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Ms Bridget Prentice (Lewisham, East): Yes, it did.
Mr. Hawkins: I believe that the hon. Lady said that the turnout was higher than it was for the overall council elections, but that it was not higher than it was for previous by-elections.
Ms Prentice: The other way round.
Mr. Hawkins: Whichever way round, I recall that the hon. Lady did not dispute the facts set out in the Electoral Reform Society briefing, which we discussed on Tuesday morning. Even if there had been an increase, turnout was still only 24.6 per cent.—not very high, even with an all-postal ballot in a hotly contested ward.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham and I feel that Scotland should be left out because it is not practical for an individual to deliver a last-minute postal ballot in person to a returning officer in that region, which has many rural and island communities. To ensure equality of opportunity for last-minute votes, the receptacles for such votes would have to be in the same places as polling stations traditionally have been. That would hugely increase the cost of an all-postal ballot for Scotland.
My hon. Friend the Member for Upminster raised a matter the other day about which the Conservatives are absolutely firm. Even if there were an all-postal ballot in an area, any voter who wanted to take their postal ballot on polling day to a place in their constituency should be able to do so. That is absolutely vital, and it would be more difficult in large, sparsely populated areas such as parts of rural and island Scotland.
Mr. David Wilshire (Spelthorne): I was anxious about my hon. Friend's comment that it is difficult to get postal ballots organised for remote rural areas. What would happen if there were a postal strike in such an area?
Mr. Hawkins: My hon. Friend raises a point that is particularly germane, given the chaos that we are suffering this very day and week. I have received emergency e-mails from the postmaster for the House. Other hon. Members who open their own post, as I do, will also have noticed that the post for the past two days has been very light. Some of us may say that it is welcome not to have to open umpteen annual reports on subjects that have nothing to do with our constituency. The real problem is that, as well as us not receiving those glossy annual reports, urgent letters from constituents with serious problems will not be delivered. We know that the flood gates will open when the industrial dispute that is plaguing the Post Office in London comes to an end, which I hope will be soon, although militants on the far left of the Communication Workers Union are trying to intimidate ordinary people and prevent them from carrying on working. When it finally comes to an end it will be après strike, le deluge, because we all have a vast backlog of post.
The Chairman: Order. I appreciate that the hon. Member may feel the need to make asides in his exposition of great logic, but they should be brief. I ask him to stick to the point.
2.45 pm
Mr. Hawkins: I accept that I was responding at too great a length to my hon. Friend's welcome intervention. The postal strike problem would be a greater problem if a strike were to coincide with a European parliamentary election.
Pete Wishart (North Tayside): Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that there will be several advantages in Scotland's being used as a pilot? For example, we have a different party set-up. Surely, Scotland should be considered as a pilot because of such advantages.
Mr. Hawkins: I understand what the hon. Gentleman says; doubtless, he will speak on this important group of amendments. However, I am explaining my hon. Friends' great concerns. I have to set out my party's position.
My hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland pointed out that personation will become ''ever more prevalent'' with an all-postal ballot. She is especially concerned, as am I, about the impact that that may have on results in the large number of university cities in Scotland. I have a huge regard for the high quality of Scottish universities, and a number of my friends and contemporaries went to Scottish universities.
John Robertson (Glasgow, Anniesland): Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
Mr. Hawkins: Of course I will—and Glasgow is one of those cities with fine universities. One must recognise, however, that the fact that all the major cities in Scotland have a university could lead to the problem of personation.
Mr. Lazarowicz rose—
John Robertson rose—
Mr. Hawkins: I forgot to give way to the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith, but I promised also to give way to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland. Once I have done so, I shall return to the issue of personation, with specific reference to university cities and towns in Scotland.
John Robertson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. It is probably due to Scottish education that we have so many universities and that we do so well. However, I find his argument spurious. Are there no universities in cities in England? Did I miss something?
Mr. Hawkins: I am not sure that that intervention advanced the argument. I want to point out that there can be problems of personation in any university city.
Mr. Lazarowicz: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Hawkins: Yes, in a second. I want first to finish answering the previous intervention. The fact that a large number of ballot papers would be delivered to halls of residence could lead to electoral fraud. It is a particular problem in Scotland because the size of Scottish universities in relation to the general population of relatively small Scottish towns may be much larger than in many English university cities.
Mr. Lazarowicz: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that students are prone to committing electoral fraud? Is he suggesting that those of my constituents at the three universities in my city are likely to engage in some sort of personation or to engage in some misuse of the postal ballot system? What evidence does he have that that would happen in Edinburgh or other Scottish university cities? Will he withdraw his slur upon the student population of Scotland—and of the entire United Kingdom?
Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman will realise that I am not seeking to cast a slur on students either individually or collectively. However, attention has been drawn to the problem by the Electoral Reform Society and by the Electoral Commission, which are concerned about the problem of personation. It is not only Opposition Members who have referred to that. Those bodies say that it can be a particular problem with large student halls of residents. If the hon. Gentleman has not yet read the concerns of the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Reform Society, he should do so before he makes such an intervention.
Mr. Heath: The hon. Gentleman's arguments about Scotland are becoming increasingly preposterous.
If there is any issue about Scottish universities—I do not believe there is—it would apply only in the case of local elections. However, there will be no local elections in Scotland next year, but a national election based on the whole of Scotland. The preponderance of larger universities in smaller cities is therefore completely irrelevant to the aggregate result.
Mr. Hawkins: The hon. Gentleman has failed to understand, or perhaps he did not hear me say, that our overarching concern is that one region in a European election—it is not merely a national election—should not have a different way of electing people. I have merely raised in Committee the concerns of my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, which I share.
Sir Teddy Taylor: The last thing I want to do is to cause disruption and dispute in the Conservative party after yesterday's events. However, will my hon. Friend think carefully about the points that he is making about Scotland? First, I came to Scotland 27 years ago, and have since found that we have rural areas too, some of which I can assure him I have visited.
As far as universities are concerned, I have three children, all of whom went to university. One went to a Scottish university called St. Andrews, and was astonished to find that the great majority of its students were English. If any great sin has been committed at Scottish universities, it was probably committed by English students. I hope that my hon. Friend will reconsider his amendment, as he might find that we have great difficulty in maintaining the party's unanimity, which we are anxious to restore.
Mr. Hawkins: As always, my hon. Friend makes a trenchant defence of his native land. He should know that I am a quarter Scots. I do not know whether my hon. Friend heard me, but I did deny the entirely unwarranted allegation made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, North and Leith that I was casting a slur on students, whether Scottish or English. My own two sons are at university, and I am sure that they would not become involved in anything. I am simply highlighting the fact that the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Reform Society have drawn the attention of all hon. Members, whichever party or part of the UK they represent, to the danger of personation where halls of residence are involved. My comment is therefore not as bizarre as the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome suggests.
The final point that my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State asked me to make about the proposals for Scotland is that
''a marked register has not always been available''
in previous all-postal ballots held as part of the smaller pilot elections. Hon. Members on both sides of the House made that point on Second Reading, as the Minister will be well aware, and I suspect that the greatest unanimity might be achieved in relation to marked registers. There have been many calls, even from hon. Members on the Labour Back Benches, for a rolling marked register.
The democratic legitimacy of any election could be undermined if political parties did not have the opportunity to view the full marked register.
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