European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill [H.L.]

HL Deb 29 January 2004 vol 656 cc179-222GC

(Second Day)

Thursday, 29 January 2004.

The Committee met at quarter past three of the clock.

[The Chairman of Committees (Lord Brabazon of Tara) in the Chair.]

Clause 2 [Pilot order]:

[Amendments Nos. 17 to 21 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 22: Page 2, line 33, at end insert— ( ) Any information or literature sent out with a postal vote must include a secrecy warning.

The noble Earl said: In moving Amendment No. 22, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 44. The amendments focus on voter secrecy, one of the most fundamental issues to those who, like me, have grave concerns about the safeguards lost in an all-postal ballot. The Committee has already been made fully aware of our concerns in regard to secrecy and I shall not weary it by repeating the excellent arguments articulated by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, and others.

Having identified the problem, our amendments attempt to provide the solution by reasserting the principle of secrecy in voting in elections. Amendment No. 22 would make it obligatory for any information or literature sent out about an all-postal ballot to include a secrecy warning within it. Again, this is not foolproof, but it is an extra safeguard.

I am sure that the Minister will respond with the kinds of comment that the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, made at Second Reading, where he said: We have also been working with the electoral administrators to ensure that literature and systems are used that provide for secrecy, and that people are reminded of the importance of secrecy". Time will not allow me to say any more, but I mark the importance of the matter.

I am not impressed. If the voters' right to secrecy cannot be guaranteed, we would like it at least to be emphasised on the face of the Bill. An explicit and strongly worded secrecy warning might be of some help in reducing pressurised voting within the home. We have referred to that on previous amendments.

I turn now to Amendment No. 44. We should like to see on the face of the Bill a requirement for the Electoral Commission to explore the effect of all-postal voting on the secrecy of the ballot. There is already a requirement to consider the effect of fraudulent activity and malpractice, but the amendment is concerned with undue influence at home—for example, a pushy husband wanting to know how his wife has voted or insisting that she vote in a certain way. Of course, it could happen the other way round. It is not the kind of action that should attract the attention of the police, but it should be discouraged and prevented as far as possible.

The Minister envisages the commission carrying out such an inquiry, as he made clear when he said: One can conceive the possibility of pressure, although it may not be extensive. Certainly under Clause 4 the Electoral Commission will be required to report on the elections and, in doing so, we shall expect it to consider issues of secrecy".— [Official Report, 8/1/04; 348.] I hope that an assessment of the secrecy of the ballot will be a positive obligation on the Electoral Commission, rather than merely expecting that it might consider it.

Many noble Lords have expressed concerns in regard to secrecy and the ECHR. Paragraphs 23 to 26 of the Explanatory Notes recognise that there is a problem but I shall not test the patience of the Committee by reading them out. However, the thinking behind the four paragraphs is deeply flawed. An all-postal ballot clearly fits the criteria set out in paragraph 23 as being in direct conflict with Article 3. There is no doubt that it both undermines the secrecy of the ballot and the free expression of the electorate's opinion. Apparently we are meant to turn a blind eye to this because the pilot scheme is merely generating evidence on new and innovative systems. This is hardly justification for jeopardising a human right that every citizen of this country should be guaranteed, especially when the so-called pilot scheme is to be trialled—if the Government have their way—in more than one region.

Paragraph 25 states that the wider benefits to the community that postal voting is intended to bring in terms of greater voter participation are also relevant to Article 3. Are the Government therefore implying that the loss of secrecy in voting can be offset by the expected greater voter participation? It is a dangerous and unjustifiable line to take that it is okay if you cannot freely express your right to vote in secrecy because we have an extra 5 per cent of voters bothering to fill out their ballot papers. What worth can be given to a greater percentage of returned postal ballots if there are grave suspicions about how many of them were freely completed by the rightful person to whom they were sent? This could make a mockery of our electoral system.

It has also been drawn to my attention that the Government have had internal advice that the whole concept of postal ballots is challengeable under the ECHR. Can the Minister confirm whether or not that is the case?

In conclusion, I should like the Minister to state exactly what statutory and non-statutory steps are being taken to address the issue of secrecy. Our amendments would put in place some safeguards to secrecy, although I freely admit that they are hardly likely to be 100 per cent effective in halting any potential abuse. There are fundamental issues at stake and I look forward to hearing from the Minister some justification for what appears to be a breach of human rights. I beg to move.

Lord Greaves

I am given authority from my noble friend Lord Rennard to say that we as a party approve and support the amendment. As this is the first time I have spoken today, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, on her stamina in running two important Bills together as a Front-Bench spokesperson. When she said to me, "You are coming to them all, aren't you?", I said, "Well, I am a Back-Bencher. I'm able to nip off and have a brew when I want to". However, I probably owe the noble Baroness a favour because I suspect the fact that the two Bills are being kept apart is for her benefit. So perhaps I am benefiting from that.

In supporting the amendment I should like to recap on one or two of the comments that my friend Councillor Suzanne Fletcher of Stockton-on-Tees Council received when it had an all-out postal ballot in May last year. She was one of the few councillors who spent their time—perhaps because she had a safe seat—not only trying to get elected and trying to get votes but delivering a questionnaire to everyone in her ward in order to obtain their opinions on the system. She received some extremely interesting comments.

One of them was from people who had been placed on the electoral register late. They wrote to her to say that they had received the ballot papers in the end and stated: These were not handed to us personally but posted through the door. Either of us could easily have intercepted both and voted twice, thus depriving the other of their vote. There is nothing on the Ballot Paper to confirm who has completed it. Clearly this situation could apply to any 'multiple occupancy' property". That was from two electors who did the right thing but were nevertheless concerned that they had been given the opportunity not to do the right thing.

Another elector—this is not quite the same point but perhaps the Minister might take it away and consider it—made a further observation: I note that the envelope delivering the Ballot Paper to the voter can be re-sealed without any indication of it having happened when the votes arrived in the council building". In other words, it had presumably a "stick-on" seal that could easily be peeled off and put back again.

There is a further concern—which comes from Birmingham—that the envelopes into which the postal ballot papers were put were made of thin paper. You could actually see through them and see how people had voted. These issues have no relation to the amendment but I take the opportunity to raise them.

Many comments were received from genuine electors, none of whom believe or engage in fraud. For example: Mine's been sent in, and I filled his in for him as well". Other comments included, I've filled all ours in … but they were all for you"; I did his for him as well, he'd never have got round to it, you know what he's like"; and, We've filled in our (son's) paper for him. X would have wanted me to vote for you though. A more famous example took place at 8 o'clock in the morning, when a woman at a bus stop was seen to get three envelopes out of her bag, fill in all three ballot papers and then post them. Those are just some examples.

Finally, a letter was received explaining how one elderly couple were called on as part of what we call the "knocking-up" operation. This lasts for a fortnight from the ballot papers being sent out, rather than only on polling day. The wife asked her husband where the voting papers were. He replied that he had filled them in and sent them off. She asked who they had voted for but he could not remember. The letter continued: She was most upset as she had wanted to vote for our candidates herself. We felt most uncomfortable leaving them having a row between themselves". The case in favour of the noble Lord's amendment is strengthened by those anecdotes.

Lord Norton of Louth

I rise briefly to support Amendment No. 22 and to speak briefly to Amendment No. 44 which is grouped with it. As my noble friend said, they are complementary amendments. Thanks to what he said, I shall keep my comments on these amendments brief. The query raised by my noble friend about compatibility with the European Convention is one that I propose to return to in the stand part debate, where it is most appropriate.

I suspect that in respect of both the amendments the issue is not one of ends but of means. The need to maintain the secrecy of the ballot is paramount for reasons discussed at Second Reading. The Government concede the need for a secrecy statement to accompany the ballot paper and for the Electoral Commission to consider the impact on secrecy when it reviews the operation of all-postal ballots. The issue is whether those requirements should be included in the Bill. I believe that they should.

We need to take all necessary steps to ensure that, as far as possible, secrecy is maintained. Otherwise, as I said at Second Reading, we shall be undermining the purpose of the Ballot Act 1872. Given the crucial importance of the issue, I see no reason why the requirements embodied in Amendment Nos. 22 and 44 should not appear in the Bill.

As my noble friend said, Clause 4(6) stipulates those matters that the Electoral Commission must consider in its assessment of all postal ballots. There is therefore an acknowledgement that certain matters are essential and that these should appear on the face of the Bill. As he said, the purpose of the Bill is to try to achieve an improvement in voter turnout. That is embodied in subsection (6). Other potential benefits are also listed.

There is a possibility that postal voting may lead to an increase in, personation or other electoral offences". The Electoral Commission is therefore required to consider whether postal voting has affected the incidence of such offences. However, there is no requirement to consider whether the secrecy of the ballot has been compromised. This issue is wider than just personation and other electoral offences. To pick up on what my noble friend said, intimidating someone to ensure that they vote in a particular way is one thing; a wife showing her husband how she voted is another.

There needs to be a consideration of the impact on the integrity of the ballot. If that is not in the Bill, the impression will be given that it is not as important as the other conditions that the Electoral Commission has to consider.

Undertaking such an exercise will be difficult and will require considerable resources on the part of the Electoral Commission. It will need to encompass more than asking returning officers if they believe that any instances of fraud have occurred and that the secrecy of the ballot was affected. The commission must be given the resources to explore precisely the sort of occasions and events to which the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, referred.

Given the fundamental importance of the issue, the requirements imposed by Amendments Nos. 22 and 44 should appear in the Bill. As a corollary, I ask the Minister to consider ensuring that a requirement is imposed on returning officers to provide whatever information is required by the commission in order to fulfil the conditions of subsection (6). If we want the commission to do the job properly, it must be given the means to do it.

3.30 p.m.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

The issue of secrecy is of enormous importance. We will take away what has been said because, between now and Report, we obviously need to look at details such as those suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, concerning transparent envelopes and envelopes that can be resealed. I am grateful to Members of the Committee for raising such issues, which we shall consider.

The Electoral Commission recommended in its report on the 2003 electoral pilots, The Shape of Elections to Come, that secrecy warnings should be included on postal and proxy voting literature. There is a whole range of measures that can be adopted in all postal elections to maintain the secrecy of the ballot. Previous pilots used secrecy warnings, which were sent both to voters and electoral staff, and the Government intend to do the same with these pilots.

We also agree with the commission, as we agree with members of the Committee, that it is vital that any literature that accompanies the ballot papers sent to electors needs to make it absolutely clear that security statements and ballot papers will be separated when received by the returning officer.

The Electoral Commission also recommends that the following information is included: that the vote is personal and voters should complete it themselves unless they require assistance; that official assistance is available and that no one should forcibly complete their ballot for them; and that postal vote fraud is an offence. That seems a sensible approach. Such matters have already been considered and are best dealt with through the detailed pilot order, as indeed has been the case in previous pilot schemes.

We shall return to the issue of the pilot order later. At this stage I should like to reiterate a point made by my noble friend Lord Filkin about the development of the policy that will inform the detail of the order. The policy is being developed in conjunction with regional returning officers and other key stakeholders. In fact, there is a meeting on Tuesday of next week, to be attended by RROs, Royal Mail and the Electoral Commission, which will result in a near-final draft of a policy paper. That will then be circulated more widely, including to those noble Lords who have expressed an interest.

