.
    Who would be the real Member of Parliament after such an election? Will there be a regional list with no direct connection between the newly elected Member and his constituents in the region?
    In Israel they do not have constituencies. When the Likud Government was in power the Members did not feel that it was necessary to vote when there were divisions in the Knesset because they were not answerable to anyone. The National Front and the British National party together in the 1983 election got about 41,500 votes. Under PR that would have given them a number of seats in the House. I do not want extremists here under any circumstances. The Liberal party is trying to create a dangerous precident, but it is not on.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Does not the hon. Gentleman understand that under the single transferable vote system, which was advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), the National Front and the British National party would not have won even one seat? I think that the hon. Gentleman was present when my hon. Friend was speaking. Did he not hear my hon. Friend say that he was advocating an STV system? Does he not understand the difference between STV and a regional list?
    Mr. Bruinvels: I have been in the Chamber throughout the debate, which is more than the Liberal Members have been; most of them have not been here at all. I understand the system. This new clause does not explain the procedure that the Liberal party wants. It is a disgraceful clause.
    In regard to the danger of coalition Governments, which could be the result, I can quote Israel, Italy, West Germany and France. All those four countries have suffered greatly the abuse of the little parties trying to tell the big parties what to do; to a great extent, they control the big parties. We do not want to see any party in government dictated to by other parties.
    Mr. William Powell: Particularly small ones.
    Mr. Bruinvels: Particularly small ones, as my hon. Friend says.
    The Committee should look to the European Assembly and take warning that proportional representation could be

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    not too far off. That worries me greatly; I am sure that it worries many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. One of the daft ideas of the European Assembly is that there should be a common system of voting. As most of the other member states of Europe have a PR system, there is a risk that it could come into force here. I will oppose it with all the force I can, as I am sure most hon. Members will. In this country we have our own system and our own ways of working and we will not be told by Europe what to do.
    We have the example of the proportional representation system in Northern Ireland in the recent Euro election. The Members with a dual mandate are not even here. The system has not worked and it is not a good one, as the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) confirmed earlier.
    When the Liberals and the SDP get together they can be effective, even with their number of 23 which they very occasionally muster in full. When they have had those 23, plus the hon. Member who got in at the Portsmouth, South by-election, they have delayed the proceedings of the House, as they are trying to do now. They have spoken from the Dispatch Box, they have submitted many amendments to Bills and they have a large say in the running of the House. I have never heard them complaining about that. I have seen them taking the greatest possible advantage of our system.
    The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed referred to the lack of women Members in the Liberal representation in the House. I made a quick check to see how many women were put up as candidates by the Liberal party at the last election. It put up 32, the Conservative party put up 40 and the Labour party put up 78. The Liberals have one or two safe seats, particularly Truro. If they want to hand it over to the wife of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon), that might be a solution.
    Let us consider how the votes were cast at the last election. The Conservatives got 13,012,316; the Labour party got 8,456,934; and the Liberal-SDP alliance got 7,780,949. The Liberals were prepared to fight that election. They have contested elections for many years and have never complained about the system. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]. I should have thought that they would have preferred to say that they would not fight elections because they did not think the system was fair.
    Let us consider the policies that the parties put forward. The Conservative party looks for a property-owning society, proper defence and law and order. The Labour party looks for more nationalisation, more public expenditure and no nuclear deterrent. We do not know what policy the Liberals and the SDP have because they do not always agree. That is why they are not getting more seats and more votes. That is where they have gone wrong.
    It is interesting to note that the new clause has been tabled first in the name of the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Mr. Steel) and that the second name is that of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen). Now we know who is running the alliance.
    At the turn of the century the Liberals did extremely well at all elections. They kept winning and had mammoth majorities. They did not complain about the system then. I am told that Lloyd George was a good Prime Minister. At that time they did not want women to stand for Parliament.
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    If we move forward to February 1974 when the Conservative party lost the general election, we had 297 seats, the Labour party had 301 and the Liberals had 14. They could have controlled the Government of the day. They were offered the chance of power. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) and Jeremy Thorpe met to discuss the matter and Jeremy Thorpe ducked out of the deal. The Liberals shied away from taking the power that they are now calling for. Then they had the opportunity of gaining experience of ministerial responsibility. If they had taken the opportunity then, they might have had more seats today because they could have said that they had had control and knew how to run the Government.
    The then Liberal party joined with the Labour party and propped up the Government of the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan) for years on policies of extreme Socialism, with no disrespect to some Labour Members. The Liberal voters had not voted for those policies. Presumably those out in the sticks had voted for a Liberal Government, but the policies on which Liberal Members supported the Labour party were nothing like what Liberal voters had wanted. They let their voters down.
    Where are the chances for the Liberal party? It had its opportunity and did not take it. When it has real policies, it will deserve the power for which it is calling today. Real power will come only with real policies. As it stands, the new clause would mean that power would be given to people with no real policies. That would defeat the electoral system. The new clause is a farce and should not be accepted.
    Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: I should like to speak in support of the powerful case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), for two reasons. First, despite what the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) has just said, and despite what others have said in the debate, a fundamental principle is involved. It is simply that the number of representatives in the House and in any other elected chamber should broadly reflect the proportion of votes cast for their parties at the election. Under the present voting system that fundamental principle is not being upheld.
    When the broad majority of the electorate supported the Conservative party and the Labour party in the 1950s and early 1960s, the House was broadly representative of the proportion of votes cast for those parties. That is no longer the case. It is wrong that not only in the elections to this Chamber but in elections to other chambers around the country that fundamental principle is being breached.
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    That leads to the other important argument in favour of a system of proportional representation, which is that if we have that system, we then have minority Governments and minority councils in proportion to the votes cast by the electorate. This is a minority Government. It is not supported by well over 50 per cent, of the electorate. The previous Government before 1979 were not supported by an even more substantial proportion of the electorate. That inevitably leads to bad government by parties which do not reflect the views of the majority of the electorate. Those who have spoken against coalitions might dwell for a moment on that point.

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    Surely it is fairer and better for the country that we have Governments who represent the views of a majority of the people. The compromises that are necessary in a coalition Government lead to the Government pursuing policies which represent the views of the majority of the electorate. Although we would not advocate the system that is now in operation in Israel, one could clearly claim that the present Government in Israel, who represent a substantial majority of the people of Israel, are working effectively for that country and pulling it out of the difficulties in which it found itself before that Government took office.
    There are other practical points that hon. Members should consider. Some conservative, dyed-in-the-wool remarks are being made by both Labour and Conservative Members, which demonstrate that they have not thought through the system proposed in the new clause. For example, there is the matter of the ties between the Member and his constituency. Of course, the links between a Member and the constituency are a bit of a farce anyway. For instance, I represent half of Stockton-on-Tees. The boundary of the constituency runs right through the middle of the high street, so that one side of the street is represented by one Member of Parliament, and the other by the second Member of Parliament. The boundary runs through the middle of the runway of Teesside airport. Half the airport is represented by one Member of Parliament and half by myself.
    What is the community of interest if I can say that half a street is in my constituency? When there is a closure of a factory in the Teesside area, my constituents are affected, as well as others in Stockton, North and Middlesbrough, which is in part of my constituency. No community of interest is represented by the artificial boundaries that happen to be drawn up. I have experienced three sets of boundaries over 12 years in my area, which I have sought to represent. It makes no sense to say that a constituency has a mythological link with the Member of Parliament.
    My constituents work in Imperial Chemical Industries and British Steel, miles away from my constituency. Their interests are determined by what is happening to those industries in other people's constituencies. When there is a closure of a plant in which thousands of my electorate work in another constituency, of course I take it up with the firm, even though the plant is not situated in my constituency. It would make much more sense if we had one constituency—as, indeed, our proposals suggest—for the community in each area and a number of Members of Parliament representing that constituency, so that the true interests of that constituency could be represented by those Members.
    In addition, that would provide constituents with the possibility of voting for Members of Parliament from different parties, or, indeed, from different shades of different parties. There is a tremendous difference between the views of the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) on the far Left of the Labour party, and the views of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) who is on the so-called Right wing of the Labour party. There is as much difference between those two views as there is between the views of Conservative and Labour Members.
    It would be much better if the electorate in the Teesside area were able to vote for the different shades of opinion
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    of Members in the Labour, Liberal, Social Democratic and Conservative parties and exercise their preference in that way. They could go to whichever Member they preferred if they had a problem or issue to raise, as they do in the wards which are represented by more than one member on councils in multi-member wards all over the country.
    Mr. Bermingham: I have listened most carefully to what the hon. Gentleman has said. How would the communities in new clause 1 be drawn and by what method would the new clause be put into effect, particularly bearing in mind the considerable power that seems to be put into the hands of the Secretary of State? By tradition, boundary commissions, whether we like them or not—the hon. Gentleman and I may well have the same views about how boundary commissions work —have at least had some semblance of independence.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: We made clear and specific proposals in the joint commission report which the Social Democratic and Liberal parties published before the election and in the election manifesto. If hon. Members are interested, we shall be only too pleased to sell them copies of both so that they can read the proposals in detail.
    Let me briefly tell the hon. Gentleman that we proposed communities which are multi-Member constituencies which represent real communities, without artificial boundaries. Considerable detail was given. Obviously, those boundaries would have to be drawn up in the same way as the present boundaries are drawn up by an independent body. Clearly, such a system would not be introduced without consultation, a Speaker's Conference and the normal procedure that is gone through.
    That system of STV, with multi-Member constituencies around communities, would provide the accurate representation of the parties in this place which we think necessary. It would also retain the links between the community and hon. Members and provide a compromise, with a total national list system which would give an accurate representation of the number of votes cast for each party. There are other ways of achieving that, as in Germany—
    Mr. William Ross rose—
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: No, I must not give way because many other hon. Members want to speak. The hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to explain his case in a moment.
    I simply want to add my voice in support of the clause. It would give a fairer system of representation in the House and better government in Britain. A tremendous number of myths are paraded around—we have heard quite a number of them in this debate—about the operation of systems in other countries. If we had had the same success as most of our partners in the EC—
    Mr. Barron: And in Italy.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: Yes, and in Italy. If our economy had been as successful as Italy's in the past few years, the hon. Gentleman would have something to crow about.
    Mr. Barron rose—
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech in his own time.
    We must ignore the myths about the operation of proportional representation in other countries, and we must also ignore the myths which are then erected for the

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    variety of systems which other people suggest, which are not the systems which we have suggested for this country. We hear all those cockshies about extremists being elected, when in fact extremists in both the Labour and Conservative parties are sitting in this place at present, masquerading under the labels of those parties, whose views are as extreme, if not more so in some cases than those of organisations which most civilised people in Britain would have nothing to do with.
    Let us have nothing to do with these myths that are erected. Let us look at the facts and support the amendment, which would give us much better government in this country and also much fairer representation for the electorate in the House of Commons.
    Mr. William Powell: The hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth) has tried to make the best of what, alas, is a very bad case indeed. I understand that his occupation before he came to the House was that of research officer. It is perfectly apparent that he has not researched history. If he had done so, he would have a deeper understanding of what the function of the House and of Parliament is and realise that the proposal which has been put forward is designed to undermine the entire history and development of our Parliament.
    An argument can be made, but let us be perfectly plain that this is what is intended, and before we go down that path we must be very careful and think long and hard about its implications. If the hon. Gentleman had his way it would be necessary for this Chamber to be stripped and redesigned so that it looked like a European Assembly chamber, in a horseshoe shape, because it would simply not be possible to accommodate within the design and structure of this House the representatives of the different parties which would emerge.
    We are the trustees of our past which we must hand on for the future. The hon. Gentleman says that it is a fundamental principle that membership of the House should reflect the proportion of votes cast for individual parties at the preceding election. I could not agree with him less. He is wrong about that. He asserts that as a principle but it is utterly unhistorical. I hope that in 500 years, when our successors look back upon these days, they will still recognise it to be unhistorical. Certainly to try to make the change which is proposed on that basis, which really has nothing to do with the constitutional history of our country, is a travesty, and I hope that the House will quite unhesitatingly reject it.
    The hon. Gentleman and members of his joint parties try to ascribe the difficulties this country has had to face in the last generation to the absence of proportional representation in the conduct of our elections. That is the most preposterous argument I have heard in a long time. If it is to be asserted that, if we change the electoral system, with a wave of the wand all our troubles will disappear, he must not expect anybody to take him seriously or believe for a moment that we think that even he is convinced by that kind of argument. It could not be more false. The fact is that we have to grapple with our problems in the context in which we are operating. If we try to change the context, we shall still be left with the problems and no progress will be made.
    What is proposed in this new clause is a new method of fudging our problems. It is fundamental to the hon. Gentleman's party's policy in most areas that a fudge is the best solution. Its members can argue that course. Let
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    them go openly to the electors and say, "We want a fudge. Vote for us and we will fudge." The electorate can then decide on that proposition.
    If that is the way that the hon. Gentleman wishes matters to be conducted in the future, I must say that it is not a sensible way to proceed. Our elections in this country are and always have been designed—certainly since the abolition of dual-Member constituencies, but allowing for that exception going right back into our history—for the election of an individual Member to represent all his constituents. I assert as loud and long as I can that I represent all the electors in my constituency and I hope that I shall continue to do so without fear or favour. I could not care less whether they support the Conservative party, the Labour party, the Liberal party or the Ecology party. They are entitled to individual treatment and representation. That is the historical principle on which the House is elected and, I hope, always will be elected.
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    Mr. James Nicholson: Does the hon. Gentleman extend that principle to all elections in Northern Ireland?
    Mr. Powell: I do indeed. When delegated legislation was introduced to apply proportional representation to European Assembly elections in Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) and I had the rare privilege of joining Northern Ireland Members to vote against that proposal. I see no reason why Northern Ireland Members should not be elected on the same indivisible basis as Members from the rest of the country. I am confident that every Northern Ireland Member has the same uncompromising attitude to all his constituents as have Members from the rest of the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Johnston: The hon. Gentleman is confusing two important matters. He is quite right in saying that a Member seeks to represent and deal with the problems of all his constituents irrespective of party, but his constituents also have an interest in the policy pursued by the Government and if a large proportion of them are denied any influence on that it reflects badly on democracy.
    Mr. Powell: I cannot accept that contention. Constituents of mine who do not agree with proposals that I support may lobby me and write to me and I make representations to Government Departments on their behalf. I am happy to represent their views in every way that I can. At the end of the day, I have to answer to my constituents. If they do not like the way in which I have done my job, they are entitled to vote against me at the next election. They can judge me on my performance. That is how it has always been.
    I see no reason to change a fundamental principle on which our parliamentary system is based because the Liberals and Social Democrats did rather better in the last election than they did on previous occasions. There is no reason why we should change our electoral system just to suit them. I may be wrong, but I believe that our political system is going through a period of transition. There have been other periods of transition in the past. The conjunction of the Liberals and Social Democrats—the alliance, as it has hitherto been called — may well become the second or even the first party in the state. If

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    that is what the electorate wishes, I do not see why we should compromise that possibility by bringing in a new electoral system which would create a permanent veto on prospective changes in policy for a party rapidly being reduced to third place in the nation — the official Opposition, as it is now described. If such a system of change is taking place, it does not justify the change in our electoral system. Our system has worked well down the centuries.
    Once upon a time the official Opposition were the third party. In those days they favoured proportional representation. When they became the second party and then the first party, they realised that there was good sense and firm historical basis for the system which was then in operation, the system which we still have. I know that Members who represent the Liberals and the SDP up and down the country extol the virtues of a proportional system of representation. But, in my judgment—and people can make of this what they will— if in due course they become the first party and then the second party in the state, they will not still be proposing proportional representation.
    The argument for proportional representation is historical nonsense and a sham, and it deserves to be exposed for the nonsense that it is.
    Mr. William Ross: I have not been present in all the debates, but I attended a considerable number yesterday and some today. One of the points that pleased me and hon. Members on this Bench in those debates was the evident willingness of the Government and Opposition Benches to extend parity throughout the United Kingdom. That of course includes Northern Ireland. One is grateful that both Front Benches and, indeed, both major parties in Parliament, should come to the conclusion that the electoral system should be the same throughout the United Kingdom.
    Listening to the debate and hearing the exposure of the absurdity embodied in the proposed new clause, one discerns the slow learning process in regard to proportional representation coming to full flower, except on the Benches of those hon. Members who support the proposed new clause.
    If there is a party in Parliament that understands proportional representation and its shortcomings, it is the party of hon. Members who sit on this Bench. We are the only Members present in the Committee who have fought elections under proportional representation, who have won elections under proportional representation and who have represented people under that system. Therefore, the only real experts present in the Committee, made so by experience, are the hon. Members who sit on this Bench.
    The Liberal spokesmen have talked about the STV system, but the new clause mentions that not at all. It has merely emerged in debate that that is the system that they desire. However, they have made it clear in discussing proportional representation that it is the single transferrable vote system that they wish to come into operation. It is also clear from the proposed new clause that they would seek the periodic expiry of the order bringing that system into operation. The truth is that, unless there was a party with an overall majority in Parliament that was against proportional representation, we would be going through a one-way choke point: once one has it, one will
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    never get rid of it, and one will be stuck with it for ever. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Hon. Gentlemen say, "Hear, hear." However, if they are as willing to learn as many other hon. Members, by the time that I have finished and exposed to them the weakness and foolishness of their case, they may not be so ready to say, "Hear, hear," but will hang their heads in shame for having been so grossly misled for such a long time.
    I listened with care to the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth), who was so unwilling to give way. If he had given way, I would have asked him to tell us how many seats—[HON. MEMBERS: "He has gone."] I know that the hon. Gentleman has departed, having made his speech, but his hon. Friends are present and no doubt if they catch your eye, Mr. Armstrong, they will be able to answer the question that I put to the hon. Gentleman and to the party of which he is a member. The question that the Liberal party must answer tonight is, how many seats does it see in each multi-Member constituency. It has not revealed that critical point. Having thought about this matter for so many years, it must now be able to answer that point. It will then show how small a minority it wants to make a fulcrum of power in the Chamber.
    I have been elected to a local council under the PR system. It is a system that I detest; I have never seen any good in it. It is a divisive and dangerous system. It is foolish to believe that it has anything to offer to good government in this country.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: Will my hon. Friend deal with the line adopted by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth), who spoke about mythological boundaries and how the larger constituency provided under PR would make a community of interests? I represent a constituency in another place under the PR system, and I believe that it is a false division that would be parlous for the nation.
    Mr. Ross: I shall come later to my hon. Friend's point. When I began to compose this speech, I tried to make it as simple and as short as possible. As the debate has proceeded and as many foolish views have been put forward, I have added to it. I cannot allow the foolishness to pass simply because others do not have the experience to deal with it.
    Mr. Johnston: I do not understand how the hon. Gentleman can stand there and say openly and brashly that all of western Europe is mad and foolish for having PR and that only Britain is wise.
    Mr. Ross: I will not deal with western Europe as a whole, but only with the one country with which we should all be familiar and which has PR, the single transferable vote system. I refer to the Irish Republic, which time and again has tried to get rid of that system and failed. The people who have lived with that system have recognised its shortcomings.
    Mr. John David Taylor: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is dangerous to look at precedents in western Europe because the major nation on the Continent prohibits parties with less than 5 per cent. of the poll from having any members elected? That is certainly a threat to the Liberal party.
    Mr. Ross: That is an interesting point, and I have no doubt that the Liberal party will reflect on it. Perhaps it should also reflect on the fact that, when talking about

