Electoral System

It might help the few of us who are here if I explain my involvement in this issue. I happen to be one of the Members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe who represents the British Parliament. As I said to the Minister a while ago, I also happen to be the Member of that Assembly who tabled the motion that has resulted in the formal investigation by the Council of Europe that is referred to in today’s motion. It is not often that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe finds its way on to the Floor of this House, which is a pity, because it does a lot of important work, despite what some of my colleagues sometimes say. It does important work, and it happens not to be the European Union. That enables me to prove that I am a good European without having to enthuse about the European Union. Let me explain how the investigation came about, because it is relevant to the debate and highlights the depths to which the Government have allowed us to sink, when it comes to an outside body coming in to investigate us. On 20 March 1952, the United Kingdom signed the first protocol of the European convention on human rights. Despite what some people think, the convention is a Council of Europe matter, not a European Union matter. Article 3 of the protocol places signatories of the protocol under an obligation to hold"““free elections…which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature.””" Having signed that, all was fine so far as the United Kingdom was concerned—so far as I can judge—until 2001, when the Government decided to introduce postal voting on demand. They did that irrespective of a huge amount of anxiety and concern on the part of all political parties, and of voters and academics. Indeed, everybody said, ““If you want to encourage people to apply for a postal vote and therefore find it easier to participate, okay, but don’t do it like this.”” Those expressions of concern predicted that the result of what the Government were doing and how they were doing it would be a huge risk of fraud. Predictably and inevitably, that is precisely what happened, which is what triggered action from the Electoral Commission. In June 2003, the Electoral Commission called for robust scrutiny arrangements. The Government promptly ignored it. In August 2004, it repeated its call and the Government repeated their decision to ignore it. Again, in April 2005, the Electoral Commission repeated its call. That time, the Government were shamed into action. The result of that action was the Electoral Administration Act 2006. It was too little, too late. As others have said, it ignored the fundamental recommendation of individual voter registration. All the legislation does is require a voter to provide a signature and his date of birth if he wants a postal vote. It is still ridiculously easy to get a postal vote fraudulently. Let me give the House an example. Immediately after Christmas, I moved house. I applied to be added to the electoral register in the new constituency. By February, I had been added. I was not asked to prove who I was. No check was made on where I had come from. No questions were asked about my entitlement to vote. I was simply told that I had been added to the register. I promptly applied for a postal vote, and it has been agreed to. No checks have been made on me. It suddenly occurred to me that if I had put down three other names when I announced that I had arrived at my address, I would be the proud possessor of four postal votes. It is crazily, stupidly easy to defraud the system because the Government will not do the one thing that will stop that. Despite the Electoral Commission’s urging and despite the growing evidence, the Government still refuse to act properly. In a 10-minute speech, I cannot begin to list the evidence that is accumulating, although I can give a couple of examples. In April 2005, when declaring two ward results invalid, a judge said:"““The systems to deal with fraud are not working well. They are not working badly. The fact is that there are no systems to deal realistically with fraud and there never have been. Until there are, fraud will continue unabated.””" In the same month, another judge, when dealing with a case, said that the evidence of electoral fraud would ““disgrace a banana republic””. That is the depth to which the Government have brought us. Also in April that year, a Blackburn councillor was convicted of stealing 233 postal votes. Since then, the police have launched a huge number of investigations. The Minister complacently said that that does not amount to much. If she is right, why have the Council of Europe rapporteurs received invitations from the Metropolitan police and the Crown Prosecution Service to meet them so that they can pass on what they have discovered in their inquiries in this country? Along with many other Members of the House, I have done my best through the normal channels to persuade the Government to act properly, but they have not done so. In the end, I decided that I had to try to find other ways to do something about this. I turned my mind to that and quickly realised that the Council of Europe offered an opportunity. I did not go down that route lightly and criticising one’s own country in an international forum is not something that I relish, but I believe passionately in democracy. I also believe that I have a duty to help to stamp it out. [Interruption.] A slip of the tongue at this time of night is perhaps excusable. That is before my supper, I hasten to add. Let me make it absolutely clear that I believe that it is crucial that I, with everybody else, do my best to stamp out fraud wherever we find it. That is why I am one of two Council of Europe rapporteurs monitoring the development of democracy in Albania. How on earth could I, in all conscience, go to Albania, talk to Albanian parliamentarians and politicians and urge them to tackle fraud in their own country when there is fraud here? I would be a hypocrite if I ignored fraud here and then talked to the Albanians about it, so I make no apologies for using the route that I did. That is why tonight, in this country, a former German Social Democrat justice Minister and a Polish Christian Democrat Senator—who, interestingly, was born and brought up in the north of England and so knows our systems inside out and upside down—are both conducting a formal investigation into the British electoral system, with particular reference to postal vote fraud. It takes some doing for a member state of the Council of Europe to be brought to that level; it puts us in the same sort of category as basket cases such as Belarus. Is that where the Government want us to be? In case people still doubt the validity of the Council of Europe, I should say that I—and I hope anybody else who takes democracy seriously—hope that the presence of those two parliamentarians from two other countries proves that this really is a serious matter for this country. Even if the Government do not, I welcome their inquiries and am pleased that they are prepared to help us. If the Government will not help us, we must get help from anywhere and from anybody who will do their best to stop us being worse than a banana republic. The Government probably could not be bothered, or do not know how to rescue us, so I welcome help from wherever we can get it.