HL Deb 09 November 1983 vol 444 cc917-26

11.27 p.m.

Lord Bethell

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. Your Lordships will be relieved to hear that this debate will be considerably shorter than the one that has preceded it, and I hope that it will be less controversial. It enhances a principle which I believe is shared by all members of your Lordships'House—a democratic principle which says that those who are citizens of a country or a community and who pay its taxes should be entitled to vote for those who supervise the legislature or the administration of that political unit.

This principle has just as much relevance for the European Community as it does for its integral member states. The Community takes decisions about our food, our health, our trade and our environment. It is only the European Parliament that can supervise and advise those Community institutions, and that Parliament is elected by the 270 million voters of the Community—or by almost all of them. The Community has its own income and, indeed, as we sit here now there is talk of an increase in the Community's income. The income consists mainly of a 1 per cent. VAT levy and it is suggested that that should be increased to 1.4 per cent. or even 1.8 per cent. It will then be up to the Community to justify the expenditure of an increased amount of its own income, levied through the member states, of which it disposes itself.

It is an inherent injustice, though, that there is a large body of British citizens who, though of sound mind and guilty of no felony, though not even guilty of membership of your Lordships' House, are not able to vote in these European Parliament elections. These are the quarter of a million British people who live in other parts of the Community, who pay Community tax and who, though taxed, are unrepresented. These are not tax exiles, because the phenomenon of the tax exile is, happily, a dying one. They are people usually in the vanguard of British enterprise and endeavour, promoting British exports in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, France and other countries, retaining their British connections, bringing up their families on the Continent, retaining their links with our country and wishing to participate in the electoral process.

The principle has been accepted for a number of years by my noble friends on the Front Bench. My noble friend Lord Elton will remember our noble friend Lord Trefgarne saying in 1979, a few days after this Government were elected, that the principle of the franchise in European parliament elections for British residents in other Community countries was agreed by the Government and that appropriate legislation would be introduced at the appropriate time. I can myself remember noble friends, honourable friends, who were in Opposition in 1978 arguing this point and urging the then Government to provide the franchise for this group of British people, but without success at that time, although I believe that the party which was then in Government now believes that the argument put forward by the Conservatives was the correct one. I can remember the chairman of the Conservative Party saying to a Select Committee of your Lordships' House that this was something which had to be done, even in advance of other legislation that was to influence elections to the European Parliament. This was confirmed by the Home Affairs Select Committee of another place and, last but not least, by the Select Committee of your Lordships' House in a unanimous recommendation.

Every other member state except, I believe, Luxembourg provides this facility to its citizens—the facility to vote if they happen to be resident overseas. Who would have thought when the Government accepted this principle five years ago that five years could go by without the belief in the principle being translated into law?

But there have been problems and delays. We have been waiting for the European Parliament to produce its advice about a uniform electoral system. We have been waiting for the Council of Ministers to digest the European Parliament's advice and come up with a uniform electoral procedure, which has not yet been done. There has been talk of problems of cross-Border voting in Ireland. My noble friend Lord Elton said when this matter was debated on 14th March of this year that he was opposed to interim legislation on a complicated matter of this nature. He also mentioned the lack of parliamentary time and the lack of all-party agreement. And he indicated that there were faults in the drafting of the Bill that was then before your Lordships' House. I suggest that those problems no longer exist and that it would be possible to bring this legislation forward in time for people who live abroad to take part in the June 1984 European elections.

I expect that my noble friend is going to refer to a speech made by his honourable friend Mr. Mellor at the Conservative conference in Blackpool, where it was said that the Government would introduce this provision, together with various other provisions over votes for holiday-makers and, indeed, voting rights for British residents overseas in House of Commons elections. Legislation along these lines was promised not in Parliament but at a conference last month.

I expect and hope that at the very least my noble friend will repeat those assurances. Indeed, my decision as to whether to proceed with this Bill will depend very much on how forthcoming my noble friend is able to be about those assurances, but I hope that he will be able to go a little further than his honourable friend did then. I hope that he will be able to give some idea of a timetable, because we had expressions of support for the principle more than four years ago. We need a little more than support for the principle—a promise that action is going to be taken.