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    minorities and extremists being elected, it forgets a very simple matter—once we have the PR system, we are not in the same political world. We will have passed into a wholly different set of circumstances and rules. The number of electors casting their votes for different parties will not be the same. The extremists will increase in number. That is the inevitable result of PR. Every country that we study closely knows that fact, unless it is so minded in its own attitude and so isolated from the mainstream of politics that the normal pressures of international politics do not impinge upon it. When there is PR, it is the extremists who always increase their vote.
    9.30 pm
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Ross: I have already given way quite a lot, but I shall give way again.
    Mr. Hughes: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is often better that extremists should appear under their own colours and stand for parties that properly represent their views than that they should hide under the colours of another party so that they conceal what they really stand for? That is what happens when there are fewer parties and when there is no proportional representation. I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman was as much aware in Northern Ireland of that serious consideration as I am in England.
    Mr. Ross: Whenever extremists stand under the colours of a major party and so conceal their true natures, we find that their opportunities for wickedness are diminished, because they are subject to party discipline. All major parties, especially those in this House, know that that discipline is much stronger than the Liberals seem to realise.
    The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that he wanted the National Front to stand in order to show how small support for it was. Yesterday, the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) pointed out that 15 candidates lost their deposits at the Chesterfield by-election. Thus, 15 parties had only a few votes cast for them. However, I have not found out exactly how many votes were cast.
    Let us consider how the system of STV works in practice. I have with me the results of the district council elections for Northern Ireland in 1981. In Coleraine, in my constituency, the chairman of the Democratic Unionist party obtained 3,203 votes, and his fellow runner obtained 69 votes. Both of them were elected. That is STV in action. It seems ridiculous, but the record is available to those right hon. and hon. Members who wish to examine it. Perhaps they should all do so in some detail.
    The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed and his colleagues supported the introduction of proportional representation in Northern Ireland. It is used for the Assembly elections, for the European elections and for council elections. Just before Christmas the same party tripped through the Division Lobby with the Government on Northern Ireland election orders and so helped to enact a law that was designed to stop Sinn Fein from obtaining any more support. But it is clear to those of us who live in Northern Ireland that Sinn Fein would not have its launching pad, if it had not been for the introduction of proportional representation. That shoots down the speech
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    made by the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), who defended the use of the system in Northern Ireland. The plain truth is that Sinn Fein's success in Ulster is proof that that system helps the more extreme parties—
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Gerry Adams.
    Mr. Ross: Gerry Adams obtained a minority of the total vote. But he gained a launching pad because of the votes that he had obtained earlier in west Belfast under the PR system. He had to get a start somewhere. He would not have got anywhere against Gerry Fitt had he been starting cold. He got a launching pad, took off and succeeded.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: I recall being in a television studio when, in the last election, the result for Belfast, West came through. It was clear that the much respected former Member for that constituency, who was not elected, would have won the seat under a system of proportional representation, as opposed to the present hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Adams) who was elected on a minority of the votes.
    Mr. Ross: By his intervention, the hon. Gentleman demonstrates his lack of understanding of the system. That seat would not have existed in its present form under PR.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: It might refresh my hon. Friend's memory if I recall that in a subsequent by-election for the city council in that constituency, the SDLP, then the party of the former Member for Belfast, West, was eliminated. In other words, one cannot deduce that, had it been a PR election, Gerry Fitt would have won. As my hon. Friend pointed out, under PR a launching pad is given to extremists.
    Mr. Ross: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for making that point, and I shall return to that aspect of the problem.
    Reference has been made to the system in France. I may be wrong, but I believe that the system there is not proportional representation in any true sense of the term. It is a system of exhaustive voting under which the candidate who gets 51 per cent. of the votes is elected. That is not a good system because it creates the worst factors of the STV system. It allows everyone to stand, to bring their divisiveness and extremism before the electorate and to build on it.
    Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how, under the French system, extremism is allowed to surface if, as is the case, after the first ballot those candidates are dropped from the ballot paper?
    Mr. Ross: The hon. Gentleman is forgetting human nature. It is the desire of every minority grouping to get a place in the chamber or assembly to which it is seeking election so as to be in a position to express its view to a wider public.
    At election time, all the small groups have an opportunity to seek election. They can put forward their views by dividing their general grouping in society. They can thereby test the water, discover where their strength lies and build on that at a future time, perhaps in slightly different places. Under PR, a minority which gets a quota, gets a representative elected. Groups of which the Liberal party do not approve—such as the National Front—are elected.
    In an eight-seat constituency one need receive only one ninth of the vote. In a seven-seat constituency, one need

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    receive only one eighth of the votes in theory, but in fact one needs considerably fewer votes. In such a case there would be an enormous number of splinter parties. It would be Chesterfield all over again, but much worse. The votes for all those small groups would be taken into account whenever the quota was decided. Even if the votes for those groups disappeared, the quota for the seats would be much less. It is possible in a seven-seat constituency for a person who receives an eighth or ninth of the votes to get himself elected. This has happened repeatedly in Northern Ireland elections. It will always happen under a proportional representation sysem.
    In certain circumstances the PR system gives a person with a small minority the power to make or break a Government. That could happen even in as large an establishment as the House of Commons. The system gives power to a minority to dictate Government policy.
    The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed said that he would like the system to operate in local government because it would prevent the majority party from putting its policies into action. That is the only construction I can put on what he said. I believe that he said that no party could form a majority.
    Mr. Beith: I have been misunderstood. On several occasions I have said that, under a reformed system, a party would not have indefinitely almost all the seats on a local authority council when it did not enjoy a commensurate level of support from the voters.
    Mr. Ross: That would not mean any change in the political control of that particular council, because, if any party is so strong that it can win nearly all the seats under the first-past-the-post system, it will almost certainly form a majority under the proportional representation system. Therefore, that party will be able to put its policies into action. The use of proportional representational would have no real effect on it.
    If there is no overall party majority, there will be demands for deals. Hidden deals will be done. Because no party has a majority, deals must be done. That means that there will always be a coalition. I suspect that a coalition in the House of Commons would always have to include one of the larger of the small parties. One party would always have a toe in the Government door and the two large parties would alternate in government, depending on the type of deal they were prepared to offer to the minority.
    Mr. Wigley: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the great needs of local government is to have an effective opposition as well as a switch between governing parties? The danger in those areas that have one-party control is that there is no effective opposition. There needs to be a change of system to get such opposition.
    Mr. Ross: In my experience, when there is overwhelming one-party control, the majority party contains a large number of different strands of thought and opposition tends to rise within the party. The party's policy then changes. If it does not change, it is up to the electorate to change it. After all, the electorate are our masters. If they decided to go on with one-party rule, that is their affair, and I see no reason for complaint.
    The question of the number of representatives has been raised a number of times today. If there are about seven
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    or eight — usually about seven is the maximum —representatives for a constituency, the electorate will travel around from one person to another, as my right hon. Friend the Member from Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) has illustrated. The electorate is extremely large and because at least seven-eighths of the members of the electorate can turn to a member of the party that they personally support, the cohesion that should exist in any constituency is destroyed.
    9.45 pm
    The situation is divisive. Whenever a small group of people find that they have managed to get a candidate elected, they immediately start yelling their heads off at everyone else in order to get a few more people elected. That is the reason why people go into politics. They want to get control of the body in which they have representatives. It is simply a matter of using the position and the personality of the various members elected to try to gain control.
    Proportional representation is a fudge. It has been disastrous in Northern Ireland. It would do the House no good. We should never accept it here, and I hope to see it ended in Northern Ireland as soon as possible.
    Mr. Barron: I want briefly to take up one or two comments that have been repeated in successive speeches.
    New clause 1 ducks the issue. It tries to cloud the important principle that was put by the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth), who has now left the Chamber again. The alliance parties seem to be saying that, because they received a lot of votes at the general election, they should have more seats. That seems to be the only principle that they are prepared to debate. New clause 1 does not attempt to present proportional representation in any practical manner or to approach the problem of how it would affect hon. Members or, more importantly, the electorate of Great Britain. The alliance Members have done both themselves, and the proponents of proportional representation in the country, a great disservice by ducking the issue of debating specific points.
    The hon. Member for Stockton, South and the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) seem to suggest that what they really wanted to debate was the findings of the joint commission. I assume that the joint commission was a commission of the Social Democratic and the Liberal parties. We would have been pleased to be told in detail about that joint commission. As many hon. Members know, joint commissions do not always see eye to eye as far as the policies of the respective parties are concerned. It may be that there is agreement in this case, but it is a great pity that the alliance lacked the political sense to present the findings in a form in which they could be debated, so that we could have considered the effect upon our electoral system. As they did not, I shall not support new clause 1.
    In many ways, my heart goes out to the hon. Member for Stockton, South. He said that his constituency is divided from a neighbouring one by the Teesside airport runway, half of which is in his constituency. I should not have thought that that would pose any problems, but if it does he should have a chat to a few other hon. Members. The river Rother — a beautiful river — divides my constituency from that of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy). Half is in my constituency and half is in his, but until half of the river Rother turns up at my Saturday morning surgery to see me

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    about the problem, I do not think that it will bother me too much. I have always thought that parliamentary representation was about representation of people, not water or tarmac.
    I cannot imagine multi-Member seats going down too well. As the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux) said, people in such constituencies wander around various surgeries in the hope of finding the person who represents them. Even if they do not, they have nine bites at the cherry. We are discussing no more than a theory. The theory is that everything about PR is good and that we should no longer have minority Governments. Presumably people who live in countries that have PR think that minority Governments are bad. Italy has already been mentioned. The hon. Member for Stockton, South declined to give way to me, but all I intended to ask him was whether, leaving aside Italy's economics, he thought that the electors wanted more than 19 changes of Government since the war. I suspect that they do not think that that has been beneficial.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Does my hon. Friend agree that Italy is no longer run by government and has not been for the past 20 years? It is run by civil servants. Politicians are almost incidental to the system.
    Mr. Barron: I can believe that. Perhaps the hon. Member for Stockton, South is suggesting that the Civil Service should run the country.
    It is a pity that new clause 1 does not set out what the joint commission said so that we could have a serious discussion about PR. Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends will disagree with me, but I should be prepared to discuss PR in single-Member seats to see whether it would benefit the electorate. Unfortunately, it seems that new clause 1 is intended solely to provide a system that will enable the alliance to gain the seats that it feels that it should have won on the 1983 poll.
    Mr. Alton: We have heard much about coalition today. There has been an extraordinary coalition between the Labour and Conservative parties, both of which want to maintain the present system. That is not surprising, and I do not suppose that any of my right hon. and hon. Friends expected otherwise. The Labour and Conservative parties have a vested interest in keeping things as they are.
    I was pleased when the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) said that his mind was not totally closed on the matter. I would be happy to make available to him a copy of the commission's report so that he can read the details about the single transferable vote system. I am sure that it will give him many happy nights of reading.
    The hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross) almost answered Ins own argument when he said that he would like to turn the clock back and have the first-past-the-post system at all elections — Assembly and European elections, as well as Westminster elections. In his constituency there are 59,000 electors. About 49,000 people did not vote for him at the general election. That demonstrates the point that many hon. Members would wish to make, especially in relation to Northern Ireland, which is that inevitably if we return to the first-past-the-post system at Assembly elections, the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland would be grossly under-represented. The implications of that are obvious to all hon. Members.
    The hon. Gentleman was fundamentally wrong when he said that the emergence of Sinn Fein was due to
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    proportional representation. The reason for its emergence was intransigence and a failure to accommodate the democrats in the Social Democratic and Labour party, and the democrats in the Fine Gael and Irish Republican parties. The failure to accommodate those people led to the emergence of Sinn Fein.
    Rev. Martin Smyth: I am at a loss to see how representatives of a foreign nation could be incorporated within a political party, even under proportional representation, in the United Kingdom. That is one of my difficulties. The hon. Gentleman referred to Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, and they are part of a foreign nation. Does he recognise that the Alliance candidate at the local government election in Coleraine who had 500 votes did not get elected, whereas the second Democratic Unionist party candidate with 69 votes did? Does he recognise that, contrary to his statement, the Roman Catholic people in Northern Ireland under the other percentage voting system in Stormont elections were better represented than they are now under proportional representation?
    Mr. Alton: The hon. Gentleman will accept that that was a speech rather than an intervention. However, I shall try to deal with the points that he raised. He talked about the influence within Northern Ireland of Irish parties in the Republic of Ireland. As I said, the failure of Northern Ireland politicians to respond to the democratically elected Government in Dublin was a reason for the lack of moderation in Ireland today and for the emergence of extreme groups.
    The hon. Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) said that we would have to redesign the Chamber if the electoral system was reformed. I am in favour of seeing the parties in the House coming closer together. If we have to bring in the carpenters to achieve that, I shall not be opposed to it. However, historically he is wrong. After the first world war Liberals and Conservatives sat together in the Government. There are many examples throughout our history of parties sitting and working together.
    The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) and others tried to attribute to us forms of proportionality for which we have not argued. Hon. Members have said that we would have a regional system, the Italian system or, even worse, the Israeli system, and that they would lead to dire consequences. We have not proposed those arguments. None of us has advocated that the party should be given greater power. We have argued for community-based proportional representation based on the single transferable vote and multi-Member seats. That would both link an hon. Member with a community and provide proportionality.
    The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), on an interrelated point, talked about the valued link between an hon. Member and his constituency. I also value that link, and regard myself as a community politician.
    I have spent 13 years representing people at one level or another. The system that the Liberals advocate would mean that in a city such as mine, which has six Westminster seats at the moment, there would be six seats but each Member would represent one city. That could have many desirable consequences for the electors.
    At present there is no Conservative Member in the cities of Liverpool or Glasgow. All those electors are disfranchised in terms of their own party. Many of them

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    do not like the idea of having to go to members of the Militant Tendancy, or even the Liberals for that matter, to have their cases or complaints taken up. They are deprived of good constituency representation.
    Mr. Bermingham: The hon. Gentleman raised the point that I sought to put to the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth). He offered to sell me copies of a report that I have already read. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) might tell the Committee—I speak with some experience of boundary commissions, their hearings and machinations, as he is well aware—how big will the communities be? The city of Leicester has three parliamentary seats—
    It being Ten o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    Committee report Progress.
    Ordered,
    That, at this day's sitting, the Representation of the People Bill may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour—[Mr. Durant.]

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL
  Again considered in Committee.
  Question again proposed, That the clause be read a Second time.
  Mr. Bermingham rose—
  The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): I hope that this is an intervention and not a speech.
  Mr. Bermingham: I always rely upon your ability, Mr. Armstrong, to see the difference between the two. How will the hon. Member for Mossley Hill define a community in rural and semi-rural areas? How many seats does he allot in such cases?
  Mr. Alton: I should have thought that that point was obvious, given the hon. Gentleman's knowledge of boundaries and the many hours that he must have spent trying unsuccessfully to fight the last boundary proposals. Social communities in counties and geographical areas often have far more in common than Westminster seats. My constituency stretches from the inner city of Liverpool to the suburbs, through nine different postal districts. Anyone who pretends that there is anything in common, apart from the fact that they live in the same city, between people living in tenemant blocks in inner city Liverpool and those living in the leafy suburbs of the city is mistaken.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that in counties such as Cumbria what he is proposing would be an impossibility? Does he realise that to drive from one end of the constituency that the Liberals wish to set up in Cumbria to the other would take nearly two and a half hours? Whilst that may be acceptable in parts of Scotland where the population is small, in the county of Cumbria, where we have historically relied upon intense representation, it would be impossible to represent 500,000 people in that way. What he suggests is nonsensical.
  Mr. Alton: My hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Johnston) will tell the hon. Gentleman that my hon. Friend would enjoy the
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  opportunity of being able to drive from one end of his constituency to the other in two and a half hours. That also applies to a number of my other hon. Friends.
  The subject of a coalition has been mentioned. The hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) talked derisively about the idea of parties working with one another. In the House in 1977 there was an alliance between the Liberal and Labour parties. Everyone derides that.
  Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Look what happened.
  Mr. Alton: The hon. Lady says, "Look what happened." Inflation fell from 19 to 8 per cent. and interest rates fell to 7·5 per cent. They are 14 per cent. today. Mortgage rates fell to 8 per cent. They stand at 12 per cent. today. Unemployment was half of what it is today. If that is weak government, let us have more of it.
  It has been said today that we could not possibly move to the single transferable vote system and that the system we have is strong. Not only is the system weak; it is unfair. We do not get value for votes. It cannot be right that it takes 350,000 votes on average to elect a Liberal or Social Democrat compared with 30,000 or 40,000 to elect a Conservative or Socialist. It cannot be right if we believe in the adage that there should be no taxation without representation. In the tax cuts on 19 March the proper place to start might be to do something for the Liberal and Social Democratic voters who are grossly under-represented.
  It cannot be right that the Labour party, with just 26 per cent. of the votes at the last election, got 209 seats whereas the alliance parties, with 25 per cent., only 1 per cent. less, got 23 seats. It is even worse that the Conservative party should get 397 seats with only 44 per cent. of the votes, having seen a decrease in its vote of some 700,000.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I want to give a brief illustration of the point. My hon. Friend knows that in Greater London, with 7 million people, the 500,000 people who voted Liberal have got but me to represent them. I am sure that they would like more Members.
  Mr. Alton: I am sure that they get very good value in my hon. Friend, but it cannot be right that they should be so grossly under-represented.
  The opinion poll published today in the Daily Telegraph shows that the Conservative party would now get 35 per cent. of the vote, yet it is here in vast numbers commanding a majority of over 140. The Labour party would get 32 per cent. and the alliance 31·5 per cent. That is a reflection of what happened at the last general election. Given the trends even under this crazy, Russian roulette system, the amazing thing is that we could end up being the beneficiaries. If we are the beneficiaries next time on the system of first past the post, we will stand by our word and make sure that there is a fair electoral system.
  Mr. Winnick: The hon. Gentleman has told us what the Liberals will do if they win under the first-past-the-post system. Even if I live a long life, I doubt that I will ever see that. If the present system has all these terrible defects, why is it, no matter how many years ago it was, that the Liberal party did not change the system when it had a majority in the House of Commons?
  Mr. Alton: When we had an opportunity we set up a conference in 1916—
  Mr. Mellor: I am sorry to have to teach the hon. Gentleman history. What happened was that a Speaker's Conference was set up in 1917 to recommend the introduction of single transferable votes in parliamentary elections in borough constituencies. But on a free vote on the Representation of the People Bill in 1918, with many Liberals voting against it, the proposal was thrown out. It was only in 1922, with the Liberal party's unerring instinct for jumping on the bandwagon when it has left the station and is on its way well out into the countryside, that it became official Liberal party policy to have proportional representation long after it had become a practical proposition for it to do anything about it.
  Mr. Alton: Just as a matter of accuracy, the conference was set up in August 1916, not 1917.
  The present system is not only unfair but very divisive. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that if a line is drawn between Bristol and London there are no Labour Members of Parliament below that line. In Liverpool and Glasgow there are no Conservative Members. That means that ugly divisions are opening up. Because of our electoral system, there is a divide between urban and rural areas and a massive divide between north and south.
  I shall give the figures for Liverpool. The Conservatives hold 30 per cent. of the vote, only one in three, and did not get a single seat. The Liberals polled 23 per cent., and we got one seat. Labour polled 47·3 per cent., and got five seats. In Glasgow, the Conservatives polled 18 per cent., but got no seats. The Labour party polled 51 per cent. and got 10 of the 11 seats. The Alliance polled 21 per cent. and got the other seat in that city. That demonstrates what can happen under this crazy, flukey electoral system of ours. Another example is Coventry, where there are four Members of Parliament. Labour polled 41 per cent. and got three seats. The Conservatives polled 46 per cent. and got one Member of Parliament. The Alliance polled 20 per cent. and got no Members of Parliament.
  The system is divisive, and sets urban areas against rural areas. Let us look at how it reflects itself in the unemployment figures alone. The 100 constituencies with the highest unemployment are mainly in the north of England and industrial areas, and almost all are represented by Opposition Members. Inevitably, the 100 areas with the lowest unemployment are almost all in the prosperous south of England and represented by Conservative Members.
  The new clause should commend itself to the Committee for another reason, which is that our present system is hopelessly unrepresentative. In Liverpool in the last municipal elections, 100,000 people voted against the present administration, and 90,000 voted for it. The council, made up of 99 people, comprises 58 Labour, 28 Liberal and 13 Conservative members. Those Labour councillors are not in the same part of the party represented by Labour Members in the Chamber. Most of them are members of the Militant Tendency, the very people that Labour is trying to expel. Indeed, some have already been expelled. Therefore, because of the election system, it is possible to get the extremism to which the hon. Member
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  for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) referred. Militant Tendency members are on the council in the city of Liverpool today, with all the ugly consequences.
  Nationally, the situation mirrors itself in a Government elected by one in three of the British electorate, 700,000 fewer than in 1979. An effect of the system is that we get the dogma that my hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed talked about. Nationalisation is followed by denationalisation, with the Conservative party polling only 34 per cent. and the Labour party polling 29 per cent. when it came to office. What do we get? British industry is debilitated to the point of exhaustion. The new buzz words are: They will privatise, and the others will deprivatise. They will sell off the council houses, and the others will buy them back again. They will pump the money into assisted places at public schools, and the others will close them down. They will stop overseas aid, and the others will restart it. All that dogma is based on just one in three of the people voting for those things. It is the arrogance of the tyranny of an unelected minority. The first-past-the-post system is also archaic, anachronistic and full of many weaknesses.
  Another effect is that in the House there is not a single black face. Increasingly large numbers of people in our community go without any representation. That is because the first-past-the-post system works against black people being chosen as candidates by the selection committees. How many Labour candidates were black or brown? How many Liberal, Social Democratic or Conservative candidates were black? The system works against blacks.
  The system also works against women. At 51 per cent., they are the majority in the country, yet there are fewer women in the House than at any time since the second world war. That is because of the first-past-the-post voting system and our failure to have a fair electoral system through STV.
  Another argument that we have heard in the debate is that we must maintain single-member constituencies under the present system because it leads to a unique bond between the Member of Parliament and the electorate. In fact it leads to a relationship that is not dissimilar to that of the British Raj with the people of India. It leads to people regarding their domains as safe seats. That is true in many cases. One person with a red rosette could be put up and one with a blue rosette and a donkey could be elected. Some might say that they often are. But the truth is that people do not care about their constituency if they believe that they are in a safe seat. The become arrogant.
  We believe in proportional representation not only because it will give the people in the multi-member seats more choice but because it will also lead to more cooperation between parties in this House. One's opponents can sometimes be right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. If we had a more co-operative system, where parties could learn to work with one another, it would be in the interests of the British people.
  The system that we advocate is not only fair and representative but will unite people as well. The system that we have at the moment is like a loaded dice It is a corrupt, fraudulent and phoney electoral system. Although we know that new clause 1 will not be accepted by the politicians in this Chamber tonight, I can assure hon. Members that there will come a time when we will win by the first-past-the-post system and we shall change it and introduce a fair electoral system. The Conservative party will be sorry that it did not do it when it had the chance.
  10.15 pm
  Mr. Bermingham: I thought that the debate was on new clause 1. Perhaps we can return to that. The hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth) has left the Chamber, but perhaps he will read what I say tomorrow. I intervened in his speech for one reason only. I have read the document which is the product of the joint wisdom of the Liberal and Social Democratic parties. I read it because I am interested in Boundary Commissions and their activities. [Interruption.] Again, one of our latecomers is making silly remarks.
  The hon. Member for Stockton, South rightly talked about communities. That argument has been at the heart of most Boundary Commission cases. He complained that Stockton was divided in two. I looked carefully at the document to see how communities could be calculated. If we are to have multi-Member constituencies across the country, they should, presumably, be roughly of the same size. How on earth does one equate the community of interest in Leicester which has three seats with the community of interest in Sheffield which has six with the community of interest in Liverpool which has six, with the community of interest in Birmingham which, if my memory serves me correctly has 12? There is no way in which the seats can be made the same size. If the London problem is added in, the situation then becomes absurd.
  When I put that matter to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton), he referred to the county councils. We changed those boundaries in 1974 and created all sorts of new things. We destroyed no end of communities of interests while we were at it and we still have not got it right. Where does the community of interest lie in the Oxfordshire-Wiltshire border? What divides the interests of one village from those of a village two or three miles away?
  No matter how hard one looks at the idea of creating large conglomerate areas with multi-Member representation, there is no way in which those areas can be balanced in a country with some 50-odd million people with diverse social, cultural and work patterns. Compare Cumbria with Cornwall. The needs are different. The seats need to be smaller. I was once shot down by a Boundary Commission for suggesting that we should reduce the size of all parliamentary seats to 50,000. That would give us about 1,000 hon. Members. We cannot have 650, so I do not know what we would do with 1,000. But at least that was the only figure we could calculate where you could get real communities. That is the basic problem. That is why this new clause is really a load of rubbish from top to bottom.
  It is easy to say that we will have a single transferable vote as a panacea for all ills. I do not for one moment believe that the system we have at present satisfies all the criteria of representation that one should perhaps have in a parliamentary democracy. It has ills, but of all the systems in Europe, the western world or the democratic world, at least this can be said for our system: it may have its faults but it is the best one we have. So let us not seek to replace it with a system that has as many flaws as any other system in the world.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman really believe that we have such a perfect system when a party can decrease its vote, as that party did at the last election, by 3 per cent. and put up the number of its members in this House by about 100?
  Mr. Bermingham: I can answer that question extremely simply. If we have a boundary commission that produces a variation in seat size of from 48,000 to 49,000 in England alone up to some 80,000-odd or, if we take the Isle of Wight, over 100,000, and which quite arbitrarily takes as the envelope size the shire county or the metropolitan county and does not allow old communities to rejoin in crossing those boundaries, of course we get electoral distortion. If the hon. Member wishes me to spend many hours lecturing to him about this, I will do so with pleasure.
  If we had had a commission that allowed us to go for comparative numeracy, we would indeed have got a very different result in the electoral voting system in 1983. If we take the London area as a small example of this and compare seats in Richmond and areas such as that with the larger seats in Tottenham and places like that, and allow the voting constituencies to cross the London borough boundaries, which are in themselves quite arbitrary, I think the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that the pattern of results within the London area, even on the same votes cast, would have produced a very different parliamentary result.
  So our system is not perfect, but it is indeed the best system we have; and long may it remain so.
  Mr. Mellor: By an interesting chance we are debating this motion exactly 100 years after it first became the general rule in this country that we elected our Parliament on a first-past-the-post system in single-Member constituencies. This system having been an ornament of our democracy for a century, I should have thought that a compelling and cogent case would need to be advanced before we would contemplate changing it. I do not think that there can be many people who arrived here this evening anxious to believe in the case for proportional representation, but sceptical about it, who would feel that the heavy burden of proof had been discharged by the Benchers opposite during this debate.
  I will say one thing in favour of what we have seen this evening. It has been a very different Liberal party from that to which we are accustomed. We are accustomed in the House to debating some of the great issues that trouble our country—and, indeed, trouble many other countries of the world, including some of those with proportional representation systems—with the second Bench either empty or with one disconsolate, rather depressed-looking individual—
  Mr. Paddy Ashdown rose—
  Mr. Mellor: No. I am not going to give way until I have finished the point. I do not know where the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) has spent the evening, but it has certainly not been in this Chamber and it behoves him to keep quiet. There has often been just one disconsolate-looking Member, frequently making a low-key and inconsequential contribution to the debate. But what do we find this evening? They are as men rejuvenated, as if bottles of Phyllosan had been consumed before the great ordeal of delighting us all came upon them.
  The smell of power — the thought of getting their noses into the trough of office — has so excited them that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) is waving his arms around like a windmill. [Interruption.] I shall not be bullied into giving way.

