REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE REGULATIONS 1969 (Hansard, 1 July 1969)

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I beg to move that the Representation of the People Regulations 1969 be approved and I trust that it will meet your Lordships' convenience if at the same time we consider the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 1969 and the Representation of the People (Northern Ireland) Regulations 1969.
The purpose of these three sets of Regulations is identical, and they are all in similar terms, allowing for differences to take account of the legal systems in the various parts of the United Kingdom. In order that it should not be thought that I am poaching even momentarily on Scottish preserves I hasten to assure noble Lords that my noble friend 546 Lord Hughes will be happy to deal with any Scottish questions raised, although as I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, seems to have been left, like the boy on the burning deck "whence all but he had fled," it does not appear that we shall have much trouble from Scotland now: my noble friend seems to have exhausted noble Lords from there.
The Regulations are made under powers conferred on my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland by the Representation of the People Act 1949. Their purpose, like that of the earlier Regulations they are to replace, is to spell out in more detail than is desirable in a Statute the detailed procedure to he followed in various electoral matters—in particular, the preparation and publication of the electoral register; absent voting; the issue and receipt of postal ballot papers; and the registration of service voters. In no point do they, or can they, go beyond the provisions of the Representation of the People Acts. We had some fairly strenuous debates earlier in the Session on the Representation of the People Bill. Now that the Bill has passed into law as the Representation of the People Act 1969, I hope that we may leave controversy behind and can treat the Regulations for what they are—a useful piece of necessary, but in itself uncontroversial, machinery. Certainly that is the view which the Special Orders Committee of your Lordships' House took of the Regulations when examining them last week.
The need for the Regulations is that the passage of the Act of 1969 has rendered obsolete the earlier Regulations which were made in 1950, following the passage of the Representation of the People Act 1949, and which have been several times amended since. The need for new Regulations now is that Parliamentary authority is required for the revised forms prescribed in Schedule 1. I have no doubt that the noble Lord opposite has a copy. Some of these relate to the preparation of the electoral register, and this process will begin in many areas a few weeks from now.
Accordingly, the Regulations now before the House revoke and replace the previous Regulations to which I have referred. To a large extent those previous Regulations are reproduced word for 547 word. The new and amended provisions of the new Regulations have been made in consequence of the passing of the Act of 1969. A few changes have also been made to give effect to recommendations of the Speaker's Conference and of the Home Secretary's Electoral Advisory Conference which, though well within the scope of the Act, did not need to be spelt out in it.
The main changes are listed in the Explanatory Notes appended to each set of Regulations. Your Lordships will note the close similarity, if not identity, of wording in all three cases, and it may be convenient if what I add by way of further explanation is addressed to the first set of Regulations—the Representation of the People Regulations 1969—which apply only to England and Wales. First, however, I may perhaps permit myself a small digression to explain that, whereas the England and Wales Regulations and the Scottish Regulations contain provisions—for example, on registration and absent voting—which apply to local government, as well as to Parliamentary, elections, the Northern Ireland Regulations apply only to Parliamentary elections to the Parliament of Westminster. Elections to the Northern Ireland Parliament at Stormont, and to local authorities in the Province, are the direct responsibility of the Northern Ireland Government, and not of my right honourable friend the Home Secretary. This difference, incidentally, accounts for the difference in numbering of the Northern Ireland Regulations.
I now turn to the detailed provisions of the England and Wales Regulations. As with the Act of 1969, various parts of the Regulations come into force at different times. No part of them has effect until 14 days after approval by both Houses of Parliament. The greater part of them does not come into effect until February 16, 1970, when the electoral register for 1970 comes into force. But, as I have explained earlier, the Regulations are needed now in order that the preparation of the 1970 register may go ahead.
Perhaps the most interesting provisions are those relating to voting age. I refer to Regulation 8 and Form A, the householder's canvass form prescribed in Schedule 1. Your Lordships will recall 548 that under the new Act the voting age, from February 16 next, is 18 and that electors will be able to vote on and from the date on which they attain that age. Accordingly Regulation 8(2) (this is covered in Form A) provides for annotating the register with the date of the 18th birthday in the cases of those entered in the register who will become 18 during the life of the register; and Form A, in Part 2, is designed to elicit the information necessary if this is to be done.
Another important change is to be found in Regulation 28, which sets out in detail how the electoral registration officer is to go about correcting a register after it has been published, under the increased power conferred on him by Section 7(2) of the Act of 1969. This will still be a limited power, in that it will extend only to putting right clerical or printer's errors that have occurred in the final stages of preparing the register for publication. It will be as necessary as ever that the public, if they want to be sure of being on the register, should inspect the electors lists (which may, under Regulation 10(5) take the form of a single draft register if my right honourable friend the Home Secretary consents) while they are on public display between November 28 and December 16 in each year. If a name is not in the lists and no claim for inclusion is made then, the registration officer will have no power to add the name later by way of correction under the procedure prescribed in Regulation 28. All of us who have been members of another place know at elections how many scores, indeed hundreds, of people suddenly discover that they are not on the register because they did not take the trouble to look at the list when it was important that they should do so.
Regulation 29 makes the detailed provision necessary for giving effect to the extensions of absent voting facilities made by the Act of 1969 to. for example, the wife of an elector who has such facilities on "business" grounds, and to people prevented by religious observance from going in person to the polling station on polling day. Part V of the Regulations deals with the registration of Service voters. That category will now include members of the British Council and their wives—or husbands, as the case may be.
549 Most of these changes, as of the other changes mentioned in the Explanatory Note to the Regulations, result from the Act of 1969. As I said earlier, however, there are one or two changes which do not flow directly from that Act. These are the provisions for a draft register instead of electors' lists (Regulation 10(5)); for replacement of a spoilt postal ballot paper (Regulation 51); and for an increase in the maximum penalties, particularly that for failing to give information, or for giving false information, for registration purposes (Regulation 75). The first of these was suggested by the Electoral Advisory Conference: the other two give effect to recommendations of the Speaker's Conference.
My Lords, I will not weary you with a complete catalogue. As I have indicated, my noble friend Lord Hughes is available to deal with Scottish points; but the Regulations are so clear and the Explanatory Notes so helpful that I hope that there will be little need for this. As I have also indicated, the Regulations as such ought not to be treated as matters of controversy, limited as they are to machinery rather than to policy. I should perhaps add that the England and Wales Regulations were discussed in draft with the Electoral Advisory Conference, and that the other two sets of Regulations have also been the subject of consultation. Finally, may I remind your Lordships that all three sets of Regulations have the blessing of the Special Orders Committee. My Lords, I beg to move.

