Elections Bill — House of Lords, 2022-02-23
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Morris (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, it was a real pleasure to listen to the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. I have never met him, other than through the written word, though I have to say I must have read thousands upon thousands of those words; I felt a chemistry and was absolutely delighted when he was able to join us I support this Bill. I am particularly pleased that my noble friend on the Front Bench is taking it through the House, because those of us who have served on other Bills he has been in charge of know that he has patience beyond belief and a thoroughness which we all ought to recognise. The noble Baroness just said, on voting patterns, that, basically, not having won under first past the post meant that she represented a bigger proportion of the population. When I was elected with a majority of 179 in Northampton South, I believed I represented all of the people of Northampton South, not just a marginal majority, or even a majority. Perhaps she was too influenced by the green movement, and anybody else was not to be represented by her I look around the Chamber and I think that we who were elected are in a minority, which says something, just by way of an observation. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench, though, that I think the size of the Bill might have been helped had there been pre-legislative scrutiny, even possibly some kind of Speaker’s conference. Nevertheless, we have a large Bill and a lot of work ahead of us. I just want to highlight a couple of issues that I think are relevant. The report published by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, on regulating election finance, was an important one. I know Her Majesty’s Government have responded to a number of the points made, but I suspect that more will come up in Committee and I think it deserves some real in-depth response There have been one or two comments about young people not registering. I happen to have two granddaughters, aged 17 and 16—thank goodness, otherwise I would not be the least bit competent in terms of modern technology. I mix with their friends, and they are all on the ball. Okay, they are middle-class; nevertheless, I believe that with modern technology, the online and the Twitters and all the rest of it, young people today, at every level of society, will take an interest—much more than we perhaps did as young people ourselves I also draw attention to the evidence given to my noble friend from the RNIB, about the difficulty in voting for some people, particularly the blind. Again, there have been major developments in terms of communication for the blind and the deaf, and I hope we can look at those sympathetically and not leave it totally to the discretion of the returning officer On photo ID, I do not have the problems that others seem to have. My noble friend Lord Leicester covered this in great depth this evening. I did have the experience of fighting a by-election in Islington North. I cannot remember whether it was the Times or the Daily Telegraph that observed how it appeared that in one particular community a large number of people—estimated at a dozen—were represented by one particular person who delivered the vote with the voting cards. At any rate, that issue has been dealt with, so we do not have this problem today I will raise one other issue that has not been raised by anybody else. As I have just mentioned, I was elected in February 1974 with a majority of 179 votes. I actually lost by nearly 200 on the first vote. I had a tip-off from the deputy returning officer saying, "Break the bundles". In those days, we voted with elastic bands around 25 votes—four 25s are 100—and a sticker on the top, "Lab", "Lib" or "Con". So I duly told my agent, "We need to break the bundles". Lo and behold, I actually won by about four or five votes the next time. Understandably, my opponent, the Labour candidate, said he wanted a recount—and I ended up with 179. I do think that we need to look at the security or accuracy of voting, so that we do not have to have all these recounts. It must be possible to achieve that in today’s world Finally, I return to the fact that, on 19 February 2019, I had a very important Bill—the Extension of Franchise (House of Lords) Bill—which I was pleased to present to this House. It had a Second Reading but ran out of time. That was an important Bill because we are the only upper House, of nearly 200 in the world, where none of us may vote in a general election. The reason given, since 1699, is that we control finance here—but we do not. We do not vote on financial matters; those days have gone. It is high time to address this. With the help of my friend opposite, the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs—both of whom have had similar Bills— I hope we can produce a suitable amendment to this particular Bill.