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  Alliance Members are supposed to be the advocates of the new politics, but they are as boorish as some of us exponents of the old politics when enough of them are gathered together to give them a bit of Dutch courage. We are treated to the delightful prospect of the hon. Member for Mossley Hill behaving like a spring chicken and waving his arms like a windmill, but no amount of animation gives the case the intellectual substance that it so sadly lacks.
  Mr. Beith: I hope that the Minister intends to address himself to matters of intellectual substance rather than continuing to make silly jibes. As he has his back to the Conservative benches he may not have realised that when I was addressing the Committee his party was represented by two or three or at most four hon. Members.
  Mr. Mellor: I was talking about all the other evenings that we spend here, although I appreciate that the occasions on which Alliance Members are present 'stick more readily in their memories.
  We have had no coherent explanation of the system which alliance Members wish us to adopt and no coherent defence of the manifest failures and inadequacies of proportional representation in so many other countries. Without the advantage of a briefing on the Fisher committee, by which the alliance sets so much store, although I listened with as much care as I could muster to the speeches today, I should have lacked any insight into the type of system which the alliance wishes to impose on us.
  No answer was given to the question of numbers and the variation in the size of constituencies, although Labour Members asked pertinent questions on the subject. I believe that I can provide the answer, although it should not be for me to do so. According to the Fisher committee, some constituencies would have eight Members, others would have five and one or two would have just one. "There's a funny thing," as the late Max Miller would say. And blow me down, the constituencies to have just one Member under the Fisher proposals are the Isle of Wight and Orkney and Shetland. Why should that be? The answer is, of course, that those are two of the few constituencies already represented by Liberals, so there is no need to mess around with the boundaries there, is there? No, indeed there is not.
  It has not been shown to anyone's satisfaction how eight Members with a large constituency will be better able to represent their constituents' interests in the House or that the links between the single Member and his constituency will not be severed. It is fatuous for the hon. Member for Mossley Hill to assert that one has to be in the same party to represent a constituent's interest. That is nonsense.
  Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: It is an insult.
  Mr. Mellor;: As my hon. Friend says, it is an insult. Either the link between the individual Member and his constituency would snap, or the result would be the situation that has occurred in the Republic of Ireland. The hon. Member for Londonderry, East (Mr. Ross), who admittedly outstayed his welcome a little, was jeered when he brought the Republic of Ireland into the discussion, but the system proposed by Fisher is almost identical to that obtaining in the Republic of Ireland. Is that the paradise free from unemployment, inflation and all the other
  580
  problems which the Alliance would have us believe have been brought upon this country by the first-past-the-post system? Again, Irish politics is riven by a parochialism made essential by the fact that each one of five Members is vying to persuade the same set of constituents that he alone holds the key to their interest and that he is capable of being even more parochial than the next Member.
  10.30 pm
  Mr. Alton: Does this mean that the Government are to bring forward proposals for a first-past-the-post system in Northern Ireland for the European Assembly elections?
  Mr. Mellor: That is a flimsy red herring. The more that the hon. Gentleman laughs and thinks that he has been frightfully clever, the more convinced I am that he has raised a flimsy red herring. We have had the politics of the snake oil salesman and nothing of new politics. Do we want the panaceas for unemployment, nationalisation and incomes policy, all the vulgar policies to which we have been subjected, including bad weather and diarrhoea? It is argued that we must have something other than a first-past-the-post system and that without it everything will be so different.
  I was fascinated by the intervention of the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile). I note that he is hiding behind his brief, as well as he might. In an intervention by the hon. and learned Gentleman in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Corby (Mr. Powell) we were informed that something other than a first-past-the-post system would cure all national ills. Although its aim is to give representation to minority parties, we are told that it is only minorities that everyone loves. It seems that only those minorities will be represented in the House of Commons. That is what the hon. and learned Gentleman told us without the flicker of a smile on his face. This is not the National Front—
  Mr. Alex Carlile: The Minister is referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Johnston).
  Mr. Mellor: I am not surprised. There is no question of the National Front and the British National party being represented. Those are minorities that are unacceptable and the system would be well capable, apparently, of weeding them out.
  I do not think that the issue is quite as simple as that. We have been told about the way in which the proportional system of representation has worked in other countries, but the charges which have been made against its inadequacies are hard to laugh off. The state of Israel, for example, has the most perfect system of PR, short of the Weimar republic in the 1920s. Every minority that polls over 1 per cent. of the total is represented in Israel, but that does not produce the happiest example of a parliamentary democracy. However, Liberal Members say that their form of PR would not be like that. Of course it would not.
  Mr. Beith: It would not.
  Mr. Mellor: I believe the hon. Gentleman when he says that. The more tantalising example—it is the one which has made Liberal Members so animated this evening—is that of West Germany. In that country there are two parties which are both capable of polling well over 40 per cent. of the vote at most elections. However, there is a party which is the equivalent of the Liberal party. That party has a 10 per cent. share of the poll even at its best,

  581
  and often its poll is nearer 5 per cent. That is the party which most West Germans do not want to vote for, but it is the one which is in government for most of the time. If a party is to form a Government in West Germany, it is necessary for it to do a little deal with the equivalent of the Liberal party. Liberal Members are thinking that it would be a lovely thing if that could happen over here. After all, it is so dull having to be an Opposition party.
  The Liberal party wishes to cobble together an agreement with which ever party takes its fancy at the time so that it can remain in power. That is the final lie to the Liberal party's case of proportional representation. The Liberal party's argument is advanced as an enhancement of democracy, but in truth it is a negation of democracy. That is because the system which the Liberal party advocates takes the power to elect a Government out of the hands of the people and into the hands of politicians. It would be the decision of the politicians as to the way in which they would be prepared to coalesce within a multiparty House of Commons which would determine the Government, not the straightforward vote of the British people.
  We have had a pretty sham debate this evening, which has not convinced anybody of the merits of the case. I urge my hon. Friends and the Opposition to reject the new clause.
  Mr. Johnston: The Minister made the arresting and highly original argument that we are somehow now governed by the representatives of the people rather than the representatives or the politicians, and that this Government are genuinely representative of the people. That is not the view widely held now.
  The Minister began with a cheap argument that there are seldom Liberal and SDP Members in the Chamber. My hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), the Liberal Chief Whip, pointed out that when he opened this debate there were only two Conservative Members in the Chamber out of a total of 397. Considering the number of Liberal and SDP Members, we do very well indeed—especially considering what we have to try to do in representing both our constituents and the many millions of others who would wish to be represented by Liberal and SDP Members.
  Mr. Toby Jessel rose—
  Mr. Johnston: I shall give way in a minute — it would be only fair to allow the hon. Gentleman to acclimatise himself to the debate.
  Mr. Jessel rose—
  Mr. Johnston: The hon. Gentleman must not be so impetuous.
  I wish to make some simple points. I do not want to delay the House, but, as hon. Members know, we feel strongly about this matter. Listening to some of the speeches tonight, I felt that I was at a mad hatter's tea party. I had seldom heard a more poorly argued case than that advanced by the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth), until I heard the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels). Heaven knows, few could have improved upon his contribution.
  582
  The essential argument of both hon. Gentlemen—and it was touched upon by the Minister, when he paid any attention to the argument—was that coalitions are quite dreadful things.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: The hon. Gentleman and his friends cannot agree on joint selection.
  Mr. Johnston: The hon. Gentleman has woken up.
  Coalitions have clearly not been the downfall of Sweden, Finland, or—[Laughter.] What is so amusing about Finland? Do hon. Members find the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany amusing? Why did the new countries to emerge from dictatorship, Spain and Portugal, choose without any hesitation to have a system of PR? Surely that has some relevance and must be seen as having some importance by Conservative Members.
  The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and the Minister argued that absolute majorities were vital. Mr. Stalin was very good at them. But clearly absolute majorities were much more important to those hon. Members than the representation of "dangerous minorities". The "dangerous minorities" that the hon. Member for Walsall, North foresaw—
  Mr. Kaufman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Johnston: I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman if he allows me to finish my sentence. The hon. Member for Walsall, North suggested that the great danger of PR was that Right-Wing/Fascist parties might obtain representation and that that would be very bad. The—
  Mr. Kaufman: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Johnston: The right hon. Gentleman must wait until I have finished my paragraph.
  The Minister did not say that he was afraid of Communists becoming Members of Parliament, but there was a feeling that that was what he was implying. What is wrong with Fascists or Communists openly standing under their own colours in the House, instead of standing concealed inside larger parties?
  Mr. Kaufman: I simply wanted to make the following point to the hon. Gentleman. He spoke of the dangers of Stalinism, but surely the Soviet Union is a perfect example of PR—100 per cent. of the votes get 100 per cent. of the seats.
  Mr. Johnston: That intervention was very much up to the mark for a former scriptwriter of "That Was The Week That Was". It was not an intervention of any substance, but it was entertaining.
  I have three final short points to make — [HON. MEMBERS: "Hurrah!"] First, no one on the other side of the argument, which of course spans the Chamber, has answered the simple point that I put in an intervention. Is it fair or reasonable that a party should obtain 750,000 fewer votes and as a result obtain 58 more seats? I cannot see any justification for that. It is not democratic and it cannot be defended. The system should be changed.
  My second point touches on something that should concern those hon. Members who think about these things. We know that in recent elections the turnout has fallen steadily. That is not happening where there is a system of PR, almost irrespective of what type of PR exists. That too, must contain some lessons.

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  10.45 pm
  My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton) developed well the argument about the capricious lack of representation of Labour and Liberal in the south and Conservative in the north and the dangerous effects that such a division is having on the country as a whole.
  Local government was discussed briefly. The most appalling example of which I knew was the regional election before last in Scotland when, in the Lothian region, 17 per cent. of the electorate voted in the ruling Labour party, which was elected by one seat and then proceeded to pack every committee and run it on a very ideological basis.
  That is the danger of the sort of system that Conservative Members are supporting. The new clause seeks to introduce into this country a better and fairer system of election and, as such, it deserves—even if it will not get it tonight—support.
  Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 16, Noes 184.
  Question accordingly negatived.

  Representation of the People Bill
    New Clause 2

      ABOLITION OF MULTIPLE REGISTRATION OF PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORS
      '(1) A person shall not be entitled to be registered as a parliamentary elector for more than one constituency in any one year.
      (2) In the case of a person who, but for subsection (1) above, would by virtue of his having more than one qualifying address be entitled to be included in the register of parliamentary electors for more than one constituency in any one year, the register in which he shall be entitled to be included shall be the register for the constituency or part of the constituency in which is situated the place at which he has his main qualifying address on the qualifying date.
      (3) For the purposes of subsection (2) above, a person's main qualifying address is that one of the addresses referred to in that subsection where he has been personally present for the most time in aggregate during the period of twelve months immediately preceding the qualifying date.'.—[Mr. Beith.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Beith: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean): With this it will be convenient to take the following—new clause 20—Multiple registration to be an offence—
      '(1) It shall be an offence to apply to register as a parliamentary elector for more than one constituency in any one year.
      (2) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (as defined in section 75 of the Criminal Justice Act 1982) or to both.'.
      New clause 21—Voting by persons registered at a place of higher or further education—
      'A. person registered at a place of higher or further education shall be eligible to vote only in the division which includes the qualifying address from which he qualifies for a local authority grant; and for that purpose shall be eligible to vote by post or by proxy; and section 19 of the principal Act (voting at Parliamentary elections) shall be amended by the addition at the end of subsection (1) of the following—
      "(i) those registered at place of higher or further education other than in the constituency of their qualifying place of residence".'.

      Mr. Beith: The issue of multiple registration arose incidentally at an earlier stage of our proceedings when the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir. J. Farr) somewhat oddly suggested that, in raising the issue at all, I was breaking some happy consensus that had developed over the Bill. The hon. Gentleman had not read the background properly. It was he, and indeed the Government, who broke the consensus which, strangely, had broken out on the subject of multiple registration. When the Select Committee on Home Affairs considered the matter, it received evidence from my party, the Labour party and the Conservative party and—wonder of wonders—all the parties agreed that, for parliamentary elections, the practice of multiple registration should not be continued. Persuaded by the overwhelming weight of evidence, the Select Committee advised that multiple registration should not be continued.
      In arguing that multiple registration is wrong in respect of parliamentary elections, I base my case — as, no
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      doubt, the Conservative and Labour parties did, too—on the view that the vote should be of equal value wherever in the country it is found. A voter who has the opportunity to choose at will between several different places in which to cast his vote has an advantage not conferred on other electors. That advantage tends to relate to circumstances, particularly in the case of people who own, or are tenants of, property in several places.
      It is feasible to have a system under which multiple registration occurs so that people can register their reasonable claim—[Interruption.]—to take part in local government in various parts of the country. Does the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) wish to intervene?
      Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: I am trying to urge your leader to stop talking to his colleagues and listen to you.
      Mr. Beith: The occupant of the Chair has no leader while occupying the Chair. The hon. Lady must remember her parliamentary procedures. It is reasonable that someone should be registered in more than one place for local government purposes, if we accept the argument that to own property confers the right to participate in local affairs and the responsibility to pay rates. The issue at stake is whether people should be able to transfer votes at will between constituencies.
      The law has changed by way of drift. There was a time when residence was more clearly understood to involve nominating one place as a principal residence. The opportunity to be registered in several places has grown as the interpretation of residence has widened. The Minister has several times quoted as a definition of residence a degree of permanence. It is therefore clearly open to people to claim residence in several places. The Minister's definition seems to be somewhat slanted against students because it is much harder to suggest permanence in regard to a university hall of residence in which most students are able to stay only one or two years.
      11 pm
      The elector is under no obligation to choose a principal residence, and new clause 2 ensures that there is some test of the elector's principal residence. That is not the only means of solving the problem. I am not averse to the elector being given the opportunity to choose, when he registers, which he regards as his principal residence. However, for the elector to be registered in several places and then to be able to say, even during an election campaign, "I think that I shall vote in this constituency rather than that one, considering how things are going" is quite wrong.
      If there are by-elections in two constituencies and an elector has residences in both, he can vote in both. That is not reasonable or sensible. At one level, the problem might seem to be one of broad principle concerning a matter that seems undesirable but does not have much practical effect. That is not the case, as multiple registration tends to be concentrated in areas where there are many second homes or halls of residence. There is often annoyance and anxiety in such communities that the number of registered electors who live there for only a small part of the year greatly outnumber the normal resident population. In my part of the world, the Lake District and north Wales, it is easy to find communities in which, because of changes that I find unattractive, as they have been rather damaging to some villages, there are more people with second homes than permanent residents.

