Political Parties and Elections Bill

I am grateful to the noble Lord. I will take that idea back, if I may. Amendment 131 amends provisions in Schedule 4 to the Representation of the People Act 2000 concerning absent voting in Great Britain to increase the penalty for persons convicted of the offence of making fraudulent applications. I am glad to hear that this was a probing amendment, because it would mean that anyone guilty of such an offence would have to receive a custodial sentence. The maximum of that sentence could be six months. I am sure that is not what the noble Lord intends. Postal voting has been a longstanding feature of the electoral process. As the Committee knows, the 2000 Act extended the availability of postal voting by introducing postal voting on demand. The greater availability of postal voting has generally proved popular, with many voters finding it a convenient way to cast their vote, in a way that fits in with their busy lives. A positive impact on voter turnout has been the result. To illustrate this, at the 2005 general election, 12 per cent of the electorate opted to have a postal ballot, accounting for 15 per cent of all votes cast. At the May 2008 local elections, it has been calculated that around 15 per cent of electors were issued with a postal vote. Of course we have to be vigilant where the security of the electoral system is concerned. A number of safeguards have been put in place. The noble Lord highlighted the offence provisions at paragraph 8 of Schedule 4 to the 2000 Act, which concern false statements made in any declarations or forms used for the purpose of making absent voting applications. He is right that at present, conviction of an offence of making a false statement will result in a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale. Let me point out again that the Electoral Administration Act 2006 introduced new offence provisions relating to applications for a postal or proxy vote. The new offence provisions deal with a number of specific activities and build upon and complement the existing ones in Schedule 4 to the 2000 Act. Under these new provisions an offence is committed if one of the following things is done with the intention of obtaining the right to vote or depriving another of that right: first, applying for a postal or proxy vote as some other person; secondly, otherwise making a false statement in, or in connection with, an application for a postal or proxy vote; thirdly, inducing a registration officer to send a postal or proxy voting ballot paper to an address that has not requested it; or, fourthly, preventing delivery of any information relating to postal or proxy voting to an address that has requested it. A person convicted under these offence provisions will be guilty of a corrupt practice and will be liable on conviction to be imprisoned, or to a fine, or to both. It can be up to two years’ imprisonment on indictment. If the conviction is on a summary basis the maximum penalty will be six months. I appreciate that the intention of noble Lords is that strict penalties should be in place for persons who seek to abuse the integrity of the electoral process. I can reassure the Committee that a person who makes a false statement in, or in connection with, an application for a postal or proxy vote will be liable to a custodial sentence under the 2006 Act. However, I undertake to consider in more detail the relationship between the offence provisions which the noble Lord has highlighted and the offences that I have mentioned that were introduced in 2006, and perhaps revisit this issue on Report. The purpose of Amendment 132 is obviously to prevent any future all-postal ballots, or certainly any in the near future. There is, in fact, no specific provision in electoral law for all-postal ballots to take place at national level. Rather, under Section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2000 there is provision for pilot schemes to take place at local elections in England and Wales to test alternative methods of voting. This power has been used in the past to provide for all-postal pilots at local elections. Such pilots have generally had a positive impact on voter turnout, but, the Committee may be pleased to hear, there are currently no plans to hold all-postal ballots for UK statutory elections. An important consideration, of course, as was mentioned in the debate, is that the introduction of personal identifiers for postal voters makes it problematic to hold an all-postal election as it would be necessary to collect personal identifiers from all electors, possibly within a short timescale, for use at the election. This could be a significant task and there would be a risk that some electors would not provide their identifiers and would, of course, be liable to be disenfranchised from voting at that election. We have set out and discussed at length a clear timetable for moving towards individual registration. As was also said in the debate, such personal identifiers collected for registration purposes could be used in due course for the purposes of postal voting and so would facilitate an all-postal ballot. Given this, we see no reason to close the door altogether on holding all-postal ballots, as they may be appropriate at some stage in the future. However, further legislation would be needed to give effect to this and we have no current plans to bring such legislation forward. On that basis, I hope that the noble Lord will not press the amendments.