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Mr. Wilshire: If I heard the Minister correctly, he said that we were talking about the piloting of local elections. If he meant the piloting of local government elections, I disagree and ask him to reflect on the matter. We are talking about the piloting of a European election and the response that I am trying to tease out of him relates to the risk of transferring the experience of piloting a European election to local government elections that just happen, by coincidence, to be on the same day. I am worried that we might be drawing conclusions for the local government elections, which are caught by the Bill, when the issues do not really relate to local government.
Mr. Leslie: I will deal with the point that the hon. Gentleman made, which is slightly separate from the purpose of the clause. He asked whether, when we are combining European elections and local elections, we should use the Electoral Commission report to inform our judgment about the long-term activities of local government electoral processes on a wider scale. If he is saying that we cannot learn anything from the local government experience of the pilots from 2004, I must disagree. Local government elections certainly will take place in combination with European parliamentary elections but the fact remains that important local government elections will be taking place. It would remiss of us to fail to use the opportunity presented by the pilots to learn lessons and to inform our judgment about the wider
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applicability of all-postal balloting and electronic voting in future local elections.
We already know that the Electoral Commission has drawn some conclusions and recommended that, in future, local government elections should typically take place by all-postal means. Clearly, we are considering that recommendation. I would not want the lessons that we could pick up next June to be excluded from our consideration when making decisions.
Mr. Wilshire: It may be that I did not make myself as clear as I should have, if the Minister thought that I was arguing that no comparison should be made of European and local government results. I did not say that. I invited the Minister to indicate that we should approach the matter with care, because the switch-over may not be as simple as some people think.
4.15 pm
Mr. Leslie: I can concede that point to the hon. Gentleman. Of course, we should approach such matters with care. I have no doubt that, in its report, the Electoral Commission will be the first to point out that these are combined elections and that the circumstances are, therefore, slightly different from those for previous local pilots. However, that is not to say that we should not learn lessons from them. That is the purpose of the clause.
I assure the Committee that any order that is made under the clause will have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament through the affirmative procedure. Any lessons learned and any rolling out on a permanent or national basis of methods tried in the piloting will be subject to that parliamentary scrutiny. That is a welcome fact. Therefore, although difficult to read, clause 5 is discrete and necessary and, as such, should stand part of the bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Personation: arrestable offence
Mr. Hawkins: I beg to move amendment No. 10, in
clause 6, page 4, line 16, at end add—
'(4) A person convicted of an offence referred to in this section shall, in addition to any other penalty imposed by a court, be disqualified from voting in any election in the United Kingdom for a period of ten years.'.
The Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
New clause 3—Voting as some other person—
'A person who votes as some other person at any election held in accordance with provision made by order under section 2 shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term of one month.'.
Mr. Hawkins: My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East, will speak to his new clause 3. I certainly understand why he has tabled it, and I have no problem with it.
Amendment No. 10 would provide that anyone who is convicted of the offence of personation should be disqualified from voting for 10 years, in addition to
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any other penalties that the court may impose. The offence is so serious that someone who has been involved in it should not have the right to vote that would normally follow. It seems entirely appropriate that someone who completely abuses the privilege of being an elector by taking part in, and being convicted of, personation should have the right to vote taken away for a substantial period—not for ever, because we believe in this country that people can return to the path of righteousness, having suffered their punishment. We have suggested that they should lose the right to vote for 10 years. We ought to debate this important matter and get the Government's view on the record.
Sir Teddy Taylor: I want to speak to new clause 3. My hon. Friend has made a good argument for his amendment. However, I am worried that it may be contrary to the European convention on human rights and that he could end up in prison for having tabled it.
I may as well be frank. I have a pile of stuff here about which I had hoped to speak. As someone who is not new to Committees, I am worried that we do not have much time left. There are still some terribly important matters to deal with; for example, the Committee will want to discuss new clauses 2 and 4, which have been tabled by the Liberal Democrats. Given that we are short of time, I wonder whether the Minister wants to move a further extension of the timetable, or will I have to rush through my comments to give time to others?