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      Tensions are exacerbated when local people think that they are outnumbered on the voting register as well. It is not a proper part of our electoral system to give one class of voters a choice of where they can make their vote most effective. The parties are well aware of that effect of multiple registration, so woo the second home voters deliberately. The Bill makes it easier for non-residents to cast votes and, by widening the postal vote arrangements, we have made it a great deal easier for people with a holiday home which they use for only a couple of weeks a year to vote there, although they are normally resident hundreds of miles away. We should address ourselves to the basic problem of why we should give this right to choose to one class of voters. The present arrangements are wrong and should be changed.
      Mr. Gregory: I am grateful at this comparatively early hour to speak to new clauses 20 and 21, and to support the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). My two new clauses 20 and 21 go further than new clause 2 and deal specifically with the problems encountered by a student in further or higher education.
      The hon. Gentleman rightly said that students may be in residence at the time of a general election, possibly once during their studies, and in many cases not at all. Students are present in college for at most 30 weeks a year—I am not talking about postgraduates but undergraduates and those in further education. It is important that they do not distort the parliamentary election process and the European elections for the regular electors. The simple solution appears to be to establish the basis on which they can legally vote, that is, in person, by proxy or by post at their main place of residence. That is the place where they may be registered for income tax purposes. I would have preferred new clause 2 to have stated that, as it seems to be the right place to track students down. Furthermore, it is the place to which they apply for their education grant. On that basis I have set out new clauses 20 and 21.
      About 241 constituencies are probably affected. That is a considerable number. To start in alphabetical order they include Bath, Birmingham, Erdington, Birmingham, Hodge hill and so on. A considerable number are directly affected by students who live in them for a short time. Students at present can choose to vote in either parliamentary constituency. In 1983 a number of students broke the electoral law and double voted. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for an electoral registration officer to prove that a student has voted twice, unless he opens the ballot boxes.
      It is comparatively easy for an electoral registration officer to stop that if we enact these clauses because then he will not accept on the register young men and women who are living temporarily in halls of residence or in flats provided by university authorities. It would be comparatively easy to isolate them on the register.
      In the unlikely event of a student getting on the register, there is a simple solution. Questions are asked on the forms issued to householders, such as whether an elector is a merchant seaman or liable for jury service. In the same way, it should be asked whether the elector has already registered or intends to register elsewhere for a parliamentary election, and whether the elector is a bona fide registered student. If those questions were asked and a student contravened the law, we could under the new clause take appropriate proceedings against that person.
      588
      At present the system is open to abuse. A considerable number of students are unaware that they are breaking the law. This measure gives us the opportunity to take on board those proposals. For those reasons, I hope that my hon. Friend will accept the spirit in which I move the new clauses, and accept the new clauses.
      Mr. Wigley: I support new clause 2 with all the passion at my command, because I think that it remedies one weakness to which the Government have failed to address themselves in a Bill in which they have made considerable concessions to achieve all-party consensus.
      The Government are aware of the feelings in Wales on this matter. They are not limited to Wales. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) mentioned the problem that arises in his area. We know that it arises in the Lake District, parts of Scotland, south-west England and many other areas where there are a great many second homes.
      In Gwynedd, on the latest estimates, there are some 15,000 second homes. There are four parliamentary constituencies. If there is an average of 2·2 people to each household — there is a tendency to be a higher than average figure in holiday homes — and they all registered, there could be 33,000 voters from those holiday homes. That is an average of 8,000 to each constituency.
      A controversy arose in the constituency of Ynys Mon, Anglesey, during the last election. A large body of opinion believed that even in the circumstances that then obtained the election was influenced by people from second homes. The majority was some 1,600, if I remember rightly. That is a majority of 1,600 in a constituency which may have had some 8,000 second home voters. The Minister will realise the strong feelings that may arise at the idea that the outcome of an election was determined by second-home owners.
      Some of those people may have voted more than once. It is next to impossible to discover whether people have voted in two constituencies. I accept that they would be breaking the law if they did so, but it is almost impossible to enforce that law. The argument has been advanced that it is difficult to restrict registration to one household only. That is no more difficult to enforce than enforcing voting in one constituency only. On balance, to ensure the wellbeing of the electoral system, the pressure should be to ensure that people can register in one location only.
      The problem was bad enough in the last election. I and my party have deliberately not played on the point that those voters swayed the outcome of the election. It can give rise to feeling that we have seen going over the top into extremism. The House is well aware of the problem that has arisen in Wales over second homes.
      If we extend postal voting and allow people to vote by post at will, strong feelings will be aroused at the next election. It will be possible to see the number of voters who have voted from addresses outside their constituencies. Those addresses will in all probability identify people as being second-home owners. In numerous constituencies, that may make a difference to the outcome of the election. That will give rise to strong feelings.
      With the passage of the Bill in Committee and in another place, the time is right to take steps to avoid that problem. The problem will arise because of the change in the postal voting system that we are introducing in the Bill. Side by side with that change we should take steps to avoid

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      the type of abuse that could arise. That is not an academic point. It is a matter of great anxiety in many areas, and to Members of all parties in the House. That can be seen by the new clauses that have been tabled, possibly for different reasons in different areas.
      Accepting all that, and given the feelings that the Minister has expressed—we all welcome the way that he has responded to representations—and the feelings that have been expressed to the Select Committee, I urge the Minister to consider whether it is possible, in another place if not tonight, to table an amendment that will take on board the points that have been made and avoid a problem that will become serious if it is allowed to continue.
      11.15 pm
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: The patronage secretary of the Liberal party—if I may be permitted to use that term—has moved an important new clause. I wish to comment briefly on its implications for the county of Cumbria and in particular the Lake District.
      Within the Lake District there is a major problem of people buying second homes. By careful use of the tax system and mortgage relief they are able to raise money to purchase second homes simply by increasing the mortgage on their first homes, thereby claiming greater tax relief. Therefore, their second home purchases are being funded to some extent by an Exchequer subsidy.
      Mr. Michael Stern: What the hon. Member is describing is strictly illegal under income tax law. While I bow to his knowledge as to the fact that it goes on, I hope that he will not give the Committee the impression that he is encouraging an illegal practice.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: As a participant in the Finance Bill debates when his patronage secretary gives him permission to intervene, the hon. Gentleman will know that I would not in any way wish to promote that principle. Equally, he will know that the practice goes on. People are purchasing second homes within the Lake District and the national park by playing with the tax system, through mortgage relief.
      In acquiring those second homes the people equally acquire the right to multiple registration. Surely that is wrong. Under the new clause that right would be removed or people would be required to declare their second homes as their principal residence and then comply with the criterion laid down in subsection (3) of the new clause.
      Within the county of Cumbria this is of significant importance, because there are several marginal constituencies. The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) said that political parties were endeavouring to woo these voters. The Liberal and Conservative parties may be trying to woo them, but the Labour party is not. The Liberal and Conservative parties have a particular interest because there is a crucial constituency in the county of Cumbria. That constituency, Penrith and The Border, which is highly marginal, is held today by the Conservatives with a majority of only 700, with the Liberals in second place. That constituency has one of the highest percentages of second homes in the whole of the United Kingdom. In parts of that constituency and of my constituency of Workington, which takes in five lakes in the Lake District, there are villages and hamlets where the
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      number of second homes is as high as 30 per cent. The existence of that number of second homes will have a marked effect on electoral results.
      I must point the Committee back to a famous by-election in 1976, when Labour lost the Workington constituency. I am not saying that that result was wholly dependent on the existence of second home multiple registration occupiers, but to some extent they will have had an influence on the result. It is known that people choose to exercise their vote in the most marginal seat where they are registered.
      Mr. Beith: Is it not also the case that by exercising their vote in a crucial by-election they do not even lose the opportunity to vote in any subsequent election in the constituency where their main home is?
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: That only compounds the injustice for those who feel that they have lost because of the existence of the multi-registration right.
      I hope that in winding up the debate the Government will take note of the considerable feeling particularly in marginal constituencies and marginal electoral wards, where people have that right and where others believe that in having that right they are grossly and unfairly interfering with an electoral system which should at the least produce a reasonable result.
      Mr. Penhaligon: I believe that most fair-minded Members of the House, if they consider this matter in isolation and ignore any political opinions which they have for or against the new clause, will recognise that there is potential for enormous abuse. Many people can use a vote in a constituency which is not their main home, and where they spend little of their time. Just because they happen to own that property, and just because they believe that that vote can be more effective in that constituency than another, they use that vote. That is not the basis of our whole electoral process.
      That is an issue in my county. In parishes in Cornwall, way over one third of the properties are second homes or summer lets, and the problem arises with both of them. I recall from my personal experience of running for Parliament in Cornwall that I surprised a few by getting elected in October 1974 with a majority of just 464. It is extremely lucky for me that the Conservatives never realised how near I was to removing them, because I am sure that had they realised it they would have organised the holiday vote in my constituency, which was worth more than 464. Come the next election, the vote was certainly organised. In some of the villages a house has not been built this century. Between 1974 and 1979 the electorate suddenly increased by 50 per cent. What is more amazing is that, now my majority has increased to several thousands, those people have all gone again.
      That is an abuse. I suspect that the Minister, who, I recognise, has been a fair man, knows that it is an abuse. The system is within the law. I do not complain about that. The system is the system, and one fights elections on the system. However, going beyond that, I am sure the Minister will recognise that there is an abuse and that the system is unfair. Fairness is important in any electoral system. It must at least be seen to be fair. I am sure the Minister recognises that we do not have the correct procedure.
      The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) raised an interesting problem. I welcome the extension of postal

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      votes to those on holiday. In my part of the world, if an election falls when the holiday industry is on holiday, that seriously affects many who rightly want to exercise their franchise. I do not criticise that. However, there is a real prospect of the situation in marginal seats being abused, especially in Cornwall. It may have happened once already in Cornwall. The abuse might even affect an election result. I do not believe that that is what the Government or the Minister want. The new clause would solve the problem. However, if the Minister would like a slight variation on it, there are other processes.
      People feel very angry about the abuse. The anger is not felt, known or read by London. It is a long way away. Such anger is often difficult to register, as people do not understand, do not want to listen and do not want to know. If the people of north Wales, Cornwall and Berwickshire can have their parliamentary representation changed just because some slick organisers use the abuse and the postal vote change to their advantage, that is appalling. Much outrage will be caused among those who live in the area.
      Mr. David Harris: I do not defend the present situation in any way, but is the hon. Gentleman saying that the Liberal organisation in Cornwall has not marshalled the holiday vote in any constituency in that county?
      Mr. Penhaligon: I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows that when it comes to who owns those houses, "My party don't do too good." It is true that before now we have encouraged people who have holiday lets in Cornwall, who are Liberals, to register their vote, to try to reduce the advantage that the hon. Gentleman's party has. I am not saying that anybody has broken the law. I am not criticising anyone. It is legal. In the hon. Gentleman's constituency, his party could gather 3,000 or 4,000 of those votes if it wanted to, and he could save himself on the swing about which we are now hearing. What I am saying is that there is an abuse, people are outraged, and I suspect that the hon. Gentleman knows it. We have it in our power today to stop that abuse, and the Minister has the power to give the House that assurance now.
      Mr. Mellor: It is with a feeling of tremendous power and authority that I rise to respond to the debate. I appreciate that several hon. Members feel strongly about this matter and that that feeling is not confined to any one party. I understand the position of those who represent constituencies in which there are second homes who feel that people who are inimical to their interests are daring to cast a vote in those constituencies. I also understand that those who have universities in their constituencies, including some of my hon. Friends, feel troubled, and no doubt some of their constituents feel troubled, that people who are only passing through the area can sometimes have a major impact on the political complexion of that area.
      However, there are problems and points that have not been made particularly clearly so far that need to be made. First, as we explained in the White Paper—the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) will know that we have had several discussions about this on the Floor of the House and elsewhere and extensive correspondence — it is difficult to make fundamental changes such as the abolition of multiple registration without changing the whole basis on which the register is compiled in Britain. That is not an easy thing, nor is it necessarily desirable.
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      In the end we must take the argument down to detail because we are dealing with a severely practical matter. We have had much discussion about second home owners, who seem to be a much persecuted minority group so far as one can judge from the way in which they have been spoken of, although I dare say that some of them are decent enough citizens when it comes down to it. One must look at the detail and ask how helpful are the kind of concepts embraced in the new clause—for example, that of the main qualifying address. What does that mean in the context of a man who lives four days a week in London, three days a week in the country and then spends most of his holidays at his country address? Are we to have a court of law counting up faithfully the days of the year that he spends in each of those places?
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: Let him choose.
      Mr. Mellor: That choice may not be acceptable. Some may feel that he will choose the most disadvantageous area.
      Ingenious though the new clause is, as I said yesterday when a peripheral spin-off issue of multiple registration was being debated, it is perfectly reasonable for people to hold the view, as many in the House have, and Committees have reported in favour of abolishing multiple registration, when it comes to the detail it is extremely difficult to do it.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: I have availed myself of the present law twice, never because of a second home but once because my father was moving with his business when I exercised my vote in north Wales in a constituency where there was a majority of 1,000 instead of in a constituency with a majority of 20,000 and once when I went to college. There need only be a warning on the form that says that only one form a year can be completed before an offence is committed and then no one would offend. There is no practical problem. I hope that it is not a practical disadvantage.
      Mr. Mellor: I am glad to hear that the hon. Gentleman is not complaining about second homes on the Bermondsey riviera. Many of the complaints that have been advanced this evening should really be directed to the electoral registration officer. It appears to be suggested that owning a second home in an area is what entitles a person to vote, but it is not. One has to be resident there and the courts have determined that to be resident one's residence has to have
      "a substantial degree of permanence".
      So, if an electoral registration officer is prepared, on the basis of a few weeks' residence a year, to register somebody as being resident in that constituency, the ERO has got it wrong. I am glad that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), who knows a great deal about these matters, and others agree with me that it is then for the parties to challenge, and there are ways in which that challenge can be mounted. But it is not the fault of the Government if EROs are putting people on the register when they should not.
      11.30 pm
      Mr. Gregory: My hon. Friend has raised a point about the qualifying address. I suggested earlier that this could be the Inland Revenue address. I would like him to address his mind to the clauses dealing with the educational point, because a considerable number of students in the constituency of Putney, which might interest him, and

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      certainly in my constituency of York and elsewhere in this country, amounting to just under 300 constituencies, who are materially affected by this. My clause provides
      "from which he qualified for a local authority grant".
      If my hon. Friend is suggesting that the onus should be on the electoral returning officer, what guidance will he give and what staffing will he give? At present, in most parliamentary constituencies there is one clerk who works throughout the year on this, ably supported at the time of a parliamentary election or European election. To put the onus on the parliamentary candidate to suggest that somebody is acting illegally is quite unreasonable. If we are to be reasonable, I should hope that the hon. Gentleman would accept the spirit of this, because the number of illegalities is clearly on the increase.
      Mr. Mellor: I am all for being reasonable, but whatever way we look at it, and whatever arrangements are entered into, people will be required to make difficult judgments. We can print all the forms in the world and give people all the options we like, but if someone is determined to make an assertion that is not the case it is extremely difficult in a practical sense to change the arrangements.
      Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: My hon. Friend may not even be aware that it is not the case. Take the example of the universities, where it is the bursar who does the registration. However many warning signs are put on the register, he cannot possibly know that the students will not register elsewhere.
      Mr. Mellor: I am beset by the anti-holiday-home people on the one hand and the anti-student faction on the other.
      Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: No, I am not anti at all; I am making a realistic point.
      Mr. Mellor: I was not suggesting that my hon. Friend was not being realistic, but I was saying that, if one's motivation in advancing these points is that one objects to a particular category being on the register, it does not make it easy when drafting rules to give total satisfaction on the point that is being made. I just think that in the end we have a clear set of rules. They could not be clearer. It may be that the way in which the rules are being applied by EROs throughout the country has somewhat muddied the pond, but it is perfectly clear to say that someone is entitled to register at an address at which his or her residence has a substantial degree of permanence and to recognise that in the reality of the community as it now exists—and it is not outlandish to suggest that some people should have more than one address — it is possible to have a substantial degree of permanence at more than one address.
      It is getting late and I have to say—
      Mr. Campbell-Savours rose—
      Mr. Mellor: No, I shall not give way and it is no good the hon. Gentleman jeering at me that I am on weak ground. We have been over this ground a great deal. I very much regret, being in the business of giving satisfaction wherever that is humanly possible, that it is not possible for the Government to do so here. We have made it clear in the White Paper, in the debate on the White Paper, in the debate on Second Reading, in previous debates in this
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      Committee and in correspondence that it is our considered view that, whatever the rights and wrongs of multiple registration, it is not possible to reach workable and practicable arrangements that do not make the situation more complicated than it already is.
      I am sorry, but I have to advise my hon. Friends to resist the new clauses.
      Mr. Dubs: I had not intended to intervene, but I think that we should press the Minister further on this. Throughout the long day, until we reached these proposals, the Minister had been on fairly good form, perhaps because he felt that right was on his side. His last speech, however, was disappointing and well below the standards that he had set himself earlier in the day. I believe that that was because his heart was not in it.
      The point of principle here is that when people vote in a constituency they should do so because they have been exposed to the campaign in that constituency, because they know who the candidates are, the candidates have been able to reach them with publicity and canvassing and therefore the electors take a full part in political life there. When people take no part in political life and have no opportunity to do so, there is a weakness in the democratic process. [Interruption.] It is no use the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) shouting at me from a sedentary position.
      Mr. Michael Mates: You are my Member of Parliament.
      Mr. Dubs: That is no thanks to anything that the hon. Gentleman has done for me.
      There is a point of principle involved and it is no use trying to be jocular about it. We are dealing with the democratic process and the Minister has not addressed himself to the point. Incidentally—this may be just a quirk — I understand that if by-elections were held on the same day in Berwick-upon-Tweed and in Putney people registered in both constituencies could vote in both by-elections.
      Mr. Mates: That is illegal.
      Mr. Dubs: I wish the hon. Gentleman would stand up and speak or just keep quiet rather than constantly shouting from a seated position. Even if he is my constituent, there is no need for me to be nice to him if he behaves like that.
      It is indeed illegal to vote in two constituencies in a general election, but lawyers tell me that it is not illegal if by-elections happen to take place on the some day in two constituencies in which an individual has a residence and a holiday residence. But that is just a quirk and the main point of principle is not attached to it.
      I believe that the Minister has not been helpful on this simply because the problem is difficult to solve. Because we do not have centralised control of the electoral register for the whole country by putting all the information on a computer or whatever, the necessary legal means of enforcement will not be perfect. Because it will not be perfect and the problem is a difficult one, the Minister wants to leave things alone and not bother.
      Mr. Wigley: Knowing the Minister, hon. Members may accept that his problem may be the administrative difficulty involved, but people outside will believe that the motive is party political advantage. I do not wish the reaction in my part of Gwynedd to worsen any more than it is bound to worsen as a result of postal voting. We have

