Orders of the Day — Representation of the People Bill

House of Commons, 30 November 1999.

Betty Boothroyd (Speaker, West Bromwich West)

I should inform the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time. It gives me great pleasure to bring before the House this Bill, which aims to modernise our electoral procedures. Much of our electoral legislation dates from the 19th century. The Bill will help to ensure that the procedures are suitable for the next century. Let me tell the House something about the genesis of the Bill. Following every general election, the Home Office carries out a review to see what, in terms of electoral processes, went well and what could be improved. Previously, that has been purely an administrative exercise, but, following the 1997 general election, I decided that something more fundamental was needed. Accordingly, I invited my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), then the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, to chair a working party to review all our electoral arrangements and to produce recommendations which will lead to more open and fairer electoral procedures, command the trust of the electorate and contribute to the democratic renewal of the United Kingdom. The working party on electoral procedures, or the Howarth working party as it came to be known, included representatives of all the principal political parties, electoral administrators and representatives of local government. I am pleased to say that the working party was able to proceed by consensus and that, with a single exception, all its recommendations were agreed unanimously by all the representatives, including those of the three political parties. I hope that a similar spirit of co-operation will characterise our deliberations over the Bill. Electoral law is so fundamental to our democracy that changes to it should, wherever possible, proceed by consensus.

Patrick McLoughlin (Conservative, West Derbyshire)

How can we take the Home Secretary seriously on that point when we warned him that the system of election for the European Parliament that he was introducing would lead to an abysmal turnout? We were right. He ignored that advice, despite the measure being sent back from the Lords on numerous occasions, and we saw the lowest-ever turnout. How can we take the Government seriously about the turnout at local elections?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

The Bill deals with the procedures for elections, which include the way in which we draw up the register, the way in which people are able to cast their vote, arrangements for absent voting, the positioning of polling stations and matters relating to eligibility for voting. There is a difference between those issues and questions relating to electoral systems, which, as the hon. Gentleman and others will recall, we debated on six occasions. When I woke up this morning and heard reference to the d'Hondt system, I thought that I had gone back to a year ago. I am pleased to learn that d'Hondt's fine work last century has been put to even better effect in the arrangements for Northern Ireland than in the arrangements for the European elections. It is difficult to argue that the changes to the voting system for the European elections led to an increase in turnout. I do not argue that. On the other hand, it is equally difficult to argue that a first-past-the-post system automatically leads to high turnouts. The by-elections at Leeds, Central and at Kensington and Chelsea—safe seats for Labour and the Conservatives respectively—had turnouts below 30 per cent.

Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour, Crewe and Nantwich)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I will always, without exception, give way to my hon. Friend.

Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour, Crewe and Nantwich)

I am deeply honoured that my right hon. Friend should be so kind, and I am very humble. Why does he not change back to the old first-past-the-post system for European elections to see whether that produces the result that we want?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am not a one-Member Parliament. We live in a democracy. It is for humble Ministers such as me merely to make propositions and for this House and the other place to dispose of them. As I told the House during the passage of last year's Bill, we are reviewing the working of the system used for the European elections, and a report will be produced in due course.

Robert Smith (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

When the right hon. Gentleman analyses those statistics, it might be useful for him to look back to the European by-election in North-East Scotland, which took place just over six months before the European elections. That was conducted under the first-past-the-post system and the turnout was about the same.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I accept that point, which I was trying to make. Some people suggested that the change in the system for the European election would lead to an increase in turnout. I do not think that it is possible to argue that any more. I have never believed that the differences in turnout between us and continental countries are principally to do with the electoral system. They are to do with other factors.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that, while it may seem attractive in principle to impose restrictions on the commercial use of the electoral register, the danger of clause 9 as it stands is that individuals who are excluded from that commercially available register, albeit by their choice, might find it difficult to obtain credit, as credit reference searches will be unable to locate them?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I shall come to that point. If the hon. Gentleman has more questions when I get to it, I shall give way again.

David Winnick (Labour, Walsall North)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the system used in the European elections served one useful purpose of which we should take note? It taught us that under no circumstances should such a system be used for elections to this House. We have learned a very good lesson and I hope that my right hon. Friend agrees with it.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

That is a persuasive point that needs to be borne in mind. The argument in favour of proportional representation for Westminster seems to be pursued with slightly less evangelism than before. I am not clear why that is the case. The Howarth working party delivered its final report to me in October. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East and to all members of his working party for the thorough, informed and positive report that they have produced. It may be helpful if I deal with the so-called reasoned amendment, tabled by the Opposition. It states that the House should decline to give a Second Reading to the Bill because the Government has failed to undertake a sufficiently comprehensive public consultation on such important and far-reaching changes to the conduct of elections and the publication of electoral registers". The amendment claims also that. Members of this House have had no time in which to consult with local authorities and interested parties in their constituencies". This is one of the most disingenuous reasoned amendments that I have seen for a long time. It may be helpful if I set out the extent to which we have engaged in consultation—not embarked on it—not only with the public, but with the Opposition. The working party, established in 1997, included a representative of the Conservative party, and that representative worked, and co-operated, with the working party. In July 1998, the working party produced an interim report—which I published—which set out the provisional lines along which it was going and included most, although not all, of the issues raised in the final working party report. These included: rolling registration; disabled access to electoral procedures; electoral forms management; absent voting procedures; registration of parties; returning officers' fees and charges; broadcasting issues; and responses to the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions consultation paper "Local Democracy and Community Leadership". The report went on to explain other changes that the working party was to introduce, including a rolling electoral registration system; polling aides for the disabled; pilot schemes for voting anywhere in an electoral area; mobile voting; early voting; changes to voting hours and days; all-postal ballots and electronic voting. Almost every issue in the final report was flagged up in the interim report. In addition, I remind the Conservative party that, alongside the Howarth working party, the Select Committee on Home Affairs sat at about the same time and held its own inquiry into electoral procedures. The Select Committee reported in September 1998, and its report has been available for public consultation ever since. Conservative Front Benchers seem to have the most extraordinarily short memories. That may be because they keep changing—I am now on my fourth shadow Home Secretary in less than two and a half years. Written evidence was put into the Select Committee report, which went through a wide variety of issues—exactly those that are before the House today. In addition, the noble Lord Parkinson, of blessed memory, who was at the time the Conservative party chairman—

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

A great man.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

A very great man. Greater love hath no man for his party than to chair the Conservative party in the wake of its historic defeat in 1997 and still keep cheerful.

Julian Lewis (Conservative, New Forest East)

And its great victory in 1983.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I pay tribute to that historic victory in 1983, from which we learned something. Lord Parkinson gave oral evidence to the Committee. For the fourth-time-around Conservative Front Benchers now to say that we have not entered into public consultation on the issue is simply nonsense.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

On the subject of consultation, and further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow), is it not the case that the working party did not include any representatives from the commercial or charitable sectors and that the problems raised by my hon. Friend would probably not have occurred had such representatives been consulted? Is it not the case that all those sectors were allowed to do was to make written representations?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has asked me that question, because I was about to point out that, on the issue of the sale of the register, which is unquestionably one of the more contentious matters—but on which the Conservatives' representative agreed with the recommendations of the working party's report, which were the subject of considerable deliberation—the working party published a consultation paper in summer 1998 and invited representations on it. The working party received representations from the credit companies and other commercial interests, together with 90 letters written in response to a campaign run by the Daily Express against the free sale of the complete electoral register. No one can seriously argue that the possibility that changes would be made in the arrangements for the sale of the register were not fully the subject of public debate more than 15 months ago.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

The Home Secretary is not universally renowned for his competence, but he is known for his unfailing charm and courtesy. Therefore, within the privacy of the Chamber, I wish to ask him a simple question. Will he agree to a request from the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers, which comprises 300 member companies and a spend of more than £3 billion on media advertising, to a meeting at which it can air its concerns and release him from his state of ignorance on this important issue?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I take the half-compliment that the hon. Gentleman paid me in the spirit in which it was made. He is under a misapprehension, because it is not that I am in a state of ignorance but simply that I take a position with which he disagrees. The two are different, but it is the error of mistaking disagreement for ignorance that led the Conservatives to the historic defeat of which we spoke a moment ago.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware of the influence of Professor Bernard Crick's advisory group on education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy, which shows the importance of consultation. The group's report showed the need for change to re-engage young people, and there is no better example of the need for the changes proposed in the Bill.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Before I deal with my hon. Friend's point, I wish to answer the direct question put by the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow). I cannot give an undertaking to the organisation to which he referred that I will be able to meet its representatives, but my hon. Friend the Minister has already met representatives of several commercial groups and will be available to meet those of that organisation, should we receive a request from it. I shall now summarise for the House what the Bill contains but, before I do so, I shall just mention what is not in it. Hon. Members will be aware that there will be another piece of electoral legislation this Session—the political parties, elections and referendums Bill. That Bill will give effect to the Neill committee recommendations on party funding and, very importantly, create an electoral commission. A draft Bill for that was published in July. The working party recommended legislative changes in three main areas—electoral registration, absent voting and pilot schemes—that are covered in the Bill before us today, and I will deal with them in turn. Much of our legislation governing electoral registration dates from the end of the first world war and while, in general, it has served us well, it no longer reflects the needs of modern society. The rules were drawn up when only a minority of the adult population were eligible to be registered and when, for the most part, people lived in one place for most, if not the whole, of their lives. We now have a very mobile population with up to a tenth of people moving house in any one year. It is plainly absurd that someone who moves to a new address just after the 10 October qualifying date has to wait 16 months—until February of the year after the next year—before being able to vote in respect of their new address. That can only have a harmful effect on turnout. People are prevented from voting for the local authority in the area where they live and have little interest in voting for the local authority in the place where they no longer live. That is why, on the working party's recommendation, we are introducing a system of rolling electoral registration. This will allow the register to be updated constantly, so that people can be added to the register and deleted from it as soon as they move. The aim is to ensure that not more than about six weeks elapse between the date when people move and inform the electoral registration officer of their move and their inclusion on the register. There will still need to be an annual canvass and safeguards to ensure that nobody is disfranchised by being left off the register. That change should ensure that every future election is conducted using a much more up-to-date register. I hope that the whole House will welcome this measure.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

We certainly welcome it, and pay tribute to the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), who has, rightly, pressed this case for many years. Will the Home Secretary consider a proposition that relates specifically to the proposed annual registration period? There is a good biblical precedent for the date of the census being one that people are reminded of publicly. A census is taken every 10 years; will the right hon. Gentleman consider having a co-ordinated national strategy for advertising annually the desirability and opportunity of registration? This happens locally, and there is some advertising, but as it is a bit piecemeal and half cocked, it does not often achieve its objective.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes). If he had not talked about the need for a rolling register for so long, and with such cogency, this proposal might not now be before the House. I take the hon. Gentleman's point that publicity arrangements have not been particularly well co-ordinated. It is not passing the buck to say that we will look at the matter before the electoral commission is established but, once it is established, one of its important functions will be to upgrade the way in which the opportunities to vote, and therefore to register, are drawn to people's attention.

Christopher Fraser (Conservative, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Will the Home Secretary take this opportunity to apologise to those hereditary peers who were thrown out in the other place and disfranchised in the recent by-election in Kensington and Chelsea, given that the right hon. Gentleman gave an assurance in the House that they would have the right to vote?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am not going to apologise for that. We are trying to have a serious discussion about electoral registration. It did not seem to make a huge amount of difference to the result.

Christopher Fraser (Conservative, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

That is not the point.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

It would have been the point if it had done—the hon. Gentleman can rest assured of that. We considered very carefully whether it was possible to introduce the arrangements in time, and it was not. That was the only reason.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I wish to make some progress, and I will give way later. The Bill will also make it easier for the homeless, remand prisoners, mental patients—other than those detained as a consequence of criminal activity—and service personnel to register. All such people are entitled to vote, but our rigid and cumbersome registration rules can make it difficult for them to register. That is an important point to bear in mind. Partly to overcome that, the Bill introduces a new concept, a "declaration of local connection", which will enable people to register in respect of an address with which they have a connection. Remand prisoners and mental patients will also be permitted to register in respect of the address where they would otherwise be living. I know that the Conservative representative on the working party had reservations about the proposals for the homeless. That was the only one of the working party's representations that did not secure unanimous support. I do not believe that our approach will lead to electoral fraud or to improper registration. I am sure that we will discuss this in greater detail in Committee, and hope that we can find a solution that will be acceptable to all parties. I did note that, in the Conservative party's written evidence to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the idea of allowing homeless people to register was not ruled out altogether. Instead, the suggestion was that, to ensure that homeless people were not deprived of their right to vote, pilot schemes should be tested in a number of areas. From that, I take it that no huge issue of principle exists between the Conservative party and other parties about whether homeless people should be entitled to vote, and that the issue is one of practicality and the avoidance of fraud. I hope that that matter can be considered in Committee.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

Does the Home Secretary accept the working party's view that the proposal could be open to abuse? Is he satisfied that the Bill is strong enough to deal with potential abuse, or is he saying that he will welcome amendments to strengthen the likelihood that there will be no abuse of the provision?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I have never come to the House to say that a proposal in a Bill is the last word and is not capable of being improved. I do not do so now. As I said, no issue of principle exists between the parties. The question is whether the safeguards will work. Parliament would not be doing its job if such questions were not examined in great detail. If the Opposition table amendments to strengthen the Bill, we will be happy to consider them.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I am sure that the Home Secretary will agree that the principle of trying to extend the franchise and of ensuring that it reaches homeless people unites both sides of the House. However, evidence that is more than anecdotal suggests that personation takes place with regard to people who, for example, are temporarily resident in hostels. We are worried about the difficulty that might arise if the franchise were extended to the homeless, not about the principle behind the Government's desire to ensure that everyone entitled to a vote has one. I am sure that all parties share that aim.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I understand that. There is a separate problem of personation in respect of people residing in hostels, and of some other people. The working party made no recommendation that proxy voting be facilitated, but the Bill proposes to facilitate postal voting, which offers fewer opportunities for fraud.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

I am grateful to the Home Secretary for his generosity in giving way to me a second time. He mentioned earlier that 10 per cent. of the voting population is in the process of moving home at any one time. By a rough calculation, I estimate that that proportion amounts to about 4 million voters. How would the right hon. Gentleman convince the House that multiple voting or personation would not take place as a result of so many registrations being made over such a short period?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

There is every opportunity for multiple voting at present.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Will not the Bill make that worse?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I do not think so. Multiple voting is a dangerous practice, as the chances of being caught are fairly high.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

Two areas are involved.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am aware of that, but the same person has to be on the register in both areas. Moreover, that person—or someone personating him or her—then has to go and vote. A further criminal offence would be committed if that person voted on behalf of someone else. Many people are registered in two places at once, including most Members of Parliament. I know that we are honourable, but I want to answer the question seriously. I am not aware of any serious suggestion—or evidence—that the fact that people can be registered in two places at once has led them to commit the abuse of voting in two places at once. I do not believe that the rolling register changes will produce the abuse that has been suggested by the hon. Member for Lichfield (Mr. Fabricant). If he wants to make suggestions to improve the process, he should table amendments in Committee.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

The Home Secretary is right to say that various people are able to register in two places, including Members of Parliament and students. What sort of cross-checking is done after an election to determine whether a person has voted in two different places?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I personally have not entered into any such cross-checking. Like all hon. Members, I am aware of concerns about personation in respect of proxy votes in certain constituencies and council wards. Generally, if there is some abuse, we become aware of it. I am not aware of problems with people being registered at two different addresses and voting twice. A number of hon. Members have mentioned the recommendation of the working party, which was agreed unanimously—including by the Conservative representative—that the full electoral register should no longer be made available for general sale and use. As the law stands, anyone may buy a copy of the electoral register for any purpose. The Home Office and electoral administrators receive more complaints about that than any other subject. People are unhappy about the large amount of unsolicited mail—junk mail—from companies that have obtained their details from the electoral register. Perhaps more worryingly, the advent of powerful CD-Roms compiled from the electoral register, which allow for searching by name, means for example that abusive spouses can trace their former partners with considerable ease using a single CD-Rom. People who feel threatened in that way may simply not dare to register. All of that, together with the requirements of the European Union data protection directive, which was signed and agreed by the previous Administration and, generally, of the right to privacy, led the working party to conclude that it was wrong that people should be under a statutory obligation to provide their details for electoral registration purposes and then have no say about whether that information could be used for other unrelated purposes. The working party recommended that there should be a box on the electoral registration form and people should be given the right to opt out of having their names included in the register that is for sale. In effect, there would be two versions of the register: a full one, which could be used for electoral purposes and would also be available for law enforcement purposes; and, an edited version, which would be for sale and would contain only the names of those who had not opted to be excluded from it. Clause 9 allows for regulations for that purpose to be made.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

rose—

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I will continue if I may, as I have given way a great deal. At the same time, we are conscious that the banking and finance industries make extensive use of the electoral register for money laundering and identity checks and that it is also an important factor in deciding who should be granted credit. In drawing up the regulations, we shall clearly need to balance the needs of those industries with privacy and data protection concerns. I can, of course, assure the House that a full regulatory impact assessment will be made to accompany those regulations. We will also be able to discuss that in more detail in Committee.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

There is also the question of security. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned abusive spouses, but many people do not want their names on the register for other reasons. Indeed, as he will be aware, some hon. Members do not want to be on it because of terrorism. Under the proposed arrangement, will it be possible for anyone to gain access to the register without buying it? I see that there is some mention of people being able to study the register, so will they be able to study it at the town hall if they so wish?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Yes, that would be possible. There is no perfect balance in these matters. The full register, which is published for electoral purposes, would be available in town halls. Moreover, as would be expected, we plan to make the full register available to political parties—we are bound to. Therefore, the full text will be available. At the same time, our proposal—subject to the House agreeing the Bill and, later, the regulations—is that the full register should not be commercially available for sale, and that is right and proper. We are seeking to square the circle, by ensuring that full copies of the register are available to banks to check on money laundering and to credit rating agencies so that they can check whether people are living at the address that they claim.

