My Lords, I must thank the Minister, who could almost make statutory instruments sound fun. I seek, however, to move my amendment, which regrets that such an important decision on whether this is a secret vote or an open petition should be snuck away in a 174-page SI, which I think the Government hoped would be dealt with rather quickly in 10 minutes in the Moses Room, rather than, as we urged at the time, being included in the Bill. I will deal with my amendment to the Motion first and then attempt to cover all the remaining parts of the 174 pages before the moon rises.
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During the passage of the Bill, we urged the Government to take that decision on the nature of this unusual procedure: a vote on whether an MP should face a by-election. We asked the Government whether they considered that it was a petition, where people sign up and their signatures are known, or more like our traditional ballot where your vote was secret. If it was the latter, of course, then considerable efforts would have to be made to guarantee such secrecy, given that the simple act of casting a vote or signing can mean only one thing: being in favour of recall. As that would be the only option on the paper, the very act of signing would say to anyone which way you have chosen to express your opinion. The normal practice of publishing a marked register showing who has voted would therefore need to be curtailed, as it effectively shows who has called for a recall.
That is quite a change to the electoral law, regardless of what the Minister says, but even more importantly it is a policy decision. It is not an implementing decision, which is what SIs are really about. It is hard to blame the Minister for this, as he was not here at the time—but I will do so, all the same. Our regret is that the Government did not choose at the time of the passage of the Bill to take that fundamental policy decision. That is why we are arguing that this is not the correct use of a statutory instrument. We do not question the particular decision but the way that it is done. We happen to think that the Government are right to have opted for a secret poll, and in consequence for therefore not making a marked register available, but it should have been in the Bill rather than the regulations here today.
I can see why the Minister was so pleased that the regulations went through in the Commons. They took under 30 minutes there and, other than his honourable friend the Minister, there was only one speaker. I trust that we will not have that situation today. At the time, the Minister in the other place described the regulations as “extremely long and detailed”. Indeed, I doubt very much whether, other than my honourable colleague Wayne David, anyone else in that House knows that this is now to be a secret ballot rather than an open petition. That is therefore what lies behind my amendment.
However, we have some queries with the implementing of the decision, even once taken, particularly as it still leaves observers able visibly to identify who is going in
to sign. Those people can be going in for only one purpose: to sign that the MP should face a by-election. I have read all 174 pages and I could not find anything in them to stop the names or photos being taken of people going in to call for a recall. Outside the normal area with which we are all familiar, I do not think that there is anything to prevent filming. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that.
What consultation took place with local authorities on these regulations and why was it not thought fit to involve political parties, given their expertise in all matters electoral? Who is to pay for the cost of the six-week recall and for any subsequent by-election? I would also like some clarification about the funding of the yes and no campaigns, especially as there will be any number of pro by-election campaigns but presumably only one campaign against a by-election being run by the incumbent MP.
We asked in Committee, and I think on Report, whether, if the Government did proceed with their wrong-headed plans to extend voting rights in perpetuity to nationals who had long since left these shores, by remaining on the electoral roll these non-taxpayers would then be permissible donors. If so, would they be able to fund an “MP must go” campaign, even from the Virgin Islands? We have still had no answer on this, despite these 174 pages of very detailed verbiage. Perhaps the Minister is now in a position to answer this. It is very significant for the funding of these campaigns, should they happen.
We also have some serious questions about the return which will be made by the various campaigns after the process is over. These are to be lodged with the petitions officer, who appears to have no responsibility for checking them. Those of us who finish work early will have seen Michael Crick’s revelations on Channel 4 this week about the thousands of pounds in hotel and other by-election expenses allegedly missing from the Conservatives’ returns, seemingly—this is the interesting point for these regulations—with no one responsible for checking these returns. Will the same happen here? If so, the campaigns could outspend any limit and, provided the paper return is on time and shows no discrepancy, then all would be safely filed away.
We were certainly told in Committee that no one would check whether the donors were indeed permissible donors. Would anyone check that no extras had been omitted from the returns, or would we have to rely on a member of the public to check the figures and raise concerns? PPERA simply says the responsible person must, within 30 days, at the end of the recall petition, deliver the returns to the petition officer. There is nothing about checking them. We did persuade the Government to amend the Bill so that the returns at that stage would have to be forwarded to the Electoral Commission, which would produce and publish a report on the recall petition process. But that was really to evaluate the process itself—it has told us it would not have time to check the veracity of the returns.
The Minister will, I hope, be very pleased that we concur with some of the decisions taken in these regulations. We are pleased that our call for a ban on publishing running totals of how many people have
signed each day during the six weeks has been accepted. We are also pleased that, as the Minister has said, the actual figure needed for a call for recall—the 10% figure—will be published at the start of the process.
However, we continue to have concerns on another aspect, in regard to postal votes. The register will be published very quickly after the process is started and will be distributed to the signing locations before the closing date for the application for postal ballots. This means that someone can go along and sign in person, and then after that apply for a postal vote. At that point, there would be no check on whether they have already voted, as there is no automatic electronic record updated hour by hour. Therefore they will apply for a postal vote and will be sent one with no check until the very end of the process, when presumably the petition officer’s staff would need to check every single postal vote to assure themselves that no one had voted both in person and by post. Given that this is a six-week period, there may be quite a few such cases.
The form which is included in the regulations is really not very strongly worded to warn against this. Surely it ought to have said—it is on page 90 if anyone wants to look it up—that if you have already signed in person, you may not apply for a postal vote. But it only says that if you apply for a postal vote, in future you will not be able to sign in person. Added to this, on page 86, the signing form does not have a date on it, which surely should have been included. If there are arguments later as to whether someone had signed at the point that they applied for a postal vote, there will be no evidence as to when they had signed the petition. I would like the Minister to explain why on earth the date is not included on the form that someone will sign.
Finally, the daily verification of slips issued and returned, which is effectively a daily count, is presumably to take place at the petition station under the simple supervision of the presiding officer and one other person. This seems to be an extreme variation of the normal customs associated with voting in this country. Was it intended that it should be so different, or might usual process have been considered, such as the transportation of sealed boxes to secure, central locations where the seals may be broken and the contents securely packaged and stored prior to the count?
Just a week ago, the Law Commission called for a complete redrafting or, as it called it, a rationalisation of election law in a modern legislative framework, as it has become such a mess, with differing, sometimes inconsistent rules applying to different sorts of elections. Now, added to what the commission considered, we have a further 174 pages of regulations written for a long time ago, in that they demand P&P on printed material, when surely a recall petition will be all about tweets and Facebook, and there will be no limit on the use of those.
The Act, perhaps well-intentioned to achieve the Government’s and, indeed, the Opposition’s aim of having a recall measure, was hastily drafted and ill-thought-out, with one major policy decision left to a statutory instrument rather than included in the Bill. We have a statutory instrument which, because of its
length, makes proper scrutiny impossible. If I were marking the Government’s homework, I would have to say, “Not good enough. Must try harder”. I beg to move.