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      a reasonably good Bill, but the Minister's failure to respond on this will be a wart on the face of the legislation. I very much hope that he will think again.
      Mr. Dubs: I take that point and I hope that the Minister will come back with a more convincing argument. If town hall officials dealing with registration are acting as they should, it is theoretically possible that they could eliminate some holiday voters from the electoral registers. In practice, however, that is difficult to achieve as the law stands. It is a grey area for them and they are under great pressure keeping the registers up to date at all, so unless we change the law in this way it is unlikely that electoral registration officers will take note of the hint given to them by the Minister.
      Time-sharing raises another problem, especially in the Lake District and certain other areas. A number of different families could register at the same address and it would be difficult for the electoral registration officer to prevent that from happening. As the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) said, by being progressive and giving people the holiday vote we are opening the door to the possibility of abuse. That possibility exists when an individual can be at two addresses at the same time. By giving the holiday vote, we have a responsibility to ensure that it is not abused, and there is a clear danger that it might be.
      I urge the Minister to think again. I ask him to reexamine the Government's proposals and to endeavour to return on Report with a provision that will satisfy the views which have been expressed on both sides of the Committee.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: I accept that I have not been present for the entire debate, but the Minister's arguments have been weak. The argument does not rest with holiday homes, and the hon. Member for York (Mr. Gregory) is concerned with university, polytechnic or college vote is substantial. There are many ways in which the present system can be exploited, and they could be adequately and properly dealt with, but I do not accept that the Government should act as a perfect policeman. The onus, as in many other spheres, must be on the citizen. If the individual knows that he is breaking the law, he must accept that he is at risk of being penalised. He must accept the implications of committing an offence.
      If an individual of 18 or 19 years of age is a student at a college or university, it is probable that he will spend 24, 25 or 26 weeks of the year away from the home which he has left. I am speaking of the normal parental home. Having attended college or university, he might well decide that he will not return to the parental home. He might go into temporary accommodation locally in the summer or elsewhere before moving on or back to his original accommodation. If that happens, it is not an abuse if the student decides that the appropriate place of registration is York, if that is his university. He may spend the larger proportion of the year in York.
      I recollect that when I was at college I was spending only two or three weeks at my parents' address each year. That was the family home. I was spending by far the largest proportion of the year at the place where I was at college and during the incidental parts of the year I was elsewhere. The obvious place of registration was my university residence. I retained registration at my parental home because that was the base to which I would
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      presumably return after my university days. That was the only "home" to which I had a right, but it was not the place where I was principally resident.
      In many instances, individuals move during the course of a year. My first opportunity to vote was in the constituency of Merioneth, and during the year in question my family moved. Registration had taken place in the October of the previous year at what was the family home. However, my father followed his job to where the company sent him and my family moved to another property, which is where we were on the 10th, 12th or 14th of the month—I confess that I forget the date. It was proper to say that that was the residence at that time. It was the family residence and it was proper for the family so to register. That meant that there was the right to choose when it came to the 1970 general election. I remember making the decision to drive with my father 150 miles from the place where we had gone to live back to the place where we were registered because the percentage relevance of my vote was considerably higher. I am afraid that it did not swing the result—but it moved it far more than it would have done in Pontypridd, which had a majority of about 20,000. There are many examples of where people, for perfectly proper reasons have a choice.
      11.45 pm
      The Minister's concern is either the expressed concern that the proposal is technically difficult, or the unexpressed concern—a suspicion voiced by the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) — that it is vested interest. If the proposal is technically difficult, why should it be the responsibility of the Government to deal with it in every respect? It is a rule of our electoral system that if someone is a citizen of other than Great Britain, Northern Ireland or certain Commonwealth countries with the right to vote here, he is precluded from voting.
      As the Minister will know, because people do not read forms carefully there are some who register and exercise a vote even though they are not eligible to do so. They may be Italians, Cypriots or Greeks who have been living here for a long time. The result is that there is a defect in the system, policeable only if the electoral registration officer has a suspicion. People who abuse the system can be dealt with properly. The Minister should be concerned, not with catching every offender, but with ensuring that the system puts the onus on the voter to decide, following a clearly laid out test, where he qualifies to vote, in the knowledge of the penalties that he may face if he abuses the system.
      In view of the all-party support that the recommendation has received, the technical arguments are not sufficient to counterweight the arguments of substance. Even though it may be said that in places like York it is not obvious that the Conservative party will be the beneficiary—in some places it indeed has the majority of the student vote, although that always amazes me—nevertheless it must be perceived as being the beneficiary. That appears to be the case in holiday home areas, and it is presumed to be the case in student towns.
      Unless the Minister can adequately respond to the arguments that have been advanced on the technical and electoral bases, this great opportunity for dealing with a major potential for abuse will have been lost, which will be a great failing in the work of this Committee and the Government on what is, in many respects—although we have our criticisms—a good Bill.
      Mr. Barron: I had some sympathy with the Minister when he tried to defend the indefensible—the question of multiple registration in parliamentary elections. He defended the Government's position by falling back on such phrases as "substantial degree of permanence", when he knows that that could be used by people to register in more than one and up to six or more areas. The Minister should agree to reconsider the matter and come forward on Report with something that will provide a fairer way to approach the issue.
      There are no holiday homes in the Rother Valley, although some parts of it are quite beautiful. I have no vested interest, in that I might never be in the position to own a home in Cumbria, south Wales, Devon of Cornwall. Nor does my constituency have a university. Multiple registration is wrong. No hon. Member can say that it has not been abused in the past. It is even more likely to be abused in future, because of other elements in the Bill. The Government should close the loopholes that allow some people to have a wider franchise than others.
      I turn to new clause 2. I think that subsection (2) and (3) somewhat cloud the issue. New clause 20, tabled by the hon. Member for York (Mr. Gregory) and some other Conservative Members, is probably nearer the mark. It says:
      "It shall be an offence to apply to register as a parliamentary elector for more than one constituency in any one year."
      The Government should return to the Committee at a later stage and say exactly that. It should be an offence to register in more than one parliamentary constituency in any one year. People should make their choices before they fill in the forms. To talk about substantial degrees of permanency is ridiculous when we all know that someone could pick up the form that drops through the door and never go near that place of residence—whether or not it is in his name—for another two or three months. In those circumstances, multiple registration should be stopped.
      Mr. Beith: No one, even among the Minister's more enthusiastic supporters, could say that he has won the argument on this issue. Genuine concern has been expressed from hon. Members in all parts of the Committee about what is widely seen as a loophole. The law is not clear—or, if it is, it is clear in a particularly unhelpful way. If electoral registration officers were able scrupulously and effectively to enforce the test of a substantial degree of permanence with regard to all the applications—and we all know how divorced from the real world such a supposition is—it would not solve the problem that most hon. Members have described.
      For example, the classic second home owner has a substantial degree of permanency in his second home. He may go there only for two weeks in the year, but he may have owned it for five or 10 years. There is another category, too, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs). I refer to time sharing. There is certainly a degree of permanence about that, because when someone becomes involved in a time-share contract to purchase occupation, use and residence at a particular property, he does so in perpetuity. He buys a week per year in a property. That is a substantial degree of permanence.
      Various amendments have been tabled. Some try to assess what the principal residence is, while others place an obligation on the elector to choose. I should be satisfied if the elector had to decide, when he went on the register,
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      what his principal residence was. That would be sufficient. It would remove the problem of electors choosing at will. There is so much dissatisfaction about this issue, and the Minister has so much misjudged the Committee, that I feel that the Committee should return to it at a later stage. The consensus that existed in the Select Committee, when all the parties agreed that something should be done about multiple registration, has been seen again tonight.
      We cannot leave the matter here. In view of the Minister's technical criticisms of some of the amendments, and the movement of opinion, perhaps towards an amendment based on the elector choosing which register to be on, I think that the Committee should return to the issue on Report. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New Clause 15

      RIGHT OF A VOLUNTARY PATIENT TO REGISTER
      'In the Principal Act, section 7(4)(d)(iv), leave out "(other than a mental hospital)" and insert the words "or now resides" after "resided".'.—[Mr. Stern.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Stern: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The subject matter of the new clause has been raised in the House on several occasions, the most recent being when we debated the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill on Report on 18 October 1982. The wording, however, dates back to the Speaker's Conference of 1973–74, which recommended on 25 October 1973 that the Representation of the People Act 1949 be amended so that it ceased to exclude
      "registration in respect of residence of patients at mental hospitals … in that all patients in general hospitals … can be so registered … to place patients in mental hospitals on the same footing as those in general hospitals."
      But the difference that I am describing goes back to 1918 and the Representation of the People Act of that year, which provided that
      "those in a lunatic asylum, workhouse, poorhouse or any similar institution should not be treated as resident there for electoral purposes."
      It was the view of the Home Office in 1973 that that provision was based on the concept that a recipient of charity could not be regarded as sufficiently independent to vote.
      The present position dates from 1948. In the Representation of the People Act 1949, the case for excluding registration in respect of residents of mental hospitals was based on the assumption that patients in such hospitals might resent their presence in such hospitals being made public.
      Those arguments seem to have gone by the board, and the principal argument adduced by the Home Office when it came to arguing against the franchise to voluntary patients at the time of the 1973 Speaker's Conference was that mental hospitals drew their patients from a wider catchment area than other hospitals and that the result of a poll could be materially affected by patients not otherwise identified with the locality.
      That argument was used by the Minister in the debate in 1982 to which I referred, when he said:
      "Many psychiatric hospitals are of a considerable size—a thousand beds and more. If patients were given the right to vote in the area where the hospital is situated, this could lead to a

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      sudden large increase in the electorate in that area. This is naturally viewed with apprehension by local communities. Mental patients will inevitably be to some extent isolated from day-to-day life. We cannot expect them to take a full part in local affairs. Yet the votes of a thousand or so patients could exercise a disproportionate influence, particularly at local elections. The right to cast them could cause resentment in a field where all want to see fears broken down and not exacerbated." — [Official Report, 18 October 1982; Vol. 29, c. 178.]
      That argument—which can be summed up by the word "swamping"; the fear that the votes from a mental hospital would be of undue significance in terms of a local or general election—has been proved to be unnecessary on two grounds.
      It was argued by the Minister in 1982 that the registration of mental patients in the hospitals in which they lived would be inappropriate because they could not play a full part in local affairs. I shall deal with that argument later.
      The Minister argued also that mental patients would swamp the electorate in the area in which the mental hospital was situated. Since the 1982 Act, the reverse has occurred. I am indebted to two officials of MIND, David Brandon and William Bingley, for research not in my area of the south-west—that has proved too difficult—but in the north-west. They have monitored the effect of the changes in the 1982 Act which were designed to make it easier for voluntary patients to register to vote. By 1984, when the Act was well known and fully effective, of a total of 4,881 voluntary patients in 11 hospitals in the north-west 251 patients had registered to vote under provisions which were designed, according to the Minister, to give voluntary patients a greatly increased opportunity to vote.
      12 midnight
      It could he argued that the low rate of registration was caused by the fact that the majority of patients in those hospitals were incapable of voting under the voting test established in the 1982 Act. On looking at the most capable patients—called the Wessex category 1 patients — who are most likely to be going out into the community under the policy of care in the community one finds that, of a total of 614 such patients in the north-west, only 170 had registered to vote.
      It is clear that swamping, the ability of potential voters in a mental hospital to control the local electorate, is not happening and was never going to happen, because the number of people from a mental hospital who vote is tiny in proportion to the total population of that hospital. It is clear also that there are other obstacles to a capable person who is a voluntary patient registering to vote. Two obstacles are placed in the way of a long-term, long-stay voluntary patient before he can exercise his vote. The first is the voting test which was set up by the Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1982. I do not propose in this new clause any change in the voting test, despite the fact that the principle of a voting test is abhorrent to many people. The 1982 voting test was a new provision which has not yet been given sufficient time to ascertain how it operates.
      The second obstacle is residence. The Government's intention, as set out in the debate on the 1982 legislation, was clear. It is equally clear that what the Government intended has not happened. The Government said:
      "The declaration will specify the address outside the hospital at which the patient is to be registered as an elector. Normally this would be the patient's home address, the address of his family, but patients who have no home address will be able to declare an address at which they were resident before admission or, if necessary, they will be able to declare the address to which
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      they expect to be discharged … We have deliberately drawn the provision widely enough to ensure that no voluntary patient will be deprived of a vote because he cannot supply an address."—[Official Report, 18 October 1982; Vol. 29, c. 179.]
      With the greatest respect to the then Minister, subsequent events have proved that that provision was not drawn nearly widely enough. The figures that I have just quoted make it clear that it is the residence provision—the fiction that a hospital in which someone has lived for 30 or 40 years is not his residence—that prevents a considerable number of people from registering to vote.
      Residence is a fact. In the debate on new clause 2, the Minister said—I was not asleep throughout the whole debate—that residence implies a substantial degree of permanence. Is residence in a hospital for 30 or 40 years not permanent enough for him?
      In our electoral legislation, we rightly tie representation to residence. In this one area, we untie the link. One class of potential voters are not entitled to vote where they reside. We create the fiction that there is somewhere else where they should be entitled to vote, if they choose to take up the option to do so.
      I recently held surgeries or advice centres in the two hospitals for the mentally handicapped in my constituency. Not surprisingly, I found that the voluntary patients were bringing to me perfectly normal problems. Their problems were such as we hear about in our surgeries every day—problems about local transport and worries about what they read in the newspapers and about local employment opportunities. But half way through the surgery, it suddenly occurred to me that I was probably breaking every parliamentary rule that exists because, if the people talking to me had registered to vote, they were undoubtedly the constituents of any hon. Member other than myself.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: The hon. Gentleman is not breaking a parliamentary rule. He is breaking a parliamentary custom. There is a difference.
      Mr. Stern: I am delighted to accept that correction, but some of us do not even like to break parliamentary customs.
      Some of those people might only be entitled to register to vote in a constituency perhaps 300 miles away where they might have lived 30 or 40 years earlier. They could not take any of their problems to their hon. Member or to their theoretical local council.
      As I have said, the then Minister said of such patients in the 1982 debate that
      "We cannot expect them to take a full part in local affairs."—[Official Report, 18 October 1982; Vol. 29, c. 178.]
      Perhaps that is not surprising when they have no opportunity to play their part. [Interruption.] When they wish to make known their opinions about local transport services, whether public or private, it is to the local Member of Parliament that they should be able to turn. When they want to express an opinion about social services in the hospital or to bring pressure to bear on local training centre provision, it is their local Member of Parliament on whom they will wish to rely. They will want to rely on their local Member of Parliament for these and other grievances.
      There is another, specific anomaly. According to the 1973 Speaker's Conference:
      "the disqualification rests on the actual residence, if they have a home address outside the hospital. If I go for a long stay into a normal hospital and I have a private address, then I can vote

      601
      by virtue of having a private address. If my home has to be sold up and I am in this hospital I can then give the hospital address as my address, and this will be accepted for voting purposes. If I go into a mental hospital and I have a home address, I can still vote by virtue of having a home address. If my home is sold up I can not then give the hospital as my address for voting purposes."
      As long as that remains the case, discrimination against voluntary and long-stay patients in mental hospitals will remain an issue.
      This is genuine discrimination against people who are entitled to vote as anyone else but who are asked to jump over special hurdles to be able to exercise their vote. They are a small number of people who can already be forced to pass the voting test and who have often been in hospital long enough genuinely to be able to claim that it is their residence. Under existing legislation, however, they are denied the vote. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to think again and to accept new clause 15.
      Mr. Mellor: My hon. Friend has made an interesting speech on a matter about which I know he feels strongly. I shall try to reply in the same spirit. The present arrangements by which voluntary patients at mental hospitals are permitted to register as electors and vote were introduced by the Mental Health (Amendment) Act 1982. That was a substantial step forward, which we might have hoped would settle the matter for some time.
      My hon. Friend will know from his careful research—he was not an hon. Member at that time—that the Standing Committee on the Bill introduced a provision, against Government advice, allowing such patients to be included in the register for their hospital address in the usual way. When the matter came back to the House, there was substantial objection to that proposal, but the spirit of the Committee's proposal was accepted by giving voluntary mental hospital patients the right to register as electors, but only in respect of an address other than the hospital. That is how the matter was left in the Representation of the People Act 1983.
      I do not know whether the reason why so few people have registered has to do with the qualifications for registration and the tests that have been set, or with the qualifying address. I am not persuaded that it has anything to do with the qualifying address, because servicemen register on the same basis. Some of them may have been away for some time from the address at which they notionally register. My hon. Friend may tell the organisations which are pressing the issue and which are in contact with him that I am doubtful whether the spirit of the Committee is with him in seeking to reopen matters that after exhaustive consideration were resolved as recently as 1982. Although he is fully entitled to put down a marker, as he has done, I am not sure that there is significant support for the proposed change. Although I understand the sincerity of his views, I am afraid that I must advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to resist the new clause.
      12.15 am
      Mr. Stern: I remind my right hon. Friend the Minister that the recommendation by the Speaker's Conference in 1973 of this change was unanimous. Therefore, I hope that he does not believe that the debate in 1982, which was admitted to have resulted in a compromise, has settled the
      602
      issue for all time I expect that it will be raised again and again until what I see as an injustice is corrected. In view of my hon. Friend's comments and what he says about an apparent lack of support in the Committee, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

    New Clause 19

      ADDRESSES OF PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES NOT TO BE REQUIRED
      'In Schedule 1 to the principal Act, in paragraph 6 (nomination of candidates) the words "home address in full" shall be omitted, and the form of nomination paper set out in the Appendix to the Schedule shall be amended accordingly.'.—[Mr. Gregory.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Gregory: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      New clause 19 suggests that a parliamentary candidate should not put his private address on the ballot paper. The reason behind it is security. In former days, parliamentary candidates at the hustings participated fully and people knew where candidates came from and their addresses. Nowadays, we have international espionage, international warfare, anti-vivisection lobbies and a variety of areas in which candidates are subject not simply to verbal abuse, but to physical harm. Therefore, if my hon. Friend the Minister can give a good reason why the address should be retained on the ballot paper, I shall be happy to withdraw the new clause. However, at present, I cannot see why 22c Acacia avenue, followed by the postal address, needs to be on the ballot paper.
      If one wishes to show the principal conurbation where a candidate resides, it can be given on his manifesto, and if it is absolutely necessary for it to be on the ballot paper I would be happy to modify the new clause, perhaps on Report, to show the town or city. I see no good reason why genuine parliamentary candidates should be open to abuse and threats to their safety and security by giving their full private address.
      Mr. Barron: What evidence can the hon. Gentleman give the Committee of acts of violence to parliamentary candidates? It was certainly not offered to me. Does he think that people in Rother Valley may have been influenced by where the three candidates lived? I have lived there for nearly 30 years, another lived in Reading and the third in London. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that might have influenced voters? In those circumstances, his clause might influence people's minds.
      Mr. Gregory: The hon. Gentleman has fallen into the trap that I suggested. If he feels that it is material to show from where a candidate comes and the fact that he has been in the Rother Valley for 30 years, that can legitimately be shown in the manifesto. The candidate could put his private address in also, and some candidates do. The town, city or principal place of residence could be put on the ballot paper. A candidate's private address should not be put on the ballot paper. He is then open to the most invidious physical abuse and other difficulties such as we have seen in Northern Ireland. My hon. Friend the Minister is aware of the problems because of his keen interest in the welfare of animals.
      We have international terrorism. Rother Valley may not yet have succumbed to it. I hope that the hon. Member

      603
      aspires to higher office when terrorists may take a greater interest in him. I belive that the House has a duty to look after genuine parliamentary candidates.
      I hope that the spirit of the new clause will be accepted by my hon. Friend and the House. It does not stop anyone from putting his full address on the manifesto or the town or city on the ballot paper.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is it not clear that some candidates cannot afford to distribute an election address and yet they may wish to tell the electorate that they live locally? How will their problem be resolved?
      Mr. Gregory: Their problem can be easily resolved. The number of words allowed on the ballot paper as part of a supporting explanation would permit the candidate to show that he was a local resident. The hon. Gentleman has not raised a genuine difficulty.
      Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Is not that a most undemocratic idea? My hon. Friend would be shutting off the aspiring Member from his constituency. He might as well say that all Members of Parliament should go ex-directory. He is denying constituents the chance of getting hold of their Member of Parliament when they may need him.
      Mr. Gregory: I am amazed that my hon. Friend should put that above the personal safety of genuine parliamentary candidates.
      Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: We are not cowards.
      Mr. Gregory: I am not so discourteous as to suggest that my hon. Friend has had no experience of international terrorism. If she had an iota of an idea, she would not subject people to that form of abuse and blackmail. I hope that she never is. A number of hon. Members have been subject to it. If she brings her private transport into the Mother of Parliaments, she will be aware of the checks to which we are subjected. I hope that safety will not be disregarded, and that my hon. Friend the Minister will accept the new clause.
      Mr. Kaufman: The hon. Member for York (Mr. Gregory) raises the terrible spectre of international terrorism swooping down on the Monster Raving Loony candidate for any by-election. I have heard a great deal of piffle spoken in my life, but the hon. Gentleman's argument is as nonsensical as any that I have ever heard.
      Who does the hon. Gentleman think he is that terrorists want him? He has taken his own precautions. My hon. Friends, on my behalf, have checked all available reference books — "Vacher's", "Dods" and "Who's Who"—and he has concealed his address all right. They will not get him unless they come to the House of Commons which he identifies as his address, unlike the Under-Secretary who properly lists his address where anyone — animal lib—[Interruption.] Well, he gets a free paint job on his house in that way. The Opposition are completely opposed to the new clause. Electors have the right to know the address of the candidate who is putting himself or herself before them. It is as simple as that. Candidates for the House of Commons are not separated from the people by candidature, let alone by election. We are part of the common people. We are not different or special. We ought not to expect any extra protection, safeguard or security that is not available to any other member of the population. The moment elected representatives or people seeking election regard themselves as superior, separate, part of an elite or a target
      604
      then, if they do not want it, they have a good solution—do not stand for Parliament. Therefore, I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will kick this one right out.
      Mr. Alex Carlile: Anyone who stands for election to the House of Commons knows that he is taking risks on his own behalf and on behalf of his family. Anyone who does not want to take the risk does not have to stand for Parliament.
      The hon. Member for York (Mr. Gregor)) fondly imagines that those who are determined to injure him will not find him just because his address is not in the telephone book or in Who's Who. What a lot of nonsense that is. Those who are determined to perpetrate acts of terrorism, to injure or to damage on political grounds will seek out their victims. The chances are that they will find them. We take that risk voluntarily.
      In the aftermath of the dreadful Brighton bombing last year we heard one of the few moments of agreement in the House when there was a fine exchange between the Prime Minister and the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). During that exchange I thought that hon. Members on all sides accepted that the process of democracy should continue unabated and unaffected by the acts perpetrated by terrorists and that we must not be cowed into any form of fear or submission because of those acts.
      I understand and respect the motives behind the new clause. I do not share the views of those who suggest that it is simply a way of concealing the fact that candidates have come from far away to stand for election. That will come out in any event during the campaign if the local newspapers are reasonably responsible.
      We must surely maintain the spirit of the exchange shortly after the Brighton bombing, by resisting the new clause with as great a majority as we can muster.
      Mr. Mellor: I was genuinely interested to hear what the Committee thought of the new clause. I think that a message has come across to me. We need to recognise that there is a real issue involved. When the Select Committee dealt with this matter, it recommended that we should reconsider the requirement that the candidate's home address should be printed on the ballot paper.
      In regard to the 1979 general election the Select Committee said in its report:
      "a good deal of concern was expressed both by the police and the political parties about the security of candidates, and the Conservative Party witness told us that some candidates were most unhappy at having to disclose their private addresses. In view of the recent incidence of terrorism, we consider that the publication of a candidate's home address could lay him open to an unnecessary degree of danger, and we do not believe that its appearance on the ballot paper carries any great significance for voters".
      In fact, that was one of the recommendations that we did not accept. We concluded that, because the candidate's address is also given on the nomination paper and the published statement of persons nominated, little would be achieved by removing it from the ballot paper. That probably remains the right view, although I have great respect for what my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Gregory) said. If scope had been given by the response of the Committee, I would have been prepared to take the matter further.
      Mr. Alex Carlile rose—
      Mr. Mellor: I do not rule out that it might be possible at some stage to examine the matter again. [HON.

