Recall of MPs Bill — House of Lords, 2015-01-19
Topic: Government Operations
William John Lawrence Wallace (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): I thank the noble Baroness for her amendment. She is rightly teasing at various issues that are significant. I am aware that we need to make sure that we get the Bill and the regulations correct As I understand it, the last day on which an eligible elector can make an application to register to vote in order to be able to participate in a recall petition is on or before the day of the Speaker’s notice. This enables the petition officer to produce, in advance of the petition opening, a register of electors who are entitled to sign the petition. That register will include existing electors and eligible electors who applied to register on or before the day of the Speaker’s notice. It will also be used to ensure that only those entitled to sign the petition do so. It is not irrelevant that we have now introduced online registration so the reference here to, "on the day of the Speaker’s notification", is a live and important one because it would be possible for a number of people to register on that day. As the noble Baroness knows, the take-up of online registration has been particularly high among younger voters Applications to be added to the register will not be processed immediately. The last date on which a person may be added to, or removed from, the register is three working days before the petition opens, except as a result of a court order or the correction of a clerical error. I stress that court orders and clerical errors represent extremely small numbers of cases. Until that date, the publication of the number registered would not give an accurate indication of the number of signatures that would be needed for a recall petition to be successful In some cases, it is possible that there will be a small change in the number of electors who are eligible to sign the petition because, for example, of the correction of clerical errors, which may result in the addition or removal of a small number of names, as sometimes happens ahead of elections. At the end of the signing period, these changes will be included in the total number of electors who have been eligible to sign the petition, and this figure will be used to calculate whether the 10% threshold for the removal of the MP has been met I see some merit in the noble Baroness’s proposal. It would give constituents and campaigners an indication of the number of electors who would need to sign the petition in order for the 10% threshold to be reached. However, a more appropriate date on which to refer to the register is the "cut-off day", which is three working days before the petition opens. Even then, this figure would not reflect any additions to, or removals from, the register before the end of the petition signing period, although I acknowledge that it is unlikely the figure will change significantly. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that regulations to be made under Clause 18 will set out further provision about the conduct of a recall petition, including the use of the electoral register and how the public will be informed about the result of the petition. Along with arrangements for elections, we envisage that the formal declaration of the result would include details of the number of electors who successfully signed the petition, the number of spoilt signing sheets and, in answer to the point made earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, details of the number who signed by post In designing the regulations, we will need to give consideration as to whether it would be helpful to make it a requirement for the petition officer to make public the number of electors registered in the constituency at the beginning of the signing period and eligible to sign the petition, although, as I have said, I see merit in the arguments advanced. However, I do not believe that there is a special case to include this level of detail in the Bill. Therefore, while recognising that this is a significant matter to be included within the regulations, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw this amendment.