REGISTRATION OF BRITISH CITIZENS OVERSEAS (Hansard, 29 January 1985)

§ Dr. Marek
I beg to move amendment No. 29, in page 3, line 22, at end insert— '(e) declares that he intends to return to the United Kingdom for permanent residence'. I think it is clearly unjust that diplomats and Crown servants can have the right to vote but people who go abroad because of their occupation, service or employment with private companies or perhaps working for the World Health Organisation, do not have this right. We would like to see, if it is possible, the right to vote by proxy to be extended to those abroad because of their occupation, service or employment — citizens of the United Kingdom who have the intention to return. As hon. Members will realise, I have been reading from the minutes of evidence given to the Select Committee for Home Affairs in 1982. The witness, Mr. Mitchell, who gave that evidence upon examination by the Select Committee is the organisation and legal officer of the Conservative party.
The Conservative party clearly believes that citizens of the United Kingdom should have the vote if they go abroad because of their occupation, service or employment and, indeed—and importantly for the amendment—have the intention to return. The amendment seeks to do precisely this. It is a way of ensuring that people claim a vote if they have the intention to come back to the United Kingdom at some time.
As I said earlier in Committee, I do not believe that clause 1, which we have now passed, should have been passed because it is an open-ended clause and allows anybody to claim the vote whether he is a tax exile, a fugitive or properly going abroad because of his employment or service to the country. The amendment seeks to tighten this up so that such people will have to go to the consulate and sign a declaration. That declaration would have to be kept by the consular officials and passed on to the electoral registration officer in the constituency in which the vote would be cast.
I refer the Committee to the memorandum submitted in evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs by the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives: It would seem necessary for there to be some sort of annual renewal of registration through British embassies or consulates abroad, who would have the responsibility of checking the facts stated". In evidence, Mr. Jones, chief executive of Gillingham borough council, stated: I think it depends really, Chairman, on how far you think these facts need to be verified. Personally, I would think they should be verified with considerable consideration, and I would prefer the consulate or embassy. While Mr. Jones may have been talking about slightly different matters, he was giving his opinion on whether people should be able to claim the vote because of their occupation or service. That applies to the amendment. The declaration must not be treated as something that anyone can sign in his back kitchen and send to the consulate or elsewhere. It should be a proper declaration that is given in at the consulate or some other appropriate place where its existence is duly noted.
I hope that the Government will be persuaded by this moderate amendment. It is not designed to create a 247 watertight procedure, but I feel that my right hon. and hon. Friends would be considerably relieved if the Government were to accept the spirit of the amendment, redraft it and insert it in its redrafted form into the Bill.

§ Mr. Mellor
I congratulate the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) on making his debut on the Opposition Front Bench. It was good to have the opportunity of hearing his oratory from rather closer quarters than it has been my privilege to enjoy before this evening.
It is no part of the Government's case that as a matter of principle the franchise should be extended to Britons living overseas who have no intention of returning to the United Kingdom. We take no exception to a declaration which would set out in appropriate words that the individual concerned intended at some stage to return. We need to find the appropriate way of putting that on to the statute book. It is no criticism of the amendment that it may not be the best way of achieving what we want. Would the hon. Gentleman be satisfied with the undertaking that the Government would bring forward an amendment at a later stage that would have the same effect as the amendment which he has introduced this evening if he were to seek leave to withdraw the amendment?

§ Mr. Douglas Hogg
If the phraseology of the subsection is to be redrafted, it is important that it is done in such a form that the purpose of the provision is achieved. It is rather an interesting subsection, which is designed to strike, I believe, at tax exiles. No tax exile — that is someone who wishes to arrange his capital affairs in such a way as to escape capital gains tax or capital transfer tax — would be able to sign the declaration. To do so would have the effect of causing the original domicile to be resumed. If someone wishes to achieve a foreign domicile they will not be able to sign the declaration. I agree with that because I do not see why tax exiles should have a vote in United Kingdom elections. When the declaration comes to be redrafted in accordance with the undertaking that has been given by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, I hope that steps will be taken to ensure that no tax exile can properly sign it.

§ Mr. Bermingham
Perhaps it is appropriate, on the back of the amendment, to draw to the Government's attention amendment No. 28, which has not been called but which is in the same vein. I draw it to the Government's attention because the declaration needs to be signed in the United Kingdom so that it is enforceable in the United Kingdom. When someone signs the declaration to obtain the vote that is referred to in amendment No. 29, and if we are to have jurisdiction for the penalties that are subsequently to occur, jurisdiction must arise as a result of a decision of the Court of Appeal that the declaration has been signed here. The offence, if it turns out to be one, must be one that is committed here, and the courts here will have the jurisdiction to deal with the matter.
When the Government come to redraft in accordance with their undertaking, it will need to be written into the amendment in its amended form that the undertaking is executed in the United Kingdom. I accept unreservedly that it would be ludicrous to say that those who are abroad and who seek to take advantage of clause 1 will all have 248 to come home to sign the declaration. That is why I suggested in amendment No. 28 that anyone who sought to apply for a continuation of his vote after 1 January 1986 had only to make a declaration in the United Kingdom. I did not attempt to impose upon those already living abroad and intending to return and take up the advantage offered by clause 1 the obligation of having to return to make the application. Although I stand by my overall position, I accept that those people should be able to make the declaration in the consulates in the country in which they are residents.
The point at the heart of this matter is that those who intend to sign the declaration to keep their vote should do so after the Bill comes into law.

§ Sir Raymond Gower (Vale of Glamorgan)
I should like to underline what my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) said and I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will consider his point. The intention behind the amendment is much to the liking of both sides of the Committee. I hope that the hon. Member for Wrexham (Dr. Marek) will be prepared to take advantage of the offer made by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State.

