HL Deb 10 June 1982 vol 431 cc293-6

3.21 p.m.

Lord Chelwood

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.

The Question was as follows:

To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will introduce legislation in ample time before the 1984 elections for the European Parliament to enable all citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies and their spouses resident in any Community country outside Britain to make a declaration and vote by proxy, whether or not it is decided to conform with a uniform Community electoral procedure.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Elton)

My Lords, in accordance with the Community treaties, which require member states to adopt a uniform electoral procedure if it is unanimously recommended by the Council of Ministers, consideration is currently being given by the Council to proposals which have recently been recommended by the European Parliament and which cover the issue of extending the franchise to Community nationals resident in other Community countries. It would therefore be premature to legislate on this issue in isolation before agreement has been reached on the package as a whole.

Lord Chelwood

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his Answer. May I ask him whether he is aware that the Government's continued prevarication is making many people wonder whether the Government are in favour, even in principle, of giving the vote to some 300,000 British subjects living in other Community countries? If the Government are in favour, why on earth should we wait for the Council of Ministers to make up their mind—something which they are not at all good at doing and about which they are most unlikely to be unanimous—rather than following in the footsteps of seven out of nine of the other Community countries which have already acted in this field?

Lord Elton

My Lords, the footsteps of the seven out of nine do lead in slightly divergent directions and will have to be brought back to the same path when the Council of Ministers agrees. When the Council of Ministers agrees it will have been a waste of parliamentary time if we spend time now legislating upon something which immediately we have to undo and replace with something else.

Lord Underhill

My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that it is unwise to make a very important electoral change of this kind just for one series of elections, that this matter would affect the Representation of the People Act and that it ought to he considered by a Speaker's Conference—and not just for one election?

Lord Elton

My Lords, as to the process by which we reach agreement within this country, I should not like to commit the Government. However, the noble Lord will have noticed the strength of feeling among my noble friends. I agree that it is important that we should get it right and that it would be a mistake to legislate twice upon it.

The Earl of Onslow

My Lords, is it not true that the unanimity of voting procedure is supposed to be in force by the second parliamentary election to the European Parliament? Judging by my noble friend's comment, that the seven feet of the different Ministers are all going in different paths—

Lord Morris

Fourteen feet, surely!

The Earl of Onslow

Fourteen feet my noble friend tells me, this is unlikely. Surely, therefore, it would be wise to disabuse people of this injustice which is happening by reason of the 300,000 people who are disfranchised?

Lord Elton

My Lords, I am tempted to follow my own image a little further and to go metric. The feet in question are the feet of the populations of the seven countries. The Ministers are trying to converge. Then their populations will have to follow them. How long this will take I cannot honestly undertake to let your Lordships know, because it is not in the power of the British Government to deliver decisions among the Council of Ministers. When that decision is delivered we shall know what to do.

Lord Stewart of Fulham

My Lords, is it not a fact that some of our citizens are suffering an injustice which the citizens of seven countries in the Community have been delivered from by the action of their Governments in one way or another? In view of that and in view of the fact that agreement among all the countries in the Community at the time of the next election is unlikely, would it not be reasonable at least to have some draft legislation ready?

Lord Elton

My Lords, with the greatest respect to the noble Lord, I am not confident that there is quite such a discrepancy between what binds our own citizens and that which relates to the citizens of other countries. Our own citizens can vote when abroad in exactly the same way in a European election as they can in a general parliamentary election. I see that the Luxembourgeois, to start with the smallest, have to attend in Luxembourg in order to vote. I see that the provisions in Belgium relate to citizens of 18 or over whose principal residence is still in Belgium, and that in Denmark the power to vote again relates to citizens temporarily resident abroad who maintain close links with Denmark and who are registered there. I believe that the concern which my noble friend has expressed stretches much wider than those people—to people who are resident permanently abroad, some of whom, if we are not careful with definitions, will have never resided in the United Kingdom.

Lord Saint Oswald

My Lords, having asked a very similar Question to this of an earlier Government before the earlier European elections, I have fewer questions to ask than my noble friend who has put down the Question today. There seems to me to be less reason for delay now than there was then. Does not my noble friend the Minister agree that those who by circumstance are residents and who tend to know more about the subjects in hand than do the residents of this country should not be excluded, as they are at present being excluded, from the possession of the vote in our elections?

Lord Elton

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for his patient exposition of his very impatient feelings. As to the ability of residents in other countries who are citizens of this country to affect the tide of opinion in this country about affairs which relate, as to nine parts to ten, to other countries, I would not wish to take issue with him. However, the Government are aware that there is a desire for a movement in this direction. I undertake to bring the strong feelings of my noble friends to the attention of my right honourable friend, but I cannot be more encouraging than that.

Lord Chelwood

My Lords, I am very grateful for what my noble friend has just said, but is he aware that so far as I am concerned I have absolutely no patience whatsoever so far as this matter is concerned? May I ask him to answer a question which I find it hard to know the answer to: Why are the Government so very keen, apparently, to do exactly the same thing as our Community partners in this one particular field where the election is concerned, whereas they have not the slightest intention of falling into line with the other Community countries where the general electoral procedures and systems are concerned

Lord Elton

My Lords, without pursuing my noble friend into too much detail, this is an area upon which from the outset it was agreed that there should be uniformity.