Julian Lewis (Conservative, New Forest East)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I will make progress, as many hon. Members wish to speak. On absent vote arrangements, again much of the thinking that underpins our procedures dates back to a different age, when it was reasonable to assume that every registered voter would be in the constituency on polling day and, apart from the physically infirm, would be able to get to the polling station in person. That may have been possible before the war, but in the busy, mobile society of today, that clearly is not the case. We have all noted, when on the doorstep, the fact that a high proportion of people are away on the day of an election, and have not been able to make arrangements for an absent vote. Our absent vote arrangements should reflect modern reality—currently, they do not do so. Following the recommendations of the working party, the Bill offers proposals for the modernisation of absent vote arrangements. It makes it possible for people to apply for an absent vote for a defined period; that should be of use to someone who, for example, takes up a three-year posting involving much travel. The working party made several recommendations in relation to postal votes that we intend to adopt. As I pointed out earlier, I refer only to postal votes—not to proxy votes, where we are concerned about the potential for malpractice. The Bill will allow for postal votes on demand. Anyone who wants a postal vote will be able to receive one, without having to satisfy any particular criteria. We intend to simplify the rules governing the issue and return of postal ballot papers. As someone who has a postal ballot, even I sometimes find it a challenge to decide into which envelope I should put which bit of paper. Some of my hon. Friends may find that task easier—[Interruption.] However, my hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) —the intelligence and perspicacity of Whips goes before them—tells me that the matter is complicated. It should not be complicated, but it is—the forms look as though they have not been redesigned for 60 or 70 years. If the process is irritating—the modern phrase is challenging—for Members of the House, we should realise how much more difficult it is for someone who is not used to such form filling or whose eyesight is not good. People become muddled and confused. At every general election, some postal votes are disqualified because the forms have been put into the wrong envelopes, or because some other minor error has been made. We intend to simplify the rules for the physical process of the postal ballot. This is a good opportunity to mention one group of absent voters—those registered as overseas electors. Schedule 2 replaces the existing provisions of the Representation of the People Act 1985 that provide for the registration of overseas electors. However, the only changes to be made are those required to reflect the fact that, with the introduction of rolling electoral registration, there will no longer be a single annual qualifying date. Accordingly, the new measures retain the existing provision that a person may be registered as an overseas elector for up to 20 years after leaving the United Kingdom. I am well aware of the fact that some people think that the period should be reduced—not least the members of the Select Committee on Home Affairs. The Committee's fourth report on electoral law and administration contained the unanimous recommendation that we take the view that the twenty year maximum period within which a British citizen overseas may retain the right to vote is excessive and that the earlier limit—five years—should be restored. However, the Bill is intended to implement the recommendations of the Howarth working party and, as I pointed out earlier, the working party was agreed on all particulars except the practical issue of the registration of homeless people. I want the Bill to go through the House with as great a consensus as possible, and as quickly and smoothly as possible. I point out to those of my hon. Friends who may want to table amendments on registration that there will be much more vigorous discussion of that matter when we introduce the political parties, elections and referendums Bill—parts of which will be more contentious than this Bill, not least because the issue of how long a person may remain on the register is obviously closely tied to that of who may make a donation to a political party. Amendments on that matter can be tabled to the political parties Bill. Meanwhile, as the 20-year arrangement was introduced in 1989 with all-party consensus, I hope that discussions can be held between the parties to determine whether there is a consensus for change. I do not say that the Government would proceed only if there were consensus, but I do say that, obviously, it would be better if there were.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

Is my right hon. Friend aware that, when the overseas vote was first introduced, when I was shadow Home Secretary, it was not done at all on the basis of consensus? The Conservative Government imposed it on us. It was opposed—

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

We have the Hansard report—the right hon. Gentleman is wrong.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

I was shadow Home Secretary at the time. The hon. Gentleman does not need to tell me what I lived through. It was imposed, and the five-year period was incorporated only because I protested against the seven years. The introduction of the 20-year period did not take place on the basis of consensus, either. The Conservatives wanted 25 years, and the Opposition managed to whittle them down. What we had was salami tactics in reverse. I simply do not understand why my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will not accept the amendments that I shall certainly move and, if necessary, press to a Division.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

That will be helpful.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

My right hon. Friend is always helpful—on this. I certainly do not think that the Bill is the appropriate vehicle for that change, because we want to get the Bill through as quickly as possible, and the Bill has the discrete purpose of giving effect to the proposals of the Howarth working party. On the other changes that were made, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) mentioned, I have before me the report of the proceedings in July 1989, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling)—now Secretary of State for Social Security—moved an amendment to reduce the period from 25 years to 20 years. That was at a time when, I believe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton was not shadow Home Secretary but shadow Foreign Secretary. Those changes were made. As I said, if we can proceed by consensus, we will. If we cannot, the Government will consider the matter further. I shall now discuss the working party's recommendations for pilot schemes. We all have pet theories as to what might improve turnouts, such as weekend voting, all-postal ballots, mobile polling stations, electronic voting and other wheezes. The simple truth is that none of us knows what, if anything, will make a difference. Therefore, the working party set great store by pilot schemes. Under clause 10, local authorities will be able to apply to run pilot schemes of innovative electoral procedures.

Richard Ottaway (Conservative, Croydon South)

The Home Secretary is no doubt aware that one idea that does not increase voter turnout is mobile polling stations. He will be aware that the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions conducted an experiment in my constituency in the London borough elections in 1998. It placed a mobile polling station in a polling district in Purley ward. In that polling district, turnout dropped from the highest to the lowest in the ward. [Interruption.]

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I did not hear that quip, but it may have been on account of the candidates.

Claire Ward (Labour, Watford)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that many of the innovative ideas require a national approach and significant investment in technology, and that local authorities, which would be required to cover the costs of pilot schemes, may not feel that they are a priority, given that they have to cover so many other areas—generous though the Government have been to local government on these issues? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue is so important that the Government must take a lead, by saying what they can do nationwide, and perhaps even by considering the use of national lottery terminals? That would benefit my constituency, where Camelot and GTech are based.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

GTech also owns an important company in my constituency, so we have a joint interest in that matter. A great many of these changes would not involve any great cost. Weekend voting would involve some additional overtime. All-postal ballots would not incur a huge cost. Mobile polling stations might work. There was great concern in my constituency when a mobile polling station was removed, because that left the area without a polling station, so turnout certainly decreased there. On electronic voting, it is probable that the commercial firms that are interested in selling equipment and software to local authorities may wish to loan them as part of the pilots. As ever, resources are limited, and I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) that we shall have to make hard choices. I dare say that, in the event, local authorities will not find that lack of resources is a huge impediment to running pilots if they decide to do so.

Ray Michie (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

The Home Secretary mentioned weekend voting. Will he elaborate on where the pilot schemes will take place? Will they be run by local authorities? He should be aware that, in many areas, especially in my constituency and in the highlands and islands, Sunday voting would not be welcomed. We must be careful of going down that road.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

I am very conscious of that point. Piloting weekend voting will be a matter for local authorities. If weekend voting ever became part of the national arrangements, we would have to ensure that it took place on both days. There are members of the Jewish community who would not wish to vote on a Saturday and there are members of other communities, including the one that the hon. Lady represents, who have strong feelings about the observance of the Sabbath. Sunday voting would not be acceptable to them. I understand the point that she makes. I wish to make progress and to draw my remarks to a close. I have mentioned some of the ideas that could form the basis of pilot schemes. However, let me make it clear that there is not a prescribed list. Local authorities are free to suggest any innovation that they want and all well-thought-out proposals will be considered. Local authorities will need to demonstrate that they have made proper plans to run the pilots and that the integrity of the poll is properly preserved. They will also have to show that they have in place plans for a full evaluation of the pilot scheme. Such evaluations will need to assess the turnout in the authority where the pilot is running as compared with previous elections and with similar authorities where pilot schemes are not running. They will also need to seek views on the success or otherwise of the scheme from candidates, parties and, most importantly, the electorate. Clause 11 provides for any scheme that has been successfully piloted to be rolled out nationally. Any such changes will be made by orders, which will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedures in both Houses. It is, as I have made clear, the Government's hope that the Bill will receive a fair wind in its passage through Parliament. If it does, it should be possible to run the first pilot schemes at next May's local authority elections. The Howarth working party was rightly much concerned with the problems faced by disabled voters. It made a number of recommendations on that subject, several of which do not require legislation. However, the Bill makes three important innovations. The first is that returning officers should be required to display a large print version of the ballot paper in the polling station. Secondly, blind and partially sighted electors should be able to vote using a template. Thirdly, in addition to blind voters having the right to be assisted in voting by a companion, we shall extend the facility to cover all voters with physical disabilities that are such that they cannot vote unaided and to aid those who are unable to read. Finally, I should mention the one provision in the Bill that does not arise from a recommendation of the Howarth working party. However, I do not anticipate it to be controversial across the Chamber. It relates to the problems that arose in the European parliamentary elections earlier this year when allegations were made that some candidates deliberately gave false addresses on their nomination papers. I cannot comment on the substance of those allegations, but the legal advice that I have received is that people who provide false particulars are not, as the law stands, committing a criminal offence. That seems to me to be plainly wrong, so we propose to close that loophole. I do not believe, and I am sure that no Member of the House believes, that the Bill will arrest and reverse the decline in turnout at all levels of election. Whatever the electoral procedures are, people will vote only if they are interested in the body being elected and feel that it is worth while to vote. So long as we do not have compulsory voting, people in our democracy have the right not to vote as much as they have the right to vote. Nevertheless, this is an important Bill. We need to ensure that it is as easy as possible for the public to vote and that our electoral procedures are compatible with modern life styles. We were elected with a clear mandate to modernise our constitution and the Bill forms an important part of that programme. The Bill may not appear to be as exciting as devolution, human rights or freedom of information, but I suggest that it is just as important. Fair and free elections are the centrepiece of our democratic structures, from which everything else flows. The Bill will help to achieve modern, effective electoral procedures, and I commend it to the House.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I beg to move, To leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof: this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Representation of the People Bill because the Government has failed to undertake a sufficiently comprehensive public consultation on such important and far-reaching changes to the conduct of elections and the publication of electoral registers, because Members of this House have had no time in which to consult with local authorities and interested parties in their constituencies, because only one month has elapsed since the publication of the report of the Home Office Working Party on Electoral Procedures whose recommendations the Bill is designed to implement, and because more careful consideration of the costs and long-term implications of the measures contained in the Bill is required. The Bill is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Its principles may seem benign and unobjectionable, but the devil is in the detail. The Bill could have far-reaching consequences beyond those intended by the working party whose recommendations the Bill seeks to implement. Indeed, the Government propose that the House should write the Home Secretary a blank cheque to amend the rules not only for local elections but for future parliamentary elections. The Bill could therefore pave the way for changes to the conduct of a general election about which there has been no discussion on the Floor of the House or in the wider community, which would be affected. I should point out to the Home Secretary that the recommendations published by the working party on electoral procedures in July referred only to pilot schemes at local elections. The word "parliamentary" arises nowhere in those recommendations. It was only when we received the final report, which was published only a month ago, that the question of rolling out the changes to parliamentary elections first arose. On top of that, the way in which the Government seek to implement some of the working party's recommendations increases the prospect of electoral fraud, impersonation and undue influence on the outcome of an election where it is conducted over several days. There appears to have been no discussion with religious communities about voting on days of religious significance—a point raised by the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie) in an intervention on the Home Secretary a moment ago. Yet the Home Secretary will recall the debate a year or so ago, during proceedings on the European Parliamentary Elections Act 1999, in which many Members on both sides of the House said that they regarded with great distaste the prospect of voting on a Sunday in the European parliamentary elections. Furthermore, although well intentioned, the proposals to restrict the legitimate use of the electoral register by businesses and others, including charities, political parties and, on occasion, Departments, will lead to increased social exclusion from financial services and increased cost to British business and commerce. The Government have completely failed to address that cost by neglecting to produce a regulatory impact assessment. Only a few minutes ago, I was handed a copy of a written answer, received today, to a question tabled to the Prime Minister by my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins). He asked the Prime Minister if the Home Office had been given an exemption from his instruction to all Departments to undertake and publish a regulatory impact study of the financial and other effects of all proposed Government legislation, with particular reference to the Representation of the People Bill. With characteristic clarity, the Prime Minister replied that he will reply to the hon. Member shortly. So, on Second Reading, the Government cannot even tell us when they even gave thought to the need for a regulatory impact assessment. For those reasons, and others, we believe that, before asking Parliament to approve the measures, the Government should have initiated a comprehensive public consultation on the working party's recommendations; that, in turn, would have allowed right hon. and hon. Members the fullest possible opportunity to discuss the implications of such far-reaching proposals with the people they represent: local government, local electors and businesses in their constituency. Over the past 10 days or so, since the Bill was published, I have asked colleagues on both sides of the House whether they realise what the Bill contains. It is fascinating to hear their short, sharp, clear answer: no. When they discover the Bill's contents, they will realise that its effects are more far-reaching than the Home Secretary has implied. The Conservatives are not opposed in principle to the concept of ensuring that more people have the opportunity to vote and electors are encouraged to vote, whether by making changes to the technicalities of registration or by introducing more flexible voting arrangements. In that respect, the intention underlying the working party's report was well directed. Our problem is with the Government's decision to transpose those ideas, in only a few short weeks, into detailed legislation. In his intervention, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) implied that, by tradition, such proposals have required detailed negotiation between parties, so as to achieve consensus before proceeding with a Bill. I am slightly surprised that the Home Secretary did not mention the matter I am about to raise—perhaps it is to his credit that he did not. He has said that he wrote to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) in September—in fact, he referred to that matter during a recent Opposition day debate—but he has accepted that my right hon. Friend did not receive the letter. We received a faxed copy of the letter late last night, but the date on it is 20 September, not "months and months" previously, as the Home Secretary claimed on 23 November.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

Of course I accept the right hon. Lady's assertion that she had not seen the letter—plenty of letters sent to me are received by the Home Office but not seen by me. However, the right hon. Lady might not know that my office phoned her office more than once to ask for a reply, only to be told that a reply would be forthcoming in due course. It was not that we wrote and simply left the matter at that; I was genuinely interested in the response.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I do not want to labour the point. The purpose of mentioning the letter will become clear shortly.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

What is it?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I shall tell the right hon. Gentleman in a moment—he must be patient. However, in response to his explanation, I should point out that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald says that her office asked the Home Secretary's office for a copy of the letter, but copy came there none, until the faxed copy was received last night. Overnight, we have examined the letter with some interest. The letter merely restates the objectives and conclusions of the working party; it does not mention the detail of the Bill. Therefore, even had we received the letter, it would hardly have constituted a thorough consultation. The importance of the letter is that we can deduce precisely from it the Government's intention of making changes to the conduct of general elections. That is clear where in the letter the Home Secretary states that he would like the first pilot schemes … to be run in the May 2000 local elections. This would make it possible for any innovations which prove to be particularly successful to be in place nationally in time for the next general election. The timetable for the next general election is clear. If we did not already know that the Prime Minister had already pencilled in the election for 2001 from his behaviour—standing down many aspects of Government policy that are proving unpopular with voters, from speed limits to the number of houses to be built in the south-east—the Home Secretary's letter certainly lets the cat out of the bag. He wants to have pilot schemes in place for May 2000.