      605
      MEMBERS: "No."] I am saying that the Government's position is as set out in the White Paper. We concluded that we should not accept the recommendation of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, but I do not think that, because the hour is late, we should underestimate the legitimate concern that people have in this day and age about their address being made known. I do not think that the address on the ballot paper is a matter of such fundamental substance that it is not open to reconsideration. That is why I say to my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Gregory) that if he withdraws the new clause it might be possible to look at the matter again in future.
      12.30 am
      Mr. Alex Carlile rose—
      Mr. Mellor: Of course I shall give way to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
      Mr. Carlile: I only wanted to ask the Minister this question. Does he agree that if a terrorist wants to find out the address of a candidate, the ballot paper is the least likely place to find it because, in order to see the address on the ballot paper, he must be able to vote in the constituency in any event?
      Mr. Mellor: I said politely, in deference to the Select Committee and others, that I thought there was an issue that might not be concluded tonight. The hon. and learned Gentleman should not assume that because I said that I had swung four square round to strongly advocating the position that we had demolished in our own White Paper with as much elegance as the hon. and learned Gentleman did in his speech. The ballot paper is not the most likely place that the terrorist would look for the address. That is not to say that if candidates legitimately feel that they do not want their address disclosed we should not give some thought to whether we should make this a requirement in the new clause. Whether or not it is the most likely place for terrorists to look, there is still the issue whether having the address on the ballot paper serves any particular purpose. It may be said that it shows that the candidate lives in the constituency, but he would normally have his election address in the constituency.
      The Government stand by what we said in the White Paper, and it coincides with what the hon. and learned Gentleman wants us to say. I shall leave the matter there.
      Mr. Gregory: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend the Minister said. I am saddened by the mock bravado of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). He is out of touch with his hon. Friends, because I have been in touch with quite a few of them and I know that they are sympathetic. Furthermore, I hope that he will never have any wish to regret the rather harsh words that he used.
      Nevertheless, I fully accept the point made by my hon. Friend. I hope that he will consider the new clause in the next few days as we prepare for Report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Hon. Members: No.
      Question put and negatived.

    New Clause 25

      PARLIAMENTARY ELECTORS TO BE BRITISH CITIZENS
      'In section 1(1)(b)(ii) of the principal Act, leave out from "is" to end and insert the words "a British citizen".'. — [Mr. Stanbrook.]
      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The Second Deputy Chairman: With this it will be convenient to take new clause 26—Local government electors to be British citizens:
      'In section 2(1)(b)(ii) of the principal Act, leave out from "is" to end and insert the words "a British citizen".'.
      Mr. Stanbrook: I recognise that this matter—the definition of the electorate, and elegibility to vote in this country—has been studied by the Government in the light of the Select Committee's report, but the Committee should consider it because we do not often have an opportunity to deal with matters concerning the electorate and voting rights in this country, and another opportunity may not come for some time.
      The question deserves consideration by the House of Commons because, if asked, a majority of the British people would not agree with what the Government have decided. I feel certain that, if there were a poll of British citizens, they would overwhelmingly reject the present law. In simple terms, what is at issue is whether the citizens of foreign countries, not being British citizens, who happen to be living here should be entitled to vote in British elections. Most people do not even know that this is the present law, but in fact British citizens are not entitled to vote in this country because they are British citizens.
      Those who are qualified to vote are defined in section 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983 as Commonwealth citizens—citizens of every state in the Commonwealth, independent, including the United Kingdom, as well as colonies — a definition which embraces some 1,000 million people around the world, plus citizens of the Irish Republic. British citizens as such are not mentioned in our electoral law. The electoral registration form requires that a householder shall declare that the people on it are Commonwealth citizens or citizens of the Irish Republic. It must be puzzling to the average British citizen that he is not mentioned as such.
      Why on earth do we perpetuate that old-fashioned outdated, eccentric, romantic, extravagant anomaly? Why do we persist in living in the past? The anomaly is the result of a wet, sloppy sentimentalism about the old empire which sits uneasily upon a reforming Conservative Administration.
      In the days when the British monarch ruled over a quarter of the globe—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—everyone born within the British empire was a British subject and owed allegiance to the British crown. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] There were no problems about jurisdiction or voting and the King's writ ran over the whole empire. Any British subject could come and live in the United Kingdom and if he were here on 10 October in any one year he could vote in ensuing elections during the forthcoming year. I hope that hon. Members will not applaud too loudly; they may miss some of the wisdom on which I am about to embark.

      607
      The change that has come over the scene is fundamental.
      Mr. Bermingham rose—
      Mr. Stanbrook: We must not waste time, and I am sure that time would be wasted if the hon. Gentleman were to intervene.
      The change that has come over the electoral legal scene in Britain is fundamental. Almost all the countries of the Commonwealth are now independent states, indistinguishable in law from foreign states. Their citizens owe no loyalty to this country or to our Queen.
      More ironic is what has happened to the people who live in the Republic of Ireland. They have shown many times over the past few centuries that they want to be independent of Britain. They reject the attempts of successive British Governments to make them, or treat them as being, British in any way. They rejected the idea that they were still part of the Commonwealth. They are not part of the Commonwealth. Yet successive British Governments have sought to foist a British connection on them.
      Even as late as 1960 a British Government made an extradition treaty with West Germany which exempted from its provisions the nationals of each party and citizens of the Irish Republic. Could anything be more absurd?
      Those citizens of the Irish Republic who live in the United Kingdom, like citizens of Commonwealth countries living here, obtain British citizenship on preferential terms, usually by the mere act of registration. Would it then be an act of injustice to remove from the register those who refused to take advantage of that facility? Of course it would not. On the contrary, it is a great injustice at present to the people of this country who are British citizens and give Britain their loyalty to allow certain foreigners who owe no loyalty to Britain to help choose our Government. We do not allow the same right to good, like-minded friends like the French or the Germans living in our midst. Why should we give it, then, to the Indians, the Nigerians and the Republican Irish?
      I beg the Government, even at this late stage, to stop this nonsense and to say that the electoral register is for British citizens and British citizens alone.
      Mr. Bermingham: I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) and sought to intervene for a very personal and particular reason. I happen to be Irish. What the hon. Gentleman has said tonight will cause grave offence to many hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens.
      Mr. Stanbrook: Rubbish.
      Mr. Bermingham: The hon. Gentleman says "Rubbish". Let him look at the facts. Throughout the northern part of this land of ours there are hundreds of thousands of people who were either born prior to 1916 in Ireland, or in the period 1922 to 1948 when Ireland was part of the British Empire, or who may well be the sons or daughters of people born in those periods, or may have been born post-1948, some of whom were born in the United Kingdom, and who, because of their Irish parentage, find themselves in the interesting position where they are either British citizens or, if born before 1948 and have lived all their lives in the United Kingdom, found themselves suddenly not British citizens any more but British subjects, who, of course, this new clause would exempt.
      608
      It is all right the hon. Gentleman taking that attitude, but in this land there are many millions of us who pay taxes. I am now a British citizen because I paid £70 to become one. I understand that the figure has now been reduced. [Interruption.] I listen to what the hon. Gentleman with his castles in Crawley has to say, and I take as much notice as is normal.
      I say to the hon. Member for Orpington that time after time this crack is made at the Irish as if we were second class citizens of the world who have no rights. Yet many of us and many of our families have for centuries fought for this land and we are as loyal as any other citizen in this land to this land. And that is the way it will continue.
      Mr. Forth: In the course of making his remarks, will the hon. Member address himself to the possibility that if individuals feel they owe loyalty to the United Kingdom they might seek citizenship of the United Kingdom in order to exercise both the full rights and privileges and the loyalty that he has just mentioned?
      Mr. Bermingham: I thought loyalty came with oaths, not with the payment of money. Many of my family and many of the Irish in this land fought in the British Army and the Navy in the wars. We are the children of those who fought. They took an oath of loyalty. Their children were brought up in this country. When one enters certain professions and jobs, one sometimes takes an oath of loyalty. No one has ever questioned our loyalty to this land, and no one has ever questioned the loyalty of many hundreds of thousands of people to this land—loyalty which the clause seeks to deny.
      The point that I make is a very simple one. If we reach a time when those of us who have lived all our lives effectively in this country are called upon to pay a sum of money for the right to vote in a land to which we have always been loyal, it says nothing for this land.
      I am sure that the Government have got it right on this occasion, where they have continued to support the rights of the resident indigenous Irish in this land and of other Commonwealth citizens who take exactly the same stand, who come to this country, work in this country, pay their taxes and are immensely loyal to this country. It would be an insult suddenly to tell all those people that if they do not pay £70 here on £110 there they will not have the vote because they are second class citizens.
      12.45 am
      I sincerely hope that the House will not go down that path, because if it did it would do a grave disservice to community harmony in this land. People will begin to think that there are two classes of citizen. That has never been the case. I hope that the hon. Member for Orpington will seek leave to withdraw the new clause.
      Mr. William Powell: The hour is late and I do not propose to make a long speech. I am certain that the principle that my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) has sought to advance is a sound one. The right to vote in this country should reside in citizens of Great Britain who are registered to vote.
      Mr. William Ross: What about Northern Ireland?
      Mr. Powell: I shall not go into the arguments again, but if my hon. Friend is minded to press the matter to a Division I encourage him to do so and I will support him in the Lobby.
      Mr. Dubs: The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) said that there were very few opportunities for the House to discuss this matter. In fact, he took full advantage of the many opportunities to discuss it in the debates in Committee and on the Floor of the House on the British Nationality Bill and the House rejected his arguments. The Select Committee also unanimously rejected the argument that he has put forward.
      If by some mischance the hon. Gentleman's proposal became law electoral registration officers would be in a very difficult situation. They would have to go through the voting lists and get rid of several hundred thousand people of Irish origin and more than a million people of Commonwealth origin who would not longer be eligible to vote. Few things could be more damaging to the position of Irish and Commonwealth people in this country than the hon. Gentleman's proposal.
      Mr. Winnick: The attitude of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) is very much in line with the comments of the Minister of State, Department of Employment, about Bongo Bongo land. It shows the same kind of racialism, which runs pretty deep in the Conservative party.
      Mr. Stanbrook: The hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Dubs) referred to the difficulties of registration officers in deciding whether a person was entitled to vote as a British citizen, but there would be no more difficulty than there is now when the form states that the person concerned may be a Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Irish Republic. Indeed, that entitlement is so vague and so badly understood by the average Briton that it is even more difficult for the registration officer to know who is entitled to vote. The result is that the registration officer does not make inquiries and provided that the householder has signed the form apparently in good faith the names are registered. That would even apply to aliens at present. There would be no extra difficulty if the form stated that the persons registered must be British citizens.
      Mr. Dubs: I cannot possibly agree with that argument. There would be a great deal of difficulty if we had to devise a method whereby people of Irish origin had to identify themselves or be identified and to distinguish between those born here and those not born here so as to discover whether they were of British or Irish citizenship. It is no use the hon. Member for Orpington shaking his head. He knows perfectly well that until the British Nationality Act came along children born here to parents of Irish origin became British. There has been no attempt to date to distinguish between those of Irish origin who are now British and those who are not. Even if we could overcome the administrative procedures that have been put before us—it is said that they are simple, but I find them rather complicated—we would be faced with the invidious task of telling those who have had rights in this country for many years that they are to be taken away from them. That task would be all the more invidious as the Conservative Government made the solemn commitment during the passage of the British Nationality Bill that the existing rights of those already here would not be tampered with following the Bill's enactment. Is it being suggested that the Government should renege on that commitment? We would be following a sorry path if the Government
      610
      sought to breach a commitment which was made so solemnly in response to questions from both sides of the House of Commons.
      Mr. Stanbrook: Does the hon. Gentleman know of any other country which grants the right to vote in its elections to foreigners resident within?
      Mr. Dubs: There are many features of Britain which are unique and I am happy about many of them. If other countries do things differently, we should not decide to copy them automatically. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would not subscribe to the argument that he has just advanced, because he takes pride in the fact that there are features of the United Kingdom which are unique. He is employing a bogus argument which is not worthy of him.
      If the provision in question were to become law, those from Ireland and the Commonwealth would see it as an affront. The Irish Government are in the process of providing reciprocal arrangements so that British people living in the Republic will have the right to vote. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) has questioned the loyalty of Commonwealth citizens to Britain. There is a problem for many of them because they want to become British citizens but find that wish difficult to realise because of Home Office difficulties that I do not wish to dwell upon now. For the hon. Gentleman to say that Commonwealth people have no loyalty to Britain —many of them are living and settled here—is casting an unpleasant aspersion on those who in many instances have thrown in their lot with this country. Some of them served in the British forces irrespective of whether they were of Irish or Commonwealth origin. The hon. Gentleman makes an unpleasant insinuation when he suggests that they are not behaving as loyal citizens.
      We would be following a dangerous path if we followed the proposal that is urged upon us. It would be damaging to community relationships and I am confident that the Committee will say that it will have none of it.
      Mr. Mellor: The voting rights of Irish and Commonwealth citizens were considered by the Select Committee; and the Committee recommended unanimously that civic rights arising out of the status established by the British Nationality Act 1948 and the Ireland Act 1949 should not be disturbed. The Government agree with the Select Committee on that point and nothing that has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) has caused me to reconsider the wisdom of the Government's position. I hope that my hon. Friend will not press the new clause to a Division. If he does, I shall advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to vote against the motion.
      Mr. Stanbrook: I intend to press the new clause to a Division.
      Question put, That the clause be read a Second time:—
      The Committee divided: Ayes 18, Noes 100.

      Division No. 107]

      [12.53 am

      AYES

      Beggs, Roy

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

      Nicholson, J.

      Forsythe, Clifford (S Antrim)

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Gregory, Conal

      Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

      Ground, Patrick

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      611

      Taylor, R Hon John David

      Walker, Cecil (Belfast N)

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      William Ross and

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Mr. K. Harvey.

      NOES

      Ancram, Michael

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Barron, Kevin

      Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

      Beith, A. J.

      Lord, Michael

      Bermingham, Gerald

      McCurley, Mrs Anna

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Maclean, David John

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Major, John

      Butcher, John

      Malins, Humfrey

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Mather, Carol

      Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Cash, William

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Meadowcroft, Michael

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Mellor, David

      Coombs, Simon

      Merchant, Piers

      Cope, John

      Mills, Iain (Meriden)

      Corbett, Robin

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Couchman, James

      Needham, Richard

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Nellist, David

      Dewar, Donald

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Dubs, Alfred

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Durant, Tony

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Fallon, Michael

      Penhaligon, David

      Favell, Anthony

      Powley, John

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Raffan, Keith

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Freeman, Roger

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Galley, Roy

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

      Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Stern, Michael

      Hancock, Mr. Michael

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

      Hargreaves, Kenneth

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Harris, David

      Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

      Harvey, Robert

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Sumberg, David

      Hayes, J.

      Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

      Hayward, Robert

      Thurnham, Peter

      Hind, Kenneth

      Tracey, Richard

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Holt, Richard

      Walden, George

      Home Robertson, John

      Ward, John

      Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Hughes, Simon (Southward)

      Watts, John

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Wheeler, John

      Hunter, Andrew

      Winnick, David

      Jones, Robert (W Herts)

      Wolfson, Mark

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Wood, Timothy

      Key, Robert

      Yeo, Tim

      King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

      Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Knowles, Michael

      Mr. Michael Neubert and

      Lang, Ian

      Mr. Tim Sainsbury.

      Question accordingly negatived.

    New Clause 28

      COMPULSORY VOTING
      '(1) It shall be the duty of every elector to record his vote at each parliamentary election.

      (2) It shall be the duty of each returning officer at the close of each election to prepare a list of the names and descriptions of the electors enrolled for his constituency who have not voted at the election, and to certify the list by statutory declaration under his hand.

      (3) The list so certified shall in all proceedings be prima facie evidence of the contents thereof and of the fact that the electors whose name appear therein did not vote at the election.

      (4) Within the prescribed period after the close of each election the returning officer shall send by post to each elector whose name appears on the list prepared in accordance with subsections (1) and (2) of this section, at the address mentioned
      612
      in that list, a notice in the prescribed form, notifying the elector that he appears to have failed to vote at the election, and calling upon him to give a valid truthful and sufficient reason why he failed so to vote.

      Provided that the return officer need not send a notification in any case where he is satisfied that the elector—

      (a) is dead; or

      (b) was absent from the United Kingdom on polling day; Or

      (c) is known to the returning officer to have been ineligible to vote at the election

      (5) Before sending any such notice, the returning officer shall insert therein a date, not being less than twenty-one days after the date of posting of the notice, on which the form attached to the notice, duly filled up and signed by the elector, is to be in the hands of the returning officer.

      (6) Every elector to whom a notice under this section has been sent shall fill up the form at the foot of the notice by stating on it the true reason why he failed so to vote, sign the form, and post it so as to reach the returning officer not later than the date inserted in the notice.

      (7) If any elector is unable, by reason of absence from his place of living or physical incapacity, to fill up, sign, and post the form, within the time allowed under subsection (5) of this section, any other elector who has personal knowledge of the facts may, subject to the regulations, fill up, sign and post the form, duly witnessed, within that time, and the filling up, signing, and posting of the form may be treated as compliance by the first-mentioned elector with the provision of subsection (6) of this section.

      (8) Upon receipt of a form referred to on either of the last two preceeding subsections, the returning officer shall endorse on the list prepared in accordance with subsection (2) of this section, opposite the name of the elector, his opinion whether or not the reason contained in the form is a valid and sufficient reason for the failure of the elector to vote.

      (9) The returning officer shall endorse on the list, opposite the name of each elector to whom a notice under this section has been sent and from or on behalf of whom a form properly filled up, signed and witnessed has not been received by him, a note to that effect.

      (10) The list prepared and endorsed by the returning officer, indicating—

      (a) the names of the electors who did not vote at the election;

      (b) the names of the electors from whom or on whose behalf the returning officer received, within the time allowed under subsection (5) of this section, forms properly filled up and signed; and

      (c) the names of the electors who failed to reply within that time, and any extract therefrom, certified by the returning officer under his hand,

      shall in all proceedings be prima facie evidence of the contents of such a list or extract, and of the fact that the electors whose names appear therein did not vote at the election, and that the notice specified in subsection (4) of this section was received by those electors, and that those electors did, or did not (as the case may be), comply with the requisitions contained in the notice within the time allowed under subsection (5) of this section.

      (11) Every elector who—

      (a) fails to vote at an election without a valid and sufficient reason for such failure; or

      (b) on receipt of a notice in accordance with subsection (4) of this section, fails to fill up, sign and post within the time allowed under subsection (5) of this section the form (duly witnessed) which is attached to the notice; or

      (c) states in such form a false reason for not having voted, or, in the case of an elector filling up or purporting to fill up a form on behalf of any other elector, in pursuance of subsection (7) of this section states in such form a false reason why that other elector did not vote,

      shall be guilty of an offence for which the penalty shall be a fine of not less than £5 and not more than £50.