Amendment No. 44 would require the commission to report on the extent to which the manner in which the elections were conducted undermined the secrecy of the ballot. In fact, the commission is already required by Clause 4(6)(c) to report on how the pilots affected the incidence of electoral offences or malpractice as part of the evaluation. Breaches of secrecy will form part of that, so the amendment is not required.

In previous evaluations, the commission has looked at the issue in various ways. For example, its 2003 strategic report, The Shape of Elections to Come, included opinion polls which tested attitudes on postal voting's safety from fraud and abuse as well its ability to provide privacy for the voter. It is interesting to note that 72 per cent of people rated postal voting as good at providing privacy. Only 13 per cent rated it as poor.

As a consequence of the assurances and information that I have given, I hope that opposition members of the Committee will recognise that we have taken account of their concerns and will continue to do so in respect of these important issues. I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

Earl Attlee

I am grateful to the Minister for that thoughtful response. I urge him to consider bringing forward at a later stage his own amendments because I am not convinced by his argument that we can rely on the pilot orders; this is too fundamental an issue. I am also not convinced about the provisions already set out in the Bill and I suspect that we shall be able to table amendments on Report that will pick that argument to bits.

The Minister referred to opinion polls. I am not wholly convinced that opinion polls are a good way of determining exactly how we should make provisions in the Bill. I shall read carefully in Hansard what he has said and beg leave to withdraw the amendment, subject to the usual caveats.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On Question, Whether Clause 2 shall stand part of the Bill?

Lord Norton of Louth

Although listed as "already debated", we have had no dedicated debate on this clause. In the light of the statement issued by the Electoral Commission, I think that we should now discuss the clause and invite the Government to consider withdrawing it.

I had intended to table an amendment to take out subsections (4) to (7). However, having considered the statement issued by the Electoral Commission on 23 January, I decided that it was more appropriate to invite the Government to withdraw the clause and to come back with a new one. The Electoral Commission issued its statement having taken the advice of counsel on the compatibility of the supply of the marked register with the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Data Protection Act 1998. Given the opinion of counsel, I think that new provisions are necessary.

At Second Reading I raised the problem generated by requiring the returning officer to provide polling progress information to parties prior to the close of poll. In existing elections, where people vote at polling stations, those entering and leaving the polling stations are under no obligation to tell party tellers who they are. Under the provisions of this clause, the parties will know who has voted because the registration officer will be required to give them that information. That distinguishes the situation from what happens at present.

The justification for the provision offered by the Minister at Second Reading was that voting is a public act. I can see the point of his argument, but the problem is that if voting by post is a public act, then so too is voting at a polling station. If one cannot opt out of the public aspect of postal voting, why should one be able to opt out in respect of voting at a polling station? My concerns have been reinforced by the statement of the Electoral Commission and by the opinion of counsel.

The statement of the Electoral Commission essentially repeats the point I made at Second Reading. In the view of the commission, the requirement imposed on the returning officer to disclose details of who has and has not voted, significantly alters the balance between the party/candidate and the elector in a way that could amount to an invasion of privacy". The Minister will have read the legal opinion obtained by the commission in which it is stated that tipping the balance in this way could potentially render the interference with Convention rights so much more intrusively as to be a disproportionate infringement of Article 8 and/or Article 3, of Protocol 1 of the ECHR.

Given the risk of infringement, the options identified in order to avoid it are either to prohibit access to the marked register before the close of poll or to introduce a number of safeguards. Those safeguards include an "opt out" option for those who do not wish to be solicited by the political parties.

Rather than speak at length—the opinion given by counsel is quite extensive and encompasses existing provisions governing the use of the marked register— I think it sufficient to invite the Minister's comments on how the Government intend to proceed. Will the Government withdraw the clause and come back on Report with new provisions, ensuring that—if information is to be supplied by the returning officer— adequate safeguards are embodied in the Bill?

Lord Rennard

While the Electoral Commission is saying that many voters will not like the fact that it becomes known that they have returned their postal vote, they are probably ignoring the fact that in any public election you can find out afterwards who has voted. That has not been a barrier to people in the past. Since you can find out after the election who has voted and, if necessary, harass the voter, we are choosing little between harassing the voter before polling day to say, "vote", as opposed to harassing them afterwards to say, "you did not vote for my party".

Lord Norton of Louth

Will the noble Lord give way? He has doubtless read counsel opinion, which raises questions about making the marked register available after the poll as well. There are significant issues arising from that.

Lord Rennard

Indeed. My point is that there are two halves to this argument. I am not sure that I agree with the Electoral Commission's reservations about the inconvenience to voters. That is not such a problem. Indeed, it illustrates the problem of extensive postal voting in elections and why in many ways it is an inappropriate technique for conducting elections by postal vote.

In a traditional election, you have the opportunity to see whether someone has voted. In my experience— and I have a great deal—very few people ever object to giving you their number if they have it, or their address, or something that identifies them as having voted. That is not such a problem. I accept that there may be some legal problems with this. Insofar as there may be legal problems with publishing a marked register after an election, or publishing an updated marked register during the course of a postal vote election, I accept that the Government must take their own legal advice and consider what they will do.

Baroness Hanham

The principle of how on earth political parties will get to know who has voted and either make their views known to them or not has been discussed extensively. If this opinion stands, and there is no way around it, the political parties will have to make other arrangements. It hugely brings into question again the policy of having all-postal voting. The rationale behind it is pretty tenuous anyway. We supported only a limited pilot on this, to see whether it works. As we walk into four regions—as the Government wish and as I made clear earlier on—of potentially half the electorate, we are beginning to look at how we are disenfranchising the electorate and making it difficult for any political party to have any impact at all.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth that this is something now, in the light of the Electoral Commission's view, which we are going to have to look at afresh. I am also conscious that, if we are not careful, all politics will drop out of elections. That may be something that people will be glad about, but that is not true all round. If all-postal voting is going to become a part of our lives—and I sincerely hope that it will not—but if it is, somehow, somewhere people must take into account the fact that elections take place by and large for political parties and the people in them.

If political parties do not and cannot tell whether someone has voted, there would have to be caveats about the amount of harassment that could take place. The point was extremely well raised. I saw the Electoral Commission's recommendations and realised that this amendment was sound, so I did not push it myself.

I was not sure that the Minister responded to the whole question of the ECHR, the human rights issue, which my noble friend Earl Attlee raised under the previous amendment. Again, this is of considerable importance. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, has already said that he believes that the Bill complies, but we are already beginning to question whether this new system actually does.

3.45 p.m.

Lord Greaves

As the noble Baroness said, most people involved in elections are involved through political parties, and some even join political parties, or rejoin them after they have been elected. I am glad that the noble Lord has introduced this debate, because it worried me a bit that we were not going to have it. Whatever the conclusion is, and whatever our individual conclusions are as Members, and as members of parties, we ought to think about it, and think about the implications. At the previous meeting of this Grand Committee, I said: There are major questions on whether that is a desirable practice in postal voting".—[Official Report, 26/1/04; col. GC28.] That is to say, issuing a tally of who has voted officially as it goes along. Last May, which seemed to be the first time this happened, at least to my knowledge, when I discovered that this was happening in Blackpool and various other places, I was shocked, and my instinctive reaction was that it was wrong. It conflicts with the practice at polling stations, where no official information about who votes comes out until afterwards. Perhaps the principle should be changed. If we are doing that, at least it ought to be thought about and debated.

The noble Lord said that questions are raised about whether the marked register should be made available at all. If the marked register is not made available at elections, the opportunity for people to challenge election results and to investigate all kinds of election offences—personation, dead people being on the register and voting, people voting twice and so on—is greatly reduced. I do not think that we could do that.

In a number of cases, successful election petitions have rested on close investigation of the marked register. There was a case in Richmond some years ago that is famous, in our party at least, and is referred to as the Richmond judgment. It may be famous because it gave the seat to us instead of the Tories. We will have to be able to look and see who voted if we are going to be able to investigate whether the people who voted were real people entitled to vote, and whether they voted only for themselves. That is the principle.

The problem with postal votes is that we have no means of engaging in what all parties call "telling"— sticking people outside polling stations and getting a less than 100 per cent accurate list of who votes. Nevertheless, we all do it, because it is efficient. If it is 80 per cent accurate it helps us, not least to avoid badgering people who have already voted. It helps us to badger people who have not voted. It is always a bit disquieting to go along a street knocking up and discover that the Tories are in front of you and have just knocked up the same house, and that the Labour Party are coming along behind you to knock up the same house. It is not an exact science by any means. Nevertheless, it is useful.

We ask the Government to look at and come back to us on the four bullet points on the second page of the Electoral Commission's submission. If such action is to be taken, one disclosure is no good; there must be at least two or three during the campaign to make it worthwhile. The introduction of a specific criminal offence relating to candidates and agents assisting the completion of postal ballots would be extremely helpful. That is my view—I do not know the party line.

At one stage, the Electoral Commission was suggesting that political parties should not handle sealed envelopes containing postal ballots. If someone asked such a person to post an envelope for them, that would not be allowed. In practice, defining a political agent and banning that practice is almost impossible. There is no way of making it legally watertight, if it were desirable. However, banning political parties and agents from handling ballot papers—whether filling them in, giving them to people, or carrying them around the streets, as I have seen—would be extremely helpful. I ask the Government to look at that seriously for reasons that I will explain—I regret at slightly greater length—in my next amendment.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, for not answering his question on human rights in relation to the last amendment. The Venice Commission, which, as noble Lords know, looks at electoral matters in Europe, has reviewed postal voting and regards it as compatible with European human rights law.

Baroness Hanham

Does it include all-postal voting? Is it postal voting as part of a system, or is it all-postal voting? They are different.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I am being told that the answer is complex, but I agree that it is an important question that needs to be answered. I shall ensure that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, receives a full answer before Report.

That was a good discussion about the marked register. It is interesting that the Bill was amended to provide for so-called marked registers in another place after the idea received strong cross-party support. That shows that we were listening to points made and decided to incorporate them into the Bill. It is also interesting that we are now trying to work out whether it is a good idea or not.

The impact of piloting the provision will be specifically assessed by the Electoral Commission in its reports on the pilots. Perhaps I may remind Members of the Committee—it is a rather obvious point—that it applies only to the pilots that we hope will take place in June.

We have seen the recent Electoral Commission statement, to which reference has been made today. We are considering our response. Obviously, we would not have amended the Bill to provide for that information were we not confident that it did not breach human rights obligations. In particular, we consider it important to note that the provision is being introduced on a pilot basis. It will also be important, after those pilots, for the Electoral Commission to analyse the practical impact of the use of the marked register. That will be done.

The commission makes specific recommendations, which I will outline, even though everyone has read its statement. It suggests that we need to put in safeguards, primarily to stop candidates and agents putting undue pressure on voters. There are significant safeguards already in place, such as it being an offence for someone to interfere with, or attempt to interfere with, a voter when recording his vote. It is also an offence to unduly influence a voter. That will continue to be the case for the pilot elections, and no change is needed to existing regulations to achieve that.

However, some current provisions regarding attempts to obtain information as to the candidate for whom a voter is about to vote or has voted apply only to polling stations. Putting in place all-postal voting will obviously require amendments to ensure that existing provisions are applied, as appropriate, to the form of voting in the pilots. However, we consider that it would be more appropriate to deal with those changes, along with other relevant detailed changes to existing legislation, in the pilot order. That is what we plan to do.