Jack Straw (Labour, Blackburn)

That is stretching it.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

We are not stretching it at all. Applications from local authorities will have to be lodged by 17 January. The measures contained in the pilots will then be extended to the general election in the following year. We do not need to pose the question why the Government are proceeding with such unseemly haste; their mind is already made up.

Claire Ward (Labour, Watford)

It is bizarre that the hon. Gentleman is objecting to sensible measures to move forward quickly. People are entitled to have every opportunity to vote as soon as possible. Only a Government who were not interested in increasing voter turnout and increasing opportunities for voters would delay any longer on those matters. If the hon. Gentleman had any sense of purpose as a member of the Conservative party, the previous Conservative Government would have introduced such measures a long time ago.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

The hon. Lady has walked straight into the trap that my comments had set. At this juncture I intended to ask the Home Secretary whether he agrees with the letter that was sent to all hon. Members today by the Local Government Association, with a briefing. I am sure that all hon. and right hon. Members will have studied it with great interest. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the association that there should be proper independent evaluations before experiments are rolled out to all authorities"? That recommendation relates only to local elections, not to parliamentary elections. If we have misunderstood, perhaps the Home Secretary will tell us what time scale he has in mind for the implementation of some of the proposals at a general election. His letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald makes it abundantly clear that we are talking about giving him the power in clause 11 to extend to parliamentary elections within the next 18 months or so arrangements which were first proposed by a working party as being effectively for local elections, with no proper evaluation of what is required. In her earlier intervention on the Home Secretary, the hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward) said that local authorities have no money to carry out the pilots in any event, which adds to our concern about what the Government have in mind. That explains why we are sceptical about the Government's unseemly haste. There needs to be more informed consideration.

Michael Fabricant (Conservative, Lichfield)

As for the evaluation of the pilot schemes, was my hon. Friend as surprised as I was to learn from the Home Secretary that no audit is carried out after a general election to ascertain whether there has been multiple voting in different areas? If no such work is done after general elections, given the importance of those elections, what can we expect from the pilot schemes?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I am delighted that my hon. Friend intervened because he makes a telling point. In a way, he has anticipated my next point. A much more important development to which the Home Secretary referred, which in our view should inform the attitude to the Bill, is the proposed creation of an electoral commission. In his belated response to the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the right hon. Gentleman said that that would be the body to highlight any deficiencies in electoral law and administration"— my hon. Friend's point is valid— and to make recommendations for improvements. Surely it would have been sensible to wait for the electoral commission to be established and allow it the opportunity to undertake a comprehensive review of all electoral arrangements, and not take the piecemeal approach that the right hon. Gentleman has adopted. As it is, if the Bill is enacted in its present form, many changes will have been made by the time that the commission is in business and the door will be closed after the horse has bolted. Another matter that we want to raise with the Home Secretary is his attitude to the Home Affairs Committee, which he mentioned in respect of overseas voters. He knows that the Bill is not entirely on all fours with the recommendations of that Committee. For example, the Committee recommended that electors with dual registration should be required to specify where they intended to vote. That could well be relevant to the proposal for a local declaration. It does not need much imagination to work out that somebody could be on an electoral register with a fixed address in one part of the country, and subsequently end up on the electoral register in another part because of a local declaration, yet the Government remain to be convinced. The Home Affairs Committee thinks that a rolling register needs improved information technology. We know that IT systems are not the Home Office's strongest point or its top-drawer performance. The Government's response, none the less, is typically woolly. Because the Home Secretary has decided to adopt a piecemeal approach, and because the Bill pre-empts any work on those topics by the electoral commission, the process is wide open to hon. Members on all sides to advance amendments in respect of their own pet ideas. The Home Secretary referred to the report that his hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton) had one such amendment in mind, and he prayed in aid support from the Home Affairs Committee in that respect. However, the Home Secretary must explain why he agrees with the Select Committee only when it suits him. The Home Secretary was referring to the time limit for overseas voting. He stated in a letter, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald did receive, that he was considering reducing the time limit for overseas registration to just five years, which is what the hon. Member for Battersea has in mind. The Home Secretary said that if he was persuaded of the merit of such a measure—which still leaves the question open—he would introduce it in the forthcoming Bill on party funding. We welcome the strong hint that the right hon. Gentleman gave at the Dispatch Box during his speech that he does not believe that this Bill is the right vehicle for such a measure. We urge him to make a firm pledge to that effect. I am sure that he would accept that including such a reduction in this Bill would undermine the attempts on both sides to reach a consensus on the proposed changes. I am delighted that we have that on the record.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. When he and his hon. Friends received the letter about the possible reduction for overseas registration from 20 years to five years, did they express an opinion? Did they oppose the proposal at that stage, or have they simply decided in the past few days to oppose it?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I shall come on to that. It is remarkable how the interventions anticipate my next point. Before the Home Secretary finally makes up his mind, may I ask him to reconsider the attitude of his party when the 20-year rule was agreed in 1989? The Official Report clearly shows that the 20-year proposal was introduced not by Conservative Ministers, but by his right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling), who was then a shadow Home Office spokesman and is now a senior Cabinet Minister. He was supported, in the vote as well, by the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Anniesland (Mr. Dewar), then shadow spokesman for Scotland and now its First Minister. The right hon. Member for Gorton was shadow Home Secretary at the time. His recollection seems to be that the measure was forced upon the Opposition and was the best that they could do, but that is not how the Hansard report reads. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central said: We believe that a period of five years was unduly restrictive, especially as it is now clear that a number of people will leave this country perhaps to take up work in Europe or in other parts of the world but will still maintain a lively interest in the affairs of this country. He went on to say:. I believe that 20 years is a sensible compromise".—[Official Report, 5 July 1989; Vol. 156, c. 411.] I could not have put it better myself.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

I was not shadow Home Secretary at the time; that post was held by my noble Friend Lord Hattersley. I opposed even a five-year period; my noble Friend accepted a 20-year period before he rediscovered socialism.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman for ascribing the wrong job and the wrong views to him in opposition. The effect of returning to the Back Benches is amazing; hon. Members can make up their own minds there. I am sure that his views will not find favour with his Front Benchers; they certainly do not find favour with Conservative Members. The views of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central, which I have just quoted, were right. What was true in 1989 remains true. I heard the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) being interviewed on the "Today" programme at the end of last week. He said that Baroness Thatcher, who was Prime Minister in 1989, had not forced the decision on the House, and there had been all-party consensus about it.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

In a moment. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey should reflect on the words of the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan), who was in favour of no limit, not even 25 years. That view has some merit. Many British people work here all their lives and have families here, but retire abroad for health reasons. They draw their pensions from Britain and maintain a keen interest in the politics of this country.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

rose—

Claire Ward (Labour, Watford)

rose—

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I shall give way in a second. The case that was made 10 years ago remains valid. No case has been made for a reduction, which was not a working party recommendation.

Llin Golding (Labour, Newcastle-under-Lyme)

I was the Opposition Whip when the issue was debated in 1989. I told Labour Members that the choice was between 20 years or 25 years, which the Tories wanted. That is why Labour Members went into the Lobby when many, including me, did not want to vote for the 20-year rule.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

It is amazing—we are hearing about all the jobs that hon. Members held in the past. The Government of the day would not have proceeded with the Bill without all-party agreement on all the issues. The right hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central said in 1989 that 20 years was a sensible compromise. He and the right hon. Member for Anniesland voted for it, but the majority of Labour Members abstained.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Does not my hon. Friend find it strange that Labour Members, who are extremely principled, were persuaded into the Lobby by the weak argument that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) advanced?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

My hon. Friend makes a telling point.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I am enjoying this, but I gladly give way to the hon. Gentleman.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The hon. Gentleman is correct that, at a time when I had a job that I do not even remember—

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

It was the same one!

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

No, it was a different job. The hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) is right that my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan) argued for no limit in 1989. Liberal Democrat Members agree with the hon. Gentleman that, whatever our view—and there are good arguments for different views—the House should not be bounced into making a decision. We should consider the matter properly before we legislate.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I now want to move on to other matters because we have given all that a good airing.

Harry Barnes (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

rose—

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I shall gladly give way to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I shared a happy week in Ghana in August.

Harry Barnes (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that some opposition was expressed in the House when the Bill extending the right to an overseas vote to 20 years was discussed? Six votes took place and two Members—Dave Nellist and myself—voted against anything to do with that extension on each occasion. A number of other Members joined the rebellion and expressed their views. I have consistently adhered to that position and do so now.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

That is the most honest intervention I have heard in the House for a long time and the hon. Gentleman has given a good reason why I so enjoyed his company when we were members of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation to Ghana. Before we move on, I want to ask the Home Secretary whether he has given any thought to how many people will be disfranchised if the time limit on overseas votes is cut. Does he agree with the then Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, now Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), who chaired the working party and told the Home Affairs Committee, which the Home Secretary has prayed in aid, that 3 million British citizens live overseas? As I pointed out in response to an intervention, it is significant that the working party, whose report we are asked to implement through the Bill, made no recommendation on that or the franchise in general. We think that the lesson from all that is clear: the Home Secretary picks and chooses which bits of the Select Committee recommendations he wants to adopt, but Ministers who have to rely on Select Committee recommendations to endorse controversial measures that were not proposed by working parties established by their own Department or in a White Paper are skating on thin ice.

Claire Ward (Labour, Watford)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

No. I have given way to the hon. Lady once. Although we welcome the Home Secretary's reassurance that he does not intend to introduce the measure on overseas voters in the Bill—that is vital for progress—I hope that what we have said today will influence his judgment on whether he wants to seek the same degree of consensus on the party funding Bill and the implementation of the Neill recommendations, which he knows Conservative Members are willing to endorse and incorporate in full in a Bill. I remember saying precisely that from the Dispatch Box when we debated the Neill report. We shall look with interest—

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I shall give way once more, then I must make some progress.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

I asked the hon. Gentleman whether he would kindly enlighten the House about the stage at which he and his colleagues changed their view on overseas voters. His colleagues on the Select Committee supported the reduction from 20 years to five. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary wrote to the hon. Gentleman's Front-Bench colleagues asking them for their views and I asked what they replied and when, but he has not answered. Can he enlighten us? Did his colleagues come out against that reduction only when it suddenly dawned on them that it might cut off their access to funds from Mr. Michael Ashcroft?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

The hon. Gentleman is flogging a dead horse, but let me deal with his point and that made by the Home Secretary. In the spirit of unanimity, three Conservative Members agreed to a detailed report and accepted the five-year recommendation, but that in no way binds the remainder of the Conservative party. Those events tell us that when Conservative Members attend Select Committee meetings to consider reports they are free to make up their own minds about what they believe to be the right policy to recommend to the Government. They do not look to their pagers to be told when to put their hands up and to which bits of reports to agree. Our argument is that if the Home Secretary wants to rely on the Home Affairs Committee report, he should implement its recommendations—three of which I have outlined and all of which would strengthen the Bill—in full. While we are at it, on Tuesday of next week the Home Secretary will hear similar comments from Conservative Members about Select Committee recommendations on the Freedom of Information Bill. I suspect that one or two Labour Members will be in agreement with us on that occasion. In fact, I underestimate how many: I think that there will be quite a few. We shall examine with interest the proposals for a rolling electoral register, the details of which need careful consideration. We shall support measures to improve facilities for voters with disabilities. As the Home Secretary knows, we have serious concerns about the proposals for the declaration of local connection. That is an important issue. Those concerns were expressed at the time of the working party, and he graciously acknowledged that the Conservative representative on the working party communicated that concern. To remind the House, the working party said: We recognise that this could be thought to open the system to abuse if a candidate or political party sought to use such declarations to falsely register supporters in the electoral areas immediately before an election. From my reading of the Bill, I do not believe that those concerns have been addressed in the legislation. That makes our point. We are not arguing that there was not a working party and that there were no recommendations. Our argument is that putting those proposals into legislation leaves open the door to abuse. When the Under-Secretary winds up the debate, will he please tell the House whether the arrangements for a declaration of local connection operate anywhere else in the world? He might like to tell us that now, because I am not aware of any other example. What estimate have the Government made of the number of persons who are eligible to make declarations of local connection? Does the Home Secretary intend that individuals should not be permitted to have more than one declaration of local connection at any one time? If that is the intention, we could easily produce an amendment that would provide for the Bill to say that. We are surprised—I say this with a heavy heart—that the Government think that a sufficiently large number of people will be living indefinitely on our streets to justify the measure. We are not opposed to a mechanism enabling displaced and homeless people to vote, but that must not be used for electoral fraud or for people to pick and choose where they vote, such as in marginal constituencies and at by-elections. We believe that the Bill needs significant strengthening in that respect, and we shall table constructive amendments to achieve that. We are also concerned about the Government's proposals on the commercial use of the electoral register. The opt-out box, although well-intentioned in principle, is fatally flawed in practice. Does the Home Secretary agree that the denial of access to the full register by credit referencing agencies would increase social exclusion from financial services? That has been the subject not only of a report commissioned by the Treasury from the Director General of Fair Trading, but of comment from the Economic Secretary. The all-party insurance and financial services group, which I chair—some members of that group are present—has expressed grave concern about low-income households and young people not being able to get a bank account or access to competitive lending and credit facilities. Does not the CBI strongly oppose the proposals? Submissions to the working party argued that any limiting of access to the register would lead to job losses, increased costs, reduced competition and reduced access to financial services by voters. We believe that the Government should think again about the provision, but if they insist on an opt-out box, we will address those concerns by tabling amendments that would provide a workable solution. On the question of security for people in public life, it is fair to say that the dreadful murder of Jill Dando is a lesson to all of us that if people can find out where those whom they wish to stalk live, the consequences can be tragic. We are willing to work with the Government to find a solution enabling those who feel that they are potentially exposed to such violence, or to stalking and the like, not to be on the electoral register, because we consider that important. As for the proposals for pilot schemes, we have no objection to experiments involving innovative forms of voting, including, in principle, early voting. We are, however, concerned by the Government's failure to propose safeguards against the exit polling of early voters, which itself could influence voting on polling day. The Home Secretary should address himself to that. If people are allowed to vote on the Monday and the Tuesday when the majority are voting on the Thursday, and they are polled as they leave, there is a danger that the result could be influenced.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

Will my hon. Friend give way?

