Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-04-06
Topic: Mixed Topics
Joyce Gwendolen Quin (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 9A and also Amendments 9B and 70, which are consequential amendments in this group. These amendments relate to my ongoing concerns about the new postal vote restrictions in Clause 3 and Schedule 3 I wrote to the Minister about this subject following our earlier, very brief discussion. In particular, I asked him what evidence there was to back up his remarks that an indefinite postal vote, in the way we have at present, "presents a significant security concern".—[Official Report, 21/3/22; col. 739] For reasons that are completely understandable, I did not receive a reply before the deadline for tabling amendments. It is a pity, in a way, because I might not have felt it necessary to table these amendments if I had been able to receive a reply, but I totally understand that the Minster was unavoidably absent over recent days, and I realise too that it would have been better to send my email to the department rather than using a parliamentary route. None the less, I am very glad that the Minister is back with us today. As I say, there was a brief discussion on 21 March about the new restrictions on postal voting. Unfortunately, I could not be present on that occasion, but I was very grateful to my noble friend Lord Collins of Highbury for referring to some of my concerns The background to this is that I come from a part of the country where postal voting rates are among the highest in the UK, and have been consistently so ever since the Labour Government’s experiments with all-postal ballots between 2001 and 2005. For example, in the 2010 election, eight out of the top 10 constituencies for postal voting were in Tyne and Wear. Newcastle Central was at the head of the list, with a rate of over 40%. I very well remember, in my old constituency of Gateshead East and Washington West, when the all-postal ballots took place, I was so struck by the number of people who had not voted by post before and really appreciated it because they felt it suited their lifestyle much more Voting in person, on a Thursday—a system that came into force when most people lived and worked very locally and there was far less commuting and travel—has become very difficult for a lot of people, and remains difficult. Many of us who have knocked on doors on election day to try to get people out to vote at the last minute have experienced this. Sometimes people have come home from work and are reluctant for all kinds of reasons. Whether it is the weather or something much more important perhaps, such as leaving a child at home, they are very reluctant to venture out again. We have seen this phenomenon grow over the years so that it has a negative effect on turnout. When the all-postal ballots took place in my area, in local elections we experienced a hike from 20% to 50%. In the area that I lived and knew, there were no instances of fraud whatsoever; there was no evidence of fraud At the time, the Conservative Party was very much opposed to these postal ballots, fearing that the Labour vote in particular would go up. However, when one looks at the evidence, particularly over a number of years, this is not really the case. Voting went up dramatically, but it did so proportionately As a result of these experiments, postal voting in my part of the world has remained very high. I mentioned that, in the 2010 general election, eight out of the 10 highest constituencies for postal voting were in the north-east. In 2017, that was still true—Newcastle North was, I think, head of the list with 44.3%. In the 2019 election, the rate fell slightly but, none the less, in the north-east it was still high with, I think, Houghton and Washington East having the highest rate In raising these concerns today, I am concerned in case this Conservative Government are in some way antagonistic to postal voting. I ask the Minister: is it the Government’s aim to facilitate postal voting or hamper it? It seems to me that it would be particularly crazy to make it more difficult for postal voting to take place at a time of a pandemic, when postal voting is particularly valued by people who, for various reasons, might be nervous about going to polling booths. The Pickles report, which has a lot of good things in it and has been quoted by a number of Members during the course of our debate, was, I think, in favour of some restrictions on postal voting, but let us remember that it was produced in 2016, pre-pandemic and before the experience of the last couple of years. Listening to the earlier debates today, and listening to so many people, quite rightly, worrying about a decline in voting, I think it seems crazy to bring in a measure that does not seem to be backed up by evidence and could reduce the number of people taking part in an election and, in particular, voting by post I know that, over the years, there has been much stress on the danger of fraud and, although there have been instances of fraud, which I completely deplore, they would not have been stopped by these provisions in the Bill. The fraud took place in different circumstances. Also, keeping on talking about fraud, in areas where there has not been any, does talk up a non-existent problem. I very much agreed with the comments made earlier by my noble friend Lady Lister on that subject. Certainly, the more it is said that there is a problem of fraud, the more in general that the electorate is likely to perceive that there is a problem of fraud. Yet, in constituencies where postal votes have had the highest rate of participation, there has not been fraud. As I say, in any case, these particular measures would not have prevented fraud that has happened elsewhere My honourable friend Fleur Anderson in the House of Commons made this and similar points in another rather short debate on the subject. I was disappointed that, in her reply, the Minister in the Commons said that Labour was simply focusing on costs and administrative burdens and that these were being overstated. This was not true. My honourable friend was mostly concerned with the lack of evidence in backing up these new restrictions. The measures were also criticised by Scottish members in the House of Commons—not surprisingly since Scotland and Wales allow indefinite postal voting under the current arrangements but will have to impose the new limits for UK parliamentary elections only. This leads to a confusing and unjustified situation.