The commission also recommends that voters be able to "opt out" of having their name on the register, to which political parties will have access. We very carefully considered that when the inclusion of so-called marked registers was first suggested in another place, but we felt that it would not be practicable to implement such a system prior to the June 2004 elections. I remind Members of the Committee that the provision is being introduced on a pilot basis only.

The commission also suggested that an additional safeguard is to define more narrowly the phrase "electoral purposes". The use of the register is limited by existing regulations to use by particular persons for specific purposes. Political parties can use the register for "electoral purposes". The commission questions whether the term "electoral purposes" is sufficiently narrowly defined. We are considering its comments on that and will come back at a later stage.

I hope that what I have said will reassure Members of the Committee, and that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, will withdraw his objection to the clause standing part of the Bill.

Lord Norton of Louth

As the Minister has implied, there is a clear conflict between the politics and legal compliance with convention rights. As I said at Second Reading, I am not surprised that the political parties support making the information available to them, as they will get free information. Therefore, they are in favour of the provision—quelle surprise!

However, that must be set against whether the provisions of the clause comply with convention rights. Therefore, it is important that the Bill is compliant, regardless of what may be put into the orders. Even though this is a pilot, that is not particularly germane in terms of the Bill needing to be compliant with convention rights.

I welcome what the Minister said in terms of looking at the matter again in certain respects, but I stress the importance of getting an assurance that it will be looked at thoroughly in the light of the statement by the Electoral Commission, as well as of its polls. We shall return to the matter on Report, when we might have to look at it very thoroughly. Given that we are in Grand Committee, I shall not pursue my objection, but I want to put on record that I think it extremely important that the matter be looked at thoroughly.

Clause 2 agreed to.

[Amendments Nos. 24 to 27 not moved.]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 28: After Clause 2, insert the following new clause— "ADDITIONAL PROVISIONS IN RESPECT OF POSTAL VOTING

1. (1) The Secretary of State may not make any order under sections 1 and 2 which provides for all-postal voting unless the chief executive of each of the postal authorities involved has made a written statement that he has made alternative arrangements for the delivery and return of postal ballots in the event of a postal service being suspended for whatever reason.
2. (2)The Secretary of State must place a copy of each statement made in pursuance of subsection (1) in the Library of the House of Commons not less than two months before the election."

The noble Baroness said: We have already mentioned, at both Second Reading and in earlier debates, the potential problems of trusting the postal service to guarantee the delivery and return of votes. At Second Reading, many noble Lords gave specific examples of instances when groups of people had been disfranchised due to delays or problems with the Royal Mail service. I particularly draw attention to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, reported in Hansard at cols. 311–12 on 8 January, in which we were given many examples.

The problem is all the more pertinent because we have had a series of industrial strikes by postal workers over the past three years or so. There cannot be any member of the Committee who has not been frustrated by delays in the post and letters or documents that failed to be delivered or were lost in the post. I was reminded the other day by my postman that we are going to get the really tip-top service of one delivery a day, probably around lunchtime. The propensity for the postal service to collapse and be less than useful is coming on us quickly.

As I mentioned when speaking to an earlier amendment, we know that, on average, 1,500 items of post are lost per week in each parliamentary constituency. I do not want to denigrate the efforts of the chief executives of postal authorities in ensuring the safe delivery of postal votes. I take on board the Minister's statement at Second Reading that: There have been considerable discussions with the Royal Mail. Adam Crozier, the chief executive, has affirmed to us that its contribution to a postal election is the highest priority the Post Office has, apart from the delivery of money to the post offices themselves".—[Official Report, 8/1/04; col. 346.] In the light of Post Office strike action in parts of the country, however, there are genuine concerns about the reliability of the postal service during an all-postal election. The Government may argue that all-postal voting encourages people to vote because the process of voting is easier. However, we must be careful about weighing that against the danger of disfranchisement due to problems with the postal service. For example, how many days must voters allow for sending off their postal ballot form and for it to arrive on the main day of polling?

Our amendment offers a different perspective. It ensures that the Secretary of State may not make an order under Clauses 1 and 2, unless the chief executive of each of the postal authorities involved has made a written statement that he has made alternative arrangements for the delivery and return of postal ballots in the event of a postal service being suspended for whatever reason … The Secretary of State must place a copy of each statement made in pursuance of subsection (1) in the Library of the House of Commons not less than two months before the election". We envisage the alternative arrangements as being some kind of courier service, not merely the sign-up of the postal service administrator to the guarantee of delivery. At the moment, the Post Office is almost a monopoly service and if it falls down there are no other arrangements within the postal service to deal with the problem. Therefore it will have to look outside and make sure that there is another means of delivery if it should fail.

I appreciate that an alternative service would probably be costly, but we think it vital that such a provision be in place, if only as a last resort that will not have to be called on. I beg to move.

4 p.m.

Lord Rennard

I do not want to repeat everything I said on Second Reading about my scepticism of the Royal Mail's capacity to handle an all-postal voting operation. I simply say that this amendment may help address some of those problems. However, I remain very fearful of the Royal Mail's capacity to deal with these matters given its failure on a number of occasions. I referred on Second Reading to problems in an election last year in Dudley where many of the postal votes were returned on polling day, despite every assurance that a check would be made on the eve of poll to ensure they were all processed through the system. Moreover, a considerable number arrived the day after the election and were not counted.

Apparently that is now subject to an appeal. However, unless such an appeal succeeds, no candidate, agent or party will have legal recourse to say that the election should be invalidated, even if it can be proven that, through the inefficiency of the Royal Mail, large numbers of postal votes were not received until polling day or the day after and it was too late. I have also drawn attention to last November's council by-election in Islington where the assurances that are being sought in the amendment were given—that alternative arrangements were in hand and that, despite the industrial action, there would be no problem in the postal votes being counted. Yet in last November's Hill Rise by-election, one in three postal votes was not counted because the Royal Mail failed to deliver in time.

While I support this sensible amendment, safeguards should be put in place before we have all-postal voting. I am not convinced by assurances that safeguards will prevent the problems.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

As we have heard, at Second Reading there was a long discussion about the postal service, the Royal Mail, and whether it would be able to handle these pilots. My job is to try to convince the Committee that a great deal is being done to secure the efficient operation of the Post Office for postal votes in June.

The first thing to say, as I think my noble friend Lord Filkin mentioned at Second Reading, is that there is absolutely top-level commitment to these pilots from the chairman, Allan Leighton, and the chief executive, Adam Crozier. I notice a smile on the face of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. Today we have had an assurance from the Post Office that a letter will be coming to us shortly, setting out what measures the Royal Mail will take to ensure that all-electoral post is provided to administrators in the event of industrial action. We will be happy to share this information with noble Lords when it arrives.

Royal Mail representatives underlined their commitment only last week at an implementation workshop attended by representatives from the four intended pilot regions, the Electoral Commission and government officials. There is also a commitment to working at local level with the administrators who know the issues for their areas.

The Royal Mail has assured us that it has the resources to address any issues. These pilots are a major operation and commercial interest for the Royal Mail; after all, they could affect up to 14 million people. The organisation will be aware of the risks to its reputation if it were to fail to play its part.

I have extensive speaking notes intended to convince the Committee that the Royal Mail will do a good job. However, with the Committee's agreement, I think it would be particularly helpful to move to what would happen if there should be a national strike, which is, I think, the nightmare scenario for these pilots. The Royal Mail will use local managers and national administrative staff to identify electoral papers—by machine-sort and hand if necessary—and pass them to electoral administrators. What happens to them would depend on what stage the documents were at. If uncompleted ballot papers were received from the local authority for dispatch but were not sent out, the Royal Mail would give them back to the local authority, which would have to make alternative arrangements to deliver them. There would be contingency planning by local authorities for alternative delivery.

If electoral mail was delivered and put in postboxes by electors, the Royal Mail would empty the postboxes before sealing them. All collected electoral mail would be given to the electoral administrators—possibly RROs—in bulk and unsorted. They would be separated from all other post and not sorted into local area batches. The RROs would need resources to tackle sorting, which they would be given. If such mail was in the sort process at Royal Mail centres, Royal Mail managers would identify them from special postcodes that would be given to all local authorities for elections for the pilots and from specially marked envelopes. All such mail would be given to RROs.

I read out that brief because I wanted to indicate the detail that the Royal Mail is going into with other stakeholders. Having read that material and having heard that the Royal Mail is prepared to write the sort of letter that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, would like to read, I hope that I have done enough to reassure the Committee that we are doing everything we can. I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.

Lord Norton of Louth

One thought occurred to me while the Minister was speaking. In the event of any of the options that he mentioned occurring—the ultimate being a national postal strike—what would be the alternative? Should one not make provision to revert to the old format of opening polling stations?

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

Yes; the advice is that we might consider that as a last resort.

Baroness Hanham

That shows the wisdom of us asking to have somewhere in every local ward in the pilot areas. We were discussing earlier whether there should not be somewhere that people could go to vote if they wished or to drop off their votes. Under these circumstances, that seems even more sensible.

The possibility of there being a complete all-out strike may not be likely. However, wildcat strikes can never be completely cut out or anticipated. I am concerned about whether all those administrators in the Royal Mail will be able to run round emptying all the postboxes and sealing them up. I am not at all happy that they will have the option of throwing electoral mail back to the local authority. A system must be set up for delivery. If we have to give mail back to the local authority, the local authority then has to make its own arrangements for a courier system for delivery, which is then no longer the responsibility of the Royal Mail.

Under those circumstances, the Royal Mail would discharge its responsibilities by handing what it had hooked out of the postboxes back to the local authority. I do not think that that is fulfilling the obligation. Our clear view is that every area administrated by the Post Office should set up detailed arrangements, with some form of courier service to guarantee the collection as well as the delivery of postal votes. The other alternative is simply to revert to polling stations or to a manned drop-off point. That takes us back to the utter rationale of having far more drop-off points than the Government envisage, with people on hand to help. There would then have to be a system of advising people that that was going to happen.

Despite Adam Crazier's great assertions about this matter, I will wait to see what the letter says—and I would be grateful if we could have it before Report so that we can see what is anticipated. I remain extremely concerned about this matter, because the arrangements do not sound as if they will hold up. I appreciate that this sort of situation may not arise. However, we have been in situations before when opportunities are seized—I put it no higher—to cause trouble.

The Government are now talking—although we are not—about 14 million people taking part in the pilot, which is half the nation. That is no longer a pilot: that is a substantial vote throughout the country. We need far more assurances. I understand that the Minister has not been able to give those today. I look forward to seeing the letter, but, in the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Lord Greaves moved Amendment No. 29: After Clause 2, insert the following new clause— "REQUESTS FOR BALLOT PAPERS TO BE SENT TO ALTERNATIVE ADDRESSES

1. (1) An elector may request in writing that a ballot paper is sent to an address other than that at which he is registered as an elector where to do so would be for the convenience of the elector in casting his vote.
2. (2) Such a request shall be made in writing and signed by the elector; such a request shall provide a clear explanation of why the request is being made, and shall be made not later than three full weeks before the date on which the ballot papers will be issued.
GC 195
3. (3) The returning officer shall consider each request made under subsection (1) individually and shall accept the request if he considers that the reasons given are reasonable.
4. (4) But if the returning officer is not satisfied by any reasons given he shall make such enquiries as may be practical and shall only agree to the request if he is so satisfied as to the reasons for the request on the basis of his enquiries."