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

I will, just once more.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

As the Home Secretary has specifically mentioned the possibility of voting on Saturdays and Sundays, he should clearly address himself to what my hon. Friend has said.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

That is true. We think that it is one of the factors that should have been clarified much more fully during consultation. We are also concerned about the absence of a specified limit to the number of days on which early voting can take place. That would add to the problem. All those points were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Woodward) during the passage of the Bill that became the Greater London Authority Act 1999, but so far the Government have chosen to ignore them. We will press them again in Committee. The remaining question for the House to consider is what form the Committee should take. On 20 November 1995, when his party was in opposition, the Home Secretary told the House that "careful scrutiny" was one of the best guarantors of good legislation".—[Official Report, 20 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 339.] We agree with that. As we speak, however, the Government remain to be convinced that the Bill should be considered by a Committee of the whole House. We believe that it should: precedent dictates that constitutional Bills of this nature should be taken on the Floor of the House, so that Members have an opportunity to contribute. The Representation of the People Bills that became the 1985 and 1989 Acts were so considered; why should the Government seek to deny the same opportunity now, unless they wish to deny effective scrutiny of this Bill? The Opposition's reasoned amendment gives members of all parties a chance to ask the Government to reconsider all these matters. A Representation of the People Bill reforming electoral procedures should be uncontroversial, and supported with unanimity and consensus throughout the House; the Government, however, are attempting to push the measure through Parliament with unseemly haste, with inadequate scrutiny, and with no attempt to organise serious public consultation. That is the mark of a Government who see clinging to power as their overriding priority. We have grown used to the Government's treating the House and the country with contempt, but in the case of this most important issue we should tell them to think again. I commend the amendment.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

It is a novel concept that a Government with a 30 per cent. lead in the opinion polls should be clinging to power, but the speech of the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) contained a number of novel concepts. One was the interesting notion that consensus consists of the Government's accepting all the views of the Opposition but none of the views of their own Back Benchers. I know that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is far too sensible to accept such a definition of consensus from a party which, after all, will show its respect for consensus by voting against the Bill at 10 pm. I am entirely satisfied that my right hon. Friend is taking measures—swift measures—to make it easier for people to vote and to give them greater opportunities to vote. I certainly agree with one observation made by the hon. Member for Ryedale: the ability to vote in elections is indeed the most precious attribute that any citizen of a democracy can have. The difficulty that we still have is that it is not a right to vote. It is not easy to vote. Obstacles are thrown up in front of people who wish to exercise the right to elect a Member of Parliament or a councillor. If the Bill can make it easier to vote and increase the turnout at elections, it will have been worth while. My misgivings about the Bill are not about what it proposes, but what it does not; I hope that by the time it has reached the statute book, it will propose those things. Everything in the Bill relating to enhancing the opportunities for the franchise has my support, but let us consider, for example, the references to postal votes and absent votes for sickness and to late applications. In this electronic age, I can see no reason whatever why there cannot be applications for such votes right through to the eve of poll. A constituent of mine discovered that he was ill only two or three days before the last general election. He was heartbroken that he was not able to vote. I hope that the use of electronic means for voting will encourage the Home Secretary to place the deadline for applying for absent voting much nearer polling day. I go further—I hope that, in considering means of advancing votes and making it easier to vote, he will look at different ways of absent voting. Last night, I was discussing with the people who organise telephone voting for the Labour party's national executive committee the way in which that can be used as an alternative to postal voting. In NEC votes, people can vote either by post or telephone. There are secure ways of ensuring that there is no fraud on the telephone. It will make it much easier for people who have applied for a postal vote if they can vote by telephone. They could even do that on polling day itself.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I ask the right hon. Gentleman a practical question. If a vote were cast by telephone, would not that negate the privacy of the ballot box because someone at the end of the telephone would know how the vote was cast?

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

No. I assure the hon. Lady that the way in which the vote is cast in NEC votes can preserve privacy. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Livingstone) would prefer voting for the London mayoralty candidate to be by telephone because it might preserve privacy, of which he is a new-found adherent.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as we can ascertain who the pensioners on the electoral register are, one way to enfranchise them—for example, if they are ill just before the election—is to send them all a postal vote, which they can either send in, or relinquish at the ballot box?

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

There are safeguards against duplicate voting. Indeed, they are referred to in the explanatory notes to the Bill. It may be that what my hon. Friend proposes can be followed through. In examining voting, we need to find out how to make it easier. I am encouraged by the way in which the Home Secretary has suggested that the school, the public building or the library, which are the repositories of polling stations, are not necessarily the only places. Places such as supermarkets, citizens advice bureaux, clinics and many others can be available.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

rose—

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

I should like to pursue my argument a moment or two longer. Such places can be available because electronic means of voting are possible. I have referred to voting by phone. My right hon. Friend wishes to make provision for applications for postal votes by fax. That is well and good. I very much hope that he will consider the possibility of voting by fax or e-mail. I could go further.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Telepathy.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

My hon. Friend is one of the few people in the House who, I accept, can cap any attempted witticism of mine. In this computer age, there is no reason why it should not be possible for those who are on holiday to go into a polling location wherever they are and register their vote by computer rather than having to apply for a postal vote beforehand.

Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour, Crewe and Nantwich)

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

I now have two people to give way to, but knowing my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's attitude of self-abasement to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), I shall give way to her first.

Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour, Crewe and Nantwich)

Where does this tremendous faith in computers come from? As the new House of Commons system is busy eating my e-mails as of this week, I do not have the same faith in electronic equipment.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

There can be few locations in this country with as much disruptive building work going on as the House of Commons. Other places are likely to be a good deal safer. There is no reason why someone on holiday in Cornwall could not go to a polling station there and be logged through to a polling centre in their own constituency to vote. The point about democracy is giving people the chance. I agree that the security of the ballot must be maintained and hacking must be prevented. Problems have been noted in the United States in that respect. It is right that my right hon. Friend should consider pilot schemes, but I hope that when we get to the next election, whenever that may be—sooner or later, it makes no difference to the Opposition—we shall have brought pilot schemes into national use. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Ms Ward) in hoping that my right hon. Friend will not limit himself to local authority pilot schemes, but will institute such schemes himself so that we can have the widest possible participation in elections by the time of the next general election.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

I offer an heretical thought. Should not an able-bodied person be expected sufficiently to value our democracy as to be prepared to take the modest trek to the polling station to cast their vote in person?

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

That is highly desirable. A great many people set great store by going to the polling station, which is one reason why I applaud my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's provisions on access for people with disabilities. I have constituents with disabilities who do not want to vote by post. They regard it as their right and privilege to be able to go to a polling station and put their cross next to my name—which is an almost universal desire in my constituency. I hope that my right hon. Friend will not make one of his references to my modesty. I am ready to talk about my modesty myself without any support from my right hon. Friend.

Claire Ward (Labour, Watford)

Is my right hon. Friend aware that the increased use by the public of telephone banking systems means that they are used to gaining information, inputting personal identification numbers and dealing with computerised telephones? Therefore, it would be easy to open up our electoral system through this form of voting—among others, as my right hon. Friend has mentioned.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

My hon. Friend is, as always, accurate. I must tell the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) that it is certainly desirable and part of the social aspect of this country that people should make their way to a polling station. However, sometimes they do not have the opportunity. A mum with three kids who is waiting for her husband to come home from a late shift can miss her vote. Someone working on shift duty can miss her or his vote. There are many reasons why people are unable to vote when they want to. I am simply saying that it does not matter how one votes so long as one votes. That is the participation in democracy that I seek.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

Does the right hon. Gentleman share my view that electronic means can enhance the security of the voting procedures, as the current procedure of walking into a polling station and simply saying who one is and where one lives is insecure, and is protected only by the fact that people do not seem to want to cheat? Is he encouraged by the fact that we have a system with more than 20,000 access points which manages to register preferences in a lottery within half an hour of the closing point twice a week, and that that seems to work with almost universal reliability?

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Although this is a remarkably incorrupt society, we have no knowledge of the amount of personation that goes on at elections. I remember early in my candidature in Manchester, a constituent of mine—from which group of electors I will not say—stopped my car and said, "Mr. Kaufman, we have 21 names on the register in our house. They have all gone home. Can 21 others vote for them?" With deep regret, I had to say no. That does not mean that such things do not happen.

Nigel Evans (Conservative, Ribble Valley)

May I bring the right hon. Gentleman back from cyberspace to earth for a moment? There are certain aspects of absent voting where we could use technology with which everyone is confident to make progress. I was disappointed to see that the number of days necessary for the issuing of absent ballot papers is to remain the same, although there will be greater flexibility in terms of when they can be given. Surely there could be consensus on reducing the number of days to five working days, or perhaps four. The Royal Mail is very good, so why should we stick to eleven working days?

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I ask him not to deride cyberspace. Some 10 million people are surfing the internet now, and there will be more by the time of the election. We should not be carried away by the idea, but there are many ways in which we can increase the level of polling, and I hope we will. There is one area in which I do not wish to increase the level of polling, and where I wish to reduce it. Indeed, there is one area in which I wish to eliminate polling. Before I explain that, I wish to refer to a matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mrs. Golding) about an election a few days ago in a north Staffordshire parish council. Despite the fact that some votes were lost, the matter has to go to the High Court for resolution. I put it to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that while it may be right to apply to the High Court for a new election in the case of a contested parliamentary election, some less burdensome way should be found of resolving a dispute over a parish council election. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, when he winds up the debate, will refer to that issue. I deal finally with the question of the overseas vote. I had the dubious privilege of having to negotiate with Leon Brittan over that matter. Anyone who has ever negotiated with Leon Brittan over anything will know that it is something that one wishes to draw to an end as quickly as possible. On that occasion, I was involved in hectic negotiation with him on the question of earlier representation of the people legislation, during which he advanced many preposterous proposals, including ending polling in general elections at 9 pm. I had to reach a compromise with him in order to stop some of his wilder feats of imagination. Leon Brittan wanted a seven-year rule to apply to the overseas vote, which was an innovation at that time. I was totally opposed to any overseas vote of any kind, because I believe in the simple dictum of no representation without taxation. I was opposed to it entirely but, as part of the compromise over the Bill, I accepted a reduction to five years. I did not like that and I made it clear that I wanted it reversed as quickly as possible. I simply do not know what was going on in the head of my noble Friend Lord Hattersley when he agreed to 20 years as a compromise. It is clear from the statistics that there is no great enthusiasm for that form of voting. At present, some 13,677 people are on the register of overseas voters, compared with 34,454 in 1991. It is not a privilege whose mass aspiration would be trampled down if my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary decided to get rid of it. On the other hand, small as the number is who take it up, the effect on the potential Government can be significant. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) was defeated in the 1992 election by 19 votes, with the number of overseas votes being considerably larger than the majority against him. If the election had been tight nationally, the composition of the Government could have been affected by the votes of people who had no stake in it. Small as the number of people with the overseas vote is, it contains a distinct bias in its distribution around the country. Although the representation of the Conservative party in the House is one quarter, one half of the constituencies with 50 or more overseas votes have Conservative Members of Parliament. In so far as the overseas vote benefits anyone, it benefits the Conservative party. When the Conservatives introduced the overseas vote, to their credit all they were hoping for was a straightforward political fiddle. Now, however, they are using it for a further political fiddle to justify considerable donations to their party from people who have no stake in this country. The overseas vote is undemocratic and unrepresentative and it should be abolished. We now have a situation in which the sole justification for political donations from people such as Michael Ashcroft, who wants to represent some other country at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and who is an ambassador of that country—but who nevertheless is the treasurer of the Conservative party and without whom it would fall into financial as well as intellectual bankruptcy—is his presence on an overseas voters register. Although that was not my original reason for opposing that fancy franchise, it is a conclusive reason for getting rid of it. If the Conservatives do not vote against the Government tonight, their claims to want a consensus can be taken as having some veracity. The moment Conservative Members walk through the Division Lobby to vote against the Bill, even on a reasoned amendment, they are breaking any kind of consensus. That being so, my right hon. Friend should take the road of clean, pure democracy, which I know appeals to his heart and has done in the very many years that I have known and loved him, and accept what his hon. Friends want. I therefore support the Bill as it stands, but hope that I will be able to give it even more support on Third Reading.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

The argument advanced by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) for restricting the vote of absentee voters still does not rid my mind of the idea that electronic voting will enable him to phone in his vote from Ibiza at the next local government elections, when he happens to be away on a Select Committee visit. The picture of the right hon. Gentleman on the beach, participating in democracy, can be imagined by us all. Let me say to the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) that I am not sure that the best argument for the Bill is that we should seek uncontroversial and agreed legislation. Legislation on the representation of the people has not, in the history of Parliament, been uncontroversial. Some of the best has also been the most controversial. I did not learn until a couple of years ago that the Reform Act 1832 was passed by a majority of only one. Seeking consensus is wonderful, and my party tries to do so more often than some, but we must get the legislation right. The key question that the Government are rightly asking is how British people are best represented. How can they vote most easily, how can they participate most fully, and—the Government's unasked question—how can their wishes be reflected most accurately? Although my hon. Friends and I have deliberately not tabled a reasoned amendment on the third issue, hon. Members will not be surprised if I spend a moment on the element of representation that is noticeably absent from the Bill. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan), who was here earlier but is now in his constituency. He has done a great deal of work on these issues, and the hon. Member for Ryedale said that he had made a case for the right to vote to be linked to citizenship, not length of absenteeism. I am glad that the Bill will set up an electoral commission. An independent body should consider these matters regularly and make proposals in a non-partisan way. I hope that the commission will have the power to make recommendations not only on elections but on referendums too. Sooner rather than later, we need a structure for holding referendums as well as elections. Whatever our views about the single currency or electoral reform, it will be far better to get the rules about referendums established independently rather than tying them to the subject of the referendum. The rules should apply to all referendums, whatever the subject; separating the subject from the structure will be to everyone's advantage.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Gentleman may know that I take a particular interest in the matter, having introduced the Referendums Bill in the last Session. The Government's new referendums Bill, or whatever it will be called, provides for an allowance of £5 million to be spent in a particular campaign. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is rather bizarre, and may be linked to a particular campaign?

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I agree that it is rather bizarre, and the hon. Gentleman knows that in general I support some of his initiatives. I hope that when we come to that debate, we will try to reach a settlement about holding referendums that is in the interests of people, not parties, and in the interests of the best system, not a particular result. I welcome the working party on electoral processes, which was chaired by the then Home Office Minister, now the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth). I thank him for his work and pay tribute to the work of my colleagues, Chris Rennard—now Lord Rennard—who gave evidence to the Select Committee on behalf of our party, and David Loxton, who was our member of the working party and participated in trying to achieve the best consensus. We welcome the rolling register proposal. I repeat my tribute to the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), who rightly pressed us on the matter. I hope that there will be a greater effort to introduce an annual reminder for people to get on to the list. A summons once a year to go somewhere, fill in a form and register to vote would be far better. In my constituency, the forms normally get delivered in August, for a date of registration in October, to make sure that they are in on time. But a huge spread of time focuses the mind less, not more. People are less likely to vote without an incentive to register or a reminder to do so. Secondly, we welcome the proposals for increased residential qualification. Mental patients who have not been convicted should of course have the right to vote; it has been a scandal that so far they have not. Remand prisoners who have not been convicted should of course have the right to vote; it has been a scandal that so far they have not. People who are homeless should of course have the right to vote, and it has been a scandal that so far they too have not. It is also right that service personnel should be able to name their place of residence. I was once canvassing in a by-election and found three names on the register. The person who answered the door was not on the register. I said, "Excuse me, sir, why aren't you on the register?" He said, "Well, I'm a service voter." I said, "May I ask which service?" He said, "It's not far from Portsmouth. You will probably guess that I mean the Navy." So I said, "I'm sorry to be inquisitive, but what job do you do?" After a pause, he said, "Well, I run the Navy." People in the services—whether in the most humble or the most senior post—may want their vote where they live, and they should be allowed that right. There are several arguments for revisiting the proposal in clause 9. Many people are clearly perturbed about it—indeed, I have received more representations on this proposal than on any other. Secondly—and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Allan) knows more about this than I do—it is a fallacy to suppose that the proposal is the best way of trying to protect people from direct mail. There are other ways of doing that. If we do not want to receive unwanted post, the remedy should be applied generally, not particularly to the electoral register. Thirdly, there is the serious issue of how such a proposal will affect people for whom the electoral register is used to determine creditworthiness. In constituencies such as mine, many people are out of work. Their appearance on the register confirms that they have an established residence; it gives them the right to receive services that they would not otherwise receive. We must ensure that accepting new proposals will not advance social exclusion rather than social inclusion.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

The concern is that people will ask to be excluded because they think that they will no longer receive junk mail, but they will subsequently encounter problems regarding creditworthiness, as my hon. Friend mentioned. The question is how to balance the two important data protection principles: not using data collected for one purpose for something else, and ensuring that such data are accurate. Bodies will be able to find data in another way but it will not have the state authorisation of the electoral register, which is believed to be trustworthy, especially when it comes to credit scoring.