I hope that my noble friend, who did not oppose the Second Reading of this Bill when it was before your Lordships' House in March, will now be able to indicate in practical terms what the Government propose to do to implement what I am sure he would agree is an inherently just measure.

I believe that it would be unjust to allow the June 1984 European elections to take place without some effort being made to implement the spirit of this Bill. No one will be more pleased than I if my noble friend will take over the complicated drafting of a complicated Bill and provide advice about how it can be best achieved. It would be possible, I am advised, to achieve this even at this late hour; to get the majority of the quarter of a million potential voters on to the electoral roll. It would still be possible to achieve this, even though we are now in November and the election is next June, if the will were there. I cannot believe that either your Lordships or another place would comprehensively oppose this provision if the Government were to decide to push ahead with it.

I look forward with keen interest to that which the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, will say for the Opposition and to that which my noble friend will say. I hope very much that my noble friend will be more forthcoming than he was last March and more forthcoming than his honourable friend was a few weeks ago. On the basis of his reply, I shall have to decide whether to proceed in your Lordships' House with the Bill that is before you. I beg to move.

Moved, that the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Bethell.)

11.37 p.m.

Lord Underhill

My Lords, we have just concluded a very long debate, and have some other important business yet to come. Nevertheless, some important points arise on this Bill, the Second Reading of which the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, had just moved—including, of course, a point on the date of its inception. No matter what may be one's sympathetic attitude to the principle of this Bill, the points I wish to raise are rather important. We cannot treat this as just another Bill to be allowed to go through without our considering some important points. We are dealing here with the question of electoral registration, and the compilation of our registers of electors is the basis of our democratic elections in this country. Therefore, we must give this matter the most serious consideration.

The basic provision in the Bill is to give the right to vote to more persons without a current residential qualification. A residential qualification, except for a small number of the present service voters, is the essential requirement for our electoral registers in this country. In effect, we would be treating British citizens resident in member states of the Community in a similar way to service voters.

I will not take up the time of the House in describing the categories of service voters, but, generally speaking, the nature of the present service voters means that they are temporarily absent from the United Kingdom. There is no guarantee of that in this Bill. It would give entitlement to persons who had left the United Kingdom a long time ago—20 years, 30 years or even longer ago. And it may give entitlement to persons who have no desire whatsoever to return to this country. That, I am sure noble Lords will agree, would be wrong; and, whatever may be the general principle of giving votes to people in certain categories in Community countries such an entitlement would not be supported by the Labour Party, because as with service voters, these provisions would entitle registration in respect of an address in the United Kingdom, even though a person is not currently residing at that address, or an address at which he has at some time resided in the United Kingdom.

I would suggest that there must be a time limit laid down for the time When a person was last resident in the United Kingdom. The Home Office memorandum to your Lordships' Select Committee which dealt with a uniform procedure made quite clear (in para. 26), as did their memorandum to the Commons Committee on Home Affairs which dealt with amendments to the Representation of the People Act (in para. 13), that the longer the gap from when the person last resided in the United Kingdom the more the whole thing becomes artificial. They suggested that there must be a time limit, and I endorse that view. There is no such provision in the Bill before us. Your Lordships' Select Committee suggested 10 years as the appropriate period. The Home Office memo to the Commons Committee suggested seven years. Therefore, if the Bill is to have a Second Reading and go to Committee, something must be done; I hope the Government will make their view on this point clear.

When we debated the previous Bill presented by the noble Lord, I stressed that there must be some machinery whereby any declaration which may have to be made could be verified. In the case of the present service voters it is quite easily verified that a person is a member of the armed forces. It is quite easy to check the address given by a person in the employ of the Crown overseas, or a person in the employ of the British Council, but there will be no verification unless there is a declaration. I am very pleased that under the present Bill there will be the requirement of a declaration. That is very important, because otherwise people could select what constituency they put down as an address at which they resided in the United Kingdom before going to a Community country.

