Representation of the People Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 18 November 1968.

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Photo of Mr Michael English Mr Michael English , Nottingham West 12:00, 18 November 1968

Exactly. Although the conclusions of the Conference are published, the very vote to which the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) referred was not, I think, published because the minutes were not published. It is, I believe, true that the minutes of Mr. Speaker's Conference held before the first war on the issue of the House of Lords have never been published, unless they were published very recently. One could say that the hon. Member for Ormskirk has committed a technical breach of privilege by revealing one of the unpublished proceedings of Mr. Speaker's Conference.

Presumably many people and bodies gave evidence to this conference. Two right hon. Gentlemen only moments ago offered differing views on the question of votes at 18. Presumably—as I think they were both members of Mr. Speaker's Conference—they heard all the evidence presented to that conference. We are not entitled to be made aware of that evidence and we therefore cannot be aware of the reasons for their holding different views on this subject.

We have been told that many people in the country have made suggestions about, for example, polling hours. Presumably the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sutton and Cheam who spoke about this at some length has contacted many of these people, bodies and political organisations to gain their views or asked the Conservative Central Office to do it for him. Since all these bodies went to so much trouble to give their views, based on experience and knowledge, why, while their opinions may differ, cannot then-evidence be published so that the country can consider the pros and cons of these details? I doubt if agreement would have been reached on many issues if the entire proceedings of the conference were to be published, but I see no reason why the evidence submitted to the conference should not be made available for us all to see, as well as possibly the nature of the voting.

My right hon. Friend seems to be bound by a similar piece of archaism. Presumably many bodies submitted evidence to his Electoral Advisory Committee, including local authorities, local government officers, political parties, and staff of the Home Office and Scottish Office, all of whom are represented upon it. Nowhere do we have a record of the evidence on which their suggestions were based. In some cases it seems that some of the suggestions do not inspire confidence. I said, "Thank heaven for Cabinet Government" when I first considered the matter. It does not, based on the absence of evidence from Mr. Speaker's Conference, inspire confidence in one when one learns that the conference reported, "We do not mind lowering the voting age to an age which nobody has yet suggested, but we do not like the age of 18."

It does not inspire confidence if it is suggested, for the first time in English history, that one cannot publish before a conclusion is reached some of the opinions which have been given about the result of an election—which frankly is what the recommendation to prohibit Gallup polls would mean. Upon hearing about this I again said, "Thank heaven for Cabinet Government", because with respect perhaps that form of Government is more responsible than a conference of the type about which I have spoken, remembering that in these two instances it, in my view, reached the wrong conclusions.

The real objection I have to the system—in this respect my right hon. Friend was somewhat complacent in his speech—is that nothing new has come out of it. For about two hours today we have discussed the details of the Bill, but all the principles on which the Measure is based are merely extensions of principles that started to be passed by this House in 1832 and were first suggested to the House in the eighteenth century. Slowly the franchise was extended. Slowly property qualifications have disappeared—I am surprised that no hon. Member has mentioned that property qualifications for voters are at last making their final appearance in this country—