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I hope that we heed that sort of argument and take a proper, rational, considered view. It is not just the Confederation of British Industry that has made representations. I have had letters from the Stroke Association and Marie Curie Cancer Care. Cancer organisations, I gather, stand to lose about £2 million if we change the rules and make them pay the full commercial price. So I say to the Minister, not in a strident way, that I hope that we can try to reach consensus on this matter.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

All the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised are cogent, but does he agree that the threat in clause 9 to impose an additional cost on business should be averted, if at all possible?

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I do agree, and think that the matter would be suitable for consideration of the type undertaken in a Special Standing Committee. However, I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to the idea that we try—behind the scenes and in the Committee Corridor—to work together to get the matter right. I wish to raise two other points in this section of my speech. Of course it is right that people in general public life, or private people who are threatened—by domestic violence, for instance—should be able to vote without being made more vulnerable. Such people are usually female, but occasionally men come into that category. I shall not elaborate, but the House will be aware that I have some knowledge of these matters. I do not believe, however, that such privacy should be available to people who are candidates or elected public representatives. I consider that the electorate should know where their councillors and Members of Parliament live, and that those people's addresses should appear on the register and ballot paper. Where electoral candidates live in the community—or whether they live there—is an important and relevant piece of information for electors. The hon. Member for Ryedale rightly cited the case of Jill Dando, but matters are different for people such as Members of Parliament. I turn now to the issues surrounding the conduct of elections. We support the pilot scheme idea of looking at different ways of extending opportunities for elections. We want to make sure that the pilot schemes are evaluated, and I underline the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie). My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), the leader of our party in Scotland, is sitting beside her just now. Many of us want to make sure that voting at a time that is against the wishes of the community could take place only if the community agreed to it. I remind the Minister that, in Wales, there used to be local voting—a referendum—on Sunday opening every 10 years. I have not consulted in detail on the matter with my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute, but the way forward might be to combine district or local authority area votes in the area for a referendum. By that means people could decide when they wanted to vote. I hope that my hon. Friend's point will be heeded. As for absent voting, the right hon. Member for Gorton made the self-evident point that people must be allowed to vote wherever they are, as modern technology allows them to plug into the electoral system from all over the world. In addition, people living in the United Kingdom should be able to vote by post on a permanent basis. The evidence that I have seen shows that electoral turnouts are considerably higher in countries where people vote only by post than in those where people vote mainly in person. We must reflect on that, even though it may cause the electoral process and campaigning to change, as votes may be cast two weeks before the final date. A whole set of considerations affect people living abroad, and they have been mentioned already. Clearly, the considerations affecting UK citizens will be different from those affecting people who can vote here because they are Irish, Commonwealth or European Union citizens. It is important to realise that these distinctions exist. Another issue is the need to decide whether the link should be defined according to citizenship, or citizenship and tax liability—a perfectly proper combination—or something else. I now think that 20 years is probably too long, although I voted against limiting the period to that length of time when it was proposed some 10 years ago. I also think that five years is too short a period. For example, my brother lived in Cyprus, having been sent there by his employer. The posting was not permanent, and although he was there for more than five years he retained strong links with this country and has come back here to live. My point is that we must be careful about people who live abroad only because they are obliged to. We must not act in haste and repent at leisure. That is what the worst legislation leads to, and it still happens far too often. I understand the temptation to react to the Michael Ashcroft affair and to conflate party funding issues with the provenance of votes. I hope that Ministers resist that temptation. There are legitimate questions about who funds political parties, and it will be quite proper to have that debate. However, like the Home Secretary, I hope that we discuss that matter in a measured and considered way and come to an agreed view about how parties should be funded and about how much people should be allowed to spend in that regard. My hon. Friend the Member for Hallam made the point that our methods of checking whether the person who presents the polling card is really the person on the electoral register leave much to be desired. No one knows how much fraud is committed. The injunction "vote early, vote often" is probably followed sometimes—although no hon. Member in this House would know anything about that, of course. People are thoroughly confused about the use of polling cards. Many do not vote because they think that they need a polling card. Disabusing people of that misapprehension would help, as the delivery of polling cards is often even less efficient than the organisation of the register.

Gerald Kaufman (Labour, Manchester, Gorton)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that replacing the polling card with a personalised swipe card would render fraud much more difficult to commit and would permit votes to be cast from any part of the country, or from abroad?

Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat, North Southwark and Bermondsey)

I support working towards a system that allows people to vote electronically. As has been noted, people increasingly make use of personalised, 24-hour banking services, have their own personal identification numbers for telephone use and employ swipe cards in other contexts. We must be positive about the appurtenances of the modern age, but we must not devise a system that is easy for the clued-up 21-year-old but difficult for the 91-year-old. Some people late in life are not going to take up the use of swipe cards and complicated PIN numbers on their telephones. I turn now to people with disabilities. I welcome the proposed changes to allow people to have help when they vote. However, I hope that the Government will consider going further, by regulation if not by legislation. There is merit in offering, to all who are registered disabled or who are in sheltered and residential accommodation, help that is independent of the people among whom they live. It is always a worry that a residential home may deliver a block vote because its frail, elderly and confused residents have been organised by someone in the home. Ensuring that such residents were independent would allow us all to relax and trust the system more. In very many polling stations, the ballot box is still kept about half a mile from the street entrance. That is often the case when schools are used. People with disabilities are often deterred from voting because the journey through the building is longer than the journey to the building. That is clearly a nonsense. The Home Secretary spoke of the challenge that we face of revitalising democracy. I do not think that there is a crisis in democracy. Electoral turnouts were often very low in the past, but things can only get better. Sometimes turnouts are abysmal, as happened at last Thursday's election in Kensington and Chelsea. Another dire turnout was recorded in the earlier election at Leeds, Central which, given its many and historic problems, has at least as great a need for proper representation as any area in the country. Any Representation of the People Bill must pass certain tests. We should seek to produce maximum turnouts at elections, but Liberal Democrat Members are not persuaded that compulsory voting is the answer and consider that other avenues should be explored before we even think of introducing compulsion. Making people vote in a free society appears to be a contradiction in terms. We must also accept that the result of an election has to reflect the views of the electorate as expressed through their votes. All parties can benefit from the distorted way in which results are determined at present. For example, in the 1998 Newham council elections, Labour won 57 per cent. of the vote and secured all 60 of the available seats. Again, in the 1995 vote in Cheltenham, the Liberal Democrats won 49 per cent. of the vote and secured 93 per cent. of the seats. Hon. Members will know that, in the House and in local councils, one party will often get a majority of votes but another will get a majority of seats. We will not persuade people that voting matters unless outcomes reflect what they want when they go to the ballot box. We made a bad mistake in June this year. By not linking the voter with an individual candidate in the European elections, we took away the incentive for many people to vote. Those of us who argue for a different and proportional voting system want a system that links to individuals, not merely to a party list. Whatever we may think of the genesis of the Jenkins report, it makes the best proposal, which is linking constituencies and fairness. I hope that the House remembers that, whatever we think about it, the Government are committed to putting that question to the country. There must be a decision by the country—not by us—as to whether to keep the present first-past-the-post system or to implement the Jenkins report. That was the Government's pledge. It was in the manifesto and it should be honoured. The reality is that people will vote most if they think that they have a chance of influencing something most. If Parliament is more powerful, people will vote more often in parliamentary elections. If local government has its chains taken away, people will vote more often in local elections. If those institutions are restricted, cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, bound in", people will ask, "Why bother? It won't change anything." That is why in so many parts of Britain the voting culture reflects that of the one-party state. We have all heard people say, "It doesn't matter whom you put up. Nothing will change." That culture has to be changed and the one-party state mentality has to go. Young people are the test. They often say that they will not go on the register or vote. We must support all who have been working with the British Youth Council, Operation Black Vote and others to encourage young people to think that they are the people in whose interest it most is to vote. The more they vote, the more this place will reflect their interests and aspirations. Civic education, mock Parliaments and Hansard Society initiatives must all take place too. This Bill is a beginning. It will do some of the technical things and it is welcome, but it is not the end of the story. Building up communities and making voting easier are important, but—to vary a phrase used this weekend—we need not just reform, but the whole reform and nothing but the reform. If we are to have electoral change, we need, in the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), not only the Monty but the full Monty and nothing but the full Monty. That means reforming the system of voting as well as the procedure. The sooner it happens, the sooner people will vote.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

I speak with some trepidation, on a number of grounds. First, many right hon. and hon. Members have shared with the House their experience of the high office that they held when this matter was last debated. At that time, I was the second substitute on the London borough of Ealing nuclear disarmament working party, which was sadly not conspicuously successful, but would certainly have been taken into consideration were the Ilyushins ever to have approached us. I am also loth to criticise any aspect of what is an excellent Bill. For example, this is not a case of opening the Christmas present to discover with a cold feeling of horror that one has been given a Jeffrey Archer novel. It is rather that, within the vast body of the Bill—the detail is excellent—there is one small area that gives me ground for concern. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Labour Front Bench will allow me to deal with clause 9 and the access to credit for people in my constituency, who have a great deal in common with the constituents of the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). I am concerned that commercial and charitable organisations will not be allowed access to the electoral roll for credit purposes. As has been said, that could easily be costly and counter-productive. Certainly, there are problems, but it is not beyond the will of this House or the Standing Committee for those to be dealt with, and resolved, without causing severe difficulties for many of our constituents. The role of businesses and charitable organisations has been mentioned. The credit industry is a particular concern. There is only one national database of this type. The electoral register is, as we all know, utterly unique, as has been recognised by the Office of Fair Trading. I will pray in aid some esoteric sources later to confirm the validity of that statement. The point about the register's uniqueness is that there is no substitute. It is not a question of this mechanism or another. It is all well and good to say that credit checking companies could discover alternative mechanisms. We do not yet have a national identity card or any comparable national database. When the working party considered the matter—it has been said that a possible weakness of the working party is the lack of representation on it of the commercial or charitable sectors, although they certainly submitted views in writing—it stated that there was anecdotal evidence that people were concerned about receiving junk mail. Far be it for me as a member of the London Labour party to comment on unsolicited mail at the present time, but is the problem really the fact that we might get a few of those appalling letter from the Reader's Digest stating that, if we buy dozens of copies of some book, we may be entered in some spurious grand draw that at some stage may solve all our problems? Is that such an awful difficulty? Is it so terrible that the honest postal worker delivers that junk mail and the householder looks at it and throws it away—or, in the case of the correspondence to which I referred, reads it, appreciates it and takes the action suggested?

Claire Ward (Labour, Watford)

Does my hon. Friend accept that, while junk mail is frustrating for those of us who receive it, a more important issue is the security of individuals who are, for example, escaping domestic violence and who want the right to vote and register, but who do not believe that that information should be put in the hands of the public at large and of commercial companies in general, as their pursuers might be able to trace them through it?

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

I thank my hon. Friend for another cogent and telling intervention. I entirely agree—obviously, I would not dare to disagree. I was not suggesting that we should go for what the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey described as the full electoral Monty by forcing everyone to reveal themselves on the register. At present, electoral registers contain classifications of people—not merely those who are not entitled to vote in a local government election or who are entitled only to vote in a European election. Additional electors are listed at the end of each category. They appear now. Their names appear on the register, but their addresses do not. Every electoral register in the country has such names. It is not a problem. In many ways, by concentrating on those issues, we could produce a far better clause 9, although my natural obsequiousness prevents me from saying that as overtly as I would do otherwise. Earlier this year, an NOP survey, which was almost certainly funded by the credit companies, asked whether people would tick the proposed opt-out box when registering to vote and 64 per cent. said that they would. However, when the follow-up question was asked about their credit status, the figures changed dramatically. The problem is that people will tick the box without realising how it will affect their credit status.

Richard Allan (Liberal Democrat, Sheffield, Hallam)

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the junk mail issue is a distraction and a red herring when we are discussing the electoral register? Junk mail is dealt with by the mailing preference service, whereby people say that they do not want such mail and if anyone mails them, they can be prosecuted. Junk mailing services can find names from 100 different sources.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. We should consider the mailing preference service; that is certainly a possibility. However, my concern—like that of several other Members—is about access to credit for those who could not otherwise achieve it. Banks and other financial bodies tend to be cautious lenders. If people's credit standing is reduced by their opting out of the version of the register that is available to credit agencies, those people will be added to the socially excluded. At present, there is a mechanism for lending money to people on the boundaries—on desolation row—and we all know what it is. We all know about the loan sharks who prey on our constituents—the people who take child benefit books and accompany mothers to the post office on a Monday morning, cash the benefit, give half the money to the mother and keep the rest. We know about their interest rates, which double, triple and quadruple. Yes, there are possible alternatives, such as credit banks and credit unions—by all means, let us have more of them. However, the immediate, practical alternative to the loan shark is a line of legitimate credit, attested to by one's presence on the electoral roll. If people are council tenants, have just moved to a council property or do not have a job, they do not have any other credit guarantee to offer. I wholly acknowledge the understandable and laudable concerns of my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Government, but we must revisit that matter. Of course the problems of money laundering, fraud and other abuses of the electoral register must be dealt with; I hope to outline a way of doing so later in my speech. However, I want to draw the attention of the House to the newsletter of the Hampstead and Highgate Conservatives, advertising their autumn bazaar, which, sadly, took place last Saturday. From the perspective of Ealing, we are awed by the Hampstead and Highgate Conservatives, who offer as raffle prizes cars, 25 televisions and videos and a £5,000 ocean cruise—the newsletter does not tell us whether we can nominate a member of the Conservative party to take that cruise. There is a free champagne draw. In the corner of the document is the headline, "Not a Conservative supporter?"—oddly enough, there is a question mark—under which is the statement: We work off the electoral role". Hon. Members should note that spelling. Doubtless, it is a tribute to the thespian ambience created by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Ms Jackson)—long may she continue. The newsletter states: If you do not want to receive further mailings from your local Conservatives please let us know … by E Mail, agent@ham-high.tory. The Conservatives realise that there are occasions on which one can make a principled decision as to whether to be included on a database. I have deleted my name from the database. In January 1999, the Office of Fair Trading produced the report of the director general's inquiry into vulnerable consumers and financial services—an important document.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Gentleman told us a most amusing story. Will he confirm that he lives in Hampstead and Highgate and not in Ealing?

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

Although it is possible to register overseas, I live in my constituency; my name appears on the electoral roll there—sadly, only once, but not through lack of trying. None of my domestic pets appears on the electoral roll in my constituency—again, not through lack of trying. However, on the principle of inclusion, I occasionally try to add myself to the lists of Conservative associations—just to see what they are up to. Of course, the possibility of a £5,000 sea cruise may also have influenced me slightly. Paragraph 302 of the OFT report states: there are four financial services that stand out as those which most of today's consumers are likely to regard as essential: money transmission, home contents insurance, short-term consumer credit, and long-term savings. I repeat, "short-term consumer credit" because that is exactly what we are talking about. In September 1998, the Prime Minister presented to the House "Bringing Britain together: a national strategy for neighbourhood renewal", Command 4045. Under the heading "Action Team 14: Financial services", the document states: people living in poor neighbourhoods often have to depend on very expensive forms of credit, including 'loan sharks'. Action Team 14—with whom I am not personally acquainted—point out that its goal is to develop a strategy to increase access to financial services for people living in poor neighbourhoods. Sadly, the measure that we are discussing would not help. Coming to the end of the information that I pray in aid, I draw the attention of the House to a letter from Islington council. Before Conservative Members leap to their feet, I point out that I have never lived in Islington, although I should be quite happy to do so. The council's electoral registration document, sent to all residents and dated November-December 1999—the council wisely allowed two months for delivery—states Dear Resident Final Reminder to Register to Vote—Mayor and Assembly Election. The letter does not suggest for whom one should vote—sadly. It contains the statement that to avoid difficulties with banks, credit companies, building societies, and libraries, who often check the register before providing services, it may be useful to provide this information. In November-December 1999, a London council is telling its electors that, in order to receive credit, to open a bank or building society account, or even to borrow a library book, they need to be on the electoral register. Many of us will remember Sheila McKechnie, who used to run Shelter; she is now the director of the Consumers Association. She asked the House to focus on the potential increase in social exclusion caused by a restriction on access to this data … This proposal could create further barriers to obtaining credit for vulnerable consumers. Namely, those who do not have passports, driving licences or utility bills … for whom the present system works well. I had not given this matter much thought until one of my constituents, Pauline Jones, spoke to me about it. She works for Equifax—one of the two major data-collection companies. Ms Jones told me of her concerns, not just as a loyal member of that company, but as someone who is genuinely worried about the law of unintended consequences. I cannot believe that anyone—save, possibly, a few Conservative Members—could object to the main thrust of the Bill. However, one of the unintended consequences—I am sure that it is unintended—of the restriction of commercial availability of the electoral register is that the sort of people with whom my constituent works and whom I represent will suffer. There are alternative proposals. The Direct Marketing Association has already suggested an additional form of restriction on availability of the roll. There are other ways of dealing with the matter. Sadly, the current baby-and-the-bath-water system will not serve the inclusive, joined-up governmental aims of the Administration in relation to social exclusion. I thank the House for its tolerance and indulgence; the subject is one of great importance. When my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department sums up the debate, I hope that he will tell us that it will be possible to reconsider the matter. I thank him and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for being so courteous and so generous with their time as to talk about the matter with me before the debate. I hope that we can discuss it further in Committee and deal with it. The rest of the Bill is Christmas come early; it is wonderful. I have no problem with it.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound), and I am fascinated to know of his connections with Conservative associations. I am afraid that the Epping Forest Conservatives' Christmas bazaar is already past, but I should like to check that the hon. Gentleman has received his invitation to the Epping Forest Conservatives' Christmas party. I hope that he will let me know if he has not, as it is obviously an oversight on the part of my computer. I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. [Interruption.] I did not hear the hon. Gentleman.

