My Lords, in moving Amendment 25, I shall speak also to the other amendments in the group, which are all in my name. My principal purpose is to draw attention to a grave injustice that afflicts large numbers of our fellow countrymen and women living overseas and is keenly felt by many of them. Amendment 25 would sweep away entirely the existing severe restriction on their right to vote in our elections—a right that so many of them wish to exercise freely and without interruption while they reside in other countries—no matter how long their residence abroad may last. Surely Parliament should regard it as a duty to make full, principled provision to enable all our fellow countrymen and women living in other countries to take part in our elections if they wish, rather than just some of them, as is the case under the current, arbitrarily devised rules for British subjects overseas.
According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, some 5.6 million British citizens are now living in other countries, of whom around 4.4 million are of voting age. During their first 15 years after leaving Britain, they are eligible to register for, and vote in, our elections. Thereafter, these rights are confined to
members of the Armed Forces, civil servants, employees of the British Council and employees of charities registered in the United Kingdom. For everyone else, the shutters come down firmly after 15 years. Those who have been registered under the 15-year rule can expect to receive a cold, terse letter from their registration officer in Britain, informing them that their rights to register and vote are at an end. Some of these letters may be better than others; perhaps I am little prejudiced, having recently seen a scrappy communication from the electoral registration officer of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, which contained a number of mistakes and addressed the recipient by her first name, getting that wrong too.
The loss of the right to vote can cause not inconsiderable distress. I have a great deal of correspondence on the matter. One lady in her late 70s wrote that, “Even though I expected it, when I received a letter from Corby Borough Council in November 2010 telling me I was no longer eligible to register as an overseas voter, I was devastated and still am. Since reaching voting age way back in the 1950s, I have never, ever not exercised my democratic right to vote. But now I have been disenfranchised”. However, at the same time, the right to vote under the present restricted arrangements has not been widely claimed. The most recent figures, produced by the Office for National Statistics at the end of 2011, show that only 23,388 British citizens living overseas were registered to vote here. That extraordinarily low number should be prominently in our minds as we debate this important legislation, whose object is to produce a better, more accurate system of registration which gathers in those who are eligible to vote as fully as possible. It is undoubtedly true that the number of overseas voters under the current 15-year rule would be considerably higher if the process of registration and voting were simplified and streamlined. That is what the last three amendments in this group are designed to achieve.
The fundamental issue at stake here is the complete exclusion of so many British citizens living abroad for more than 15 years from the right to vote here. According to the Institute for Public Policy Research, 55% of those who moved abroad in 2008 did so for work-related reasons, 25% for study and 20% for life in retirement. With an ageing population, and increased opportunities for work and study abroad, people are likely to continue to leave the United Kingdom in substantial numbers. Many of them will reside abroad for more than 15 years. In the countries to which they move, voting rights rest overwhelmingly on nationality, not residence. Apart from some nine Commonwealth countries—mainly islands in the West Indies—I understand that no state permits British citizens to vote in its principal national elections. They therefore exist in an electoral limbo.
Our existing law, restricting to 15 years the right of British subjects abroad to vote in our elections, is open to serious objection on the grounds that it does not conform with the requirements of international law on human rights. A much publicised case is winding its way through the European Court of Human Rights, brought by the redoubtable 91 year-old Second World War veteran and, in his younger days, Labour Party activist, Harry Shindler. As a non-lawyer, I cannot help but feel that he deserves to succeed, simply for
showing such guts and determination. It is Harry Shindler’s contention that Britain’s restriction on overseas voting violates his right to choose his place of residence without being disfranchised. He is invoking Article 3 of the first protocol and Article 14 of the convention itself. In a debate in this House on 2 March 2011, my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill described the various periods of time that have been used since 1985 to restrict overseas voting—first to five years’ absence, then 20 and now 15—as,
“entirely arbitrary and, I dare say, discriminatory in a way that violates Article 14 of the European convention read with Article 3 of the first protocol”.—[Official Report, 2/3/11; col. 1124.]
The judgment of the European Court is eagerly awaited.
I come to the nub of the matter. It is this: where voting rights are concerned, our country today serves its citizens abroad less well than many others. Great democracies, such as the United States, Australia and France, confer on their citizens living in other countries a lifetime’s right to vote, and take considerable pains to ensure that the processes of registration and voting are simple and straightforward.
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Within the European Union, Britain compares unfavourably with most of its partners. Of the 27 EU members, 22 countries allow their expatriate citizens the right to vote, without any restriction on the period of residence outside the home country. That is apart from Germany, which restricts it to 25 years for expatriates living outside the EU. Just two countries, Denmark and the United Kingdom, restrict the period for voting rights: the UK to 15 years and Denmark to four. In three countries—Cyprus, the Republic of Ireland and Malta—expatriates have no right to vote.
Within the European Union, the United Kingdom comes 23rd out of 27 in terms of the voting rights it allows expatriates. Is that where we really wish to be, at a time when there is a marked international trend—not only confined to the developed world—towards wide, unrestricting voting rights for expatriates? Why, for example, should British expatriates living in Spain lose their right to vote here after 15 years, when Spanish citizens happily established in the United Kingdom retain the right to vote in perpetuity in Spanish elections? The Deputy Prime Minister’s wife finds herself in that satisfactory position. Mr Clegg, however, seems strangely reluctant to champion the interest of his fellow citizens living in Spain.