The noble Lord said: I apologise that I shall need to take a little time explaining the amendment. I do not make a general apology, but I apologise to the individuals in the Committee. However, I am pleased to be doing so in the relatively painless environment of the Grand Committee.

Amendment No. 29 would deal with the situation where people ask for their postal vote to be sent to a different address from that at which they are registered on the electoral register. I assume that in all postal ballots that arrangement will still be possible, in the same way that people can now apply for postal votes to be sent to a Butlins holiday camp, a student hall of residence or wherever they happen to be staying.

The new clause would put a duty on the returning officer to scrutinise such requests, to look at the reasons and to grant them straightaway only if the requests seem reasonable and are not being put forward for such vague reasons as "away" or "going shopping"—I have seen that—or even an explanation such as "student". Electors must give some evidence that at face value makes the request a reasonable one. By implication, a request to have a ballot paper sent to a house across the street would not be reasonable unless the elector had moved there. Subsection (4) provides that the returning officer should make enquiries to see whether the request is reasonable if he thinks that it is not.

So far as I am concerned, the provision arises from events during the Pendle local elections in May 2002. As I have explained on several occasions, across four small, marginal wards almost 1,000 postal votes were sent to common addresses that had nothing to do with the electors concerned. That happened in the Bradley, Brierfield, Southfield and Whitefield wards, and there is no doubt that it made a difference to the election results in the Pendle election that year.

I am aware of instances of the same kind of thing in Burnley, Oldham and Birmingham, as well as allegations that it has been going on in other places. I have to say that although the people concerned in Pendle were the local Labour Party, I am aware that in other places more than one party may have been involved.

During the all-out elections in those wards, a plan was drawn up by a group of organisers for the local Labour Party that involved signing up as many electors as they could on postal votes and then manipulating and controlling those electors to ensure that as many of them as possible voted the straight Labour ticket. That operation must be stopped. There is no way to avoid it, and nor should we. It was confined mainly, but not entirely, to the Asian community, involving 90 to 95 per cent Asian electors. One Asian landlord extended it to some of his white tenants. The problem of landlords voting on behalf of tenants—a problem that I referred to during our previous consideration in regard to Oldham—was taking place here as well.

The first thing that they did was to allocate postal votes to common addresses that were the homes of known Labour supporters or relatives of one of the Labour candidates. We believe that many voters signed the application forms before the addresses were filled in—that is what they told us—and certainly did not realise that their postal votes would not be sent to their home addresses. Indeed, many did not even realise that they were applying for a postal vote. All those applications were handed in at the town hall on the latest possible date.

I have a list of the common addresses concerned— around 35 addresses across all the wards. In the Whitefield ward, for example, 35 postal votes were sent to the address of a Labour candidate's nominator at 16 Albert Street. I keep referring to Labour, because that is what happened in this case, but I am not making a party political point. I believe that the problem is more widespread, but it just so happened that the Labour Party was involved in my area. Thirty postal votes were sent to 10 Carr Hill Road, Barrowford, the home of a Labour candidate's cousin in a different town in Pendle. Twenty postal votes were sent to an empty house two doors away, which, I believe, belongs to the same person. Sixty-one postal votes were sent to two addresses in Rochdale—16 King Street, East Rochdale, and 6 St Luke Street—which were ordinary two-up two-down terrace houses. We ascertained that all 61 people affected had not gone on holiday to Rochdale to live in those houses.

It was a scam that allowed people to control votes on their delivery more effectively than by the standard technique of following a postman and picking up papers from people's doorsteps or going to their houses and sorting out how they will vote as soon as they receive their papers.

We complained immediately, as did the local Conservatives, to the chief executive. He said that under existing legislation there was nothing that he could do, because the request forms had been filled in properly. Although he was very concerned about the situation, he said that he had to send the voting papers to the addresses given on the request forms. That is why my amendment is couched as it is.

A great parcel of votes was delivered to each of the addresses involved, where party activists, helpers and, in some cases, candidates collected them and brought them to central locations, which I shall refer to as committee rooms. They even took some postal votes requested by residents at those addresses. They then distributed the votes or, in some cases—we have strong evidence to prove this—they sat around a table and filled in the papers. It is generally accepted in the community and it is clear from talking to many of those affected that residents at the common addresses knew little or nothing of the operation, and that the common addresses were simply used as dead-letter drops.

The media became interested in what was happening, as one might imagine. On 28 September 2002, the Guardian published an article about postal-vote fiddles in various areas, including east Lancashire. It said: Some say they did not want their votes to be sent to these addresses. The vote of Carol Passmore, 54, a retired nurse, was sent to an address several streets away, along with 29 other postal votes. She insisted she had not wanted it sent anywhere else: 'I'm not that daft—it's my vote.' Days before the election, her postal vote was brought to her home by a Labour activist. While the party worker watched, she was asked to mark her ballot paper in front of him. Miss Passmore claimed. 'I thought a postal vote came to your house, and you did it privately and sent it back. He was looking over my shoulder while I was doing it. I won't vote again.' In those circumstances, party activists then took the voting papers away. They insisted that the documents remain unsealed because they had to be checked in the committee room to ensure that they were right. The article continues: The address Miss Passmore's vote was sent to is the home of a Labour candidate's cousin. He was not available for comment, but his father said he did not know Miss Passmore. He referred inquiries about her vote to Mohammed Iqbal, deputy leader of the Labour group on the council". Channel 4 News also interviewed Miss Passmore on 24 May 2002, because, unlike most people, she was willing to talk to them. They also contacted the Labour candidate's cousin to whom all the ballot papers arrived. He said that he could not possibly explain why all the papers had been sent to his home, that he knew nothing about them, and that someone had come along and picked them up after they had arrived.

Channel 4 News also interviewed a young Asian man whose voting papers had been delivered along with 44 other postal votes to 126 Chapel Street, which it claimed was the home of a Labour candidate's brother-in-law. The young man said that his vote had been stolen from him. He lived around the corner from 126 Chapel Street—most of the voting papers were delivered just across the street. When Channel 4 News interviewed the residents at that address on their doorstep, they said that they knew nothing about the matter.

That year a lot of complaints were made at polling stations. Pendle Borough Council's returning officer made a report of the complaints made. In the case of one family living at Fir Street in Nelson, none of whom had applied for a postal vote, six votes were sent to 77 Barkerhouse Road. They found that their voting papers had been sent to that address when they went to vote. When one of the voters went to that address, he was told that nothing was known about it.

There is a lot of such evidence. I am sure that the Committee does not want to hear all of it, but I could provide a huge pile of cases. It is a very serious scam that needs to be stamped out.

In addition, we discovered that a small number of people had witnessed the declaration of identity on a large number of the votes. As I mentioned in Committee last week, in one ward 200 votes were countersigned by three councillors.

Earl Attlee

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He is doing a fabulously detailed job of explaining what the problem is. Can he tell us how his amendment is going to stamp out the problem? I am desperate to know.

Lord Greaves

I shall do that in a minute. I am grateful to the noble Earl, but if he will be patient for a little longer I shall explain that.

We saw the votes concerned at the count. Experienced politicians know what postal votes are like; various colours of ink are used, and numbers can be ticked or crossed out, especially in the Asian community, where voting is often by numbers. It was clear that the voting papers had been filled in centrally and that the votes were not genuine.

What are the excuses given? The then leader of Pendle Borough Council, Azhar Ali, when interviewed by BBC's "Northwest Tonight" on 30 April 2002, said: It's about extended families; it's about groups in unity and I think that's a strength not a weakness". That sums up our worries: the idea that block-voting by families at the behest of one or more people is not acceptable. It is certainly unacceptable for a third party to look over someone's shoulder while they vote or, even worse, to ask them to sign a declaration without ever seeing their own ballot paper or to forge a declaration.

I have a file of more than 100 cases in which we believe that either declarations or signatures—by either the witness or the voter—were forged. I have photocopies of them here. I do not understand why the police have not been able to deal with the evidence that we have provided.

Quite rightly, the noble Earl asks, "What is the answer?" The first answer is to give the returning officer real powers to investigate applications that he thinks might be dodgy, as this amendment would do. That means inevitably investigating applications on an individual basis. Perhaps in most places that would be regarded as a very formal procedure, but in areas such as Pendle, I am afraid, it is not. At present, the returning officer tells me that he does not have those powers.

I submitted a Written Question on the issue on 30 April 2002, when, as Members of the Committee might imagine, it was exercising my mind. I received an answer from the then Minister of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, who stated that it is for each individual who applies to say where the voting paper should be sent. He continued: If an electoral registration officer (ERO) or an acting returning officer (ARO) has a suspicion of electoral fraud, it is for them to notify the police". I shall come on to that in a minute. Where an application meets the statutory requirements, it must be accepted, and, where practicable, the ERO will confirm the arrangements by notifying the elector". Given the very tight timetable for elections that we now have, that is very often not practicable. But it can be done, and in my area it is. Once these arrangements arc in place, the ARO has no discretion to disregard them".—[Official Report, 30/4/02; col. WA83.] The officials have to accept the form, request or application they receive on the basis of the information on it. They can refer it to the police. Indeed, our local returning officer has made it absolutely clear that if he receives many more applications for common addresses this year he will pass them straight to the police. But he would still have to accept them, and it would take the police a long time to investigate. I am afraid that such investigations in our area are less than effective and efficient.

In moving the amendment, I do not expect the Government to say, "Yes, this is brilliant. We shall write it into the legislation now". Indeed, the problem goes wider than pilots; it covers the whole issue of postal voting and applies to the whole country. I hope that the Government, together with the Electoral Commission, will seriously consider the matter. Despite the fact that I have written to the chairman of the Electoral Commission about it, I do not believe that it is taking the matter seriously. It needs to be taken seriously because it concerns an electoral abuse which appears to be growing in a number of different parts of the country. It has to be stopped and stamped out. I beg to move.

Earl Attlee

The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, has identified a very serious problem but his arguments would carry more force if they were a wincy bit more succinct. I agree with his analysis of the problem and look forward to hearing from the Minister.

Lord Greaves

I apologise to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee. I believed this was a good opportunity to have the issue written into the record so that I could refer people to it in future. I apologised to the Committee at the outset.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. He prefaced his remarks by saying that he would be speaking at some length. He has read the issue into the record and so presumably, on Report, we shall be able to read Hansard rather than listen to these very interesting arguments again.

Lord Greaves

I shall not say it all again on Report.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

Thank you. The noble Lord, Lord Greaves, spoke at great length; I shall be very brief. We find the amendment particularly interesting. It would provide, as we have heard, that before a request for ballot papers to be sent to an alternative address were granted, a valid reason must be given. We believe that is very important. We can see the purpose of this and believe that potentially it could provide a valuable safeguard.

However, this level of detail is more appropriate for the pilot order. We are currently in discussion with returning officers and electoral administrators regarding this and other points which would be useful in helping to reduce the potential for fraud. The noble Lord's comments in Hansard should be part of the discussion.

As I said, we intend to share the policy paper that is currently being developed with noble Lords in the near future. Specifically on the provision suggested by the amendment, I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Greaves, agrees that some issues need to be addressed—for instance, how electoral administrators would determine whether a redirection should be permitted. However, it is a very important issue and we are considering including it within the pilot. Given this assurance, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

Lord Greaves

I am almost thrilled and excited by that answer. It is the first time that I have raised the matter in any place and I have begun to get through to people that there is a serious problem. I do not want to patronise the Minister or the Government by saying that. I am delighted by what he said and thank him, and I look forward with gleeful anticipation to what happens. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

4.30 p.m.