§ LORD DERWENT
My Lords, may I first of all wish the Minister of State "Many happy returns!"—not in his capacity as Minister of State but in his personal capacity. As your Lordships know, there were parts of the 1969 Act that we on this side did not like; but as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, that is now water under the bridge and I do not intend to object to any of the Regulations—not even those for Scotland. But there is one point that I should like to make in regard to Regulations 15 and 18, which deal with claims and objections to the electoral lists.
550 Regulation 15(2) states that the registration officer may, if he does not like a claim, send to the person making the claim or objection a notice stating his opinion and the grounds thereof and that he intends to disallow the claim or objection unless that person gives the registration officer notice within three days from the date of the first mentioned notice … and, if he receives no such notice within the said time, he may disallow the claim or objection. Again, in Regulation 18, which deals with "Other corrections to the electors lists", there is an opportunity within five days from the date of the objection to do certain things.
These times and dates are, I believe, in force under the present Regulations. I hope that the noble Lord will confirm that these times—the three days and five days in these new Regulations—apply now before the new Regulations come into force. But the present Regulations were brought into force when we had a decent postal service. Now, we have a rotten one—or sometimes it is a rotten one—and three days or five days is not sufficient. Nowadays, often one cannot get an answer in three days, even using the 5d. post. All I am asking is that the Minister of State will have a word with the Home Secretary, to see whether, in the near future, there should not be an Amendment to these Regulations, perhaps allowing a day or two extra.

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, for his kindly reference to myself. It is a matter of some regret that once your birthday gets into The Times it is there for life, and you cannot conceal the fact of the moving finger of time. I am a shade less happy about the noble Lord's reference to the postal service. It is not only the best in the world, but it is at least marginally better than it was in the days of the previous Administration. I have not come here to discuss the Post Office (I have enough trouble without that), but the percentage of deliveries by the first post next morning is higher now than ever it was. The noble Lord has raised a perfectly valid point. My only regret is that he did not raise it six years ago when he occupied the post I now occupy and was moving the same Regulations in the same words. I can only feel 551 happy that as he now has more time on his hands he has at last had time to read the Regulations.

§ LORD DERWENT
My Lords, I was not responsible for the Regulations six years ago. If I remember aright, I was at the Board of Trade.

§ LORD STONHAM
My Lords, I can only say that this is a duty which has now been wished on to the Minister of State and it is now my responsibility, both administratively and otherwise. Nevertheless, it still is a valid point. I was only indicating—perhaps in a Party sense—that it was a valid point six years ago when the noble Lord might have done something about it, but it is still valid and needs an answer. There are really three Regulations where this matter arises 13(1), 15(2), and 18, and the answer is the same. The three-day limit relates only to objections to last-minute claims. The effect of the three-day limit is really a period of grace—in addition to the time already allowed—for making objections after the last date on which claims may be made.
If the noble Lord will look at Regulation 13(1) he will see precisely what I mean. Normally the lists would close on December 16, and three days more is allowed. These are transactions in which the post is scarcely used at all, and it was never used, because information about claims for inclusion in the register can be got only by going in person to the office of the Electoral Registration Officer, in accordance with Regulation 14. Therefore, if a person is minded to make an objection to a claim, it is almost certain that he will deliver it by hand, and for that three days is enough and always has been. Also these are transactions which are almost entirely the preserve of the local political Party workers, and, as the noble Lord will know, these boys know their political onions and are used to working within a close time limit. Certainly the political Party representatives at the Electoral Advisory Conference did not question this three-day limit, which they have always lived with, when they were considering the Regulation in draft.
The other point is that by December 16 the registration cycle is getting into a critical phase, and a quick calculation 552 will show the noble Lord that another three days added to December 16 means you are within a week of Christmas. Unless the time table is a tight one there is a risk of delay in assembling the final copy for the register, and consequently a risk of delay in printing and even publishing the register. I am most grateful to the noble Lord for raising the point because I think it should be raised. The thought might occur to some people, as it did to him, on reading this document, and it is quite right to raise it. I hope that he will feel satisfied with the answer. The representatives of all political Parties are satisfied with these Regulations, and indeed were consulted about them.

§ LORD DERWENT
My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord. I too am satisfied now.