Electoral Administration Bill

This has been an interesting debate, which I am pleased that my noble friend has led us through. I pay tribute to him for trying to address this concern. For Members of the Committee who have not had the benefit of it, I should say that he has produced a diagrammatic form, in part, of his amendments. My noble friend described himself to me a precision engineer when he was putting this amendment together, and his approach reflects that. He has also given me the benefit, as he has my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor, of going through the amendments in some detail. My noble friend knows that the Government do not support the amendments, but I want to explain some of the issues that have been raised as a consequence of them and perhaps reflect on some issues that have come forward today. As Members of the Committee have pointed out, at the next stage we will perhaps have the opportunity on the Floor of the House to come to more decisions. With great humility, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, that an Englishman could be of any colour. There was an implication almost in what he said that an Englishman would be white. I know that that is not what the noble Lord meant, but he spoke about an Englishman and someone from an ethnic minority. Of course, they could both be Englishmen and they could both be black. I know that the noble Lord will not mind if I reflect on that. Members of the Committee have been candid in their experiences about whether something is benign fiddling—I am not quite sure that I understand the concept of benign fiddling—but they are concerned about what is happening. We need to think of that issue as a national question, not one that is associated with one community or another, whatever the prevailing information that we might have; it could be pertinent and relevant anywhere. I will resist the temptation to return yet again to the CORE question. I see that much more as putting address books together and having a database that is of value to those who are able to use it, such as the political parties, which, I understand, are very interested in it. But I take my noble friend’s point about eventuality in terms of other forms of databases that might be available. The Government began from the principle that you need to pilot. When we do something that affects our democracy, it is important that we test it properly and thoroughly to ensure that any detrimental impact—we have talked about the Northern Ireland experience—is mitigated. That is very important if we take fully on board the questions raised about ensuring that people have the right and the ability to cast their votes. Our pilots have been proposed with, as far as we have been able to ensure, controlled conditions so that we can understand what happens when we bring in new things in a compulsory way. We would make sure that we work very closely with those participating in the pilots to deal with any questions that might arise. Although we can predict most things, already we have had discussions today about additional factors that we would also want to test out. As I have tried to indicate, when overlaying a number of things that may look sensible and straightforward, one has to realise that the recipient is receiving everything in one go. We have to check that there are no unforeseen consequences that affect people’s ability to vote. One question that always arises for me is whether people feel that something is complicated or complex. There are particular groups in our society who find it more difficult to exercise their democratic right; some London elections have demonstrated that. The cost of the pilots is £2 million, which I hope was clear. We sought volunteers in local authorities to enable those who were interested to come forward, but we will take the pilots forward only if we are clear about the level of support. Of course, we seek to find a balance between rural and city environments, different political persuasions in control of the local authorities and so on. As soon as we have further information on that, I shall bring it to your Lordships for discussion. The difficulties with my noble friend’s specific proposals have been raised. Members of the Committee have looked at this from different angles. My noble friend has been very clear with me that he sees his scheme, in part, to be a deterrent—a preventive measure. Local authorities would not wish to find themselves in the position where they had to go down the route of developing a scheme. But, if it is in legislation, we have to assume that it will have the opposite effect, as, indeed, it might. A local authority, in order to avoid being the subject of any suspicion that it did not deal with issues of corruption, might find it easier simply to apply to the Secretary of State to designate. It could, under the scheme, designate one, two or three wards, or the whole local authority. Although it would be possible for local authorities to target, which may, on the face of it, be quite appropriate, we have also to consider the implications of what that would mean. They could develop their own systems. We could, for example, have three or four different systems of personal identifiers running in one area. You very quickly get into a sort of postcode lottery. If you live in a particular ward in a particular place, you have to fill in a particular kind of identifier, which if you move away you do not have to do. I am not testing what that would mean and what that could do. I think that it would be detrimental to our democracy and that we have to go for simplicity, straightforwardness, clarity and universality in anything that we do. Although I accept that the pilots, in a sense, set a different position for a short while, their purpose is to enable us to get to that point. Anything else is potentially very difficult. Some of the points that noble Lords have raised about the way in which postal voting, for example, has been dealt with demonstrate our need to ensure that people understand the value and importance of their voting right and their responsibilities in exercising it. That raises some questions that I put in the broadest sense about education and ensuring that people have the opportunity to see those things. There is no doubt that, where postal voting is more prevalent, you will get more voting. I can think of lots of people—mums with small children on a rainy day or in a difficult week, or people who have jobs that take them away—who in previous elections simply have not voted because they would have had to apply for a postal vote at a particular point, to give reasons and so on. I expect more voting—that should be a good thing—while recognising that we have to ensure that people are doing it appropriately. So, if turnout did not go up after the introduction of easier ways of postal voting, I would be more worried, and, indeed, more surprised. For the reasons I have given, I do not support my noble friend’s amendment. That will come as absolutely no surprise to him. What has been particularly interesting about this debate is the emphasis that has increasingly been put on postal voting and, indeed, the reference to the amendment of my noble friend Lord Elder, which I am considering, as my noble friend knows, with great care at the moment. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to listen further to what noble Lords propose and to get a greater feel for areas that we might consider further.