The Chairman: Order. I seek to help the Committee. Considering the limited time available—the Committee accepted the programme motion—the hon. Gentleman should do his new clause the justice that it deserves by getting on with it.
Sir Teddy Taylor: That is what I am hoping to do, Mr. Cook, but I am scared that it will have a horrible impact and stop discussion of things that are terribly important. That should worry us; it is certainly not the fault of Conservatives, as hardly any of them are here. There is a big problem, which I hope we shall face up to.
The first question we must ask is simple: will there be more scope for people to cheat in the pilot schemes than in the existing scheme? The answer must certainly be yes. The Liberal Democrats tabled new clauses 2 and 4, which show that they are trying to identify ways in which cheating could be controlled. Although I appreciate that many hon. Members represent nice residential areas with big houses, in Southend-on-Sea there are many homes in multiple occupation. Some of them are frightening places; I went recently to a six-bedroom house where 16 people were staying. There are many retirement homes in my constituency and a lot of bed-and-breakfast hotels; one on the seafront in Southend is called the Palace hotel, but it is neither a palace nor an hotel. It has lots of rooms on five storeys, and many people live there.
The scope for fiddling will increase dramatically if, instead of people going to vote or applying for a postal vote as they do now, the Post Office brings a flood of papers for all the people living in a place. Even in a
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house where only five adults live, there will be five lots of ballot papers.
I appreciate that three quarters of the people will probably not bother to vote in European elections because they think that they do not matter, but some people are fanatical about politics. We would be misleading ourselves if we did not accept that a tiny minority passionately want to vote in European elections and they will have greater scope under the proposed arrangement for cheating by filling in a form and voting for someone else. That should worry us a great deal.
What can we do about it? We can keep the present system, whereby the person concerned is reported and has to appear before nice magistrates, who are decent and honourable people who try to be kind to everyone and like to take all the circumstances into account. They may say that the person cheated because he was old, or had had a drink and so on, so they will try to make provision for him. However, when new arrangements are introduced that will extend the scope for cheating immensely, there should be a firm, decisive, clear penalty that says that people who vote for someone else in any circumstances should go to prison for a month. That will affect their career prospects. Some will say that that is not right, because circumstances vary, but unless the measure is accepted, there will be terrible problems caused by people cheating, as many will come before the courts.
It is not just postal voting that will cause those problems. I wish the Government had time to say something about electronic voting because it is one of the most ridiculous pieces of nonsense there has ever been. I am suspicious of electronic things—computers and so on—and my children say that I should learn more about them. However, the scope for cheating in electronic voting is frightening, and unless something is done to try to stop it, there will be terrible problems.
The organisations that are looking at democracy and voting think electronic voting is nuts, silly and expensive and that it should not happen. The Government, however, will introduce it anyway, along with postal voting.
The Chairman: Order. I have been lenient so far, but the hon. Gentleman is straying from the clause. What he has said is not relevant. We are discussing personation offences and punishment, not electronic voting.
Sir Teddy Taylor: It is probably my fault. I am trying to rush through the proposal because time is short and there are important issues still to be discussed. I was trying to say that there is far more scope for personation in postal voting, in which ballot papers are delivered in a flood, and in electronic voting. That is why there must be a firm penalty for that offence. Is it unreasonable for it to be a month in prison?
One of the strengths of our society in Britain has been the strength of our democracy and the fact that very few people try to cheat in voting, but we know that it happens. In Northern Ireland, where there are
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very strong feelings about politics, some of the most terrible things go on. If we are to stop them, we must have a firm, clear and precise penalty. Does the Minister agree with that principle for someone who personates someone else under the new arrangements, which offer scope for many exciting methods? I appreciate that, in European elections, it does not matter so much because most people are not at all interested. We accept that, but those who care about those elections—a number of people for all kinds of strange reasons want to vote in them—must be deterred from personation. The only way to deter them is to have a firm, clear penalty.
The other problem, from which there is no point hiding, is whether we would have enough prisons if lots of people were to go to prison because of this penalty. That is a much wider issue, but the Government are well aware—
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