Electoral Administration Bill

My Lords, I rise somewhat tentatively, because these two groups of amendments seem to be coming together and it seems appropriate to speak to Amendment No. 26 now, but if any noble Lord wishes to stop me, perhaps this would be a good time to do so. Some helpful things have been said about my Amendment No. 26, so perhaps I should proceed. My amendment seeks to resolve serious questions that have arisen on the integrity of the absent voting system. We all accept that they must be resolved. My amendment proposes two identifiers and I happily accept that case—signature and date of birth—attached to every application for postal, proxy and proxy postal votes. Subsections (1), (2) and (3) of the amendment deal with absent voters for a definite or indefinite period, for a particular election and for proxy postal votes. The requirement for an applicant to provide a signature if there is any disability or inability to do so is dispensed with, and EROs are required to keep such records for checking them against actual votes. Subsection (4) deals with circumstances where new signatures are required, whether as a result of a change of name or change of signature over time, and sets out the circumstances in which the identifiers can be made available to others—notably to other EROs and to candidates and agents in elections, to help them inspect the evidence in the event that votes are disputed with the returning officer. The separation of absent voters as an issue from the more general question of individual registration is the right way forward. I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, said, and, to some extent, he was following the line of argument originally used by the Electoral Commission, which, more or less, was that the clearing up of postal votes could be achieved only if there was individual registration across the whole country. I never believed that that was the case and this is a more sensible way to proceed. It is the question of postal voting that needs to be resolved. There have been no corresponding doubts about the validity of voting at polling stations. In the meantime, there will quite enough for electoral registration officers to do as regards CORE, the other changes in the Bill—such as setting performance standards for EROS—and with the nationwide introduction of individual registration for all absent voters. It is not appropriate or sensible to pile too much by way of new responsibilities and requirements on people and changes such as individual registration should be introduced gradually and more sensibly. I have always imagined that the Electoral Commission, following this change in postal voting and the other changes in the Bill, would want to reflect—and should reflect—on what that would mean for future registration. I would expect the commission to come back with further recommendations. It might then look at the best way of introducing individual registration—I do not know and I would not wish to pre-judge that, but Amendment No. 26 would provide the right degree of scale and evidence on which the commission could make further recommendations. As the noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, said, the proposals concerning absent voters were much discussed in Grand Committee and there was general support for them. I appreciate that she and some of her colleagues wish to add a third identifier. I do not agree with that, although I know that the Liberal Democrats very much wanted to fit that in, so that postal voting would be one of the outcomes of individual registration rather than an end in itself. Despite that, I hope that there is general agreement on the need to clear up the biggest single problem in terms of perceptions of honesty and integrity in the system—which, I believe, my amendment would achieve. In due course, we may see what the Electoral Commission might say. My final point in relation to future developments, if my amendment is accepted, is that it is important that, whatever the future government regulations will be as to how many votes should be checked, that it should be done evenly across the whole country. I have no doubt that it should be done at a 100 per cent level to start with. If there is a decision to reduce that, it should not be targeted at constituencies where there are doubts, but be carried out absolutely fairly and absolutely across the whole country.