Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Part of Bill Presented — Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill – in the House of Commons at 3:29 pm on 23 May 2012.

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Photo of Stewart Jackson Stewart Jackson Conservative, Peterborough 3:29, 23 May 2012

We are making specific proposals. I think that the hon. Lady is tarrying with the wrong person. I saw the huge resources that were devoted to investigation of postal vote fraud by the Cambridgeshire constabulary—who, as far as I know, received little if any help from the Government of whom the hon. Lady was a member—between 2004 and 2008. It took four years for Operation Hooper to complete its investigation, which resulted in the imprisonment of, I believe, five individuals—two of them Conservative and three Labour, as it happens—following the European and city council elections in the central ward of Peterborough in June 2004.

We cannot say that we should not bother about this because we have no proof that it happens. It does happen, it is costly, it undermines the very basis of democracy in this country, and we should ensure—as I believe the Bill does—that the correct procedures operate to ensure that it does not happen in the future. The hon. Lady may wish to reconsider her rather lackadaisical approach to the integrity of our electoral system.

One proposal with which I strongly agree, although I do not think that the Government have gone far enough, is the proposal in clause 19 to allow police community support officers into polling stations. I think that if there is a missed opportunity in the Bill, it is our failure to consider the serious problem of personation and intimidation at polling stations. We saw that in Tower Hamlets earlier this month, and we have seen it too often in Peterborough. I must not major on Peterborough’s central ward, but it is the one that I know best. In that ward we have four polling stations. About half a dozen members of the Cambridgeshire constabulary and mobile CCTV are required at each of them because of the issue of personation, of which there have been cases in Peterborough.

We are not going far enough in looking again at the Representation of the People Act 1983, because the power of the presiding officer inside the polling station remains extremely limited. If the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden were to go into a polling station in Mitcham and Morden and say she was Elvis Presley and that name was on the electoral register, the polling clerk would have very little power to say, “Actually, you’re not Elvis Presley. You’re our esteemed local Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden.” That is not satisfactory. The legal test for proving that the hon. Lady is her good self, rather than Elvis Presley, is very difficult. We have missed an opportunity to look again at that issue.

In closing—which is what the Whips are imploring me to do—may I make two quick points? I have concerns about the removal of the co-ordinated online record of electors—CORE—database. I have no interest in promoting national ID databases—I voted against identity cards—but the Minister must tell us how successful he has been in removing the difficulties of duplication, which have frequently arisen. CORE ameliorated that, but it is no longer in place.

On a slightly mischievous note, this morning on the ConservativeHome website my hon. Friend Conor Burns made a point about clause 18 and allowing a parliamentary candidate standing on behalf of two or more parties to use a registered emblem of one or more parties. Can the Minister assure me that there is no hidden agenda in that, and that it is just a helpful way to assist Labour and Co-operative party representatives to get elected in their seats?