      (12) Proceedings for an offence against this section shall not be instituted except by the Chief Electoral Returning Officer or an officer thereto authorised in writing by the Chief Electoral Returning Officer.—[Mr. Barron.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Barron: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      I have tabled the new clause to test the feeling of the Committee on the question of compulsory voting, though in view of the empty Benches and the lateness of the hour I do not think that I would carry opinion with me if I were to press the matter to a Division. However, I feel it important that the Committee has the opportunity to debate the issue.
      The small turn-out at some elections is viewed with dismay, and while my new clause deals with parliamentary elections, I should like to see the concept applied both to central and local government elections. It seems ludicrous that councillors should be elected to office on the basis of only 12 or 15 per cent. of the electorate bothering to vote.
      I have no doubt that from time to time hon. Members have considered the idea of compulsory voting. In a democratic society people have the right to vote; and, being sovereign, they also have the right not to vote. Our form of parliamentary democracy is based on that concept. There could be dangers inherent in that system, however, for if people did not feel the need to vote and turned out in extremely small numbers, we could find ourselves with a Government who were totally unrepresentative of the public at large. In other words, the Government could be elected more by apathy than by the voting determination of the people.
      Of course, in a democratic society the state itself is sovereign. That is all the more reason why machinery is needed to ensure that people participate in the organs of government. We must, therefore, balance the two—the need to maintain free elections but to ensure that people participate by voting at elections.
      Several Hon. Members rose—
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. The Under-Secretary of State is endeavouring to prevent an hon. Member from intervening.
      The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): A number of hon. Members are trying to tempt other hon. Members on all kinds of things. We should continue with the debate on the new clause.
      Mr. Jerry Hayes: Does the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) accept that the right not to vote must be as sacrosanct as the right to vote? Is it not unusual for a sponsored Member to propose this measure when the NUM is not terribly keen on ballots?
      Mr. Barron: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. Perhaps the Conservative party is not keen about electing chairmen. I thought that we were trying to discuss in detail the content of new clause 28. If hon. Members want to digress into a discussion on the mining industry or the absence of a ballot in the NUM, I would be prepared to discuss such matters with them.
      People feel that compulsory voting is incompatible with free elections. I believe that it is logical to have compulsory voting while there is a free choice on how to cast one's vote. The individual must have the right to stand for election in a democracy. Some hon. Members might disagree, but I do not believe that there is anything wrong with that, given that people are casting their vote in an acceptable and democratic way and given that people are free to stand for election.
      The only time it is wrong to have compulsory voting is when something prevents people from standing for
      614
      election. We should approach this issue in that light rather than see it as a matter of people being forced into a ballot booth to vote. Perhaps Conservative Members will put their views on that point later.
      The provisions in the new clause are based primarily on what happens in Australia where there has been compulsory voting for a long time. I do not believe that any one would say that there is great opposition in Australia to compulsory voting. We are not talking about a country which people view badly. The turnout in general elections in Australia is about 96 per cent. [Interruption.]
      Mr. Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Armstrong. It is becoming increasingly difficult to listen to my hon. Friend with meetings, sub-meetings and conversations on the Conservative Benches. My hon. Friend is making an important point.
      Hon. Members: Look at the Opposition Front Bench.
      The First Deputy Chairman: Order. I deplore the number of sedentary interventions.
      Mr. Barron: The provisions are based on what happens in Australia, which is a part of the Commonwealth. All hon. Members should recognise that we can learn from what happens in different parts of the Commonwealth, even though sometimes Conservatives give the impression that we cannot. Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of the Indian Congress party, was once asked what he thought of western civilisation. He said that it would be a good idea. When I consider how the civilised part of the globe conducts its affairs, I think that he was quite right. We have much to learn from different parts of the Commonwealth and from its leaders.
      We should believe in the system as it operates in Australia. Individually — I have never discussed the matter with my party — I believe that in any circumstances it is better that more people should vote than fewer. I therefore do not object to compulsory voting.
      1.15 am
      Mr. Stanbrook: How would the hon. Gentleman cope with those who wished to abstain on an issue? Abstaining can be a positive act. It is a perfectly honourable thing to do and is often done in this place.
      Mr. Barron: The hon. Gentleman should look at new clause 28 and elsewhere. In Australia, since the introduction of compulsory voting, there have naturally been more spoilt ballot papers. Simply by the law of averages, more voting would mean more spoilt ballot papers. One could make provision for abstention to be registered on the ballot paper, but even if there were such provision, someone might decide not to vote at all as a matter of principle. One would then have to consider the penalties that might be incurred for not voting as required by the state. In Australia the penalties are very small, and I submit that the penalties in new clause 28 should be small, too. I suggest a fine of
      "not less than £5 and not more than £50."
      Even £50 is not a great sum for some or perhaps most people in this country, given that parliamentary elections are only held once every five years. I do not believe that the right to abstain is a major issue.
      Mr. Winnick: I am most interested in my hon. Friend's arguments. Many hon. Members will wish to speak on the new clause, which offers scope for much useful debating. It is rather early in the evening—
      The First Deputy Chairman: Order. Is this an intervention or a speech? If it is an intervention, it must be brief.
      Mr. Winnick: Would my hon. Friend make provision at some future stage of the progress of the Bill for those who refused to vote on religious grounds, such as Jehovah's witnesses? If it was accepted that some people cannot vote because it is against their principles to do so, there might be more sympathy for what my hon. Friend is trying to do.
      Mr. Barron: That would be a difficult question. If one made provision for such people, many other people might claim exemption, too. To some people, the right to abstain itself could be as important as a religious principle. We need to make a decision about the penalties to be imposed. I would not be prepared to make any detailed provision for the right to abstain of religious groups or of anyone else. Anarchists, too, might wish to be added to the list, if I was prepared to make one.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: Does my hon. Friend agree that we might devise the term "Christian Abstentionist" to cover people who wanted to be in that category?
      Mr. Barron: We could define such a group, but that does nothing to stop us from opening the door to people getting away from exercising their vote, which is what the state is asking them to do.
      Mr. Bermingham: It is not the state asking the individual to intervene but the individual exercising the right to influence the state. Surely my hon. Friend has it the wrong way round.
      Mr. Barron: I dealt with rights at the beginning of my speech. I thought that my hon. Friend had been listening.
      Mr. Winnick: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is interesting that the Liberal Benches were full when we were discussing proportional representation and that there is only one Liberal Member and no Social Democratic Members present now?
      Mr. Barron: Perhaps the alliance does not think that my new clause will get it as many seats in the House as new clause 1.
      The only objection that anyone could have to new clause 28 is subsection (1), which provides:
      "It shall be the duty of every elector to record his vote at each parliamentary election."
      Later parts of the new clause deal with the anomalies, on the assumption that subsection (1) is accepted. No major crime is involved and nobody would be sent to prison.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is my hon. Friend aware that it is said in Australia that compulsory voting favours the Labour party? It is clear that Labour voters often do not vote. Would my hon. Friend like to reflect on that while on his feet?
      Mr. Barron: I have found no such relationship. My hon. Friend has said that Bob Hawke and his party have gained from compulsory voting, but it seems to me that the real beneficiary is the country as more people participate in elections.
      I have some figures on general election turn-outs in Australia before and after legislation. People will want to know why I tabled new clause 28, and stand in the
      616
      Chamber at this early hour of the morning to discuss compulsory voting. The third edition of the 1977 Australian encyclopaedia gives the turn-out figures.
      Mr. Winnick: What page?
      Mr. Barron: It is page 349. It states:
      "The penalties for non-voting are small, but nevertheless the system produces an average poll of 90 per cent. of the registered voters, as compared with less than 50 per cent. when voting was optional."
      In Australia the turn-out was lower before compulsory voting was introduced than it is now in general elections in the United Kingdom. The entry continues:
      "The 50% figure is actually something of an exaggeration, as the total turnout at the general elections before 1925 was:

      1901

      52·1%;

      1903

      39·0%;

      1906

      46·9%;

      1910

      59·8%;

      1913

      70·9%;

      1914

      61·4%;

      1917

      68·2%;

      1919

      69·4%;

      1922

      54·3%.

      It is, however, undoubtedly true that the 1925 election showed an immediate leap to 90·5%."
      At subsequent elections the turn-out has always been between 90 per cent. and 96 per cent. All hon. Members will agree that in Australia since 1925 turn-outs have been substantially higher than those in Great Britain.
      Subsection (2) to subsection (10) of the new clause deal with the practicalities of finding out exactly who has not voted, and sets out the manner in which to define that. A list is made of those who have not voted for
      "valid truthful and sufficient reason".
      It is important that the list is made up properly so that no one is penalised who should not be penalised because he has good reason for not turning out to vote at a general election. It is important that the introduction of compulsory voting in the United Kingdom should have the same safeguards. That must be considered extremely carefully.
      Subsection (10) to subsection (12) deal with the penalties for people who have not voted and not given good reason for not having performed their duty. The penalties are not less than £5 and not more than £50.
      I do not intend to go on for much longer. I am sure that some of my hon. Friends will be disappointed about that. This is an important matter and it should not be talked about frivolously. There is some merit in compulsory voting. It is not an infringement of anyone's right to decide whether to vote. It is a way to get more people to vote. The more people who vote the better. That would not necessarily mean that they are better informed politically. That is not something that we should decide on the turn-out in a general election. It has more to do with the education system, and the need for political parties to be active in society to ensure that people are politically more conscious when they go into a polling booth.
      1.30 am
      Mr. Beith: This is one of the most ludicrous and unattractive proposals that I have seen placed before us in the time that I have been a Member. It is the ultimate confession of failure. If we cannot persuade people to vote for us, we will force them to go into the polling station at a general election. It is not part of the democracy that any of us believe in that we have to force people to vote. Our approach must be to persuade them.

      617
      The new clause is not open to criticism. The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) has set out the details of what he has in mind. The true offence comes when one reads that the returning officer will send a form to each elector who has not voted inquiring why he failed to vote at the election
      "and calling upon him to give a valid truthful and sufficient reason why he failed so to vote".
      Someone might live in Rother Valley and find the hon. Member unattractive and not wish to vote for him. That person will receive one of these forms on the doormat and will have to give a
      "valid truthful and sufficient reason"
      for not voting. He will have to send the form back to the returning officer. When that local government officer receives the form he will give his opinion whether the reason contained on the form is a valid and sufficient explanation for the elector's failure to vote. That is grotesque. It is one of many such forms that would land on the doormat in the kind of society in which the hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends would like us to live, where there is nothing that we can do for which we do not have the permission of the state, and where the failure to do the things that the state requires of us leads us to being dragged before some commissar to give sufficient and valid reason why we failed to do this, that or the other. That is not the kind of state in which I wish to live. I wish to live in a state where men are free. A state in which voting is compulsory is not relevant.
      Mr. Mellor: The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) was a little hard on what I found to be an entertaining speech by the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron). He was right to raise the subject of getting more people to participate in our democracy. We all want that. I am not sure, however, that I can go all the way with him in thinking that we should make voting compulsory. We must recognise that people have the right to opt out as well as in. In any event, for the reasons that we have been going over interminably for the past two days, it is difficult to obtain an accurate register upon which one could base a compulsory voting system.
      The hon. Gentleman was right to raise the issue. He has researched it carefully. A great many of the basic premises from which he starts are fair, but in going to the point of saying that there should be compulsory voting he has taken the matter a little too far. I hope that he will feel that, having properly aired the subject, he can let it go—and let us go as well.
      Mr. Barron: I was nearly going to say that I was grateful for the Minister's comments. Having been given the opportunity to debate the matter, the Committee has not had a great deal to say, except in sedentary interventions.
      The idea of forcing people to vote, which has been happening in Australia since 1925, has never stirred any great complaints about the inhuman or ill treatment of people casting votes in general elections in Australia. Earlier the hon. Member was trying to force people to vote by a different electoral system. I thought that there might have been further debate on the new clause.
      I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
      Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn

    New Clause 29

      THREATENING LANGUAGE
      'After section 97 of the principal Act (disturbances at election meetings) there shall be inserted the following section
      "97(A) It shall be an offence for a person or persons at a lawful public meeting to which the last foregoing section applies, to use words which are threatening abusive or insulting to any racial group in Great Britain.".'. [Mr. Winnick.]

      Brought up, and read the First time.
      Mr. Winnick: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
      The new clause deals with the difficulties which arise at meetings held by racist groups. The purpose of the new clause is to make it illegal:
      "to use words which are threatening abusive or insulting to any racial group in Great Britain".
      I have press cuttings referring to some of the scenes which took place at election time involving organisations like the National Front. It is interesting to note that a newspaper has argued that the way in which these organisations carry on racialist meetings at election time makes a mockery of the freedom to hold such meetings.
      The Observer said on 29 April 1979:
      "Freedom carries with it many responsibilities, and few would deny that to speak in such a way that groups of people are put in terror makes a mockery of that responsibility. Yet, as the law stands, the National Front has the right to hold meetings in areas with large immigrant communities and preach its frightening humiliating anti-gospel of race hate."
      I agree with that comment. It is distasteful, repulsive and ugly that racist candidates can organise meetings at election time with the purpose of making threats and insulting speeches against people who belong to ethnic minority groups.
      The law needs to be changed. If we say in the House of Commons that we are opposed to intimidation of people because of their race or colour, and if we pass legislation like the Race Relations Act 1976, we recognise the problem. The new clause tries to change the position in relation to election meetings. It is important that we should try to remove the possibility of the National Front deliberately holding a meeting in an area where it knows that there are a large number of Asians or blacks. This is precisely what Mosley did before the war. He held his meetings in areas like the east end, where there were a relatively large number of Jewish people.
      The new clause is modest in scope. If the wording is faulty, obviously it can be rectified on Report. The problem is sufficiently serious for the minority groupings who feel threatened by National Front meetings to make us think that it should be possible to give them the kind of protection outlined in the clause.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: I am intervening in the debate as I feel that my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) deserves support for the thrust of the new clause, which sets out to protect minorities. None of us can feel happy when in newspapers in various parts of the country and in news bulletins we hear reports of attacks, both physical and verbal, on minorities
      Such minorities look to Parliament for the resolution of their difficulty. They feel that it is only in Parliament that decisions can be taken that can transform their position and secure their rights. The new clause is simple in so far as it makes it an offence for

      619
      "a person or persons at a lawful public meeting to which the last foregoing section applies, to use words which are threatening abusive or insulting to any racial group in Great Britain."
      It is a simple new clause, and I should have thought that the Minister, who on some issues tonight has shown a little flexibility, would think that in the light of the reports—I ask him to listen to what I am saying—that frequently are brought to the attention of his Department, the Government should respond.
      The new clause can hardly be opposed in all reason by the Minister. I had thought that, in winding up, even if he were to be unwilling to accept the thrust of the new clause, he would wish and seek to give to the House undertakings that would meet the objectives as set out in the new clause.
      My hon. Friend has several press cuttings that reveal that some chief constables believe that they currently have the powers to deal with the problem. However, there are other chief constables who recognise that the powers that they have are not sufficient to deal with it. Therefore, equally, the Minister should identify what powers he believes currently exist to deal with it. He should be willing to address himself in his reply to the question whether, in his view, and on the basis of reports that he has received from chief constables following incidents throughout the United Kingdom, it can be said that those powers are sufficient. I believe that they are not.
      If the hon. Gentleman wishes to establish the basis of my belief and that of my hon. Friends who would seek to support me and my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North, he need do no more than invite to his Department, to discuss these matters with him, representatives of the various immigrant organisations in various parts of the United Kingdom, in places such as Birmingham, Manchester and London. When they come to the House and seek the ear of hon. Members, they repeatedly draw attention to what they believe to be a deficiency in the law. While on the one hand the Minister tells us that the law will work—no doubt he will try to reassure us of that when he winds up—on the other hand, those people tell us that the law is not working.
      There is clearly a conflict in view. The only way that we can resolve such conflicts is either for internal mechanisms available to Members of Parliament in the form of Select Committees to flash into action, if that be the term, and carry out their own inquiries to establish the truth, or for the Minister himself to set up an independent inquiry or, indeed, a Home Office inquiry to establish the truth.
      One way or another that problem must be resolved. People believe that those who address public meetings in the way that has been suggested by my hon. Friend are inclined to use language which is racial in tone and which can unsettle communities. If people believe that and know it to be true, it is for the Minister in this society to ensure that every possible legal power is available to the courts and to chief constables to secure compliance with the law and the protection of minority communities.
      1.45 am
      Mr. Bermingham: I take on board what my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) has said, and I suggest that there has been, and has been known to have been, a difference in practice among various chief constables in dealing wth what are basically section 5 offences under the Public Order Act 1936. If the Minister were to undertake tonight to amend section 97 on Third
      620
      Reading to make it clear to chief constables that section 97 is in line with section 5, and that therefore section 5 proceedings could be brought in future, we would overcome the problem and get rid of many of the arguments that have been put forward. In some areas police will prosecute people for offensive behaviour at public meetings, whereas in other areas the police do not seem willing to prosecute because they argue that they do not have the powers to bring those proceedings for incidents arising out of meetings.
      Mr. Mellor: The hon. Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) has, as always, been most helpful. In referring to a lack of consistency in prosecution practice he is referring to a gap in our criminal justice system to which we are applying our minds at this moment with the Prosecution of Offences Bill and the creation of the independent prosecution service, which should have the effect of achieving greater consistency in prosecution practice.
      I listened with great care to the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), supported by his hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours). The hon. Member for Walsall, North will remember our debate earlier in relation to the use of public meetings to hold rallies by racist groups and the discussion that we had on that. I think that I made it clear there that we share the hon. Gentleman's resentment at such behaviour and recognise that it is intended to be deliberately provocative. Indeed, as we know, in Southall in 1979 it succeeded in so being.
      I have looked at the hon. Gentleman's new clause, and if I thought that there was any hiatus in the law I would be prepared to address it. But the law on this point is clear, and provided that we can make prosecution practice consistent, which I think the hon. Member for St. Helens, South will be minded to agree will come about with the independent prosecution service, it is hard to think that people will be able to stir up racial hatred in speeches without being brought to book.
      I was invited by the hon. Member for Workington to state with clarity the present law. It is contained in section 5A of the Public Order Act 1936, which was amended by the Labour Government in 1976 by section 70 of the Race Relations Act 1976 to provide that:
      "A person commits an offence if—
      (a) he publishes or distributes written matter which is threatening, abusive or insulting; or"—

      this is the relevant part for public meetings—
      "(b) he uses in any public place or at any public meeting words which are threatening, abusive or insulting, in a case where, having regard to all the circumstances, hatred is likely to be stirred up against any racial group in Great Britain by the matter or words in question."
      I should have thought that that would catch any racially inflammatory language of the kind the hon. Member for Walsall, North has rightly deplored. If, having had the opportunity of hearing what I say, he can bring to my notice any cases where it appears that the law is not being enforced, or any instances where reprehensible behaviour has occurred where apparently no breach of the law took place, I shall be more than willing to investigate.
      I hope that I have made it clear to the hon. Gentleman that the law, which has been looked at within the last decade by a Labour Government, was intended, rightly, to be tight on these matters, and I hope that, certainly after

      621
      the Prosecution of Offences Bill becomes law, we shall be able to deal with this problem wherever it might arise in the country.
      Mr. Winnick: I have listened to the Minister and I think he recognises that the problem exists. The new clause was moved on the basis that as the Bill was going through the House it was a good opportunity to try to rectify the situation.
      I have in my hand reports of meetings over the last few years in various parts of the country. They refer to riots at National Front meetings and make comments such as, "National Front meeting erupts into violence", "Police called to National Front election meeting", "Police break up electoral brawl", "Violence grows at hustings", and so on. It is in cases such as these that many of us are concerned that there is a breach of the law.
      As my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) pointed out, people seek protection from the House of Commons. It is all very well to say that protection exists, but if at a general election or a by-election meeting people come in who are little more than political gangsters, whose sole purpose is to produce as much violence and hatred as possible in an area where there are large numbers of people from an immigrant background, in my view the law needs to be rectified.
      The Minister is saying that there might be some other means of tackling this problem in the near future, but I would be much happier if the Government were willing to accept either the new clause which I have moved, or another clause perhaps differently worded, which would to a large extent deal with the problem which I have outlined to the Committee today.
      622
      Question put and negatived.

    Schedule 4

      REPEALS
      Amendment made: No. 84, in page 48, line 30, at end add—

      '1984 c.60.

      The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

      In Schedule 7, in Part I in column 3 of the entry relating to the Representation of the People Act 1983, the words "In Schedule 1, paragraph 36"'. — [Mr. Mellor.]

      Schedule 4, as amended, agreed to.
      Bill reported, with amendments.
      Bill, as amended, to be considered this day; and to be printed. [Bill 87.]

  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 80(5) (Standing Committees on European Community documents.)
  EUROPEAN COMMUNITY DOCUMENTS

    WINE REGIME
    That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 9182/84, 11388/84 and 4096/85 (replacing 9469/84), draft Regulations reforming the wine regime and amendments to the original proposals; and supports the Government's intention to achieve reforms in the wine policy so as to curb over-production of wine and wine alcohol.— [Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
    Question agreed to.

  PETITIONS

    Human Embryos
    1.54 am
    Mr. Richard Page: I beg to ask leave to present, on behalf of 1,000 or more of my constituents, a petition for the protection of the human embryo. This petition, which has been signed by constituents from all parts of South-West Hertfordshire, affirms that the newly fertilised human embryo is a real, living, individual human being.
    Today, as the previously accepted moral position is pressed by scientific advances, it is perhaps opportune that I am presenting this petition on the very eve of the Second Reading of the Unborn Children (Protection) Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). The petition concludes:
    That this House of Commmons will take immediate steps to enact legislation which forbids any procedure which involves the purchase or sale of human embryos, the discarding of human embryos, their use as sources of transplant tissue or as subjects for research or experimentation, unless this is done solely for the benefit of the embryo concerned.
    To lie upon the Table.
    1.55 am
    Mr. William Powell: I beg to ask the leave of the House to present a petition signed by 3,450 people from all parts of my constituency relating to the Warnock report and the issues outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page). The petition is in the same terms as the one that he has presented. As he has so fully outlined the circumstances and as so many similar petitions have been presented to the House, I shall develop the matter no further save to say that I entirely agree with all those who have signed the petition.
    To lie upon the Table.

