Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2007

rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2007. The noble Lord said: First, I thank the Committee for agreeing to take these three election instruments together. This is well established practice and continues to make the best use of parliamentary time. The two orders are made under different sections of the Scotland Act 1998, and the regulations are made under the Representation of the People Act 1983. The Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order is made under Sections 12(1) and 113 of the Scotland Act 1998, which allow for an order to be made for the conduct of elections for membership of the Scottish Parliament. The order relating to local electoral administration is made under Section 104, which allows for necessary or expedient changes in consequence of an Act of the Scottish Parliament. The regulations are made under various powers and laid by virtue of Section 201(2) of the Representation of the People Act 1983. I hope that it is helpful to the Grand Committee to give a brief explanation of what the three instruments do, and I am very happy to answer any questions that noble Lords have. The Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2007 is made in consequence of the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006—an Act of the Scottish Parliament that received Royal Assent on 1 August 2006. The 2006 Act introduced an offence in Scotland related to fraudulent applications for postal or proxy votes, the penalty for which includes the offender being disqualified from standing in local government elections in Scotland for five years. The new offence introduced in Scotland mirrors that introduced for local government elections in England and Wales in the Electoral Administration Act 2006. The provisions of the Act of the Scottish Parliament, and disqualifications made under it, could not extend to elections for Westminster, the European and Scottish Parliaments or local government elections elsewhere in the United Kingdom, as this is outwith the Scottish Parliament’s legislative competence. The Government and Scottish Executive believe that there should be co-operation to ensure that a coherent system of disqualification applies across the United Kingdom. This order will ensure that when a person has been convicted of the new offence and disqualified from standing at a local government election in Scotland, the disqualification will also apply to candidature in an election to Westminster. Under the terms of the Representation of the People Act 1983, when a person is disqualified from candidature to Westminster they are in turn disqualified from standing in elections to the European and Scottish Parliaments, the Northern Ireland and Welsh Assemblies and local government elections elsewhere in Great Britain. The specific purpose of the order is to maintain a consistent scheme and to ensure that disqualifications made following misconduct at Scottish local government elections apply to other elections across the United Kingdom. The 2006 Act of the Scottish Parliament provided for the recognition in Scotland of similar disqualifications made at local and parliamentary elections elsewhere in the United Kingdom; the order provides further links in the chain against electoral fraud. The second instrument before us is the Representation of the People (Scotland) (Amendment) Regulations 2007, to which I now turn. The House debated the Representation of the People (England and Wales) (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations 2006 in October 2006. The regulations before the Committee mirror almost identically the regulations contained in the England and Wales version. There are separate regulations for Scotland to reflect different electoral arrangements; for example, the involvement of sheriff clerks in the retention of electoral documents. Otherwise, the regulations are very similar. The regulations amend the Representation of the People (Scotland) Regulations 2001. The amendments flow from provisions in the Electoral Administration Act that introduce anonymous registration, alter certain aspects of absent voting, and improve certain administrative and procedural processes. Noble Lords will realise from my earlier comments that many of these amendments have been transferred into the Scottish Parliament order so that they may apply in May. I will therefore not repeat them here. The regulations apply the same amendments to UK Parliament elections in Scotland. Electoral practice is thereby consistent across the UK and Scottish parliamentary elections. I therefore draw noble Lords’ attention to only some of the adaptations that have been made to the regulations to meet the Scottish context. Regulation 12 includes additional categories of qualifying officers in the case of those who can attest anonymous registrations to include chief social work officers in Scotland. We have removed certain references to ““any election””, as this would intrude into devolved competence by picking up local government elections. References to the Local Government Act 2000, which does not extend to Scotland, have been removed. Scottish equivalents of those able to attest applications for proxy votes have also been added. Part 10 deals with the control of documents following an election. In Scotland, responsibility for the inspection and supply of documents rests with the relevant sheriff clerk. In England and Wales, it rests with the relevant registration officer. Finally, I come to the Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2007. I appreciate its enormous length. However, around 80 per cent of it is standard and reflects electoral law that has been in place for decades. It contains a replication of the rules that governed the last elections to the Scottish Parliament in 2003, but they have been updated in line with recent electoral primary legislation. The order also consolidates all rules and legislation governing the conduct of the Scottish Parliament elections in this one document to assist with their application. The changes made in the order fall into two main categories. The first category includes changes that are a result of new measures introduced by the Electoral Administration Act 2006. The second category includes innovative changes that are being introduced for the elections this May; namely, the electronic counting of ballot papers and a single, combined ballot paper for the regional and constituency votes. I propose to summarise these key changes here. The order introduces, and anticipates the introduction of, many