I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute. I rise with some trepidation to debate “clause 4”, but it nevertheless has my wholehearted support. I want to provide a few anecdotes in support of the new clause. In my view, the issues it deals with are not confined to the last general election, as they have been going on for many years. On the basis of experience of fighting elections in my part of London over 38 years, I know that turnout will double between the opening of the poll and 6 o’clock in the evening and the period after that until the close of the poll.
In my part of the world, many people travel long distances or have small shops that they keep open for quite extended hours. At the conclusion of their work, they travel back and join long queues to seek to exercise their right to vote. This is not confined to one or two polling stations, as it applies to many. This has been a problem for a long time.
The 2004 London mayoral election and the European elections were held on the same day, causing dramatic confusion in polling stations and leading to serious problems, with long queues forming—certainly in my neck of the woods. Some people were confused about what they were voting for, but the need to issue them with large numbers of ballot papers caused extensive delays.
In the London mayoral elections of 2008, the number of Londoners wanting to vote for Boris Johnson as Mayor and to kick out Ken Livingstone was so overwhelming that it led to huge queues in polling stations, particularly in areas where large turnouts were not expected, causing further problems. In the general election of 2010, because of the activities of both political parties—certainly in my constituency—people regularly had to queue for an hour to exercise their votes during the day.
The presiding officer has discretion over what constitutes a polling station. If it is a Portakabin, it is fairly straightforward, but if it is a school the question arises of where the polling station begins and ends—is it the school gates or the school hall? That causes further consternation.
The key point is this, however. When people are keen to go to the polling station to express their views by voting, it is vital for them to be able to get there and to queue for however long it takes for the ballot papers to be issued, and for however long it takes those ahead of them in the queue who have also sought to be there validly before the 10 pm watershed to register their own votes. I can think of nothing more frustrating for someone who has travelled a long distance back from work, has arrived at home, has said “Oh yes, I must go and register my vote”, has reached the polling station at 9.45 pm, and has joined the queue than to be denied his or her vote because the queue is so long, and to be told by the presiding officer “Very sorry; you arrived too late.” We can imagine the reactions of people who have travelled long distances or closed their shops quite late in the day in order to go and vote.
The problem has been raised with me many times in connection with polling stations in north-west London. I think it important for us to set in stone in the Bill that if someone has reached the polling station, validly, before 10 pm and is in the queue, that person’s vote will be recorded. I do not think it acceptable for presiding officers throughout the country to be able to interpret the position in different ways. If a presiding officer says “According to my watch it is 9.59 pm so I shall allow you to vote, although the time is actually 10.10 pm”, that is not a valid way of operating.
It cannot be right that elections could be won or lost on the basis of a presiding officer’s judgment as to what the time is. That is clearly not what Parliament wants, or what the people want. What we want is absolute clarity, so that there is the minimum wriggle room for a presiding officer in the interpretation of the rules and the maximum capability for people to register their votes validly in the way that they wish.