The important question, despite what the noble Lord said, is why is there this urgency? The Bill accepts the provisions of subsections (1), (3), (4) and (6) of Section 15 of the Representation of the People Act, which deals with the question of annual declaration and the declaration being in force for twelve months for a particular register. Then we have subsection (5) of the Bill, which says: (5) A person whose Community residence declaration is made with reference to the qualifying date within the meaning of section 4 of the Representation of the People Act 1983". But the qualifying date for next year's register has passed; it was 10th October last. I do not know what the Minister is going to say, but whatever Lord Bethell wants to achieve surely we cannot afford—I was going to say "jiggery-pokery"—we cannot start messing about with the important provision of the qualifying date for a register to be published in February next year on which elections as from 16th February will he based. How can this legislation possibly apply for the 1984 election?

I know the Government have stated, when we last discussed this and it was discussed elsewhere, that they are considering bringing in general points for amendment of the Representation of the People Act. Would it not be better to leave this provision to be considered with all other possible amendments and have the full light of the Home Office upon it, rather than have a hotch-potch now? It would mean altering the qualifying date, altering the whole provisions of our registration system. I have no doubt that up and down the country there will be pressure that there must be provision for claims and objections when the electoral lists are published, which will be next month in the ordinary course of events. Therefore, it is not as easy as the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, says to introduce this for next year's elections.

There is one other important point. Clause 1(7) gives power to the Secretary of State to make regulations as to the manner of voting. There is not even a reference to this being by affirmative resolution procedure. Therefore, the Secretary of State will have the power to make a regulation which is merely dealt with by negative procedure as to how a person should vote. There is no mention in the Bill as to whether it should be by proxy voting, which is what applies to the present service voters. Is it intended that we should have postal voting for these people, bearing in mind that in no other case do we send postal votes overseas? What is the view of the registration officers about receiving postal votes and the possible delay of the election results being announced? There is nothing of that in the Bill at all.

It is suggested in the Bill in the same subsection that the Secretary of State shall have the power to make regulations for the establishment of a register in each Member State". The noble Lord, Lord Bethell did not intimate what was meant by that. Surely we are to have the register compiled as with the service voters where there is an additional section at the end of the different parts of the register for persons who are using an address at which they previously resided in this country for the purpose of a qualification. Why is a register to be compiled in each member state unless it is intended that persons in this category shall vote at offices or consulates, or wherever it may be, in the Community countries? That will be a completely new procedure. I am not suggesting that it is a procedure we should not necessarily adopt at some time, but why pick out this section when the present service voters do not come into that category?

Therefore, important points arise which we cannot just skip over. These will have to be carefully dealt with in Committee if the Bill is given a Second Reading. But there are some principles involved and I should still like to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, and particularly from the Minister, as to how it is possible to mess about with our present RPA provisions so that the qualifying date, which has already passed, will be ignored in connection with next year's European Assembly elections, bearing in mind that the Bill accepts the principle of the qualifying date, that there will be an annual declaration and that there will be registration for a particular 12 month register.

11.48 p.m.

Lord Elton

My Lords, it is only some eight months since we had a very full debate in your Lordships' House on a previous European Assembly Elections (Amendment) Bill, also introduced by my noble friend. I do not propose to detain your Lordships by repeating the points I made on that occasion.

A good deal has happened since last April. We have had a general election and my noble friend has used the time to bring before your Lordships' House a Bill containing much more detailed provisions than before. I shall confine my remarks so far as possible to an outline of developments in the intervening months and comments on the principles enshrined in the revised draft of my noble friend's Bill.

Your Lordships will recall that at our last debate I described how the European Parliament had submitted to the Council of Ministers proposals for a uniform electoral procedure. Under these proposals member states of the European Community would be required to give the right to vote at European Parliament elections to all their nationals irrespective of their place of residence in the Community. The present position is that most member states give the vote to some of their nationals who live abroad but that some do so on a more generous basis than others and some member states give the right to vote to either some or all of the nationals of other member states who are resident in their territory. I set out the position country by country in answer to a Question last year. I would only say that contrary to what my noble friend supposes it seems that neither Ireland, nor Luxembourg—nor indeed Greece—as yet gives this right to its citizens.

