Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I do not think that is how it would work. Reasonable expenditure will be reimbursed by the Government. If the expenditure was unreasonable and extravagant and went beyond anything that could be considered reasonable, there should not be an obligation on the Government to reimburse. I can reassure the noble Lord that reasonable expenditure for the purposes set out in paragraph 10(1) and 10(2) would be reimbursed. The noble Lord has put forward a serious hypothetical situation, but anyone would accept that running a registration campaign was a reasonable thing to do. If someone went about it in an extravagant way—which I cannot begin to think of at the moment—that would be deemed unreasonable by most sensible people and it would not be reasonable that taxpayers’ money should reimburse it. However, with a straightforward, reasonable campaign, the Government would reimburse. On the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, the Scottish parliamentary elections will be counted first, ahead of the referendum. The selection of the First Minister does not normally follow the election anyway. I recall that in 2003 we did not get down to negotiations about establishing a coalition until the Monday after the election. Nevertheless, the point remains that the Scottish election count will take precedence over the referendum count. There is a link between this amendment and the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, which relates to the role of the chief counting officer and the powers available to her. Sentiments have been expressed in the debate, as on other occasions, that democratic people were profoundly perturbed by the scenes they saw on the night of the last general election when people were not allowed to exercise their democratic rights. Paragraph 10(1) of the schedule states: "““The Chief Counting Officer must take whatever steps the officer considers appropriate to encourage participation in the referendum””." The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would provide that: "““These steps shall include measures to ensure that all those wishing to vote and arriving at the polling station within the appointed hours are able to do so””." Clearly, the amendment is intended to address the scenes and situations we experienced in May last year. I can assure the Committee that we take very seriously the problems that arose at certain polling stations. The Government have been considering the Electoral Commission’s report on the issue and, in particular, the recommendation that the law be changed to allow people who have not been issued with a ballot paper but are in the queues at 10 pm to vote. We are not convinced or satisfied that the amendment would enable the chief counting officer to direct that ballot papers are issued after 10 pm—if, indeed, that is the intention of the amendment. As the noble Lord indicated in his speech when he spoke to the amendment, the Electoral Commission report noted that that was not possible because it would not comply with the law. Clearly, the chief counting officer cannot issue a direction that contravenes the existing law. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, indicated, that is possibly not something that could be done in the context of this legislation for a referendum alone. I will try to deal with the other point in a bit more detail. It is important to note that in most cases where the problems occurred in May last year, the Electoral Commission has found that the common factor was inadequate planning processes and contingency arrangements—or, more to the point, that such arrangements were not in place. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, quoted my right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister. He quoted him accurately, but perhaps I should just quote a little more of what he said. At Question Time in the other place on 10 November, the Deputy Prime Minister said: "““I happen to think that, in this instance, simply passing a law will not deal with the problem, which was a lack of resources and poor organisation by the returning officer, who acknowledged as much””" —he was specifically talking about Sheffield, where his own constituency is— "““… That is what we need to address; we should not always simply reach for the statute book””.—[Official Report, Commons, 10/11/10; col. 285.]" Officials have met the Electoral Commission, and indeed electoral administrators, to discuss the issue of managing queues at polling stations. It is clear that there are divergent views on the effectiveness of any legislative change, and a significant number of administrators are not in favour of it. Again, that is a reflection of the fact that the problems in that particular case in May last year were because of planning failures and the lack of effective contingency planning. Given the divergence of views that exist on the specific recommendation of the Electoral Commission and given that there is the general consensus that the problems largely arose from poor planning, we believe there is a need for significant additional discussion before any change to legislation should be proposed, if indeed that is eventually deemed appropriate. There needs to be buy-in from all those who would be involved in administering elections. Under the Bill, we consider that the chief counting officer already has the necessary powers to provide appropriate guidance, training and support to the regional counting officers, as well as to counting officers themselves, to help address the issues that arose in May 2010. I am aware that some of the contingency arrangements have already changed the ratio of polling clerks to the number of voters at each polling place. We think there is certainly a need for more discussion as to all the potential consequences of any legislative amendment before a change to the principles underlying the existing electoral rules is considered. In these circumstances there is some benefit to having the certainty of the present rules, admittedly with the back-up role that the chief counting officer has the authority to play in giving the necessary guidance, training and support.