Elections: All-postal Ballots (Hansard, 30 June 2004)

§ Earl Attlee
asked Her Majesty's Government: Why they made a Written Statement on 21 June (WS 46–48) on the recent all-postal ballot pilots.

§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs (Lord Filkin)
My Lords, to keep the House informed. The all-postal pilot elections were held on 10 June. We had previously made a Statement on the progress of the elections in the pilot regions for the European parliamentary and local elections on 27 May 2004. We felt it was important to follow that up with a further Statement following the completion of the elections.

§ Earl Attlee
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply, but can he explain why the work of the Electoral Commission has been pre-empted and undermined?

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, it has not in any way been pre-empted or undermined. The Electoral Commission has a statutory duty to report on the electoral pilots in the four regions and it will do so by 13 September or before.

§ Lord Waddington
My Lords, surely the Government have committed themselves to all-postal voting in the regional elections before the Electoral Commission has evaluated the pilots. That was the point that my noble friend was making. Why on earth have they pre-empted the work of the Electoral Commission and committed themselves in that way before the evaluation?

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, the noble Earl's Question was slightly Delphic. The position is clear. The Government's position is that in principle it is desirable to hold the regional referendums on an all-postal basis, as has been the view of the Electoral Commission to date. The Government have also made clear that the Electoral Commission is evaluating the all-postal pilots and that if it concludes that it is unsafe to proceed with all-postal voting, the Government will be prepared to recommend to Parliament that it should amend the approach to the referendums. But if there is to be an option for regional referendums on an all-postal basis by the required date in November, 260 those orders must be laid now to allow the information leaflets for the public to be published and to allow a 10-week period for campaigning.

§ Lord Goodhart
My Lords, will the Government expedite arrangements for individual registration to replace household registration, which is seen as an important way to make all-postal ballots less subject to fraud and deceit?

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, our position on this is as previously stated. We are well aware of the advice of the Electoral Commission that, in time, it would be desirable to move to individual voter registration. The Government are keeping that under review.

§ Baroness O'Cathain
My Lords, is it not true that the Electoral Commission was set up by the Government? It seems that it is not doing what the Government wanted it to do. First, the Government completely ignored its suggestion that there should be only two all-postal ballots in the recent election, as opposed to four. Now they are more or less disregarding everything that the Electoral Commission is doing. Why not just abolish it?

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, I cannot think how the noble Baroness comes to make that assertion. The Electoral Commission was established as a result of an Act of Parliament passed by this House and another place for the very good reason that it is extremely important that there is a body of standing and independence able to advise on electoral matters. The key issue, which we have discussed almost ad nauseam, is that on some matters the Electoral Commission makes recommendations. It is then the job of this House and another place to take a decision on those matters. On the issue of the four regional pilots, we were of the view—and eventually this House concurred that it was desirable to undertake four regional pilots. I am very glad that we did so, given the success of that process.

§ Lord Skelmersdale
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the opening sentence of his original Answer was anything but Delphic? He said that the reason for such Statements was, "to keep the House informed". Is he further aware that in Tuesday's Hansard, there were three Written Statements, the first two of which were duplicates, informing the House of items of which we had already been made aware in the Green Minute?

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, one is damned if one does and damned if one does not on such issues. I stand four-square behind my Answer. The issue of electoral pilots was of considerable interest to the House and it was absolutely right and proper that, as soon as we had clear results from the returning officers, that information was put before the House. I have not yet 261 been asked this, but the headline figure in those four regional pilots was that the vote doubled as a consequence of the all-postal ballots.

§ Lord Shutt of Greetland
My Lords, which is more important: that we have a referendum to decide whether to have regional government in England; or that we have another experiment in postal voting?

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, the noble Lord posits a false dichotomy. It is important that we give the public the opportunity to decide whether they want regional government in this country. I am amazed to receive any indication from members of that party that they think that that is an undesirable choice. In so doing, those processes must be carried out with the standards and integrity in electoral matters of which this country is proud.

§ Lord Richard
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that Members on the other side are advancing the novel proposition that the Government are somehow guilty of something unexpressed and rather inchoate: giving too much information to the House too early? Will the Government firmly reject that proposition? Will my noble friend also reject the proposition of the noble Baroness, Lady O'Cathain, which is that if you set up an independent commission and it does not do what you want, you disband it? I hope that my noble friend will reject that too.