The European Parliament's proposals were discussed in considerable detail in an experts' group set up by the Council of Ministers and at several of the monthly meetings of Community Foreign Ministers. A fundamental difference of opinion emerged. Some member states took the view that Community nationals living outside their own countries should be given the vote by their country of residence. Others argued that the right should be given by the country of which they are citizens. Earlier this year it became apparent that the unanimous agreement which the Community treaties require was unlikely to be achieved in time for the second round of direct elections in 1984. Accordingly, the council adopted a resolution embodying neither one alternative nor the other but encouraging member states to take whatever action they could to ensure that the maximum number of Community nationals should be able to vote at the 1984 elections. In addition, the council resolved to renew its efforts to reach agreement on a common franchise in time for the next elections in 1989.

When signing this resolution in April, the Government made it clear that the likelihood of a general election falling before June 1984 made it impossible to guarantee that steps could be taken to extend the franchise in time. My right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary reviewed the position immediately after the general election. His conclusion was that space could not be found in the legislative programme of the current Session for a major constitutional Bill which would have to be taken through all its stages on the Floor of another place. Your Lordships will be aware that there are already three major Home Office Bills in the current Session—onpolice and criminal evidence, on data protection and on cable and satellite broadcasting—as well as sundry other pieces of legislation.

Your Lordships will also be aware that earlier this year the Home Affairs Select Committee of another place published a report of its inquiry into the Representation of the People Acts. The report set out recommendations for an increase in the deposit at parliamentary elections; changes in absent voting arrangements for people away on holiday on polling day, and others; and—most to the point—an extension of the franchise at parliamentary elections to British citizens resident in European Community countries who have previously resided in the United Kingdom or who retain residential property here.

The Government have recently announced their decision to introduce legislation on each of these issues and on other electoral matters. A reply to the Select Committee's report setting out the Government's proposals in detail will be published early in the new year; and each of the political parties represented in the House of Commons has been asked for its views on the points of principle raised by the Select Committee's report. These views will be taken into account in the preparation of the Government's reply. Then there will be full opportunities for public discussion and debate before the legislation is drafted. My right honourable and learned friend's undertaking last week in another place on the subject of the legislation we are now discussing I think may have escaped my noble friend's notice; but I am happy to confirm to him now that, subject to the usual constraints on the legislative programme, we hope that it will be possible to introduce the Bill in the next Session of Parliament. He may wish to bear this in mind when considering his own proceedings.

The Select Committee's report is principally concerned with parliamentary and, to some extent, with local elections. But the general rule is that European Parliament elections are conducted on the same legislative basis as parliamentary elections. The Government have therefore considered whether any legislation which is introduced to enable British citizens resident outside the United Kingdom to vote at parliamentary elections should also apply at European parliamentary elections. Our view remains that a lasting solution to this problem should be sought in the framework of a Community agreement on a uniform electoral procedure. But such a solution is not yet within sight of being reached. The Government therefore agree that for the time being the new procedures introduced for parliamentary elections should be brought into force for European elections as well.

I turn now to the detailed proposals set out by my noble friend in his Bill. I must congratulate him on the considerable efforts that have gone into this version. I should also say that the Government by no means have a closed mind on the main issues involved. We shall listen attentively to what the political parties have to say before we bring forward our own proposals. But there are at least two features of the Bill which we do not believe any Government could seriously ask Parliament to accept. I ought briefly to mention them.

