Elections Bill

Committee (6th Day)

Amendment 152

152: After Clause 13, insert the following new Clause— “Voting by EU nationals In section 1(1) (entitlement to vote in parliamentary elections) of the Representation of the People Act 1983, for paragraph (c) substitute—“(c) is a Commonwealth citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Ireland or a relevant citizen of the Union; and”.”Member’s explanatory statement This new Clause would allow EU citizens to vote in UK parliamentary elections.

My Lords, I regret that the noble Lord, Lord True, is unable to be with us. I gather he is down with Covid, and I send him sympathies. I hope I have not caught it from him—we shall press on. This creates some further difficulties in completing the Bill, on which I hope I may briefly remark. We need to have some discussions between Committee and Report. I hope there will be some—time is short and they need to be fixed up very quickly. As many of us have remarked, the state of the Bill is unsatisfactory. We know that the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee said that the Bill was unfit for purpose as presented to the Lords. We have explored many areas already in Committee, such as overseas voting, which we debated late at night in our previous sitting, when it was quite clear that the Government did not have answers to a number of our questions. How that will be implemented if the Bill is passed is, to put it mildly, extremely unclear and probably very messy.

We all regret the missed opportunity of this Bill. It is clear that there will have to be another elections Bill within the next two to three years to achieve what the Law Commission proposed, which is a simplification and rationalisation of our electoral law. This Bill is not that.

This group of amendments deals with the tangle of voting rights left by imperial history and various other things, which the Government appear not to be concerned to rationalise. We have rights for Commonwealth citizens. We have had rights for EU citizens. We have no rights for long-term residents from the United States, which is extraordinary given the Conservative Party’s long feeling that we were closer to the United States than any other country.

My Amendment 152 is a probing one to spark a discussion on how we might think about rationalising the system. EU citizens resident in this country for a very long time—there are 100,000 French citizens in the London area alone, for example—have had the right to vote in British elections. Some would say that they should no longer have the right to vote in British parliamentary elections, but the case for the right to vote in British local elections for those who are resident here, pay council tax and contribute to other British taxes seems to me strong. As far as I am aware, the Government have no particular clear ideas on any of this.

My Lords, I speak on this amendment because, when I arrived here in 1965, I had an Indian passport and I was surprised when, during the 1966 election, someone said to me, “Have you voted yet?” I said that I did not know I had voting rights in this country. He said, “Get on with it and get yourself registered.” This explained to me that, in the UK, we were subjects, not citizens. It was as subjects of the monarch that we qualified. Since the monarch also ruled over the Empire, all subjects of the Empire were equally qualified to vote in the election.

As far as I remember, the notion of citizenship only came with our membership of the European Union. We began to talk of ourselves as citizens, and we had differently coloured passports and things like that. However, the muddle that the noble Lord referred to in moving his amendment is that we are not clear as to what entitles us to vote. Is it our status as subjects of an empire? Is it our status as local taxpayers, as used to be the case before the universal franchise came in? Is it residency? If there is ever another, better version of this Bill, perhaps the first part of it should clarify the status of an individual under which he or she is qualified to be a voter. Until the muddle is clarified, we will have to proceed with a compromised mish-mash of rights.

My Lords, I also pass on my best wishes to the noble Lord, Lord True, for a speedy recovery. Having had it myself fairly recently, I can say that it is a horrible illness.

I want to move on to the question of Northern Ireland and speak in favour of Amendment 156 in my name, which the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, has signed. It would ensure that EU citizens lawfully resident in Northern Ireland can continue to stand for election and vote in Northern Ireland district elections after the end of the Brexit transition period. It is primarily a probing amendment, however.

In the EU-UK withdrawal agreement, the UK Government committed, under Article 2.1 of the Northern Ireland protocol, to ensuring that certain equalities and human rights in Northern Ireland would continue to be protected after Brexit. Does the Minister—I appreciate that he is filling in at rather late notice—agree with the assessment of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland that the Bill as it stands risks stepping back from those commitments and may in fact be in breach of the UK’s obligations under Article 2.1 of the protocol? Will he undertake to set out, either in response to this amendment or in writing following this debate, the Government’s assessment of the relevant provisions of the Elections Bill in the context of their conformity with our commitments under Article 2.1 of the Northern Ireland protocol?

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, in support of Amendment 156. I also pass on my good wishes to the noble Lord, Lord True, for a speedy recovery. I agree with the thrust of the amendments in this group; as a democrat, I believe in a fully functioning democracy in which all residents are allowed to register to vote, exercise their mandate at elections and be candidates in elections. That is what a functioning democracy is about. Universal franchise is vital in a liberal democracy and should be one of the hallmarks of the UK—free, fair and unencumbered elections.

