HC Deb 28 June 2004 vol 423 cc15-7
19. Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire) (Lab)

What assessment the Electoral Commission is making of the advice it gave electoral returning officers for recent all-postal ballots. [180450]

Mr. Peter Viggers (Gosport) (Con)

The Commission keeps under constant review the advice and guidance that it offers electoral administrators. More specifically, it will review its guidance on post-election integrity checks for postal ballots as part of its evaluation of the all-postal pilot schemes.

Mr. Barnes

Returning officers followed very closely one piece of advice about all-postal ballots that was offered to them, but I wonder whether some confusion. might have been created by that advice. For example, the details of who was allowed to sign as a witness to the postal ballot confused various people, who did not really believe what was being said. What testing did the Electoral Commission conduct to assess whether people would understand the different forms of wording that could be used? The role of the Electoral Commission in this matter is as significant as any other factor in respect of the conduct of EU all-postal ballots.

Mr. Viggers

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He may have noticed that when the Government laid the orders for the regional referendums last Thursday, the requirement for a witness statement was not included. The orders are subject to affirmative resolution. but it would be open to Members to make their contributions during the debate on the affirmative resolution, if that should come before the House.

Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)

Reference has been made to the laying of the orders for the regional government referendums. Can it really be the case that the Chairman of the Electoral Commission has written to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister about public confidence and appropriate safeguards, expressing the wish that the Government wait, yet the Deputy Prime Minister has chosen once again completely to ignore the Electoral Commission's advice? In order to further the debate, will the hon. Gentleman put it to the Electoral Commission that it would be in everyone's interest if that exchange of correspondence were made public so that the House could determine the value of the points expressed before coming to a view on the orders that have been laid on the conduct of the referendum?

Mr. Viggers

Yes. The commission believes that there would be benefit in Parliament having available to it the Electoral Commission's evaluation reports on the June pilot before taking a decision on whether to approve the orders specifying the form of the referendum. It would therefore prefer the Government to wait until the results of the statutory evaluation exercise are available in mid-September.

Mr. Gordon Prentice (Pendle) (Lab)

I have in my hands the order that has been mentioned and which was laid last Thursday. It tells us that the Government are prepared to abandon all-postal voting in the regional assembly referendums in October if the Electoral Commission produces convincing evidence that it would be unsafe to proceed. Has the hon. Gentleman had any discussions with any member of the Government about what might constitute convincing evidence?

Mr. Viggers

As the House knows, it is not within the remit of the Speaker's Committee to have such discussions. I have no doubt that the Electoral Commission is in discussion with Government representatives.

Mr. Andrew Mackay (Bracknell) (Con)

My hon. Friend will be aware that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) told the House during a debate last week that postal vote applications in the Washwood Heath ward in the Birmingham, Hodge Hill constituency went up from 693 to a staggering 5,583. He believed that electoral fraud had taken place. In the circumstances, with two sensitive by-elections taking place on 15 July in Birmingham, Hodge Hill and Leicester, South, will my hon. Friend ask the chairman of the Electoral Commission to send observers to those constituencies to ensure that wide-scale fraud does not take place?

Mr. Viggers

My right hon. Friend has rightly drawn attention to the remarkable speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) on 22 June. He quoted The Birmingham Post as saying: Fights in the streets, postmen offered bribes for sacks of ballot forms, a post box torched, car chases, threats, bullying and intimidation and the unforgettable image of a… councillor 'sorting out' ballot papers in the shadows of a back street car park at midnight."—[Official Report, 22 June 2004; Vol. 422, c. 1233.] Those events did not take place in one of the four areas delegated for all-postal balloting, but the Electoral Commission will, of course, take full account of them in its general review of voting practices, which is expected later this year—although not by 13 September.