Clause 3 agreed to.

Clause 4 [Electoral Commission report]:

[Amendment No. 30 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 31: Page 3, line 8, leave out "such relevant" and insert "all

The noble Baroness said: I need not be very long on the matter. Amendments Nos. 31, 33 and 34 focus on Clause 4 and the Electoral Commission's report after a pilot has taken place. We very much support the inclusion of Clause 4 in the Bill. It extends the Electoral Commission's duties so that it must report not only on the election in general, but on the pilot itself. That is vital as we know that the pilot is intended to trial new and innovative methods.

We have a problem with the clause, however, in subsections (2) and (3). Subsection (2) reads: The Electoral Commission must consult such relevant local authorities in the region as they consider appropriate in connection with the preparation of the report", while subsection (3) states: Every relevant local authority in the region must give the Commission such assistance as they may reasonably require''. Will the Minister explain why the Electoral Commission must consult "such relevant local authorities", rather than simply all local authorities in the region, and why every "relevant" local authority in the region must give assistance rather than every local authority in the region?

I can see no basis for the Electoral Commission to consult only relevant local authorities rather than them all. Every local authority will have taken part in the pilot scheme on the European election, so why should some be consulted and not others? The only local authorities that will have additional information are those where there have been local elections, which presumably will automatically be consulted by the Electoral Commission as to whether those elections work.

It is very important that every local authority be consulted. Our wording seems correct, so I ask the Minister to explain the rationale behind it not being all local authorities that are consulted. I beg to move.

Lord Rennard

I wondered why the Government did not immediately suggest that all local authorities should be consulted. Perhaps there could be a Machiavellian reason for only consulting some, but the logic might well be simply that the principal local authority—the county council, the district council, the metropolitan council—should be consulted. Perhaps the Government did not think it appropriate to consult every parish or town council. My suggestion to the Minister is for an appropriate government amendment to clarify the matter using, "all principal local authorities". That might deal with the issue.

Baroness Hanham

It might, but it might not. I shall be very quick; I can see the Minister looking impatient with me already. In the European elections the principal local authority will probably be relevant, but everyone will have voted. Whether the councils are town, county or parish councils, everyone will have voted in the European elections. They may not absolutely have had a role in organising them, but they will have a view on how they have gone. In the running of local elections, how the pilot works is still important. In that instance, I agree that the relevant council may not be the parish council but more the principal one. However, all local authorities will have something to say.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I hope that I can manage to convince the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for his very helpful contribution, in which he anticipated a good part of my reply. This group of amendments increases the obligation on the Electoral Commission regarding its report on the pilot. It seeks to oblige the commission to consult all local authorities. If I work through each amendment separately, our position will become clear.

Amendment No. 31 seeks to remove the Electoral Commission's ability to make a judgment about which local authorities it consults by removing "such relevant" and replacing it with "all", as we have heard. On the face of it, it could seem that the commission could avoid consulting authorities that it did not deem relevant. However, the word "relevant" is a link to Clause 9, which deals with interpretation of the terms used. In Clause 9 "relevant local authority" is defined in terms of local authorities—both parish and principal area authorities—which would have local authority elections under the orders. So no discretion is given to the commission here about what is a relevant local authority.

Similarly, Amendment No. 34 seeks to remove the word "relevant", which applies to the obligation of local authorities to give the commission assistance in its evaluation. Again, that use of the word "relevant" needs to stay for the purposes of interpretation.

Amendment No. 33 adds a constraint to the commission, removing discretion about whom to consult. In this case there is no linkage with the interpretation clause, Clause 9. However, we and the commission believe that the commission needs some discretion; otherwise it might have to consult every parish council holding elections. That would be very resource intensive—which I suspect is jargon for "expensive"—and add little to what it could achieve by consulting more selectively.

To give some idea of the numbers involved, 49 parish elections are to be held in the East Midlands region alone. I am sure that Members of the Committee with much experience of local government will understand that it is not fruitful to require the commission to undertake consultation that will not add anything to the report and could hinder the commission in completing its work in time.

The commission's officials have a great deal of experience in reporting on pilots and will, I am sure, ensure that they consult as necessary to produce a comprehensive and effective report. I am aware that they always seek to consult all returning officers, if possible, in any event. I think that this is something we can leave to their considered judgment without imposing constraints. For those reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, will withdraw her amendment.

Lord Norton of Louth

Perhaps I can intervene to suggest a compromise on wording, and we can see how it goes with the Minister and with my noble friend in the light of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Rennard. What if it were to read: "The Electoral Commission must consult principal authorities and such other relevant authorities in the region as they consider appropriate"?

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

We would be more than happy to consider that very constructive suggestion.

Baroness Hanham

I said yesterday in speaking to the planning Bill that I would quit while I was winning. After this perhaps I should say that I should quit doing anything. The Bill needs to contain further provision. If my noble friend's suggestion satisfies that need, we will not return to it; if it does not, we will. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 33 and 34 not moved.]

Earl Attlee moved Amendment No. 36: Page 3, line 18, at end insert— (c) making arrangements for the inspection of ballot papers to ascertain whether there is evidence (even where no allegation has been made to that effect) of personation or other electoral offences or malpractice.

The noble Earl said: This amendment focuses on personation and electoral malpractice. It builds upon the difficulties identified by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. These are obviously a grave concern in the Bill because the methods being piloted are innovative and designed to generate evidence on the efficacy and security of these new methods. We welcome the extension of the powers of arrest on personation that Clause 6 proposes. This would remove the present restriction on arrest for personation at polling stations only and would therefore allow arrest for personation at other locations.

We support this provision, recommended as it was by the Electoral Commission and the police. It is certainly a greater safeguard and, coupled with the Clause 7 provisions on the time limit for prosecution, it shows that the Government have to some extent carefully considered the issues surrounding electoral malpractice in pilot elections. However, I hope that the Minister will not rely exclusively on Clauses 6 and 7. We do not think that the clauses currently provide enough protection against electoral malpractice when viewed against the potential abuses in an all-postal ballot in a whole region or several regions which have been highlighted throughout our debates in Committee.

Our amendment tries to bring the issue of personation and electoral practice into Clause 4 more explicitly. Currently, Clause 4(6)(c) states that the Electoral Commission's report, must also include an assessment of the extent to which the manner in which the elections were conducted and the different provision…affected the incidence of personation or other electoral offences or malpractice". Our amendment would add a positive obligation on the local authority under Clause 4(4) to provide assistance. This would include making arrangements for the inspection of ballot papers to ascertain whether there is evidence of personation—even when no allegation has been made to that effect—or of other electoral offences or malpractice.

Under subsection (6)(c), the Electoral Commission may simply ask the local authority if any instances of electoral malpractice had been reported to it. More than likely the answer would be "No". We want to go further. We believe that a lot of electoral malpractice takes place behind closed doors, as the Committee has already discussed.

Our amendments would make it the duty of the local authority, in assisting the Electoral Commission, to carry out a spot check inspection to find out if any electoral malpractice or personation has taken place. It does not rely only on an allegation. This would go beyond the situation of complaints being made. It would place a duty on the local authority to double-check in order to have a clearer picture of whether the new methods of voting encouraged electoral malpractice. I beg to move.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

It has been made clear through the process of the Bill that the Government regard the security problem and the fraud problem as major issues. We intend to do everything that we can to minimise and extinguish malpractice in these areas.

Amendment No. 36 would add a provision that local authorities may assist the commission by making ballot papers available for inspection for consideration of fraud. In any event, it is the duty of the returning officers to deal with issues of fraud and to be responsible for the ballot papers, both during the proceedings and afterwards. Once the ballot papers have been counted, an order for their inspection can be made only by the election court. The returning officers are responsible and they are best placed to deal with issues of fraud as they process the papers in the course of the poll.

However, it is worth noting that under current regulations the Electoral Commission can attend the verification of ballot paper accounts, counting of votes, and proceedings on opening of postal ballot papers. These provisions will remain in principle in the pilot order, amended as necessary to take into account the all-postal nature of the ballot.

In addition, the Commission will report on specific issues of fraud if it identifies cause to do so, and it is obliged in the Bill to assess the extent to which postal voting affected the incidence of personation or other electoral offence or malpractice. Fraud is an issue that has been raised in general with regard to remote voting. Given the nature of these elections, it is clear that the Electoral Commission will concentrate on this issue and give it most careful consideration.

We are doing a number of things to combat fraud. We recognise that that is a major concern and are taking many actions; for example, to assist the Electoral Commission in its duty to report on fraud, the Bill provides that local authorities must report to the commission any allegations of personation or other electoral offences or malpractice.

An important additional measure for the pilots that has not existed previously is the extension of the offence of personation to make it arrestable outside a polling station in pilot regions. That measure has been informed by the Electoral Commission's recommendations on the future of postal voting. We hope that it will provide an important safeguard.

The maximum penalties for personation are, on summary conviction, either a maximum fine at level 5—£5,000—or six months' imprisonment or both, and on conviction on indictment, either a maximum of two years' imprisonment or an unlimited fine or both. In addition, the Bill provides that the magistrates court is given a power to allow, in exceptional circumstances, an extension of time for prosecution to be commenced, up to a maximum of 24 months after the date of the offence. Current legislation allows only 12 months.

Taken together, those steps will produce a more secure environment for the pilots to succeed. Other measures to help reinforce security and secrecy will be included in the pilot order. As I have said on several occasions, Members of the Committee will have an opportunity to look at them, and any further suggestions will be warmly welcomed.

The detailed policy on reducing the risk of fraud in the pilots is being developed in partnership with the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders. I have given a commitment—a moment ago—to give Members of the Committee early sight of the policy. I have a list of issues that we are looking into with the Electoral Commission. The matters that currently we are looking into include: comparing signatures on security statements with signatures on file; checks to be made with a sample of people marked as having returned a ballot paper to ensure that they did send in the papers and were not coerced in the process of completing and returning them; inclusion of secrecy warnings on voting; warnings as to the penalties for fraud; and extending the scope of the secrecy rules to cover all postal provisions to require those serving in a delivery place, those providing assistance, and observers to abide by secrecy rules.

We are taking the matter extraordinarily seriously. We will welcome any comments from Members of the Committee that will help us to give maximum effect to extinguishing fraud. Although we cannot accept the amendment, I hope that I have been able to give some reassurance about our plans on security, and that, therefore, the amendment can be withdrawn.

4.45 p.m.

Lord Greaves

The noble Lord's amendment refers to inspection of documents. It actually refers to ballot papers, but, usefully, it could refer to other documents as well. The Minister referred to Clause 7, which refers to a possible extension of the time available to commence a prosecution of fraud, impersonation, and so forth, from 12 months to 24 months. At the moment the deadline is 12 months.

Two other deadlines seem to be related to that. The first is the ability to inspect those documents that are inspectable—that does not include the ballot papers because they are sealed. If I remember correctly, at present there is a six-month deadline on that—I should remember because I carried out that task last year. Secondly, if my memory serves me, there is a 12-month deadline for destroying documents. Documents must be kept for 12 months but may be destroyed at any time after that, although sometimes they are kept for longer if a case is being pursued.