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

I am sorry; I merely said that I would be reluctant to attend the soirée at Epping Forest with my wife if the previous Member was present.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I do not know whether that is a compliment. I shall be more careful in giving way in future.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

What does the hon. Gentleman's wife think?

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

She is keen to go.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

The Bill contains much that is good. Any measure that improves the democratic process is to be welcomed, and should be welcomed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Some measures in the Bill would make the ballot box more accessible to people who are in some way disadvantaged, which can only be good. As the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) said, voting is a very precious right—the most precious right in the defence of a free society—so he is absolutely right to welcome most parts of the Bill. I wish to draw attention to some aspects of the Bill. First, I am worried about the idea of a declaration of local connection. It is hard to understand how that could work well, and how it could improve the democratic process. Would it mean, for example, that the gypsies—it may be more politically correct to say travellers, because I know that some genuine gypsies do not like to be confused with travellers—who have recently moved into my constituency for an unknown length of time would, in some circumstances, have the chance to be registered and to vote? If they could do so in my constituency at present, could they do so again, in a few weeks, in another constituency? Would they be able to declare a local connection in more than one place at once? If one need not be permanently resident in one place, surely it is theoretically possible to have a local connection with more than one place at a time. I appreciate that many of us can be registered to vote in more than one place; indeed, many Members of the House are because of our respective residences in our constituency and, during the week, in London. However, we exercise our adherence to the law in voting only once. Not everyone in the country can be trusted to be quite as scrupulous in their adherence to the law. I am very uneasy about that.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

My hon. Friend has just conjured up an extremely worrying scenario. Does she agree that if people were free simply to hop, skip, jump or traverse by other means all over the country at short notice and be entitled to vote, we would be faced with the electoral equivalent of flying pickets?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

As ever, my hon. Friend eloquently illustrates a difficult point. He is absolutely right; we could indeed have flying local connection voters. We could certainly have itinerant local connection voters, and modern technology makes it possible to move quickly around the country and vote very many times.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

It is probably true that the largest single group of people who appear on two electoral registers is university students, of whom there are probably 500,000 or more in the United Kingdom. Is the hon. Lady suggesting that, as a group, they are not worthy of trust?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

Certainly not. I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman asked that question. I was a student, and I was registered in more than one place, but I do not believe that university students or other students who have a home address and a temporary term-time address, or those who have a temporary work address—such as nurses—fall into that category. As I understand the Bill, they would not be required to declare a local connection. They have a permanent, although not always occupied, position in a student hall of residence or a hospital, for example, so there is no problem. The problem would occur with people who deliberately wanted to vote more than once. That could happen. It is our duty, in passing laws, to make electoral rules as watertight as possible, but I can see gaping holes in the legislation. It is not watertight and its provisions must be more closely addressed. Secondly, I welcome the rolling register. It is a good idea, and modern technology will allow the register to be updated more than once a year. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Mr. Fraser) drew attention to the fact that peers who were formerly Members of another place lost their right to a voice in Parliament, and the next day were not given a right to vote. Many of them lived in a constituency where there was an imminent by-election, in which they were not allowed to vote. They were disfranchised. The Minister will say that that was only temporary, but a temporary departure from an important principle is as bad as any other departure from an important principle. A Labour Member said that, even if those peers had been able to vote, it would not have made a difference to the by-election result. It might have. All those peers might have voted for Miss Whiplash; she might not have lost her deposit. We do not know, and it is not up to us to know, but it is up to us to defend their right to cast their vote. That is what counts. Thirdly, the introduction of new technology worries me. I share, of course, the Home Secretary's wish to give greater access to the polls to people who are disabled. The very last thing that my mother did before she died, a few weeks ago, was to go out to vote. It was very difficult for her to do so because she could not walk up the front steps of the polling station—a back door of the building had to be opened for her. It took a whole day's organisation to enable her to get into that polling station to cast her vote. She was determined to do so. It would have been much better if she could have retained her right to vote without having to be practically carried to the ballot box. I am well aware that, in that situation, most people who were not of the character and determination of my late mother would not bother to vote. Therefore, anything that we can do to improve accessibility, especially by developing new technology, must be welcomed. However, let us not go too far. The right hon. Member for Gorton painted a picture of voting systems that entirely depend on pressing electronic buttons. So much can be done by telephone, by e-mail—if one can work out how to get into the e-mail—by computer or by other electronic means. However, as a society, we should be careful about that. If everything is done by electronic means, we shall soon lose all social connection. People will never meet each other. They will not go shopping; they will log on to the internet and click on the Tesco website, although I find that that takes longer than going to the supermarket.

Claire Ward (Labour, Watford)

I fully understand the hon. Lady's point about social connection, but does she not agree that the chances of meeting someone in a voting station and having a decent conversation are very small unless one is a politician looking for votes?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I often agree with the hon. Lady, but I disagree on this occasion. On a sunny morning in my constituency, people like to go out to vote and they meet each other. Groups of people who have not seen each other for ages are able to talk because they have all gone to the same place at the same time on the same day. It is a social function to go to the polling station to vote. I do not suggest that people enjoy voting as a recreation in the same way that they would enjoy going to a coffee morning. However, we must be careful that we do not do everything electronically and lose all social connection. My fourth point is about compulsory voting, which the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) mentioned briefly. In Australia, voting is compulsory, but the system of proportional representation used there is complex. I visited Australia two years ago and was shown the ballot paper. It was bigger than me or the hon. Member for Watford (Ms Ward). It would be hard to deal with such a ballot paper and it would take ages to fill in.

Gwyneth Dunwoody (Labour, Crewe and Nantwich)

The hon. Lady should not undervalue the advantages of proportional representation. In New Zealand, the system is so complicated that it has guaranteed no real Government for some years.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has made that point. I was broken hearted at the result of the New Zealand election last weekend. I am afraid that my first reaction was, "Well, there we go again—the wrong result under proportional representation."

Steve Pound (Labour, Ealing North)

No, Labour won.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

Some Labour Members might consider it to be the right result under PR. Whether one thinks the result in New Zealand was the right one or the wrong one, it is the wrong system. In Australia, it is not surprising that the Government had to make voting compulsory. As many people in the House know—I think that the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) will agree—the best way to encourage voting is to keep it simple and to make it meaningful. We do not want people to go to the polling station to spend an hour in there reading the ballot paper. It should be simple for people to cast their votes and to know that the way in which they cast their vote will have an effect on the result of the election. The hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey seemed to agree about the complexity of the system in Australia and about the undesirability of introducing compulsory voting. I hope that he will also come round to the sensible view that changing the voting system in this country will be bad for democracy and will discourage people from voting. We saw that happen in the turnout for the European elections a few months ago. The central issue in the Bill is how one is qualified to vote for this Parliament and other democratic institutions in our country. The Home Secretary said that he hoped that there would be a consensus on the measures for overseas voters. However, I listened to the right hon. Member for Gorton and I am certain that such a consensus is unlikely. I would find it difficult to agree with the right hon. Gentleman on this point. He was dangerously close to suggesting that we, as Parliament, should adopt a clause that would give electoral advantage to one party or the other. I hope that no Member would ever vote for party advantage rather than for a point of principle. The right hon. Gentleman said that only 13,000 people from overseas voted and that the vast majority of them voted in what are currently Conservative constituencies, but so what? That does not matter. I am aware that the right hon. Member for Gorton is not present to respond to my points, but I would gladly give way to him if he were. However, it does not matter how those overseas voters vote; we are discussing a matter of principle.

John Greenway (Conservative, Ryedale)

Someone said—I think that it was the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman)—that there should be no representation without taxation. Is it not a fact that many of the 13,000 people who voted pay income tax in this country on their pensions and their investments?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

Yes, it certainly is a fact; I agree with my hon. Friend. Those voters also pay national insurance in this country, because they intend one day to return to live here and they want to benefit from their national insurance contributions in later years. They have not severed their connections with the United Kingdom; they are merely absent for some time. Five years' absence is a short time in most people's careers.

John Bercow (Conservative, Buckingham)

As usual, the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) have prompted a thought in my mind. Would my hon. Friend not agree that the principle applies the other way round as well? Perhaps there should be no taxation without representation. Does she not agree that the people in Kensington and Chelsea who were wrongly and monstrously disfranchised by the administrative incompetence of this Government have reason to feel aggrieved? They paid their taxes, but they did not get their representation.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

Once again, my hon. Friend eloquently makes an extremely good point. I am always aware of the problems of the Exchequer, so I would not venture to suggest that the people to whom he referred should be exempt from taxation. That would leave a large hole in the Exchequer's receipts. I was discussing qualifications to vote, and there are two inconsistencies in the Bill. The first inconsistency relates to new section 4(1)(c) of the Representation of the People Act 1983 proposed in clause 1, which states that a resident who is a Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland has a right to vote. I do not object to that; it has been the case for some time. However, that provision is inconsistent with schedule 2, which refers to the right of United Kingdom citizens resident abroad to vote in UK elections for 20 years—an issue to which the right hon. Member for Gorton referred. The Bill will allow people who live in this country, however temporarily and who are not citizens, the right to vote. However, the right hon. Member for Gorton expressed his intention to table an amendment to shorten from 20 to five years the period in which UK residents overseas are allowed to vote and the Home Secretary said that he would turn his mind to that subject later during the Bill's passage through the House. If such an amendment were accepted, there would be ridiculous imbalance. A citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland who is resident in this country, however temporarily, would be able to vote, but British citizens, who are temporarily not resident in this country and who may have a far greater stake in the future government of the United Kingdom, would not be able to vote. That would simply be unfair. The second inconsistency concerns the matter that I mentioned a few moments ago—the possibility of someone who does not have a permanent base in a constituency in this country making a declaration of local connection. Could a British citizen who resides overseas temporarily, but for more than five years, make a declaration of local connection in, for example, my constituency, and have a vote? If the Minister wants to answer that question, I will gladly give way to him.

Mike O'Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire)

indicated dissent.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

No, he does not.

Mike O'Brien (Labour, North Warwickshire)

The hon. Lady knows that I will, in closing, deal with many of the points raised in the debate.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his assurance that he will do so. I appreciate that I am springing on him a matter that may not previously have been raised. However, it will be inconsistent if people who do not have a permanent home have a right to vote but people who are temporarily away from Britain do not. It is very worrying that another huge loophole in the system will be created by introducing a declaration of local connection.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

When my hon. Friend was speaking, she may not have heard the calls of "Belize" from Members on the Benches opposite. Does she think that those who want to change the 20-year rule may have a specific motivation, and that it may be a petty-minded, vindictive motivation against one person, pursued in a rather pathetic partisan and political manner?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

My hon. Friend makes an outrageous suggestion. Who could believe that the Government would want to change a point of principle in a Bill of such constitutional importance as one concerned with representation of the people for the sake of one individual? No, my hon. Friend must be wrong because his suggestion is utterly preposterous; nevertheless, I thank him for making it.

David Heath (Liberal Democrat, Somerton and Frome)

I shall take the hon. Lady away from the dangerous shoals of Belize for a moment. Is she really saying that if citizens do not have a fixed abode in this country, they should lose their right of citizenship in this country, and that they should not have a vote if they do not have a household? Are we to return to the householder vote?

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

Not at all, and if I have given that impression, I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to correct it. I certainly do not believe that. In my constituency there is a hostel for homeless people which often houses a large number of people who are waiting for council accommodation. I would not suggest for one moment that those people should lose their right to vote. I utterly defend their right to vote. The intention to give people who do not have a permanent home the right to vote is correct, but I question whether the mechanism set out in the Bill is the right way to do so.

Harry Barnes (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

rose—

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, although I appreciate that I have been speaking for some time because I have taken many interventions.

Harry Barnes (Labour, North East Derbyshire)

Is the hon. Lady not aware that homeless people in hostels often do not qualify to vote because to do so one must have a residence? That is the problem with the existing law. The declaration of location would allow those people to be put on the register, as well as those who are sleeping on park benches.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I take the hon. Gentleman's point. The matter requires, and will no doubt receive, greater consideration when we examine the Bill in more detail. I shall give two examples of people who live outside the United Kingdom but have substantial connections with this country. If the period of overseas residence after which absent citizens can no longer vote is changed from 20 years to five years, the people in those two examples will lose their right to vote. The first example is a gentleman aged over 80, who until recently spent his whole life in this country. He worked for over half a century, paid tax and made great contributions to the community and society in which he lived. He fought during the whole of world war two and was wounded in action, commissioned on the field and awarded the distinguished conduct medal. You will understand, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the person whom I am describing has devoted his entire life to this country, and he did a lot of good work—including charitable and political work—for well over half a century. The gentleman now lives in Spain, because of ill health and to be close to his family since the death of his wife. He has lived in Spain for almost five years. I told him yesterday that there is a danger that he might not be able to vote at the next general election and, not surprisingly, he was appalled. He considers, naturally enough, that having devoted his entire life to this country and its good, he should have every right to be involved in the country's future and in decisions about who should be its future Government. One day, he will probably come back to the United Kingdom. Why should he lose his right to a say in the government of this country? When I pointed out the situation to the gentleman, he said, "I don't understand that. I'm living in the European Union, so my vote at the next election will determine the Government of the United Kingdom. That Government will have considerable determination in the running of the European Union, and that is how I shall be able to influence, in my small way as a voter taking part in the democratic process, the future of the European Union in which I live.". For those two reasons, I ask why that gentleman should lose his vote. That is a very serious matter, and I hope that the Minister will address it in his remarks. My second example concerns employees of British companies who are posted abroad. They may well still be paying tax and national insurance in this country, but one way or another they will be contributing to the success of companies that are British-based. At the very least, their efforts on behalf of those companies will contribute to the companies' profits and therefore to the tax that the companies pay in this country. My example is more precise: I have in mind someone who lives in Gibraltar. At best, the Government ignore Gibraltar, and at worst, they victimise it. They seem to wish that it simply did not exist. Gibraltar is British. Its people voted quite recently, and they have shown again and again that they want to remain British. They do not have a vote in European Union elections, even though they are part of the European Union. In that sense, Gibraltarians are already disfranchised. In the debate on the Bill, however, I want to address the problems not of Gibraltarians but of British people who live in Gibraltar. The particular person whom I have in mind works for a British company and therefore contributes, in the way that I have just described, to the British economy, the welfare of the United Kingdom, the welfare of Gibraltar and the way in which Britain supports Gibraltar. If the Government want to support Gibraltar, they should be aware that, if the Bill is amended to limit entitlement to an overseas vote to those who have been absent from this country for less than five years, rather than 20 years, it will be yet another insult to Gibraltarians and other people who live in Gibraltar. The Government will have once again disfranchised the very people who support British interests in a place where those interests ought to be supported. I hope that the Minister will take that matter seriously. When making laws, we in this Chamber should focus not on individual cases or on party advantage, but on principles. I appreciate that the general intention behind the Bill is good—to make it easier for people to vote and so improve the democratic process. I wholeheartedly agree with that intention. However, certain parts of the Bill will not achieve their intended result. I am pleased that, the Bill being an important constitutional measure, its Committee stage is to take place on the Floor of the House, and I look forward to more detailed consideration of its provisions in days to come.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