of the new provisions made in the Electoral Administration Act, which received Royal Assent last July. One of the main aims of the Electoral Administration Act is to reduce levels of electoral fraud. Many of the new provisions to reduce fraud relate to postal voting. The declaration of identity has now been replaced with the postal-voting statement, which requires a postal voter to sign a statement confirming that they are the correct recipient of the ballot papers. The list of postal ballot papers is also required to be marked to show when the paper was issued and when it was received. A new provision is made to allow postal voters to confirm that their returned postal vote and postal-voting statement have been received. Additionally, if a person applies for a postal vote to be sent to a different address from that shown on the record of absent voters, they will be required to indicate the reasons why circumstances require it to be sent there. This is to help prevent multiple papers being fraudulently sent to the same address. Provisions to register anonymously were introduced by the Electoral Administration Act. The order anticipates the introduction of this provision, which will come into force fully after May 2007. Voters will be able to apply to be placed on the register anonymously if their safety or that of a person in their household would be at risk if the register of electors contained their name or address. Documents required by the order to be given to voters or displayed in any place can now be made available in Braille, in languages other than English, in graphical representations or by other means of making the information accessible to persons who might not otherwise have reasonable access to it. It also includes the information being made available in an appropriate, audible form. The deadline for registering to vote has been extended to 11 days before the date of poll. Under previous legislation, the closing date for registering to vote had been around six weeks prior to polling day, which gives people more time to register to vote in the election. Within the changes introduced by the Electoral Administration Act, there are also various administrative improvements that have been applied to the order. Ballot papers will no longer be attached to counterfoils that are subsequently marked when the attached ballot paper is detached and issued. A corresponding number list will now be maintained by the constituency returning officer and will contain the numbers of all ballot papers to be issued. The corresponding number list for postal ballots will contain the other unique identifying marks of all ballot papers, as well as the ballot paper numbers. Returning officers will now be able to correct simple procedural errors so that they can be corrected on polling day to ensure voters are not disenfranchised due to an error made by polling staff. A new provision is made to allow candidates’ nominations to state their commonly used surname or forename in addition to their other name. This will allow constituency candidates’ names to appear on the ballot paper as the name they are commonly known by. Two or more political parties are now able to register a description for use by a constituency candidate standing in the name of both or all parties jointly. Consequently, constituency candidates can appear on ballot papers with joint descriptions of both or all parties they represent. The second category of change in this order relates to innovative changes. The order allows, for the first time in Scotland, for ballot papers to be counted either electronically or manually. An electronic count will be used in the forthcoming May elections. The Government are enabling electronic counting as part of the wider elections modernisation agenda. The order still allows for a manual count as it is envisaged that it will be unlikely that the electronic system would be employed for a single by-election. Also, for the first time in Scotland, the two ballot papers for the Scottish Parliament will be combined and printed on the same sheet of paper. The regional list will be on the left-hand side of the sheet as you look at it and the constituency on the right. Candidates and parties will be ordered alphabetically. The two parts of the sheet will be printed in different colours to help voters distinguish them. Redesigning the ballot paper so that it better reflects the mixed member voting system used for elections to the Scottish Parliament fulfils one of the recommendations made in the Arbuthnott commission report, Putting Citizens First: Boundaries, Voting and Representation in Scotland. The design also reflects the outcome from public consultation, in which comments were received from various groups including local authorities, political parties, election organisations and disability campaigning groups. Members of the Committee will be aware from the Explanatory Memorandum that a few provisions in the order, in so far as they relate to the application of certain provisions to convicted prisoners, are incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. A subsequent memorandum has also been submitted to the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments by my officials, which explains the reasons behind the statement made. The ninth report from the JCSI, printed on 21 February, drew attention to this order and attached this voluntary memorandum as an annex. The Government’s consultation on the issue of prisoners’ voting rights closes today. As signalled in the foreword to the consultation paper by the Lord Chancellor, the Government wish that there be a debate about how to best implement the Grand Chamber judgment in the Hirst case which required a review of the current blanket ban on prisoners’ right to vote. In accordance with the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, we have consulted the Electoral Commission on the draft Scottish Parliament order and representation of the people regulations. The Commission is content with the versions before Members of the Committee. We have also worked closely during the drafting stages with a legislation sub-group comprising representatives of key interested parties. These instruments are detailed and lengthy but will ensure that elections to the Scottish Parliament remain to be conducted in a fair and democratic way. I beg to move. Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Local Electoral Administration and Registration Services (Scotland) Act 2006 (Consequential Provisions and Modifications) Order 2007. 9th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)