Amendment 156, in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, deals with that specific Northern Ireland situation. It is a probing amendment. We seek to delete paragraphs 7 to 9 from Schedule 8, which would ensure that all EU citizens lawfully resident in Northern Ireland continue to be able to stand as candidates and vote in district council elections in Northern Ireland.

I was a councillor in Northern Ireland for many years, as was the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, across the Chamber. We valued our time in local government as a learning curve. Many of those who participated in those elections and many new residents in Northern Ireland would also value that participatory part of democracy, in voting in district council elections and having the ability to be a candidate. I can think of a colleague in Derry and Strabane District Council, who is originally from Kenya, and is now a serving councillor.

This section does not apply to British and Irish citizens; it applies to EU citizens who have arrived to reside in Northern Ireland since January 2021 and whose country does not have a reciprocal agreement with the UK. I remind your Lordships, and particularly the Minister, that this is in some ways reminiscent of the “I” voter situation in Northern Ireland, which was removed by the Elected Authorities (Northern Ireland) Act 1989, when everybody in Northern Ireland was granted universal franchise. I remind the Minister that elections and the right to exercise one’s franchise are very emotive issues in Northern Ireland. Please do not go down this road and create further problems with other EU nationalities and create barriers on the island of Ireland. It is highly important that that does not happen, because this is an emotive and politically charged issue, as it deals with EU citizens and excludes them; it could be perceived as a discriminatory provision.

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 155A in my name, which would give the right to vote in local elections to all those liable to pay council tax to that authority. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, who spoke last week on an amendment concerning the right to vote in parliamentary elections for 16 year-olds who pay income tax. As he pointed out, there is an important principle: there is a connection between a requirement to pay tax and the right to vote. Mine is a probing amendment. Taken as a whole, this group raises the question of whether the key factor for the right to vote should be nationality, residence or liability for taxation—issues which the Bill does little to address.

The Minister will not need to be reminded of the events that took place 3,269 miles to the west of here on 16 December 1773, when a large number of tea chests were thrown into Boston Harbor in protest against the imposition of taxation without representation. Because my aim with Amendment 155A is to secure the right to vote in local elections for all those with an obligation to pay council tax, that would mean taxation with representation. The amendment takes as its starting point the position of those who are required to pay council tax but who cannot vote in the local elections that will decide how the money they pay is spent. There is a principle at stake here: it becomes almost an issue of consumer rights.

In some cases, notably that of EU citizens, a resident here before 31 December 2020 will keep their local vote. However, the right of EU citizens to vote in local elections following our withdrawal from the EU is being denied to those arriving after 31 December 2020, except where reciprocal arrangements or agreements are in place. The implication of this is that citizens of Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta will be able to vote in local elections, but citizens of other EU countries or non-EU countries will not. Except that, if citizens of those other EU countries lived in Wales or Scotland, they would be able to vote in local elections, and indeed for elections to the Welsh and Scottish Parliaments.

I shall contribute briefly, following the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, in support of Amendment 155A. I too fully support the principle of “no taxation without representation”. If the Minister is unable to support this amendment, I wonder whether he could explain to the House why the Government do not accept this incredibly reasonable principle. How can they not agree to that? I do not get it.

The complexity and confusion referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will inevitably be caused by introducing different voting rights for EU citizens who arrived in the UK before 2021 and those who arrived in or after 2021, and for those have arrived from one EU country rather than from another. It seems that Scotland and Wales are extremely sensible, as they have managed to adopt residence-based voting rights. The case for a UK-wide approach on this issue is incredibly strong and the Government will need a powerful argument to deny it. I hope they are able to make a sensible decision and accept the amendment.

My Lords, I add my name to those who have expressed their regret that the noble Lord, Lord True, is not in his place to respond to today’s debate. All I can say is that I wish him a good recovery. If he is watching us online, I do not know whether that will aid his recovery or delay it.

The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, and other Members, including my noble friend Lord Desai, have all identified that this is an important part of the Bill but it is a mess. It is really difficult to encapsulate what we are trying to talk about, but I wanted to intervene to make one point. One of the general principles that we should apply is that if you have the right to vote, however that is defined, then you should also have the right to be a candidate. You may say that that is a rather simple and obvious thing to say, but I shall give the Committee an example: between 1969 and 2006 we had a period where there were people with the right to vote but not to be a candidate. It is remarkable, really, that it was only in 2006 that the law was changed to allow people from the age of 18 to 21 to be a candidate as well as being an elector. I have good personal reasons for being very well aware of that fact. I wanted to introduce the principle that there is a good case for having a system whereby, if you have the right to vote, you can also be a candidate in the election in question.