The world has become much smaller. Britons overseas can listen to our radio via their computer, they can watch British television and read British newspapers just as rapidly as anyone living here, if they subscribe to them electronically. I make a confident prediction that this debate in our House today will attract one of the largest television online audiences abroad that your Lordships have had. I have met many British overseas residents who are as well, if not better, informed about British political affairs than the average voter here. So the old argument about expatriates’ inability to make an informed judgment about the great issues in our political life no longer holds.
At the same time, the contribution that expatriates make to our economy becomes ever greater—for example, those working for overseas affiliates or for foreign
companies with bases in the United Kingdom where profits are taxed. Is it right for us to say to these people: “Yes, please go and work overseas, but of course you will not be able to vote after 15 years”? Should we say this to our fellow countrymen and women who are studying in other countries or to those who have retired from a lifetime of working for, or service to, our nation, receiving pensions which are taxed in Britain and affected by laws made here?
We should acknowledge and rejoice in the pride and deep interest which so many of our fellow British subjects take in the nation to which they belong. I have heard from a vast number of people living abroad since I gave notice last July that I would table this amendment. All have stressed the strength of the ties that continue to unite them to their country. In this connection, I have been inundated with offers to inspect tax returns, pension payment slips, deeds of property and returns—not very high at the moment—on investment savings in Britain.
The essence of the matter was well expressed in 2009 by Jenny Watson, the head of the Electoral Commission. She said:
“British citizens living abroad come from a wide variety of backgrounds, but we know that most maintain strong links with the UK. It is easier than ever before for British citizens abroad to keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues back home and many will also want to have their say in elections”.
Any time limit is inherently flawed because there is no definitive way of deciding what the limit should be. Any limit that may be set has to be arbitrary and so is inevitably unjust. That is why our 15-year limit should go, as Amendment 25 proposes.
Amendment 26 requires no more than a few words. It is designed to provide the Government with an alternative to the immediate abolition of the 15-year rule. In the various statements that members of the Government have made on this subject, there has been no hint that immediate reform is likely. Though sympathetic to the case for change, they say that the matter requires further consideration. I hope that my noble friend will be able to tell the House today that the Government have now been persuaded by the arguments in favour of swift action, but I recognise that, sadly, he may not. Amendment 26 provides the acceptance of the need for change in principle and for the creation of a framework through which change could be introduced by secondary legislation in due course.
The remaining three amendments seek to improve the processes for registration and voting for our fellow countrymen and women overseas. At present, those who wish to remain on the electoral register must go through the protracted process of reregistering every year, after having to get their initial applications countersigned by another, unrelated British citizen not resident in the United Kingdom, even though a passport number provides positive identification of them. The requirements deter many from registering. The annual repetition of the whole process is widely felt to be unnecessary. It seems that the forms are rarely, if ever, checked. It must make sense to consider extending the period of validity of each registration of an overseas voter until the day following the date of the next general election. That is what Amendment 27 would
do. There would be negligible risk of fraud because overseas electors are positively identifiable by means of their British passport number. Extending the period of registration should result in the more complete and accurate registration of overseas voters.
Amendment 28 seeks to ensure that overseas voters benefit as fully as possible from the development of online registration as envisaged by the Bill. Online registration can be expected to become the procedure of choice for British citizens overseas. Here, too, they have the advantage of being positively identifiable by means of a single, uniform identity document, the British passport. All British passports are now issued by the Identity and Passport Service of the Home Office, and from a date due to be announced this year, all applications from British citizens overseas will have to be made via the internet. It should not be unduly difficult to make effective arrangements through the Identity and Passport Service so that online application forms for passports from British citizens overseas include a question asking applicants whether they wish their passport applications to be treated simultaneously as an application for overseas voter registration, and if so, provide their most recent address.
During the 10-year period that passports are valid, their holders may of course move from one place to another. To ensure that they continue to be included on the electoral register, they could be asked to register their change of address on the Foreign Office’s LOCATE database, which is freely available via the internet. Therefore, it should be possible to devise an efficient system for online registration using existing online facilities at minimal extra cost and with the security of the passport.
Finally, Amendment 54 relates to online voting. Extending the electoral timetable for our parliamentary elections from 17 to 25 working days should make it much easier for British citizens overseas to be able to vote by post. However, the use of online methods could improve voter turnout further, as last year’s French elections indicated so clearly. In the French elections, there were just over 1 million registered overseas voters out of a total French population resident abroad of some 2.2 million. Around 700,000 of France’s overseas electors chose to vote via the internet; 300,000 voted in person or by proxy, using 800 polling stations outside France; some 70,000 voted by post. Clearly, online voting, which was offered for the first time in those elections, would seem to be the way of the future. Surely a similar system could be devised for British citizens overseas or, alternatively, a simpler e-mail-out/post-back system akin to that used by American citizens overseas, which was seen in action successfully last autumn.
I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth for adding his name to Amendment 25. I beg to move.