Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, for raising these issues with his amendments, which would provide electors with earlier notice of the referendum and give voters extra hours to cast their ballots. As noble Lords are aware, it is the Government’s intention that the referendum should be held on 5 May. Therefore, any alterations to the timetable and the hours of polling proposed for the referendum would inevitably create inconsistencies between the rules governing the referendum on the one hand and those governing the elections scheduled to take place on 5 May, with which the referendum will be combined, on the other. Fundamentally, this would be confusing and unhelpful for voters. Noble Lords may already have noted that that view is supported by the Electoral Commission. The amendment would also be inconsistent with the combination of rules in Schedules 5 to 8 to the Bill. I turn to the first part of the amendment, which deals with the referendum timetable and the issuing of the notice of poll. With the exception of the Scottish parliamentary election, the 25-day timetable will be used for all other polls that are scheduled to take place on 5 May 2011. During the Bill’s passage through Parliament, we specifically amended the deadline for issuing the notice of poll from 16 to 15 days before the date of the poll. The noble Lord’s amendment would take that up to 20 days before the date of the poll. The purpose of the amendment was to ensure that a consistent deadline for the publication of the notice of poll applied for most of the polls that will be combined across the United Kingdom. Only in Scotland will the deadlines for publication of the notice of the two combined polls be different from each other, due to a slightly different timetable that applies to Scottish parliamentary elections. However, moving the deadline to 20 days before the poll would lead to inconsistency right across the United Kingdom and potential confusion for voters and electoral administrators. The Electoral Commission will take steps, however, to ensure that electors are aware of the referendum before the statutory timetable commences, and electors will not have to wait until notice of poll is issued, or until they receive their official poll card, to change their voting arrangements should they wish to do so. I turn now to the amendment on polling hours. It is an important amendment and important arguments have been adduced in its favour. It would extend the polling hours for the referendum, which could be difficult for polling staff and polling agents. It may even be difficult for people who rely on public transport to get to a polling station for 6 am for the opening of the poll. At the end of the day, extending the close of poll by one hour could have implications for the staff at the time of verification, not least in those cases where two polls will be combined on one day. However, perhaps more importantly, it could be confusing to voters to have polls taking place on the same day but closing at different times. Under this proposal, voters would turn up before 7 am or after 10 pm to vote in the referendum, but would perhaps be told that they were unable to vote in the Scottish parliamentary election, the Welsh National Assembly election or some of the local government elections in England. I suspect that would increase, rather than reduce, the possibility of voters missing their opportunity to vote, which could cause some dissension. The important point, which I think the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, mentioned, is that the opportunities for postal voting and voting by proxy are now such that if the current polling hours are unsuitable for electors, they still have the opportunity to vote. I readily accept that in many cases work patterns and family patterns may make it difficult, but it is now possible to vote either by proxy or by post. As we all know from taking a keen interest in elections, the number of postal votes has increased considerably; obviously a good number of people take that opportunity. It may be that the message about opportunities for postal and proxy voting can be reinforced in the context of information relating to the polls. It is also important that the issue regarding the timetable for the polls goes wider than the referendum alone. It should perhaps be reviewed in the longer term for future national elections and referendums. With these words and assurances, I hope the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.