My Lords, I also wish to speak in this part of the debate in Committee on these amendments.

I have to be totally honest with the Committee: when I was asked to be part of the team on this Bill, I was not an expert on elections other than that I had been a candidate and I had been the leader of a council and seen election officers’ work close up. As we have progressed through the Bill, some issues have become clearer but some have confused me even more as we have debated them. This is a part of the Bill that really confuses me. What is the basis of the electoral franchise in the UK? What is the platform that is easily understood by a citizen? This is an example of why electoral law needs to be simplified.

I want to deconstruct what that means in the terms of my noble friend Lord Shipley’s Amendment 155A. Let us take it down to ordinary citizens. In a local authority area, you could have someone who owns a holiday home, and so has an address there, but they never live there. They rent that accommodation out for 52 weeks a year, yet they have a right to vote there. They do not use the services and do not contribute other than in council tax. Another person lives there for 365 days a year, works in the local area and pays taxes, volunteers at the local food bank, is an upstanding member of the community and gets involved in litter picks, is an active citizen in the community, uses the bin service, wants to get involved in planning and is affected by planning policy, has friends who use social care, wishes to use the library—and library services are starting to charge—and uses all the local services but, because of either where they came from or when they came to the UK, they do not have a vote. Yet someone in that area who has no connection other than that they can purchase a holiday home can vote.

I very much agree with the thrust of the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven. In the light of that, would he apply a similar argument to the extension of the franchise, contained in a different part of this Bill, to some 2 million overseas electors who have not been in the country for 40, 50 or 60 years and do not pay taxes here? Does he agree that that is an oddity in our electoral system as well?

The noble Lord is just slightly ahead of me, because I was going to come on to that. I will answer his question, but I was just pointing out very clearly the inconsistencies in what happens at local level. I will then answer his question on the other issue with what I was going to say, because if the Bill passes in this form, we will have to consider that. Will the Minister explain in very simple terms, to somebody who is not an expert in elections but just an ordinary citizen, how that can be justified? There must be a sense of fairness as the basis for people voting at local elections.

On national issues, if the Bill passes, we could also be in the situation referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Take somebody who has not been in this country for 50 or 60 years: they have no family here; they do not pay taxes here; they left when they were 18 and have never worked here. They will be able to vote. At the same time, there are some people who have been here for 20 or 30 years, who pay their taxes and work here, but because of their status, they cannot vote. Can the Minister explain how that would be perceived as fair and a good platform for our electoral process? It seems to me that this is an important matter. This is the whole basis on which people not just pay tax and are citizens but actually influence services and taxes that affect their very life by being resident here. But as the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, said, if the Bill passes, people who have not lived here for 50 years will have the right to vote and influence government policy, even though it does not directly affect them.

My Lords, I wish to send my good wishes to my noble friend Lord True. I hope that if he has got Covid at all, he has it very mildly—he might think that preferable to another day on this Elections Bill Committee. I certainly wish him well, as I am sure we all do.

I made common cause with the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, on various occasions in the past, and I shall do so again when we get to Amendment 197 in group 6 on donations. However, I am afraid that I part company with him on this occasion, and I take a rather different—some might say old-fashioned—view.

I go back again to my Select Committee on Citizenship and Civic Engagement and some of the evidence that we got and lessons that we learned while going through that episode. As good citizens, we all have rights, but we have an equal and opposite number of responsibilities. Unless each of us understands the balance between those two things, our society might become fractured.

One of the things that most obsesses me about our modern society is the increasingly widely held view that to compromise is to show yourself as weak. Modern social media shows us with reinforcing messages that we are right—and we all want to be proved right—and has fed that view in a very bad way. But compromise is the oil that makes our society work, and without it, as I said, it will become fractured and tense. I am spending a few seconds on this because it shows what a highly complex matter it is to be involved in the detail of a country—the balance that needs to be struck and for which, for younger people, good citizenship education is really key and important.

Although I will support the Government if they are going to reject the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I have to say that, after all the work that we have done and all the good words we have heard about citizenship education, today’s White Paper of 60 pages has only one mention of citizenship education in the whole thing. How will we get people to connect with what it means to be a citizen if we do not get that properly taught? I regard this as a very sad and sorry miss by the Government; I hope that something can be done about it as we develop the White Paper and the proposals in it.