    Molesworth Airbase
    1.56 am
    Mr. William Powell: I beg to ask the leave of the House to present a petition on behalf of myself and my
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    hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major), whom I am delighted to see in his place, and our constituents, relating to the Molesworth airfield. The petition reads as follows:
    The Humble Petition of the residents of villages in the Parliamentary constituencies of Huntingdom and Corby
    Sheweth
    That there is disruption locally as the result of legal and illegal protests against the siting of Cruise Missiles on the Molesworth air-base.
    Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House
    Remove the illegal settlements on or near Molesworth Airfield
    Provide adequate policing of the area to prevent the return of the illegal settlements
    Enforce the law vigorously: prevent intimidation of residents and theft of property throughout the area
    Ensure that the cost of the operation does not fall on the ratepayers but is funded by Central Government.
    And your Petitioners as in duty bound, will ever pray &c.
    The terms of the petition have to a substantial extent already been met and I know that my hon. Friend's constituents join my constituents in thanking those who have made that possible. The petition has been signed by 90 per cent. of the residents of the parishes of Clopton and Titchmarsh in the county of Northamptonshire and the parliamentary constituency of Corby, 90 per cent. of the inhibitants of the villages of Old Weston and Molesworth in the county of Cambridgeshire and parliamentary constituency of Huntingdon, and a substantial number of residents of surrounding villages in both counties.
    Our constituents greatly resent the inaccuracies and distortions that have appeared in the media in the past few days and desire me to say that many of the reports have been entirely wrong. Our constituents are anxious that hereafter they be left alone by the people still unlawfully surrounding the Royal Air Force base. They wish to be left in peace to get on with their lives in the ordinary way. There has been substantial damage to crops and trees, theft of property and a large number of unfair allegations against our constituents. These are deeply resented and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdom joins me in expressing our support for our constituents and our determination to ensure that they are able to live their lives in peace hereafter.
    To lie upon the Table.

  Air Transport (Government Policy)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— [Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
  1.58 am
  Mr. Edward du Cann: I have just one point to make and I am grateful for this opportunity to make it. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for being here to reply to the debate.
  The air transport industry is one of Britain's success stories, but we need to work at keeping it that way. We cannot afford any more company failures such as those which wiped out a large part of Britain's passenger and all-cargo capacity in recent years. Some good names have gone from the passenger world and especially from the cargo world—Scimitar, British Cargo Airlines, Pelican and Redcoat. British Caledonian and British Airways, both brilliantly led companies, no longer have all-freighter aircraft, unlike Lufthansa, Air France, KLM, Japanese Airlines, and so on. One asks "Why not?". The all-British jet aircraft fleet has reduced from 21 to four. That is worrying and dangerous and, in my view, the reduction need never have happened. So I shall tell the House, if I may, what should be done by way of remedy. Before doing so, I declare my interest. I am the chairman of the company operating three of the four remaining freighters, and chairman also of its parent. My experience prompts me to voice considerable anxieties about the health of the British air transport industry. Cargo carrying is a small part of the air transport industry but what I have to say applies also to the passenger carrying industry. In any event, I believe that it is in Britain's vital interests, both strategic and economic, to maintain an effective and profitable presence in the market.
  The way things are going, we shall soon have no British cargo-carrying industry left. If that happens, we shall be at the mercy of foreign operators. I am convinced that that would be unacceptable. There is an extraordinary parallel with our merchant fleet. Flags of convenience and lack of co-ordinated Government support are decimating British shipping. I do not want similar circumstances to be allowed to eliminate our aviation fleet. The road hauliers, too, have similar worries.
  What is the solution or remedy? The British Government must be more positive in defending British interests. That is my advice. The Government must put Britain first. That is the clear suggestion that I wish to make to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State.
  It is clear that 1984 and 1985 are proving to be watershed years for British air transport. The long and hard battle by the United Kingdom and United Kingdom operators to win cheaper fares on many air routes, both long and short-haul, is having considerable success. That is to be warmly welcomed, especially if it means cheaper fares in Europe. So is the deregulation of the United Kingdom's domestic routes. That, too, is a good start. Let us hope that that is extended to international routes. The route-swapping arrangement between the state-owned airlines and privately owned British Caledonian have been successfully launched. We hope this year to see specific proposals for the privatisation of British Airways and the British Airports Authority, another body which is well led by Sir Norman Payne.
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  The Government deserve great credit for this progress, and I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be able to keep up the good work. However, there are other matters to be considered. For instance, what progress is there with the draft European Community air freight directive? It is essential that further improvements at Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick go ahead without any more delay. Facilities must be able to cope with the traffic. Another and more worrying matter is the decline of Britain's cargo-carrying capacity.
  Policy in general was clearly laid down by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport in a speech given after the White Paper's publication in October 1984. I am glad to pay tribute to my hon. Friend, for I have the greatest respect for his ability and for his wisdom. I greatly agree with what he said in the speech to which I have referred, from which I shall quote. He said:
  "Our long-term goal"—
  I am sure that he remembers this—
  "is to liberalise air transport wherever possible … where foreign competition is fair and British interests are not prejudiced."
  He added:
  "We will … ensure that … airlines … will not have to face unfair competition and … safeguards against anticompetitive behaviour are adequate".
  I fully endorse those statements and objectives; my complaint is that they are not being carried out by the Government machine. There seems to be an irreconcilable difference between the stated objectives of Ministers and the Civil Aviation Authority on the one hand and, on the other, the actual rules and regulations of the Department of Transport. I pay tribute to the man at the CAA of whom I have seen most and with whom my company has been negotiating, Mr. Colegate. He is a most able and, invariably, helpful man.
  I return to the CAA. Paper CAP 501 is a statement on air transport licencing policy which was published a month ago. It states that the Civil Aviation Authority
  "will seek to ensure that efficient British Airlines have the opportunity to operate profitably so as to attract and justify the investment necessary for the maintenance of their services."
  The thrust of what should be policy is clear enough and in line with the Minister's statements. The document also states:
  "the authority will continue to pursue liberal policies for the regulation of scheduled service freight rates and freight charter services."
  That statement sounds just fine to the uncommercial ear, but the reality is that, if we wish to create conditions where efficient British carriers can operate properly, we cannot pursue unilaterally liberal policies because the predatory foreigners will treat the United Kingdom as a port of convenience. That is happening today. The result is that the possibility of bankruptcy for the home team is not merely a possibility but a probability.
  Equality of treatment between our own much-regulated industry and the under-regulated foreign industries is imperative. That is not protection, it is common sense. Almost every other country in the world—the United States, France, Germany — appears to recognise that need. In my view, the United Kingdom should also.
  Of course, I do not suggest that it is solely the operating regulations that have affected British cargo carriers adversely. The advent of wide-bodied passenger aircraft with large freight capacity in their bellyholds has been a factor for cargo carriers to compete with.

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  The document shows clearly that the CAA aims progressively to reduce cross-subsidisation, presumably to the point where passengers no longer subsidise freight on passenger airlines. If it is true that passengers are subsidising freight, perhaps that is a subject that should be inquired into. In any case, the policy announced by the CAA cannot possibly be carried through if passenger carriers, and especially foreign passenger carriers, are allowed to reduce freight rates according to their desire for extra sterling revenue without any reference to the real cost of carriage, and thereby to compete unfairly in the United Kingdom. As I shall illustrate in a moment, it is a fact that the Government machine exacerbates an already difficult climate because it does not seem to practise what Ministers and the CAA both preach as policy.
  I shall list four ways in which the British Government positively discriminate against British business. First, in spite of the Prime Minister's exhortation to buy British wherever possible, the Government have on occasion used foreign carriers to carry British aid. Why? I can think of no good reason. Surely it should be an invariable rule that all goods exported that have British Government support—if only ECGD cover—should be carried by British carriers. All other donor or manufacturing countries designate their carriers, and so should we. The phrase, "American wheat in American bottoms" is well known. I suggest that our rule should be British goods in British ships and planes.
  Secondly, on 1 January 1986, United Kingdom carriers will be required to fit engine hush kits. Fitting hush kits to a Boeing 707 involves spending some $2·25 million —an expensive addition to costs. Yet European airlines will be allowed a one-year exemption. Why? Third world airlines will he allowed a two-year exemption. Again, why? Why should British carriers be put by the British Government at a competitive disadvantage in the British market against our foreign competitors? Why should foreign noise be acceptable in British airspace, and British noise not? Why put fetters on British companies that we do not put on our competitors?
  Thirdly, I come to safety. The Government rightly insist on a high standard of safety in respect of British aircraft and British carriers. Of course I support that. But the Department of Trade and Industry merely relies on a certificate of competence from foreign carriers. There are no checks. It is a fact that some foreign carriers operate overloaded aircraft with lower maintenance standards and overworked crews, and thus enjoy a lower cost structure than the United Kingdom carriers. That is unfair competition at best, and at worst, it is highly dangerous. Sooner or later, as sure as that we are all here this evening, there will be a serious accident in British air space. Why do we let these people fly in our air space? In my view, the public interest, let alone fairness, demands equality of treatment by the Government of British and foreign carriers.
  Fourthly, I turn to a slightly more complex matter. There is an old rule, called the "4 City Pairs" rule, operated by the United Kingdom and, so I understand, by no other country in the world, which allows foreign carriers to operate in and out of the United Kingdom, to and from countries other than their country of origin—in effect giving their aircraft almost unlimited freedom to do business in Britain. That is also monstrously unfair.
  I do not believe that any foreign operator should be allowed to operate fifth freedom flying in or out of the
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  United Kingdom if a British carrier is available to operate a third or fourth freedom flight in its place. In a word, all applications by foreign carriers should be subject to a no-objection rule by British carriers. At present, foreign carriers are pilfering cargoes which should be carried in the bellyholds of British passenger aircraft and by British cargo-carrying planes. I say to my hon. Friend the Minister as plainly as I can that that should stop forthwith.
  I have given four examples of ways in which the British Government discriminate against British carriers and in favour of foreign carriers in contravention of their declared policies. I deplore the growing emergence in civil aviation of a flags of convenience problem; the same problem which for so long has been a scourge in the merchant shipping world.
  The question has to be seriously asked whether the British Government, whom I strongly support, at the end of the day want there to be any remaining British-registered air-freighter airlines. If they do not, certainly a policy of masterly inactivity combined with further high-sounding but in practice empty statements should see the demise of my company and others. As I have said, that would leave the British exporter with no alternative but to use foreign carriers, which are certain to exploit this eventually to maximum advantage. It would leave the United Kingdom as the only major trading nation in the world—and the United Kingdom depends more than any other nation on foreign trade — without a national or quasi-national all-cargo carrier. That would be a damaging result for the national wellbeing, and it would arise from official carelessness.
  It would also seem a curiously paradoxical situation when so many of the high-tech goods that we are increasingly beginning to export, naturally seek to travel as air freight, as distinct from the days when we were, for instance, exporting large amounts of steel or coal, whose natural means of transport were by ship. In my view, such a situation would be wholly unacceptable strategically and economically.
  If, on the other hand, the British Government want to preserve their residual all-freighter aircraft capability—I am sure that they do, and that my hon. Friend the Minister does — and to increase the cargo revenues of British passenger airlines — which I am sure that the Government do—they must impose the same rules on predatory foreign carriers operating in the United Kingdom as they impose on their own carriers, so that conditions of more equal competition exist.
  It is nonsense to talk about reciprocity. We often hear about that, but it is nonsense to talk about it when Britain offers opportunities to foreign carriers which are not offered in return. Reciprocity must mean parity not only in terms of regulation but in terms of commercial opportunity.
  We in this country are major exporters of high value goods, and to compare, for instance, the opportunity for third world-based operators to fly out of the United Kingdom with the opportunity for a United Kingdom operator to fly out of their country is unlikely to be in any sense reciprocal.
  In essence, therefore, we need conditions where British carriers are encouraged to compete as freely as possible with each other on a fair basis and where foreign carriers must comply with our regulations, if they are to be allowed to operate in the United Kingdom. Additionally, the frequency with which they are permitted so to operate

  629
  should be governed by the extent to which that gives British carriers reciprocal commercial opportunity based on real cost.
  As I have said, for strategic and economic reasons—and, I suggest, also for defence reasons—we need a healthy, British-owned, British-managed, all-cargo fleet capacity. Britain can have that asset, given good will and given the will to have it on the part of Her Majesty's Government. I hope that tonight the Minister will assure the House that that is exactly what will occur in future.
  2.16 am
  Mr. Anthony Steen; I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Sir E. du Cann) for allowing me a minute or two in which to intervene in his debate. I am grateful to him for giving the House, even though it is not well attended at this hour, the opportunity to have on record details of one of the most serious developments to be taking place, not just in the air freight industry but in the scheduled airline industry. I congratulate him on drawing attention at an early stage to the problem.
  The Government say, on the one hand, that they passionately believe in free market forces, competition, deregulation, relaxing controls, breaking up monopolies, rolling back the frontiers of Socialism, bringing forward private enterprise practices, outlawing predatory actions and restoring pride of place to British companies. There is, however, a yawning gap between what they say they believe in and what is happening.
  My right hon. Friend referred to the freight airlines. One could also mention the scheduled and charter airlines. Why do the Government, to take one example, allow United States airlines to take predatory action out of Heathrow by way of the fifth freedoms, so that they can fly across the Atlantic into Heathrow and their passengers can then go via other American aeroplanes to Europe, while the British companies are not allowed to fly out of Heathrow in competition to British Airways or any other European carrier? They are actually debarred from competing with other airlines. The Government must make putting that right one of their first priorities.
  I join forces with my right hon. Friend in asking the Government to liberalise the airways and to prevent the predatory action of foreign airlines from doing our airlines out of business.
  2.17 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Michael Spicer): I wish at the outset to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Sir E. du Cann) for giving us this opportunity briefly to discuss the problems of the air cargo industry.
  Recent discussion of civil aviation policy has tended, naturally, to concentrate on the passenger business, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams (Mr. Steen) has played his part tonight, as he has on many previous occasions, in drawing our attention to the problems of that sector.
  As the subject of this brief debate is air freight, I shall concentrate on that. Air freight plays an increasingly important part in international trade. In 1983–84, for example, goods to the value of £16·5 billion—13 per cent. of our total visible trade — passed through
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  Heathrow airport. We estimate that nearly 20 per cent. of our total visible trade travelled by air. A large proportion of this was carried in the holds of British passenger aircraft, particularly the long-haul, wide-bodied jets which have such extensive cargo space. I understand that this increased ability to mix passenger and cargo traffic has, as my right hon. Friend suggests, put pressure on the specialist air cargo services. I very much agree with him, however, that these specialist services will continue to play an important role and warmly welcome this opportunity of considering the problems facing these specialist carriers.
  I agree wholeheartedly that, in pursuing our aviation policies, we must be ever mindful of our national interests, with respect to the aviation industry and more particularly perhaps to its customers.
  At the passenger end of the business, through increasing competition and deregulation, we have developed a multi-airline industry whose growing strength and effectiveness is becoming the envy of the rest of the world outside the United States. I agree completely with my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams that this strength must be maintained. This British airline industry is, as a result, well placed to meet the challenge of fair competition—like my right hon. Friend the Member for Taunton and my hon. Friend the Member for South Hams, I emphasise fair competition—from whatever direction it comes. It is our express policy to widen the scope of this competition, especially within the Common Market which, so far as the airline industry is concerned, barely exists. Our objective must be to ensure that British airlines play their part in the Common Market.
  As my right hon. Friend has so generously acknowledged, we are deeply immersed, through negotiation, in the process of pulling down the barriers to competition in Europe and opening up new opportunities for our airlines. My right hon. Friend encourages us to even greater effort, and I have listened most carefully to what he has had to say on this matter.
  The anxieties which my right hon. Friend has expressed, with particular reference to the specialist freight business, are based properly on the question of how fair is the competition. In effect, he asks, are we in Britain still playing by the rules of cricket while the rest of the world swings rounders bats in our face? My right hon. Friend has given four examples of these anxieties, and I shall do my best to respond to them. If time runs out before I deal with all my right hon. Friend's various points, I shall write to him about the outstanding points.
  I turn first to what my right hon. Friend had to say about fifth freedom rights. It is certainly true that there exists in Europe a liberal charter regime. A British operator who can obtain the business is free to carry cargo from the east midlands to Munich, pick up cargo there for Maastricht, and pick up another cargo in Maastricht for the east midlands. His costs are reduced because he does not need to fly an empty aircraft on the Munich-Maastricht leg.
  It is also true that we would like a similar liberal regime to be adopted in other parts of the world. Some countries are, indeed, liberal in this respect. Others, I regret, are not. Because of the wider benefits of liberalisation, we freely permit most foreign airlines to operate four fifth freedom charter flights on any particular sector in each year—the so-called four city pairs rule, to which my right hon. Friend referred. We allow them to operate further flights

  631
  if, and only if, they can show that no British carrier is ready and willing to carry the cargo in question on broadly comparable terms.
  Our experience has shown that a few airlines seek to operate an unduly large number of fifth freedom flights. We have told these airlines that we shall not be prepared to allow them the benefit of the four flights per city pair concession and shall only be willing to allow them to operate fifth freedom flights where no British airline can carry the cargo on reasonably comparable terms.
  We are monitoring developments in the charter market very closely and are prepared to apply the more restrictive policy to any other foreign airlines that seem to be attracting an undue proportion of fifth freedom traffic. I have asked my officials to continue to keep closely in touch about this with the company with which my right hon. Friend is associated. We shall very carefully consider the position of any foreign carrier drawn to our attention as abusing our present liberal policy.
  I turn next to what my right hon. Friend has said on the question of contracts for the carriage of aid to foreign countries. I understand that Government contracts for carrying aid supplies overseas — like almost all Government contracts—are placed with the airline able to operate on the route and offering the best terms. On many occasions these contracts are placed with British airlines.
  The Government, however, have a duty to the taxpayer to ensure that he gets best value for money in the carriage of freight as in other areas of Government purchasing. Where this is not so I suspect that the Public Accounts Committee might well have something to say on the matter.
  I turn next to my right hon. Friend's anxieties that our high safety standards put British carriers at a disadvantage. I have to say that I am not aware of any case where the Civil Aviation Authority's safety standards have operated to the detriment of British airlines. The CAA's safety standards are based on the requirements laid down by the International Civil Aviation Organisation which form the basis of the standards used in all member states.
  It is true that in some cases the CAA standards have been set at a higher level than the minimum ICAO requirements, but, far from working against the interests of the British airlines, they have usually tended to work in their favour, as the industry as a result an enviable reputation for safety which it can use to its commercial advantage.
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  Foreign air freight carriers need to have a certificate of competency issued by the state of registry before they are allowed to operate in United Kingdom air space. These certificates specify that aircraft will be operated to minimum international standards laid down by ICAO.
  I agree with my right hon. Friend that in some areas the CAA standards are higher than those set in other countries, but I hope that he will agree that in these cases the answer is not to lower our standards but to encourage other states to raise theirs above the minimum ICAO requirements. I assure my right hon. Friend that the CAA always seeks to do this within the ICAO framework.
  Turning finally to the always sensitive question of noise regulations, I am convinced, like my predecessors, that in order to provide much-needed relief to the people living close to our major airports the early phasing out of the most noisy types of aircraft is essential. The Government's task is to strike a balance between the legitimate claims of the industry on the one hand and those of the environment on the other.
  My right hon. Friend will no doubt remember that it was as long ago as 1978, as it happens under the previous Labour Administration, and following wide consultation, that the ban date of 1 January 1986 on non-noise certificated subsonic jet aeroplanes was chosen.
  United Kingdom operators will have had nearly eight years in which to arrange for their fleets fully to comply. With hardly any exceptions, they are now well advanced, either replacing noisier aircraft with quieter ones, or hush-kitting to a noise-certificated standard.
  Both the European Civil Aviation Conference and ICAO have requested member states not to prohibit the use of non-noise-certificated, foreign registered, subsonic jets before 1 January 1988, and we have accepted this. All such aircraft will be banned from that date.
  On the other hand, despite the later European domestic ban dates, I believe that a number of European operators have already moved substantially to noise-certificated fleets. Indeed, by the middle of last year, of the whole European Civil Aviation Conference fleet embracing 22 states, over 75 per cent. was already noise-certificated, and that proportion is growing steadily.
  In the short time available to me, I hope that I have adequately addressed myself to the very pertinent questions my right hon. Friend has raised.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes past Two o'clock.