I speak as a member of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, both in support of the Committee's report on electoral law, which is listed among the documents relevant to the debate, and in support of the Bill itself. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth), now Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, on his work. Having seen some of the many reports he commissioned when he was a Home Office Minister, I commend not only his thoroughness but, more important, his timing. A Bill such as this has to come in the third Session of a Parliament, for that is late enough for the lessons of the last election to have been learned but early enough for changes to be made before the next election. Of course, the purpose behind the Bill must be to make changes that can be applied by the time of the next election. In addition, the third Session of a Parliament is early enough to avoid the pre-election period when hon. Members on both sides are more concerned about party advantage than about taking a constructive, cross-party approach to the shortcomings of our electoral system. In its report on electoral law and administration, the Committee noted that. the current electoral arrangements by and large work well". I must confess that that statement strays into hyperbole, for there are many failings in the operation of our electoral arrangements. The system can be impossibly bureaucratic: there are at least seven different forms with which one can apply for a postal vote. In addition, the system can hardly be described as efficient when there are, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) pointed out in his evidence to the Committee, an estimated 4 million people who should be on the register but are not, and about 7 million who, by the end of the electoral year, are on the register where they should not be. I hope my hon. Friend will elaborate on that point if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That is why I welcome the Bill's three main provisions: the rolling register, continually updated throughout the year; postal voting on demand; and pilots of early voting, electronic voting, out-of-area voting, weekend voting—you name it, there will be a pilot of it. Those are all measures that the Home Affairs Committee asked for and that the Bill delivers. In fact, the Bill delivers some reforms for which the Committee did not ask: giving the vote to remand prisoners—a matter the Committee overlooked; piloting electronic counting and voting, of which the Committee was, not without reason, somewhat wary; piloting postal-only elections, which have worked extremely well in other countries, dramatically affecting turnout; and offering electors an opt-out from the electoral register sold commercially, which is opposed by the Confederation of British Industry but popular with many voters. However, there is a far longer list of reforms for which the Committee asked but the Bill does not deliver, and I owe it to the Committee and the House to mention those matters, the first of which relates to dual registration for parliamentary elections. The Committee accepts that people should be able to register in a second seat as a local elector, and peers and European nationals can already do so. However, people should be able to register as parliamentary electors in only one seat. Under a system whereby votes are likely to make more of a difference in some seats than in others, giving people a choice of constituency gives an unfair advantage. Once postal voting is given on demand, those who genuinely split their time between two constituencies, such as students, should have no problem voting, wherever they are when the election happens. That is the view not only of all three parties represented on the Committee, but of the representatives of all three major parties—Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat—who gave evidence to the Committee. It is also the view of many of the smaller parties. However, it was opposed by the Home Office with the comment that there was "no enthusiasm" for such a change among members of the working party. To be frank, if we acted only when the Home Office was enthusiastic, we would never get anything done. The second point of difference relates to anonymous registration. The Committee proposed to allow a few people to register anonymously—that is, without their name appearing in any public version of the electoral register—in exceptional circumstances, such as vulnerability to domestic violence. The working party decided that that required further study, but the Committee does not agree: we think it could be granted now. The working party has proposed an opt-out from the commercial version of the register, but that will not satisfy the requirements of, say, a woman who is vulnerable to domestic violence.

Julian Lewis (Conservative, New Forest East)

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that several more enlightened councils have introduced a procedure whereby people can register under a nom de plume, so that no one can discover where an at-risk person lives but that person does not lose his or her vote?

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. There is currently little latitude for electoral registration officers to exercise such discretion, and it is good that some feel confident that they can do so. However, it is important for the Government clearly to set out in legislation the parameters for all electoral registration officers. On the question of early voting, the Bill's provisions are rather tentative. A pilot scheme is proposed, but my view of early voting is that it should enable people to vote not only in a different part of their local authority area but in different parts of the country. Early voting is supposed to help those who might suddenly be called away on business or for a family emergency but who still want to vote. While the Home Affairs Committee report was being written, I was on holiday in Sweden, where an election was going on, and I asked the electoral authorities there how they dealt with early voting. I was amazed to learn that, in Sweden, on producing one's polling card and some other form of identification, one can cast one's vote at any post office anywhere in the country throughout the two weeks preceding polling day and up to 5 pm on polling day itself; the post office then conveys the vote to one's own polling station by 8 pm on the day the polls close. More than one third of Swedish voters exercise their vote in that way, perhaps because they are away from home or because it is simply more convenient than going to the polling station. I also learned of the Swedish arrangements in the event of an elector changing his or her address. In this country, if a person who has changed address rings up the town hall to ask whether his or her electoral address can be altered, the response is, "I'm sorry, but no. Phone back on 10 October next year and we'll think about it." In Sweden, such a person simply goes into a tax office and types the new address into a keyboard; the following morning, the address is valid as that person's electoral address and for all other public services. In many ways, we are not beginning to use the advantages that the computer age gives us to change electoral registration. We are still insisting that it should take two weeks as a minimum. Early voting pilot schemes in a single local authority area will not test the real purpose of early voting. However, I hope that they will be rolled out quickly before the next general election so that we can use early voting for what it is really intended, which is to replace much of what is postal or proxy voting. Thirdly, we have to apply for postal votes 11 working days before polling. The Committee believes that that deadline could be much later. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) suggested that it should be up to the eve of the poll. In Sweden, as I have recounted, it is up to three hours before the close of the poll. It is rather disappointing to read in the working party's report that the advice received from electoral administrators was that there should be no change from 11 days. I think that we can do better than that. The franking of ballot papers is a ridiculous and outdated requirement. Its only practical effect was to disqualify 2,500 voters at the 1997 election because the official mark had been left off the papers by mistake. However, the working party's response is that franking still "requires reconsideration". I think that we could get rid of franking straight away. The Bill could afford to be much more decisive on the qualification of candidates.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

If the franking of ballot papers is to be dispensed with, how will an identifying mark be provided to prevent the stuffing of ballot boxes if non-electronic methods continue to be used?

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

The Select Committee suggested that there should be a security device, but not one that relies on the memory of the election agent in stamping each ballot paper before it is given to the voter. Security needs to be maintained. The Select Committee suggested an increase in candidates' deposits from £500 to £700, which thereafter would be index linked, and an increase in the number of assentors from 10 to 50. The response was that there is a serious case for increasing the deposit. Who could doubt that after the Kensington and Chelsea by-election, in which Lisa Lovebucket received fewer than 100 votes. She was one of about 15 candidates who received fewer votes than the deposit level. The working party's report suggested that increasing the number of assentors would place a significant additional burden on electoral administrators. I do not believe that counting up to 50 assentors places a serious burden on administrators. However, it might be a serious burden on no-hope, joke candidates, who would have to find 50 people prepared to sign their nomination papers. There are no proposals in the Bill to lift the disqualification of ministers of religion, a subject on which my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) has introduced a ten-minute Bill. One would think that the Bill provided an opportunity to clear up that legal mess. The same is true of the Select Committee's proposal that candidates should be nominated only under names by which they have been known for some time, and usually the name by which they are registered on the electoral register. Given the experience of all parties in this place, surely that would be a self-evident reform. Another consideration is the name of the party—we have had the literal democrats and the conversatives—although that is taken care of in the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998. However, someone with the name Roy Harold Jenkins stood in Glasgow, Hillhead; and someone renamed himself Sir Nicholas Lyell in an attempt to stand against the Member of that name. That attempt failed only after an expensive court case. The Select Committee's proposal that 100 per cent. grants should be available to local authorities to make polling booths more accessible to the disabled was turned down on the ground that it might lead to a substantial increase in the level of claims against the Consolidated Fund. This is hardly an issue of resources; it should be a matter of principle that the costs of the changes that need to be made to polling stations to make them accessible to the disabled should be refunded. The proposal in the report that may have caused most publicity is that the 20-year maximum period within which a British citizen overseas may retain the right to vote is excessive and that the earlier limit of five years should be restored. That was agreed unanimously by the representatives of all parties on the Committee, as was the entire report. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said soon afterwards in his response that he would consider the proposal sympathetically and consult other parties. It may be that the issue is better dealt with next month or whenever the political parties, elections and referendums Bill is published. I do not think that anyone has an interest in rushing the issue. I heard my right hon. Friend's assurance that amendments can be moved to exactly that effect when we consider that Bill. I raise the issue now because the recommendation could be implemented most logically by an amendment to the Bill before us. It was first provided in the Representation of the People Act 1985 that overseas voters should be allowed to vote in elections for up to five years after they had left the country. In the Representation of the People Act 1989, that was extended to 20 years. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) might like to know that before those Acts the rules for registration in parliamentary elections were very similar to the rules of residence applied by the Inland Revenue. There was almost an exact correlation between being a resident taxpayer and having the vote. That is an important principle which is still relevant. Representation of the People Acts have been something of a disappointment. The overseas vote could have been claimed by up to 3 million people and was expected to be claimed by about 200,000. The highest figure was 34,000 in 1991, and it has now dwindled to 13,000, an average of 21 votes per constituency. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend the Member for Gorton is right when he says that overseas voters are biased towards the Conservative party. I know that there are many Labour voters among them who are members of the Labour International branch or the Labour New York branch. However, the concession goes to some people who have only a tenuous connection with Britain. Indeed, they may have the vote under a different nationality in their home countries. The vote goes also to many tax exiles who have deliberately left the country to avoid paying our taxes.

Graham Brady (Conservative, Altrincham and Sale West)

On a point of information, I wonder whether the Select Committee took evidence to ascertain what proportion of the 13,000 people overseas who voted had been overseas for more than five years, and what proportion would still be eligible to vote under the five-year limit.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

That is an interesting point. I am seeking the answer to it. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire knows the answer. However, I know that the great majority of overseas voters come within the five-year rule; there are very few such voters between five and 20 years. I think that it is wrong in principle for someone who does not pay tax in this country to have a hand in deciding how much tax the rest of us should pay.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman. He seemed to suggest that there was something wrong if someone had the right to vote in two different states at once. I am sure that he is thinking through the implications of that, because there are millions of people in this country in that category, who happen to reside here and also have a vote in, for instance, the Republic of Ireland. Many people have the right to vote here who also have the right to vote in other European states. I ask the hon. Gentleman to reflect on that. It seems to be the weakest part of the argument that he is advancing.

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

If that forms the subject of an amendment to the political parties Bill, there will clearly be an opportunity to debate the matter further. The position of voters from the Republic of Ireland is recognised as anomalous, and springs from the historical relationship between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. The position of European nationals is different. They can vote in the United Kingdom in local elections and in European elections, but not in parliamentary elections. Commonwealth citizens can vote in this country if they are resident in this country, and many of them exercise that right, but they usually lose their right to vote in their country of origin, depending on the laws of that country. Different countries have different approaches to the matter, and we must decide what our approach should be. I am suggesting that an important principle in our approach should be that those who do not pay tax should not have a hand in deciding the tax that the rest of us pay. That applies particularly to tax exiles, because by moving abroad to escape our taxes, they have forfeited the right to interfere in UK elections and, in my view, to bankroll UK parties.

Eleanor Laing (Conservative, Epping Forest)

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He is advancing a dangerous principle. There are many hundreds of thousands of people in this country who do not pay tax, for a variety of reasons. Almost every single one of them has, and should have, the right to vote. Was not that the reason for all the fuss about what I call the community charge, and the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends call the poll tax?

Martin Linton (Labour, Battersea)

I thank the hon. Lady for that point, but does she really believe that there are many people in this country who do not pay tax? Will she not reflect on that? Does she not realise that the poorest people in the country pay the highest level of tax proportionate to their income because they pay value added tax on most of what they buy? She forgets the levels of tax paid by poor people in the UK. However, the point would be just as well made if I had said "eligible to pay tax." That is the test—not the amount of tax that has been paid, but the liability to pay tax. The House is not yet in a position to take a final decision on that, because it raises many difficult issues about the relationship between citizenship, liability to tax and residence, which require reflection. I am happy to have that debate in the context of the political parties, elections and referendums Bill when it comes in the new year. I am happy to concede that if the Government believe that it would be the best way to proceed. I hope that the Government, in turn, will be helpful and flexible on some of the points that I have raised—fairly small proposals from the Committee, which have not yet found their way into the Representation of the People Bill but could be inserted before the Bill receives Royal Assent.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I was impressed by the detailed knowledge of the electoral system displayed by the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. Linton), which taught me a little. I was less impressed by the hon. Gentleman's prescience. I note that four years before the 1992 election—on the result of which I won some money—the hon. Gentleman wrote a pamphlet entitled "Labour can still win." Of course, Labour did win in 1997, but I should not like to wait nine years before the hon. Gentleman got everything right. I take issue with the hon. Gentleman on the same point as did my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing). He said that people who do not pay taxes should not have the right to vote, but that even the poorest people pay VAT. If I have a property in the UK, I pay property taxes, although I may not be resident. Many people who may have been abroad for 20 years still pay income tax on their pensions, and tax on the property and investments that they have in the UK. The hon. Gentleman's argument does not hang together. He may be able to develop it in other ways, but not now. I do not intend to reiterate all the excellent points made by my hon. Friends the Members for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) and for Epping Forest, so I shall not detain the House as long as I might otherwise have done. The Home Secretary said that he hoped that the so-called reforms would command the trust of the electorate. Having studied the Bill closely, I am more worried that it may debase the entire process of voting. The Bill makes me uneasy. It contains some good points on which the House can agree—points about access for the disabled, and proposals for making postal voting and other methods easier. I am all for that. My first taste of the electoral system after being a candidate was in 1990 in Hammersmith and Fulham. I tell the story because it brings out the potential for fraud that exists throughout the system. In 1990, some of the counters in Hammersmith and Fulham were wearing T-shirts bearing the words "Stuff the poll tax," which suggests that they gave their political allegiance to one particular department. That was more noticeable when I saw two bundles of votes being counted. I noticed the two bundles of votes going under two red stickers indicating Labour party votes. Underneath, too, were 48 Conservative votes. I do not suggest that the only people who might defraud the system are Labour party supporters, but that is what happened, and it was critical in two council seats which would otherwise have gone the other way. We should be wary of the possibility of fraud in our present system. What is the purpose of the Bill? As I understand it, it is designed to increase participation. The problem is that people are not especially interested, as my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest said. How do we interest them? It is a failure of current politics that people are not interested. We should analyse that. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides tell their constituents, as I do, that it is important to vote. We have all met people on the doorstep who say, "I'm not voting in the election. Don't believe in it." I tell them, as I hope others do, that people around the world are still dying for the vote, many have died in this country in the past, and they should vote. Needless to say, I hope that they vote Conservative. I believe that everybody should exercise his right to vote if he can, and I say that in schools as well. I trust that we would all agree. I find that in the Bill we have abandoned the KISS principle—keep it simple, stupid. Some of the provisions make the process more complicated. Thirty-two years ago, I did British Constitution A/O-level, and I remember that lunatics, criminals and peers were not entitled to vote. That has now changed. In reverse order, I shall deal first with peers. After the by-election in Kensington and Chelsea, Viscount Montgomery of Alamein said: During the passage of the Lords Reform Bill, assurances were given that departing peers would be re-enfranchised immediately. To add insult to injury, this has not happened. Once again we see an overpowering Government which talks about democracy but does not practise it. He was on the electoral register, but was turned away from the polling booth because it had not filtered down that he was, indeed, allowed to vote as he had been disfranchised in the House of Peers. On criminals, I agree entirely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe). It is a bizarre suggestion that people currently residing at Her Majesty's pleasure in a remand centre should be allowed to vote. If someone is locked up because it is considered that he should not be on the streets, he should not be allowed to vote. We no longer speak about lunatics, but people with impaired mental health should surely not determine who governs the country. An article in The Times on Monday 22 November stated: The extraordinary proposal to grant the vote to people who are, in common parlance, mad, undermines the foundations of representative democracy. That system, for all its imperfections, is based upon the idea that adults are rational individuals capable of making conscious choices. By suggesting that mental patients are as well qualified as those of sound mind to participate in the political process, Mr. Straw's proposal degrades the entire electorate and democracy itself. That is about right. The homeless have been disfranchised, often through no fault of their own. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale made the serious point that great care must be taken when enfranchising the homeless—to which I do not object—to avoid increasing the possibility of fraud. Those who have more knowledge of such matters than me, including members of the all-party group on homelessness, of which I am a member, say that many people who are on the streets have been discharged from mental hospitals. Again, we must be careful whom we enfranchise. I am sure that the Minister has taken that into account. I want to reiterate a point that several of my hon. Friends made. Before we make changes that can facilitate fraud, we should establish a system that can check on multiple voting. If students vote twice, we should know that; if Members of Parliament vote twice, we should also know that. Such a system should be practised before we make it easier to commit fraud. I want to draw attention to another possibility of abuse that relates to fraud and postal voting. I am sure that many hon. Members have visited residential homes for the elderly during election campaigns. I do not intend to do that again under the same circumstances as my previous visit. I was encouraged to go to such a home, where there were some fine people. However, I am not sure whether they knew who I was.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