Are the Government considering extending those two deadlines—perhaps to 12 months and two years— to correspond with the extension of the other deadline? People seem to be shaking their heads. Will the Government consider extending those deadlines, because they seem relevant? There is no point in being able to commence a prosecution within 24 months if, for the second half of that time, all the documents involved have been incinerated.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I think that heads were being shaken because we do not know the answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I can see the logic of his point, particularly as the other deadline has been moved to 24 months. We will go away and think, and I shall write to the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. I am grateful to him for raising the point.

Lord Greaves

I am most grateful.

Earl Attlee

I am grateful for the response given by the Minister. I am anxious that he still seems to be relying on allegations, whereas I suggest having spot checks. I am not convinced that great enough attention has been given to having spot checks as part of the process. I shall read carefully what the Minister has said. Subject to the usual caveats, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 37 to 42 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

[Amendments Nos. 43 and 44 not moved.]

Lord Rennard moved Amendment No. 45: Page 3, line 28, at end insert— ( ) For the purposes of subsection (6)(c) the report must be wholly or in part based on information obtained in response to questions put to a random sample of electors.

The noble Lord said: The amendment standing in the name of my noble friend Lord Goodhart and myself perhaps shows signs of having been worded by a lawyer rather than a politician. Perhaps I may explain what my noble friend Lord Goodhart means when he says, "a random sample of electors". In my words, I might have put, "a proper opinion poll", which is what I am referring to here.

The fundamental principle of the review that the commission must undertake of the pilots is that it needs to be proactive. It should look at people's perceptions of all the different issues that we have debated so far in relation to the pilots. My fear is that the Electoral Commission's assessment of various local authority pilots has relied, to quite a considerable extent until now, on the number of complaints that may or may not have come forward.

My noble friend Lord Greaves has raised a considerable number of issues in relation to Pendle. But in many of the pilots we know that there have been very few problems or very little evidence of any. We should have bigger-scale pilots—I hope that there will be at least two on a very large scale. In a proper and measured way, we must seek people's perceptions of the kind of problems that we have talked about; in particular, the fundamental problem of secrecy in relation to postal voting. We need to approach a random sample of voters, using a proper opinion poll company.

Very soon after the elections—perhaps the Friday or Saturday after the normal polling day—we need to conduct a proper, thorough opinion poll. One check that could be made would be to ask people whether they voted in the elections. That would help us to determine whether the sample was representative. We might also ask in which way these people voted. Of course, that information must be kept confidential until later, but it would be useful as a check on whether the sample is representative. People could be asked some important key questions such as, "Did you fill in your ballot paper yourself?

There have been a number of allegations during the debate about how people fear that ballot papers may be taken away and may be completed by others in the household—for example, other family members. We need to know that information specifically from those people, perhaps through a private opinion poll. I would suggest that telephone interviewing would be the best way. People could be asked whether they filled in the ballot paper themselves and, if they did, whether they thought that anyone else may have seen how they voted. They could be asked whether anyone else could have seen how they had voted or could have interfered with their vote, and how comfortable they felt about the process.

I fear that until now, where the commission has tried to evaluate pilots, it has dealt with areas where there has been very little abuse or problems, whereas my noble friend Lord Greaves has shown that in his part of the world there has been a considerable number of problems. The noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, will well remember the problems in Liverpool in the 1980s. While she was involved in sorting out some of the problems within her party, I was involved in sorting them out in a different way by opposing the militants in the elections. We saw how a group of extremists could manipulate the electoral process. During the militant era in Liverpool, I believe that personation was widespread in elections.

Of course, there are only a small number of places where there are those kinds of problems. I think that the commission will say that it is safe to proceed with all-postal voting on the basis that in many areas, most of the time, it appeared very safe and was not a problem. But if, in a sufficient number of areas, there is a problem, I am not sure that we should proceed in this way. The only way that I can see of doing an objective assessment of how people have felt about the pilots is to conduct a proper opinion poll of reasonably large samples of people in each region where there are postal vote experiments asking these kind of questions.

Lord Norton of Louth

I rise briefly to comment on the amendment. I wholly agree with the motivation behind Amendment No. 45; namely, that the commission should be proactive in exploring whether any offences have occurred, rather than simply relying on whether, say, acting returning officers know of cases. I think that the motivation is correct. I have a problem with the actual phraseology in that it allows for the report wholly or in part to be based on the random sample. My concern is with the word, "wholly".

The Chairman of Committees

There is a Division in the Chamber. Therefore, the Grand Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes until 5.5 p.m.

[The Sitting was suspended for a Division in the House from 4.55 to 5.6 p.m.]

The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)

We will start again. I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, was in full stream.

Lord Norton of Louth

Thank you, my Lord Chairman.

I agree with the principle underlying the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—that, the commission must be proactive in seeking to fulfil its functions under subsection 6(c). My concern is that the wording of the amendment allows the commission to fall back on a random sample of electors. As drafted, an opinion poll is necessary, which is fine. However, under the current wording, it could be necessary and sufficient.

I have a suggestion that might deal with that problem. The amendment could instead read: "For the purposes of subsection (6)(c) the report must include information obtained in response to questions put to a random sample of electors". That would be slightly more acceptable, because it would not be so clear that the commission could fall back on a random sample. However, I am sympathetic to the reason for the amendment. There should be some provision that requires the commission to be proactive in fulfilling its functions under subsection (6)(c).

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I should declare an interest: my first job was in market research. I examined the amendment, as did the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and immediately thought that using "random samples" would be quite inappropriate. I prepared an effective demolition job on the notion that random samples were a good thing, and I will deliver that because, clearly, the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, feels that random samples are the way ahead. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that they are not. The idea that an opinion poll is based on random sample is not true. We should be looking at representative samples.

Amendment No. 45 would require the commission to include information obtained from a random sample of electors in the base for the part of its report relating to incidence of personation and other electoral offences. This is an interesting amendment because it seeks to ensure that the views of electors are taken into account in any assessment and evaluation. In that respect, it has an intention that we support.

The Electoral Commission's report on this year's pilots included information provided by MORI on a number of issues including security and fraud. In producing this information, MORI conducted telephone interviews and held focus groups. However, those would not meet this amendment's requirement of "random samples" as they were specifically designed to provide more representative results, which a random sample would not do. A "random" sample could easily reduce the range of electors consulted and so omit important views, opinions and experiences.

If this amendment were revised to remove the word "random", we might accept it. We would like to discuss this further with the noble Lords, Lord Rennard and Lord Goodhart, before Report. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, should advise me on whether we should discuss it with the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart.

Lord Rennard

I thank the Minister for that kind and helpful reply. I relayed a tiny flavour of the argument to the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, a few minutes ago. I apologise if I embarrassed him slightly in the course of this debate. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, for his helpful remarks. I am sure that we will be able to draft something that will be satisfactory to us all at the next stage. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Baroness Hanham moved Amendment No. 46: Page 3, line 38, after "Commission" insert ", all the local authorities in the areas affected by any pilots and all the national political parties contesting the elections

The noble Baroness said: In moving this amendment, I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 47 to 49. Clause 4(8) states that the assessment that will be included in the report from the Electoral Commission, must include a statement by the Electoral Commission as to whether in their opinion—

1. (a) the turnout of voters was higher than it would otherwise have been;
2. (b) electors found the procedures provided for their assistance easy to use".

Our amendments would provide that that statement must be from not only the Electoral Commission but, all the local authorities affected…and all the…political parties contesting the elections". Obviously, as currently drafted, the Electoral Commission is likely to consult local authorities before making a statement under subsection (8). We know that it is also under an obligation to consult local authorities—not all, but the relevant ones that it thinks appropriate. The Minister may clarify that relevance is the defining matter in this case, as discussed on an earlier clause.

However, we do not believe that that consultation at the Electoral Commission's discretion gives sufficient authority to the statement that it will make under subsection (8). The statement should include the views of all local authorities, candidates and political parties involved in elections held under the pilot scheme. Essentially, subsection (7) implies already that the Electoral Commission should consult local authorities, candidates and national political parties, but only about the effect of the provision of information about polling progress, as specified under Clause 2, on the running of the campaign, and the conduct and administration of the election. Their views are then sought only on the issue of the marked register—we understand that that is a matter of contention. We think that that is wrong.

Our three amendments would make explicit that the statement under subsection (8) must be based on the views of both local authorities and national political parties. It is they who will have the best idea about whether the turnout of voters was higher than otherwise and whether electors found the procedures easy to use. I believe that national political parties have a right to give their views to the Electoral Commission, if they feel that the pilot elections caused any disadvantage to their campaign and to the election procedure itself.

Amendment No. 47 would ensure that any reports published for the purposes of subsection (7)—that is, reports submitted by candidates and political parties on how the pilot election went—must be included in the assessment, which is part of the Electoral Commission's report. We want as much information as possible in that report and we see no reason why, if reports have been published under the requirement of subsection (7), they should not be included in the final report issued by the Electoral Commission.

On Amendment No. 49, after the pilot elections in June 2004, the Electoral Commission must publish a report for each region in consultation with local authorities, assessing how the pilot elections went as regards voter turnout, the ease and accessibility of voting provisions, the administration of the elections, the provision of polling progress information and its effect on the campaigns of candidates and political parties. We all know that those new and innovative voting methods are being put on trial, albeit in half of the regions available, and that the report will form the basis of the Government's decision on whether the new methods are adopted wholesale for future elections. That is why the report must be as comprehensive as possible and include the statements to which I referred.

Our amendment would place a duty on the Secretary of State to publish his response to the report within three months and to lay copies in the Library of each House of Parliament. It is only right that the Secretary of State should give a speedy response to the Electoral Commission's report. We know how important timing is on election issues; we have had complaints this year from local authorities in regions that have claimed that they would not have sufficient time to prepare the necessary infrastructure, were they to be chosen for the pilot scheme.

Our amendment would ensure that the conclusions that the Secretary of State draws from the Electoral Commission's report are public knowledge within a sensible period. I beg to move.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

Before I speak to the noble Baroness's amendments, perhaps I may confirm that whenever "relevant local authority" is used, the meaning is as set out in Clause 9.

This group of amendments seeks to mandate some additional content for the report to be produced by the Electoral Commission in setting out further whom it is to consult, what it is to consider and what the report should contain. It might be helpful if I work through the amendments individually.

Amendment No. 46 would impose a requirement for the commission to include within its report a statement by itself, the local authorities involved in the pilots and all the national political parties contesting the election as to opinions on turnout and procedures. That is an inappropriate addition, as it would require the commission to produce a statement that includes the views of others—views that may not be consistent between all those involved. The commission will produce a report based upon consultation with others but which includes an independent assessment. That reflects the basis and role of the commission.

Amendment No. 47 would mandate that the commission's assessment include, any other published reports which are relevant in respect of polling progress information. Again, that should not be mandated. The commission can consider other views in making its assessment, but its report is to give its independent assessment. I hope that Members of the Committee will agree that that would be unnecessary direction of an independent statutory authority, particularly as the commission has proven itself able to produce effective and considered reports in the past.

With respect to Amendments Nos. 46 and 47, it is important to note that the commission has no power to require such other bodies to provide reports and opinions to it by any specific time. The commission is required under the Bill to report within three months of the pilots, and that timing could be impossible to achieve if reports from others were not available.