First, Clause 1 of the Bill is designed to give the right to vote at European Parliament elections to all British citizens resident in other parts of the Community who are not given the right by their country of residence. The present basis of our system for both parliamentary and European elections is the representation of constitiuencies. As I need hardly say, a person can have the right to vote only if he is resident in a constituency on the qualifying date. Both the Home Affairs Select Committee and the European Committee of your Lordships' House (which also looked at this issue) recommended that the extension of the franchise to people resident abroad must be limited to those who have previously been resident here. Your Lordships' Committee also recommended that an elector resident outside the United Kingdom should be able to exercise his right to vote only for a period of 10 years after his departure.

As I say, it is too early for me to announce the Government's considered view, but I can say that we have a good deal of sympathy with your Lordships' Committee's recommendation. In the Government's view, it would be quite unacceptable to give the right to vote to a person who has never lived here, has no connection with a constituency in the United Kingdom, or perhaps moved away many years before with no intention of returning.

My second point is closely related. As I say. Clause 1 is intended to give the vote to any British citizen resident in the Community who cannot vote otherwise. The clause goes on to enable such a person to be registered as an elector for an address in any constituency in the United Kingdom where the person says that he or she would be living if he or she were not living elsewhere in the Community.

I think that my noble friend's intention was to apply the procedure used for members of the armed forces and other servants of the Crown resident outside the United Kingdom. I have then to say that the two cases are completely different. Members of the armed forces and Crown servants no doubt usually have an address in this country where they can reasonably say they would be living if they were not on military or diplomatic service. The same is by no means necessarily true of the several thousand British citizens permanently resident in other member states of the Community. But my noble friend's Bill gives them all carte blanche to choose the constituency in which they want to vote, whether or not they have an address here. As I believe I said last time, if I were in this fortunate position I should certainly choose the most marginal.

Whatever proposals the Government bring forward, we must clearly ensure that they do not go too wide of our present electoral system. An elector resident in the United Kingdom cannot pick and choose his constituency, and we really do not think that an elector resident abroad should be allowed to do so, either.

That said, my Lords, the Government will not of course seek to prevent my noble friend's Bill from being given a Second Reading. I have to point out, though, that the next round of direct elections, on 14th June 1984, is now only seven months away, and time is exceedingly short. Even if this were a Government Bill, and even if it could be assured a rapid passage through another place, it is difficult to see how it could be given Royal Assent very many months before the elections; and the passage of a Private Member's Bill is always that much more hazardous. In short, there is, I am afraid, as the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, has said, absolutely no chance that a Bill extending the franchise could be brought into force soon enough for the necessary subordinate legislation and administrative arrangements to be made in time for next June. In view of both that and the assurances that I have given about the Government's legislative intentions, I hope that my noble friend will understand why we cannot actually support the Bill this evening.

11.58 p.m.

Lord Bethell

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend and to the noble Lord, Lord Underhill, for saying that they will not oppose the principle of the Bill that I have introduced this evening. I should also like to thank my noble friend for the kind remarks that he made about attempts to draft the Bill—a complicated Bill—and in this respect I wish in particular to thank my European parliament colleague, Mr. Alan Tyrell, who was the main draftsman in this matter.

I appreciate that a very large number of points arise as a result of such a far-reaching piece of legislation, and some of them were put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Underhill. I would suggest, though, that most of them, if not all of them, would be capable of being dealt with in the Committee of your Lordships' House if the Bill were to proceed.

However, I noted with some pleasure the statement made in another place by my right honourable and learned friend the Home Secretary between the First Reading and Second Reading of this Bill. Indeed, I think that he went a little further than his honourable friend Mr. Mellor had done in October. He said that he very much expected that this provision would be introduced in the next Session. It is true that that will be too late for it to be implemented in time for the June 1984 European elections, and I must say that I regard this as extremely sad.

My noble friends and honourable friends argued with passion in 1968 that British citizens resident abroad working for Britain and promoting British exports should be able to vote in these elections, especially since they pay Community tax. It is very sad if, as it seems, they will not be able to vote next June. However, I have noted with pleasure the constructive remarks made by my noble friend Lord Elton. I trust that this Bill will indeed be introduced as a Government measure within the next Session. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Second Reading.

Motion for Second Reading, by leave, withdrawn.

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