That is because the hon. Gentleman is never in Blaby.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Gentleman claims that I am never in Blaby. I must tell my neighbour that I spend a great deal of time there. I know that candidates from other parties visit residential homes and I am sure that they have had the same experience as me. Postal or proxy votes can be abused, and the system should be more stringent. Someone who cannot make a decision should not continue to be enfranchised. Postal votes are not a panacea. The Minister should consider that. Unlike most Members of Parliament, I have voted as a service man. While I welcome changes that make voting easier for the services, the system is currently fairly easy. It was a problem to persuade service men to make a service declaration and register to vote. Service men are usually young men—and women nowadays—who are between 18 and 23 and they have other matters on their minds. Traditionally, few in that age group vote. However, it is easy to do so. In 1979 and 1983, I helped to return a Conservative Government by voting in person; in 1987, I was able to vote by proxy because I was abroad. It was easy. The hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Pound) made good points about clause 9 and the electoral register. I want to approach the matter from the point of view of security. Some individuals, including Members of Parliament and former Ministers in both Houses, have a serious problem with security against terrorism. Many of my hon. Friends have said that they do not wish to be found through the electoral roll—I am sure that that also applies to other hon. Members. For that reason, I have registered in Westminster only recently, although I have lived there for eight years. It should be possible to register anonymously. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale said that he was willing to discuss providing for special cases with the Government. The Select Committee on Home Affairs envisages making very special cases. The anxiety about Irish terrorism continues; I hope it will disappear soon. A bomb was placed under Airey Neave's car outside his flat in Westminster; Ian Gow was blown up outside his constituency home. Both were traced through the electoral roll or publications such as "Who's Who". A famous case occurred in Bristol in 1985, when a university lecturer went through an electoral roll and identified various members of the services, and others, whom an IRA active service unit wanted to target. I hope that the Minister will address that important issue. Linked with my previous point is the need to register one's address on a ballot paper. I know from his contribution that the hon. Member for Southwark, North and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) will disagree with me. I have lived in or on the borders of my constituency since I was selected as a candidate. I confess that I live 100 yd outside my constituency, but I can throw a stone across the border—[Interruption.] My neighbours would take a dim view of my throwing stones, but there are no neighbours between me and the river Avon, which marks the border. Many Labour Members would be embarrassed because they do not live in their constituencies. I am not sure whether the Home Secretary spends much time in Blackburn, but he is not here to defend himself, so I shall not ask. The Minister for the Environment has three houses, and I do not know which one he counts as home. However, I make a serious point about security. There may be a security problem on account of terrorism, lunatics or stalkers. We should examine carefully the proposal in clause 10 for pilot schemes under which voting can take place on more than one day. It is worth considering the history of electoral reform. Various electoral reforms took place in 1918 after the great war. The Representation of the People Act 1918 increased the electorate from its pre-war figure of 8 million to 21 million, granted the vote to men over 21 and women over 30—a discrepancy that would be considered ill judged on both sides of the House nowadays. The Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 allowed women to become Members of Parliament. Countess Markiewicz was the first woman Member of Parliament. She was elected in Dublin for Sinn Fein, but never took her seat. The Redistribution Act 1918 increased the size of the House of Commons and adopted the principle, with which we all agree, of equal constituency sizes. The first general election that was held on only one day took place in 1918—elections had previously been held over several days. If we intend to change that, we should study history and ascertain whether it has served us better to hold elections on only one day. There is no advantage to voting on more than one day. Lack of interest is a genuine problem. As politicians, we are all interested in politics. However, it does not grab the attention of others in the same way. I am sorry about that, and we should consider how we can interest others. We care, others do not. That has nothing to do with the difficulties of voting; it is not difficult to vote in this country. I accept that some people are disfranchised. However, although hereditary peers were disfranchised for one day last week, I admit that I do not believe that that was the end of the world. It is generally easy to vote and easy to register. Abstention is a respectable political act. The Bill's attempts to persuade people to vote in supermarkets or mobile voting stations are patronising and nannying. Everyone knows that they can vote if they want to do that. If the Government made politics and Parliament more important, people would vote in local elections. The previous Government reduced the importance of local authorities over several years; that was not necessarily a good thing.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

The hon. Gentleman voted for it.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I believe that it was before my time. However, the Government reduce the importance of Parliament by making announcements outside Parliament; by appointing the first Attorney-General from outside the House of Commons for many years; by appointing unelected cronies such as people who shared a flat with the Prime Minister; and by appointing a Lord Chancellor who was the Prime Minister's pupil master. That cannot be right or good for democratic politics. There are also unelected regional development agencies—in my case, the East Midlands development agency.

Andrew Love (Labour/Co-operative, Edmonton)

The hon. Gentleman says that certain things are not good for democracy. Does he accept that a third of the electorate not participating in the previous general election was not good for democracy and that anything we can do—including the implementation of the measures in the Bill—is bound to improve that situation?

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Gentleman is not quite right: 71.5 per cent. of the electorate voted in the previous general election.

Andrew Love (Labour/Co-operative, Edmonton)

The figure that the hon. Gentleman produces relates to those who are registered to vote. It is estimated that about 91 or 92 per cent. of the population are registered, so a third did not turn out.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Nevertheless, that does not change the point. People may make a genuine decision to abstain or, for all sorts of reasons—the hon. Gentleman will know what they are—determine that they do not want to be registered; some may relate to criminal activities. It is easy to register and vote in this country; it just requires a bit of effort. Whatever Labour Members may think, the British public are not that stupid—they are quite capable of registering and voting—and Members of Parliament are living examples of how easy it is to vote, because we manage to do so weekly. To return to the east midlands and regional development agencies, the East Midlands development agency is unelected—as is the regional assembly—and such organisations do not bolster Parliament. Conservative Members believe, and many Labour Members know in their hearts, that the Government are undermining and ignoring Parliament and taking power from the representatives of the people, which is why people may think it not worth voting. I would like politics to be made more relevant to people, both locally and nationally, and the importance of Parliament and county and other councils should be stressed. To answer the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Love), that is the way to rebuild confidence and to increase participation. Allowing people to vote at supermarket checkouts is not the way to increase participation and make Parliament and other elected Assemblies more relevant.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

I am rather saddened by the contribution of the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan), because we have heard plenty of examples of why people, through no fault of their own, do not vote. Although our system—compared with many others world wide—offers people many opportunities to vote, major obstacles still prevent them from taking up their democratic right. I agree with him that merely modernising the way we vote will not increase the turnout at elections. The way in which we all carry out and talk about our politics and communicate to our electors what we are doing as constituency Members of Parliament, as well as the way in which they represent their views and attempt to influence us, are all part and parcel of giving politics in this country a good name. We must encourage people to think that voting in elections is worth while. I was disappointed in the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), who is unfortunately no longer in his seat, because he talked about delaying the progress of many of the radical ideas and modernising ways forward presented to us in the Bill. That is no surprise, because Conservative forces have not been at the forefront of extending suffrage or the reform of our electoral system; they have been dragged to it by the prospect of turmoil in the country caused by the majority being disallowed to take part in a system that they were entitled to use. Conservative forces also have no credit to their name in respect of women being given the vote. On a more positive note, I welcome the cross-party collaboration on the working party, which was chaired by the Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth). I made a submission to it and have also written to Home Office Ministers on issues surrounding election campaigning and representation. Despite the Bill being somewhat technical, it holds a seed of a revolution in British political participation. As we prepare to enter the new century, it is apt that we are reviewing a system that has remained fundamentally unchanged for years and years. That review, along with consideration of the way in which we present politics and the plans for citizenship lessons in our schools, will go some way to increasing participation in elections. At present, the register disfranchises people through no fault of their own. I have to admit that this year is my 20th in the Labour party and I have been a campaigner all those years. [Interruption.] It is true.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

My hon. Friend must have joined the party when she was in playschool.

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

If my hon. Friends want to make interventions they should stand up and do so; I should be happy to take them. Hon. Members, whatever political party they represent, will all have met constituents who had moved into their area but could not vote because they had missed the magic point at which the register was drawn up. Furthermore, how difficult do we make voting for people who were registered within a borough, constituency, ward or European boundary, but moved house in the period between registration and polling day? They have to go back to a polling station in the area in which they were living when they went on the register. Such things happen not because people do not want to vote—I hope that the hon. Member for Blaby is taking note of this—but because they are prevented from voting or obstacles are put in their way. According to Home Office studies, there are huge inaccuracies in our electoral registers, with up to 7 per cent. of names wrongly allocated to particular addresses, duplication of electors and registers being out of date before they are even in force. The provision of a rolling register is a very welcome innovation and I look forward to the day when a family can move into my constituency and register to vote as easily as it can sign up to pay council tax or set up direct debits to pay electricity, gas and water bills. On pensioners, the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) gave a most poignant illustration—I send my condolences to her on the loss of her mother—and there could be no more vivid illustration of the situation. Many pensioners rightly say that they do not want a postal vote because they want to vote at the polling station. I understand that, but regardless of pensioners' desire to vote in person, we are locked into a system that does not take account of circumstances—caused by infirmity, increasing age or sudden illness—that can prevent them from taking up that choice. We should give every pensioner two options on postal votes: they should all be sent a postal voting form that they could either send in or relinquish at the polling station. That would ensure that those who cannot rely on having good health from one year to the next could vote. It would be quite simple to put such a provision in place: those over a certain age could tick a box on the registration form and it would automatically come into force. There is no reason why that should not happen. I have met many pensioners who want to vote at the polling station, and if they were given those two options they would not feel that they had to make a concession to advancing age by having to apply for a postal vote. Considering any measure that would make the postal vote application system simpler—not only for pensioners, but for the many people who do shift work or take holidays at election time—would be very worth while indeed. I am particularly attracted to the opportunity provided by the Bill for establishing different pilot schemes for helping to increase participation in voting. It is right to establish such schemes because there is as yet no evidence to suggest that holding elections on Saturdays or Sundays or using different ways of voting will make a difference. That is why I am pleased that each of the pilot schemes will have to report back to the Secretary of State. Not only that, they will have to publish in their locality, so that the public have access to it, clear data and information on turnout, problems that came up and how any innovation was received by the general public. My submission to the working party proposed an extension of the polling period from one day to a week. I shall explain that in more detail. In each ward, the returning officer could designate a popular site that is accessible to the whole community in the week running up to polling day. It may be a supermarket, a post office or a library. On polling day itself, people would be able to vote in the normal polling stations in every district. That would enable people to vote in the traditional way on polling day at polling stations in their residential area, but would also give them the chance to vote during the rest of the week at their supermarket, library or wherever is easily accessible. It is extraordinary that it is easier for people to buy a weekly lottery ticket than to vote in an election. Technology offers a host of ideas that are worth considering. For example, people could vote electronically at the polling station, and when the polls close it would be easy to take the information from the electronic booths and get a result within a short time, instead of having countless council officers counting papers at the town hall. During my own count at the general election, we used a computer to ascertain the result to within a couple of votes at least four hours before the tellers did so, at 4.30 in the morning. It may be more cost effective to use such technology than it is to use tired people who have served at polling stations all day and go on to work at the count throughout the night.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady in mid-flow, but I am concerned that she may move on to something else. She has made many interesting points, which will need to be investigated. The pilot schemes will be very important. She said that one of the merits of those schemes is that a report will have to be given to the Home Secretary, and I fully endorse that. As it is ultimately for the House to safeguard democratic rights in this country, does she think it a good thing for the Home Secretary to decide that a particular pilot scheme appeals to him and for it to be implemented by resolution of the House, without its being the subject of a Bill?

Caroline Flint (Labour, Don Valley)

The Committee will have to give that point further consideration. I am sure that there will be extensive discussion as the pilot schemes publish their reports. There will be plenty of opportunity inside and outside Parliament to discuss the relative merits of the schemes. We must make progress on these issues, and I hope that the Home Secretary will ensure that any directions he gives will be based on a proper evaluation of what has been shown to work in the pilot schemes. Low turnouts in elections are not just the fault of the system: political parties carry a large measure of responsibility. We must all take responsibility for the decline in interest in politics over the past 20 years. The political system must be open, transparent and confer genuine power on the public. To that end, I support discussion and technological innovation. My only proviso would be that we should ensure that the means of using new technology provides equality, so that the technology is available to a majority of people. We could make a case for the telephone, but only a small, though significant, number of people feel confident about using the internet and computers, even for games, and most homes do not have access to a computer. We should ensure that there is equality of access to the technology before we decide on a particular route. I should like the Minister to consider a case in my constituency. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) gave a similar example. The count for the Rossington parish council in my constituency was held on the Friday after the local elections. I have no doubt that the candidates who attended were, like the local authority staff and the returning officer, a bit jaded after the previous late night. Unfortunately, a mistake was made in the result. There were 22 candidates seeking one of the 12 places available, and by a simple error a candidate was awarded the 12th place, which a Labour candidate, Barry Johnson, should have won by 11 votes. When the error came to light after the result was confirmed, the returning officer conceded the error. The other candidate could raise no argument, because it was a pure error and the count had been conducted properly. There was no question of the count being improper. Mr. Johnson, however, had to go through the whole palaver of drawing up a petition to the High Court, retaining solicitors, sending notices to all other candidates and coming to London for a costly High Court petition that was uncontested. He won the petition, and he is now duly serving on the Rossington parish council. We should examine how we can modify the law to allow returning officers to issue a correction to results within a fixed period in the event of an error. I hope that my hon. Friend will consider my request carefully and see whether it is possible to accommodate it in the Bill.

Dominic Grieve (Conservative, Beaconsfield)

I want to avoid repeating some of the comments that have already been made. Broadly speaking, there is much to welcome in the Government's proposals. There is much we can do to improve the way in which voting is carried out in this country. I am all in favour of experiments and pilot schemes, and I welcome those aspects of the Bill. My reluctance to give the Bill approval on Second Reading stems from one issue alone, although I have other reservations. We are passing what is, in effect, a Henry VIII clause entitling the Home Secretary, after having considered the results of the pilot schemes, to implement or make such changes as he sees fit subject to approval by the House on a short resolution. I have had occasion in the past to express my deepest reservations about the use of Henry VIII clauses in such circumstances. Whether it is the Human Rights Act 1998, which the Minister knows I broadly supported, or legislation such as this, it is uniquely a matter for Parliament to determine what method it thinks is best. If that takes a little of Parliament's time, it does not matter. Doubtless the pilot schemes, if they are successful, will present a wide variety of possibilities and choices. Listening to the hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), I was immediately struck by the fact that she was coming up with ideas that may not be floated through the pilot schemes. [Interruption.] I detect that the hon. Lady wants me to give way, and I am happy to do so.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.