§ Dr. Marek
I thank the Under-Secretary of State for his kind words. My appearance at the Dispatch Box was not too traumatic. I ask the hon. Gentleman to pay attention to what has been said about the amendment by hon. Members, including myself and the hon. Members for Vale of Glamorgan (Sir R. Gower) and for Grantham (Mr. Hogg). I believe that there is a strong measure of cross-party support for this measure. I should like the Committee to allow me to withdraw the amendment so that the Government can table a proper amendment on report. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell
There has been much jubilation among Conservative Members at the acceptance of a major constitutional innovation in the form of clause 1 by a majority of rather less than half the Government's normal majority. The significance of that innovation was underlined by the Home Secretary in that umbrella speech of his, which was intended to foreshadow the agreements and concessions that might be made at later stages of the Bill's consideration. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he was friendly to the widest application of the principle, and regarded what is now contained in clause 1 as only an instalment of the eventual grant of the franchise in the United Kingdom to British citizens, as such, not resident in the United Kingdom.
In the light of that statement, I draw to the Committee's attention that wicked little paragraph (3)(b) which states: that the declarant is a British citizen". It would have been impossible for the Home Secretary to have said what he said—indeed, it probably would have been impossible for clause 1 to have been introduced at all—had it not been for the British Nationality Act 1981, which created such a thing as British citizenship—a status that is all but exclusively identified with connection with the United Kingdom.
In past times, the qualification for the franchise in the United Kingdom was to be a British subject. Had that 249 condition still remained, it would have been impossible to assert the principle that a British subject, wherever resident in the world, should have the right to vote in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the narrower, national concept of "British citizen" made possible such a move and such a declaration from the Home Secretary.
Of course, we have the relics of that former dispensation in our present franchise law which, as the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) reminded the Committee at an earlier stage, extends the vote not only to British citizens but to Commonwealth citizens and to citizens of the Irish Republic who, ever since 1920, we have been endeavouring to persuade ourselves are still really British subjects, only they have not woken up to this fact and are a bit slow to recognise it. Those three categories are still included in the franchise within the United Kingdom; but be it noted that, contrary to some incautious statements which have been made about the effect of the Bill during these debates, it is not any elector in this country who can go abroad and for five years retain the right to vote at elections in the United Kingdom—it is only an elector who is a British citizen who can go abroad and retain that right.

§ Mr. Mellor
Quite right.

Mr. Powell
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary says, "Quite right". Amen, say I; but we have revealed the thorn within the rose or, perhaps from another point of view, the silver lining behind the cloud for those of us who did not want clause 1. This is the beginning of a train of thought which will lead us to the conclusion that if it is to be the proposition that the British citizen is, as such, entitled to the franchise, then we will say that that, of necessity, applies inside as well as outside the United Kingdom. We have laid the foundation tonight of an erection which was not perhaps intended by some of the supporters of the clause, though it may not have been entirely absent from the ruminations of the Government and their advisers.
We have laid the foundations for a reform of the law of the franchise in the United Kingdom whereby it will logically be restricted to British citizens, that being in all normal acceptance the meaning of "citizen"—a person who exclusively has the right of franchise, as well as the other appurtenances of citizenship, in his own country. So, be it noted, as they say, Sir Paul, as we part with clause 2, that that wicked little subsection 3(b) may point to the way to a reform in our franchise inside the United Kingdom which many have considered to be logical and which many have argued for over many years.
It is a way that things have of happening—that what one has most desired comes from an unwelcome quarter. There is a Virgilian tag to that effect with which I shall not trouble the House—

§ Mr. Michael Meadowcroft (Leeds, West)
Go on.

Mr. Powell
All right, it is the one which starts "qua minime reris": "from a quarter from which you least expect it, namely, from the Greeks, shall salvation come." I hope that the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) is willing to accept a spontaneous translation. It is a common experience that those of us who have sought the prevalence of an argument or a cause find the way to achieve it open from an unexpected and even disagreeable direction. I believe that may prove to be the case with sub-section 3(b) of the apparently innocent clause 2.

§ Mr. Stanbrook
The purport of subsection 3(b) that the declarant is a British citizen is intended, presumably, to ensure that the person who claims the right to vote in United Kingdom elections is in fact a British citizen. One presumes that he will be able to prove that he is, but there is no provision in the Bill that he should so prove, and the only sanction against someone claiming to be a British citizen and who is not is in clause 11, which is the penalty clause.
The essence of giving a vote to someone living abroad lies in the fact that there is no jurisdiction in British courts overseas, and therefore clause 11 is inoperative so long as the person involved remains overseas. Apparently, therefore, a person who declares that he is a British citizen cannot be challenged and his vote must be allowed even though the local British consul may have good reason to believe that the declaration is false. How on earth do the Government intend to get over that?

§ Mr. Bermingham
I hope that the Minister will answer that point, which I stressed earlier. If the declaration is not made in the United Kingdom before the person goes abroad, our courts will have no jurisdiction and the penalties will be unenforceable. I concede that for a person who goes abroad and stays abroad there is a semi-deterrent in the knowledge that if he makes a false declaration he can be prosecuted if he ever returns to the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, if the penalties are to bite we must ensure that our courts have jurisdiction.

§ Mr. Mellor
Extra-territoriality is created by paragraph 62 of schedule 3, so if the person returns within the jurisdiction he can be tried here as though the offence had been committed within the jurisdiction. If he does not return, that is a different matter, but that applies to a whole range of other offences.
No one is under any obligation to accept a declaration if he does not believe it to be true. This applies equally to a British consul and to the electoral registration officer. If the officer believes that the assertion made is not true, he has complete discretion to refuse to enter the person's name on the register. It will thus be a matter for both officers to do their duty as they see it.
On that basis, I commend clause 2 to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.