Clause 2 - Pilot order
European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill
10:45 am
Ms Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I feel much more confident that this group of amendments will be accepted. I am amazed that the clause contains no reference to the needs of people with disabilities. We must bear in mind that the United Kingdom has 8.5 million disabled voters. That is a very large number of people, with many different needs; they cannot be dealt with under a single label. Next year is a special year in which we shall, I hope, address many of the difficult issues that face those with disabilities. If we are considering a special pilot in 2004, that is the time to put right some things that have been wrong for a long time.
I shall deal first with amendment No. 52. Current electoral law and regulations, including those covering pilots, fail to safeguard many disabled citizens' basic right to a secret ballot. There are advantages in some of the pilots, because access has been opened up, as I am sure the Minister will tell us, through the variety of methods. However, surveys of the 2001 general election give incredible results—for example, that 69 per cent. of polling stations were inaccessible to disabled voters.
I am sure that many hon. Members will have witnessed, as I have, someone in a fairly large wheelchair coming to a mobile polling station, where the polling officer had to come out and the voter had to cast their vote in the street. I have seen that happen many times in my constituency. It is appalling. Today the Minister has a great opportunity to mark the important point that has been reached, and begin to put right things that have been wrong for so long.
Access is relevant to the criteria for the design and approval of pilot schemes. Access standards must be in line with good practice guidance. We need monitoring and enforcement, and we need to ensure that the human rights of voters with disabilities are respected.
I think I am losing my voice, Mr. Cook, because of the bug that has been going round. I apologise if my voice is getting lower, but I feel that I have a problem with it.
Amendment No. 51 would require the order to be available in a form accessible to those with disabilities. Surveys have shown that in 2001, key statutory requirements, such as the requirements for tactile voting devices and large-print notices in every polling station, were ignored by a sizeable majority of returning officers. That is very sad. It is essential—a basic requirement—that everyone should have appropriate access to information. Related to that are features of the ballot paper, such as format. The forms with tactile details sometimes do not even line up with the ballot paper. Many such features have been wrong in the past. The amendments would put them right.
Finally, in clause 4(6), amendment No. 58 would add to the long list of matters that the Electoral Commission must consider:
''facilitated voting for those with disabilities, having consulted such organisations or individuals representing disabled people as the Commission considers appropriate.''
Who better to advise the Electoral Commission on such special issues than people who have disabilities, or who represent those people? That is vital.
In the electoral pilots of 2002 and 2003, the Royal National Institute of the Blind disseminated best-practice guidance to local authorities, and produced tailored voter information packs in preferred formats for visually impaired voters. Feedback from such a study is valuable. We need change to improve matters, which is why consultation is so important. No process has been set up for the rigorous scrutiny of accessibility arrangements at the application stage, or to check standards before pilots have gone live. We need professional bodies with a thorough knowledge of disabled people's access requirements to scrutinise the pilots.
I will leave it at that, as I am sure I will want to make further points later. Presumably the Government go ahead with the changes, many of which we disagree with. The amendments are some of the most important ones before us and give us an opportunity to put something positive in the Bill.