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, I have no difficulty in concurring with my noble friend on both points. In my experience, it is right that the Government give an account to the House. It is also my experience that sometimes one has to tell the House the same thing more than once before it is necessarily fully heard.

§ Baroness Hanham
My Lords, if the Government are happy to pre-empt the report of the Electoral Commission, will the Minister say why they are also happy to pre-empt the investigations currently under way across all four regions for fraud?

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, it is utterly not so on both counts. How can such statements be made in that way? What I said quite clearly in that respect was that, as is well known, the Government take the view that, in principle, it is desirable that the regional referendums are conducted on an all-postal basis. That is for good reason, because they have doubled the turnout in the recent elections. That matters to any of us who are democrats at heart. We also said that we would not proceed if there was a clear recommendation that it was unsafe to do so. I draw the attention of the noble Baroness to the relevant extracts from Hansard in that respect.
As for allegations of fraud and impropriety, the Government's position is that we want the police to investigate any serious allegations of impropriety with the utmost vigour and vigilance. I also draw the noble 262 Baroness's attention to the statement by Sir Howard Bernstein, the regional returning officer for the northwest. He said that research shows that, the scale of allegations of fraud and malpractice is broadly similar to previous years. While the nature of the allegations has changed this year, the scale has not increased—if anything, it has lessened". That is not the Government's statement; it is the statement of the regional returning officer for the north-west and of the Greater Manchester Police. I am further told that the other three regional returning officers concur with that perspective.

§ Lord Woolmer of Leeds
My Lords, is it not extraordinary that no one on the Benches Opposite has welcomed the fact that over 3 million more people voted at those elections? Is that not something to be warmly welcomed on all sides? Does the Minister recognise that there is support for individual voter registration on all sides of the House? That step will be an additional and welcome safeguard against the understandable fears and concerns about possible fraud. That must be said in the context of the very welcome, enormous increase in voters. That must be good for democracy.

§ Lord Filkin
My Lords, the noble Lord's second point is correct. As to his first point, I recollect—because we addressed this matter on several occasions when we were debating electoral pilots—that I chanced my arm slightly and suggested that if one was optimistic, there could be as many as 2 million extra people voting from the 14 million electors in those four regions. The figure was nearly 3 million. The increase in votes cast in the European elections in 2004 in those four regions, compared to the votes cast in 1999, was over 100 per cent more. We must take this issue seriously if we are concerned about the democratic health of our society, just as we must take seriously any allegations or reality of electoral malpractice, and we must seek to eradicate that at the same time.

§ Lord Greaves
My Lords, I certainly welcome the increase in the number of people who voted, particularly those who voted for me. I declare that I was a candidate, an agent and a sub-agent in those elections. Does the Minister understand that there were a number of different reasons why turn-out increased, and that turnout increased throughout the country? It even increased in places that did not hold postal voting pilots, but not quite as much in those places. Therefore, he cannot attribute all the increase, or even attribute a majority of the increase, to postal voting.
Is it not time that the Government stopped spinning and started listening to what happened in those elections? It was an administrative and democratic shambles in many places. If he will not listen to people like me, perhaps he will listen to the Asian lady voter in Keighley in Bradford, West Yorkshire, who said after the elections, "Every year, my husband tells me 263 how to vote, and every year I go to the polling station and vote for who I want to vote for, not for who my husband tells me to vote for. That has now changed".

§ Lord Filkin
Yes, my Lords, we will listen. That is what any responsible government would do. As to the noble Lord's first point, in terms of the increase in voting generally, the increase in voting outside the four regions was roughly 50 per cent; the increase in the four pilot regions was over 100 per cent. If you net the one off the other, you get a picture of about a 50 per cent increase in voting in the four pilot regions, discounting other factors that boosted the turn-out nationally. That is similar to the previous experience on the increase in turnout attributed to postal voting in the 100 or so pilots that have taken place in local government.
As to the Asian lady, we should all be concerned at that situation. However, we should be further concerned that her plight has been worsened by the insistence of this House, against the advice of the Government and the Electoral Commission, that the postal ballot had to be witnessed by someone. She had to get her cross on her ballot witnessed, most probably by a member of her family.