Amendment No. 48 would require the commission to include in its report a statement by the commission of the views of the candidates and the political parties on the conduct of the election and impact of the pilots on the turnout and result. The commission will comment on the nature of the pilots and how that affected turnout. That is already provided for in Clause 4(8). However, the commission is not required in the Bill to report on the elections per se, as that would mean the overall European and combined elections rather than just the pilots. That is a very important distinction. Neither should the commission be required to report upon the result of the election. Its role is to look at the process, not the outcome, as the noble Lord, Lord Norton, pointed out earlier. In any case, it is difficult to see how that could be achieved.

Amendment No. 49 would require the Secretary of State to publish a response to the commission's report within three months. Although the Government have, in the past, responded to the commission's reports on local authority pilots and are likely to do so in this instance also, we do not accept the amendment, as it would create a precedent for a statutory duty for the Government formally to respond to such reports. We appreciate the consideration and recommendations put forward by the commission and see it as assisting the progress of the electoral modernisation agenda. Should a report be produced—as I said, we are likely to, in this instance—we would make copies available to the House Libraries, as we have done in the past. I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

5.15 p.m.

Baroness Hanham

I thank the Minister for that reply. Perhaps I can ask one or two questions on the other bodies I mentioned; namely, the political parties and the local authorities. It would seem obvious that if there were going to be one report it should include a composite of other views. Many reports do so; they say that they have attached reports or have taken account of other views. One of the problems with this system is how one can properly engage political parties in the procedure. Somewhere along the line there has to be an official response to that; otherwise all of us as parliamentarians are simply ignoring and discounting the party political aspect of the issue. If we are not careful, at some stage party politics will be completely written out of postal ballots. I think that that would be an enormous mistake. We need to take great cognisance of the issue.

We know that this arrangement is going to make it difficult for politicians to get their message across. I think that we need a report that recognises that party politics is a more than relevant part of all this; it is a major ingredient. I shall not press the amendment. These amendments are imperfect in any event. However, perhaps the Minister would like to respond on how the Government will ensure that the views of each of the political parties and local authorities taking part will be taken into account. We should know how they managed the whole process. From where will that information come if not from the Electoral Commission's report?

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I shall respond very briefly to that interesting point. The Electoral Commission has traditionally not seen it as part of its duty to report on the political parties. It is concerned with the process of elections, and I think that we would all agree that it has done a very good job. However, I hear the noble Baroness's point. Between now and Report we will have a discussion among ourselves and with the Electoral Commission. Nevertheless, my guess is that the commission will not be happy with this new responsibility. We will take the point away and reflect on it.

Baroness Hanham

I am grateful to the Minister for that assurance. Meanwhile, perhaps we will consider how to involve party politicians in reporting back. It is a major aspect of the issue. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 47 to 49 not moved.]

[Amendment No. 50 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Clause 4 agreed to.

Clause 5 [Revision of procedures in light of report]:

[Amendment No. 51 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 [Personation: arrestable offence]:

[Amendments Nos. 52 to 55 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Clause 6 agreed to.

Clause 7 [Time limit for prosecution of offences]:

[Amendments Nos. 56 to 61 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Clause 7 agreed to.

Clause 8 [Other elections, etc]:

Lord Greaves moved Amendment No. 62: Page 5, line 15, at end insert "in those regions where pilot schemes take place

The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 62 is at the head of a group which includes Amendment No. 76, a government amendment on the same subject, and Amendments Nos. 77 and 78, which are Conservative amendments. In moving my previous amendment I think I tested the patience of the Committee. I shall not do so this time—and perhaps I can win back a few brownie points.

These amendments are concerned with whether by-elections should be possible for parliamentary, local authority, Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly seats, and whether it should be possible to hold them in the period before or after or on the same day as local elections. My amendment is not properly drafted, but it should say that by-elections should not be allowed on the same day. I raise the point for discussion. I think that I prefer the government amendment, and if it is moved I shall support it. I am not sure that that is the unanimous view in my party, but we will see. Meanwhile, I beg to move.

The Deputy Chairman of Committees

As Amendment No. 76 is in this group I have to advise the Committee that if Amendment No. 76 is agreed to I cannot call Amendments Nos. 77 or 78.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I shall speak briefly to Amendment No. 62, the purpose of which is to alter Clause 8 to state that the schedule applies only in the pilot regions. The amendment is not necessary as the Bill clearly states in each paragraph of the schedule that the provision applies only in a pilot region. I am very happy to make that clear.

As to government Amendment No. 76, as the Committee is aware, included in the Schedule to the Bill is a provision preventing Westminster by-elections, other elections, by-elections and referendums from taking place within a window of time around the European parliamentary elections in pilot regions. In the case of Westminster by-elections, the specific details are that no by-election can take place, either on the same day as the European parliamentary elections or at any time within three weeks before or after that date. The intention is that undue complexity and confusion is avoided for electoral administrators and the electorate.

The provision regarding Westminster by-elections has been raised as a concern by the Select Committee on the Constitution in its consideration of the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, is the chairman of that Select Committee and we are delighted that he is here today.

The report of the Constitution Committee states: So far as we are aware, there is no direct precedent for the imposition of such a restriction, which would cause the electorate in the affected constituency to be without a representative in Parliament for longer than would otherwise be the case. This may be perceived as setting a precedent with constitutional implications". My noble friend Lord Filkin agreed during the Second Reading debate to consider the provision further and, after so doing, we have tabled an amendment. Government Amendment No. 76 would retain the current provision but amend it so that the excluded period is reduced to only the date of the European parliamentary election. If the election was on the same day, then either it could be combined with other elections or held in parallel. If it were combined, this would effectively mean piloting at a parliamentary election and increase administrative complexity considerably. It would also be moving the goal posts as we have never proposed piloting in parliamentary elections through the Bill.

Alternatively, the election could be held on the same day in parallel, in other words traditional voting arrangements, including polling stations, would need to be run in addition to the all-postal vote on polling day. Voters would need to be aware of where and how to vote for each election and it is likely that a great deal of confusion would be generated, almost certainly impacting negatively on turnout.

Given the comments of the Constitution Committee, we have taken the view that although a Westminster by-election must not take place on the same day as the European elections for the reasons I have described, it would be acceptable to allow the possibility of a by-election in the surrounding period.

Additionally, should they so choose, it would be possible for the parties to take steps in order that by-elections were not scheduled in the period immediately surrounding the European election. This would be in their interest given the possibility of voter confusion and low turnout that this could cause.

I hope the Committee will support the amendment. I believe that it meets the objections of the Constitution Committee while still ensuring that the success of elections is not endangered.

Perhaps I may now turn to deal briefly with Amendments Nos. 77 and 78.

Baroness Hanham

You may. But under the circumstances I would rather hear what my noble friend Lord Norton has to say. I may well withdraw the amendments.

Lord Norton of Louth

I shall respond to that invitation with some enthusiasm. I am delighted to give my support to government Amendment No. 76. I appended my name to Amendments Nos. 77 and 78 in order to push the Government in the direction I believe they should he going. I did not table an amendment similar to government Amendment No. 76 because I was not sure that I would obtain agreement on it. The Government have tabled an amendment which meets precisely what I would like to see happen. I am therefore very pleased to support that amendment in preference to Amendments Nos. 77 and 78.

There is a very important principle embodied in the Constitution Committee's report. It was not passing judgment on the issue but calling attention to the constitutional implications and leaving it for the House to make its own judgment.

My view is that the principle of voter choice is extremely important. Voters should not be denied the opportunity to choose a parliamentary representative for any longer than is necessary. For that principle to be overridden there would have to be a compelling reason and I do not think that an admitted complexity by itself is sufficient. I can appreciate the difficulty of organising a parliamentary by-election very close to the holding of these pilot elections, but I do not think that that should be the overriding point relative to the principle involved. I am delighted that the Government have recognised that and therefore Amendment No. 76 has my full support. I am quite prepared to support the Government against any alternative views that may be put forward.

Baroness Hanham

In view of those remarks, I can save the Minister some time in responding to Amendments Nos. 77 and 78; I shall not move them.

5.30 p.m.

Lord Rennard

Without wishing to cause bad feeling because we have agreed what we are going to do, may I express some reservations? A little more explanation and consideration of this issue will be required before I will feel able to agree with Amendment No. 76.

Everyone is agreed that in the areas where we will have the all-postal ballot pilots, it will not be possible to have a piloted by-election on the same day as the election for the Euro MP, perhaps the metropolitan district councillor, the district councillor and the parish councillor as well. Logistically it would be impossible to hold four sets of elections on the same day using different systems: all-postal voting for the local and European elections and traditional polling stations for the parliamentary by-election. On that we are agreed.

However, what is a greater difficulty than those mentioned by other noble Lords so far is the way we are now changing the nature of elections, with all-postal voting and, increasingly, more postal voting even in parliamentary elections. The time-scale within which elections are taking place is now quite different from what it was previously. No longer are we able to say that the election campaign covers a neat period that runs up to polling day. Polling day now takes place over two or three weeks. Rather than having a polling day, we have polling weeks.

Over that period, people apply to vote by post in a parliamentary election, or they are sent their postal ballots if it is an all-postal ballot pilot election. I am concerned about the problematical logistics of people either applying or not applying for a postal vote if potentially a parliamentary by-election takes place in the same area as an all-postal vote election. People will say, "I don't need to apply for a postal vote to elect my MP in the by-election. It's all postal voting around here. I read about it in the papers and I will be sent a postal vote". So they will not apply for the postal vote that they might need.

Different postal votes being sent out for different elections to be held simultaneously—for up to four different bodies—are going to be rather more complicated than we anticipate.

I noted immediately the principled issue of postponing the election of a Member of Parliament. Back in 2001 I expressed my concerns about the precedent of postponing the local elections that year and voiced my doubts about whether it is right to postpone an election and how it should be agreed to do so. I am concerned about the principle. However, perhaps I am not quite as concerned as the Constitution Select Committee of the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth. Noble Lords will know that I have taken a long interest in parliamentary by-elections and the time-scales for those contests. The committee appeared to think that six weeks was a huge delay in selecting a Member of Parliament for a parliamentary by-election.

Some 10 years ago we had the Eastleigh parliamentary by-election. The period from the tragic date of death to polling day was something like 19 weeks. I know that because I spent nearly every one of those 19 weeks in the Eastleigh constituency. It has been suggested that a six-week delay in an election like that is wholly unreasonable. Six weeks is nothing compared with the 19 weeks it took on that occasion to organise an election from the sad death to the by-election. These days by-elections take place rather rapidly, occasionally rather too rapidly, I believe. The Ipswich parliamentary by-election held in December 2001 involved a three-week campaign between the sad death and polling day, although other by-elections take rather longer.

The convention related to the timing of by-elections was established after the controversy over the Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election in late 1973 when the then Conservative government under Edward Heath was very concerned not to allow a Liberal by-election if they could possibly avoid it. They dragged out the election period for as long as possible to avoid having the people of Berwick-upon-Tweed voting for a Member of Parliament. I think they went without an MP for around a year before eventually, hugely embarrassed about denying people their representative in Parliament, the government agreed that a by-election could go ahead. They lost it by about 57 votes to Alan Beith, who is still in the other place today.

That was a delay of one year. I do not therefore regard a potential six-week delay as a huge problem for the democratic process, provided that the Chief Whip of the party that has lost the Member gets on reasonably expeditiously and moves the writ at a proper time. The six-week period is not a problem for me.

