Electoral System

The hon. Gentleman and I stated different figures. There are figures and there is a serious problem. The Government are making light of the problem, whatever those figures may be. Although we have been supportive of many of the measures so far implemented by the Government—in particular, the new offences created to deter electoral fraud—as the facts stand it is becoming clear that those measures will still fall far short of the mark. The Government have even messed up the implementation of their inadequate legislation. In response to a question tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), the Minister admitted, as she did this evening, that the key provisions in the Electoral Administration Act 2006 on the requirement for signatures as verifiers in polling stations had, in effect, been put on ice because, apparently, the Act did not provide for a clear sanction of withholding a ballot paper. Yes, the Act provides for the piloting of personal identifiers, but we have seen a half-hearted approach on enforcement by a Government who are failing to realise, or at least admit to, their fundamental errors on protecting democracy in this country. Evidence gathered by the Committee on Standards in Public Life shows that the system that is in place is seriously flawed and that it will still fail to protect the arrangements for postal voting from fraud. For example, information on registration forms provided to electoral registration officers is taken at face value. There is little or no checking of completed registration forms to ensure their authenticity, and there are virtually no checks to establish people’s identities at polling stations. Despite the new checks that are being introduced for postal voting, the Committee’s report states:"““determined fraudsters can easily sidestep these by registering false identities on the electoral register.””" My hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) explained those weaknesses succinctly in his speech. There are thus renewed calls from the Electoral Commission for the introduction of individual registration. That has long been the position of the Conservative party, so I am pleased to note that we are supported by the Liberal Democrats and that a Labour Member such as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) accepts that that is necessary. The Electoral Commission and most electoral administrators believe that individual registration is, in principle, a more accurate means of registering eligible voters and thus the preferred way forward. The Committee on Standards in Public Life has also concluded that the new system of registration should be complemented by an additional objective verifier and that changes should be made immediately. I am sure that other safety measures could be reviewed, not least regarding non-canvassing near polling stations, which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath mentioned. I noted the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham. I can tell him only that we stopped using freepost in the 1990s in London after finding much of our freepost dumped in dustbins throughout the borough. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield also made apt comments in that regard. The sad fact remains that the Government have repeatedly resisted calls to implement measures that would remedy the situation. The Minister talked about instituting all-postal voting in 2001, but she failed to mention the fact that the Electoral Commission withdrew its support for such voting in 2004 because of the Government’s failure to implement the necessary safeguards to increase the security of postal voting and individual registration. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) made a strong case against postal votes on demand. Whether or not one supports that, the need to avoid fraud is vital. We have clearly seen in Tower Hamlets a prime example of how our system has gone very badly wrong. The Government have consistently chosen to overlook suggestions that they consider the experiences of electoral reform in Northern Ireland. The main measures implemented through the Electoral Fraud (Northern Ireland) Act 2002 included the introduction of individual registration and the use of national insurance numbers as personal identifiers. The latter measure safeguards against illegitimate multiple registration by citizens and improper registrations by non-citizens. In addition, a returning officer at a polling station can ask for any suspicious voter’s personal identifiers, which can then be checked against the registration. Most critically, for the non-supervised postal votes, national insurance numbers must be submitted with the ballot papers, which combats the fraud that was evidently rife. Previously, Northern Ireland struggled with the prevalent perception that fraud was widespread. However, since the introduction of the measures in 2002, they have been judged by the electorate and the political parties to be successful in both combating fraud and decreasing the perception of fraud. Some 72 per cent. of respondents declared that they thought that the measures would reduce electoral fraud. In the combined elections in 2005, there were no reported incidents of fraudulent activity. The position is very different in England. Indeed, as my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne pointed out, it is so different that we are now to be investigated by the Council of Europe—I congratulate him on his initiative in that regard. One cannot say that the situation is news to the Government. In a Westminster Hall debate on 22 June 2005, I spoke about the inadequacy of the Government’s proposal to use only a signature and a date of birth as individual identifiers. On 5 July 2005, when questioned about the benefits of using national insurance numbers as personal identifiers, the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, conceded that they were an effective method of cross-checking information to establish a person’s existence. On Second Reading of the Government’s Electoral Administration Bill, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire warned that the measures proposed represented a ““damp lettuce leaf”” rather than the ““strong sword”” that was required to defend our democracy. Despite that, the Government have consistently pushed forward policies that ignore the grave danger of electoral fraud in favour of increasing turnout at the polls, and they are doing so again today. I once again ask how much longer will it be, and how many more debates will it take, until the Government act. We accept that it is important that as many eligible people as possible participate in the democratic process, but that should never be at the expense of the integrity of that process. The Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, correctly identified that the legitimacy of our democracy depends on three things: everyone having the right to vote, everyone wanting to vote, and no one fiddling the vote. However, she has consistently failed to appreciate the relative significance of those issues. They do not, as she suggested, represent three equal legs of a stool. We believe that it is not a question of creating an exact balance between the security of the poll and encouraging voting, important though encouraging participation may be, as the integrity of the electoral process is at the heart of the democratic system. It is the fundamental issue; if there is no confidence in the system, fewer, not more, people will vote. That point was made strongly by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington. The point that the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), made earlier about non-registration is simply a red herring. She mentioned encouraging registration, but she will know that people are obliged to register by statute. When I asked her in a written question how many people had been prosecuted for non-registration, she answered that, so far as she knew, none had been. Why is that the case? Again, the answer is Government inaction. Will she abandon what my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington and the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow called her complacency, and confirm whether the Government intend to take the action recommended by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which said that the Electoral Commission’s role of increasing participation in the democratic process does not support or fit with its core regulatory task? Should we not be spending our time urgently reviewing the commission’s powers to stop fraud? May we please have a clear answer from the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Inverclyde (David Cairns), in his response? Unbelievably, even now, the issue dominating Department for Constitutional Affairs press releases is not the need to crack down on electoral fraud but the extension of all-postal voting, and the trialling of internet and telephone voting. Earlier, the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs called that a sensible effect, but we say that if we do not have the appropriate controls, such measures would, if anything, increase the incidence of fraud. As the Foundation for Information Policy Research remarked,"““It’s always a bad idea to look for technical fixes to social problems.””" All the signs show that the Government have lost their way, and have lost all sight of the priority issue. Could there be a murkier reason for Labour’s inaction? On 5 February 2007, in an article, Sir Alistair Graham was quoted as saying that Ministers did not adopt personal identifiers because there were fears that the Labour vote would suffer. He said:"““It is worrying if people are taking a partisan approach to this.””" What a sad indictment of new Labour if our great democracy has come to that. The Government should wake up, as the British electoral system is in serious danger of losing its credibility. As my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne pointed out, what was once the model for democracies in civilisations across the world has sunk to being investigated alongside emerging states and toppled dictatorships. In light of the recommendations of the 11th report of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, we urge the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland to admit plainly that it is time urgently to address the issues, before it is too late, and to support our motion.