However, there are logistical difficulties with the election, particularly with different systems of postal votes: in a parliamentary election the voter applies for a postal vote; in an all-postal ballot the voting papers are sent to the voter directly. People will be confused about whether polling stations are open. For the parties, we have reached a point where it was right to combine the elections on 10 June, when, by and large, we will have local elections where they exist, Welsh elections, metropolitan elections, London elections and European elections.

To have a parliamentary by-election at Westminster level at the same time will be confusing for some voters and difficult for parties to get across all their different messages, at different levels, at the same time. A little further consideration is needed, particularly for the period in the run-up to 10 June, when there will be more political difficulties with a parliamentary by-election at the same time as there would be if it was held afterwards. For that reason, we should consider the matter a little more carefully, and perhaps get back to the commission on it, before we agree to make the changes suggested in government Amendment No. 76.

Lord Norton of Louth

Perhaps I may intervene to give the Minister some ammunition, if he cares for some, in response to what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, has just said. The noble Lord said that he does not see it as a problem given the instances he cited. When he says that it is not a problem, he means that it is not a problem for the political parties. The electors may have a somewhat different perspective, and that is the aspect that we should look at. The noble Lord identified the problem of delays under the existing system. That is an argument for reform of the existing system to expedite it, so electors are not left for too long without a Member of Parliament; it is not an argument against the amendment.

I notice that the noble Lord's party, when advocating reform of the electoral system, does so on the basis that electors will be able to understand the new system because we have a sophisticated electorate who will be able to get their heads around it. The logic of that is that they will have no difficulty getting their heads around the parliamentary by-election followed shortly thereafter by a pilot election.

Lord Greaves

The argument that we use is that people are not capable of counting.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

Clearly, we cannot please everyone. This discussion has shown that we must consider what the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, said, before Report. We invite the noble Lords, Lord Norton of Louth and Rennard, to discuss with us how we can get an amendment that will make everyone happy. In the mean time—

The Deputy Chairman

Amendment No. 62 is tabled in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Greaves.

Lord Greaves

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendment No. 63 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Clause 8 agreed to.

Clause 9 [Interpretation]:

[Amendment No. 64 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Lord Greaves moved Amendment No. 65: Page 5, line 28, leave out paragraph (b).

The noble Lord said: The amendment seeks to probe whether the Government's piloting might extend to innovative ways of counting votes as compared to manually separating them, putting them in piles and so on. Will they consider using electronic machines or other mechanical contrivances rather than people? I would view such proposals with less than enthusiasm but, at the moment, the amendment merely seeks to probe the Government's view. I beg to move.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

Amendment No. 65 would remove a specific reference to how the votes cast at an election are to be counted. Currently the pilot order can make provision regarding what is termed the "pilot matters". These are defined as when, where and how voting takes place and how the votes cast are to be counted. This needs to be retained in particular as we may wish to allow for electronic counting.

However, the good news is that no decision has yet been taken on this. A meeting is scheduled for Tuesday of next week, to be attended by government officials, the pilot regional returning officers or their deputies and the Electoral Commission. The meeting will inform the Government's view on the use of e-counting within these pilots and we shall return to this issue at a later date. It may be helpful to discuss this with noble Lords opposite after the meeting and before the Report stage. The settled policy will then be set out in the policy paper which, as I have said on a number of occasions today, will be sent to interested Peers prior to the next stage.

With those assurances, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

Earl Attlee

I am a little confused. The Electoral Commission report suggested that the decision had to be made by mid-December. We are now nearing the end of January. I am extremely concerned whether there will be sufficient time to set up the system of all-postal votes. How does the Minister know to which pilot regions he will be talking when he has not made a decision about which regions will be piloted?

Baroness Hanham

My recollection is that there was a pilot at the previous European elections—at least one of which took place in London—on electronic counting. It was extremely slow and the result came out hours and hours late. The Minister may wish to concentrate on that issue as well.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I can see the point that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, is making. I can assure him that if we have the meetings and move quickly we will be able to have everything in place by 4 June. He said previously in Committee that it has not yet been agreed how many regions we shall be piloting. I made the point then and I shall make it again that it is a chicken and egg situation. Obviously we cannot be specific until we know the number of regions, but we are carrying out an enormous amount of preparatory work so that when the decision is made, we can move very quickly.

If we felt that we would not be able to fulfil our obligations by 4 June, we would obviously be very troubled—but we are not.

Lord Greaves

I am grateful to the Minister for the information he has provided. Whether it amounts to assurances I am not quite sure. He referred to "4 June". Was that a slip of the tongue?

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I am sorry. It is 10 June. The earlier date is my son's birthday.

Lord Greaves

So the noble Lord is not changing polling day on the hoof and holding elections on a week-end as my noble friend would like. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 66 to 69 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Clause 9 agreed to.

Clause 10 [Orders]:

Lord Rennard moved Amendment No. 70: Page 6, line 11, leave out "under section 1

The noble Lord said: This concerns an interesting principle about a great deal of election legislation. I thank the Minister for explaining how he intends elections to be conducted. I understand particularly the reservations of some noble Lords that, if this is to happen, local authorities will need to prepare effectively for the elections and to know as soon as possible how they are to be conducted.

There have been a number of controversies over orders relevant to elections such as these. I recall particularly the rules for the election of the Mayor of London four years ago, which caused significant dispute within the House.

At this stage, until we have a little more detail about the Government's proposals for the regulation of these elections, we are not prepared to allow them to go ahead by order without at least some parliamentary scrutiny. I am not saying that that is our fixed and final position. As more detail emerges we may, in the interests of haste, maximum efficiency and getting the elections agreed quickly, at a later stage agree that the elections should proceed as the Government intend. But at this point I feel uncomfortable about agreeing that matters should proceed by order without parliamentary scrutiny. I beg to move.

5.45 p.m.

Baroness Hanham

My amendment simply supports the amendments moved and spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, and to which the name of the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, is added. We believe that both Clauses 1 and 2 should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, which is what these amendments would ensure.

Perhaps I may raise one question. The Minister said that everything would be ready for 10 June. In fact, everything must be ready by 22 May if the three-week time-scale is to be met, so time is short. I should correct what I said about electronic voting being carried out in the European elections. It was used in the mayoral election in London and proved to be very slow.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

These amendments seek to subject the detailed pilot order to parliamentary scrutiny. I understand why noble Lords are pressing for this. The pilot order will make detailed changes to electoral procedures in the pilot regions. I must remind noble Lords that we are talking about the fine detail here. For example, I have here the all-postal voting scheme 2003 for the district of Herefordshire. When the orders are published for these pilots, they are likely to be three times the size of this scheme. Given that people are as bound by the regulations as they are by the Act, we feel that the most efficient way of handling this is by order.

We have taken as our precedent Section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2000. This allows pilot orders for local authority election pilots to be made without being subject to parliamentary scrutiny. There is admittedly a difference in that under RPA 2000, local authorities volunteer to run pilot schemes, whereas under this Bill they will be compelled to do so. However, we feel that this is compensated for by the fact that Parliament must approve where the pilots will take place and, in broad terms, the method of piloting to be undertaken; in this case, postal voting. Last autumn we also consulted local authorities and other stakeholders on our proposals for the pilots.

The Committee on Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform has already considered this Bill and in its fourth report of this Session agreed that parliamentary procedure was not necessary for the pilot order. It recommended wider publication of the pilot order than that which is specified in the Bill. We have agreed wholeheartedly with this recommendation and we are looking at ways of making the order widely available using printed and electronic means of dissemination to, for example, electoral administrators, political parties and representative organisations.

We are not attempting to avoid scrutiny of our policy. After all, the Bill itself requires that the Electoral Commission is consulted on the contents of the pilot order and will be required to carefully assess each pilot after it has taken place. Additionally, we are developing the policy that will inform the pilot order in conjunction with regional returning officers, the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders. We have been open in presenting our policy during our debates on specific issues such as, for example, supported delivery points or access for those with disabilities. However, I take the point that the details are important and, perhaps for the tenth time today, I shall mention that we are absolutely committed to sharing our policy intentions further with noble Lords of all parties between now and Report, and we welcome their responses to this policy.

I must finish, however, by reiterating that our view is that parliamentary scrutiny of the pilot order is not in itself appropriate. An important balance is to be struck between scrutiny and maximising the time that those implementing the pilots have to proceed with legal authority. I hope that the noble Lord will therefore withdraw his amendment.

Lord Norton of Louth

I want to make a point related to our earlier discussion. We said that it was very important that certain points should be put in the Bill in relation to Clause 2. The Minister's argument was that that was not necessary, as they would go into the order. He is now saying that the order should not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny. It cannot be both. If it will not be subject to affirmative resolution, there must be consideration of putting the points that we raised earlier into the Bill. If they are not in it, we have to subject not only the main order but the pilot order to parliamentary approval.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I am grateful for that contribution but am left with the problem that, if we put the order in the Bill, it will be a very large Bill and will create a precedent that may not be acceptable. We will consider the noble Lord's point, and I will write to him well before Report.

Baroness Hanham

Can we get the matter clear? There must be some common principles on the pilot orders. If all that we have discussed throughout the process is not to go into the Bill—we will all still want it in the Bill—it has to be in the pilot order. There must be principles that go all the way across every pilot order, and they must be agreed in Parliament and by the Committee. The Minister may not be able to answer now, but consideration has to be given to how what our discussions finally conclude is taken into account for the legislation. We need some more clarity.

Lord Evans of Temple Guiting

I hope that I can provide that clarity. We are consulting all noble Lords interested in the orders. If, during that consultation process, there are principles in the orders that noble Lords feel need to be in the Bill, they can raise such matters at the next stage. We are not trying to avoid any issues. I have told Members of the Committee that they will see the policy document so many times that they are bored. In that way, we can look at the matter as we look at the orders and get a satisfactory resolution for everyone, I hope.

Lord Rennard

I thank the Minister for his contribution for the 10th time, or whatever it is. Obviously I recognise that there is a trade-off between efficiency and accountability. We would really all like to have both. Perhaps the choice is between consultation with the Electoral Commission or approval by parliamentarians. As the Minister implies, the devil is sometimes in the detail. The more detail we see and feel assured of, the less we will need to scrutinise the matter rather more thoroughly than might otherwise be the case. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

[Amendments Nos. 71 to 73 not moved.]

Clause 10 agreed to.

Clause 11 agreed to.

Clause 12 [Extent]:

[Amendment No. 74 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Clause 12 agreed to.

Clause 13 agreed to.

Schedule [Other elections, etc]:

[Amendment No. 75 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

[Amendments Nos. 76 to 78 not moved.]

[Amendment No. 79 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Baroness Hamwee had given notice of her intention to move Amendment No. 80: Page 7, line 29, at end insert— (4) In the event of a poll having to be postponed under the provisions of sub-paragraph (3), any expenditure incurred by a candidate shall be disregarded for the purposes of keeping within the maximum permitted expenditure.

The noble Baroness said: In light of the government amendment relating to elections, I do not think that I need to move the amendment today.

[Amendment No. 80 not moved.]

[Amendments Nos. 81 and 82 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

[Amendment No. 83 not moved.]

[Amendment No. 84 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

[Amendment No. 85 not moved.]

[Amendments Nos. 86 and 87 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List.]

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment.

The Committee adjourned at five minutes before six o'clock.