Contribution
My Lords, I apologise for not participating at Second Reading and speaking on this occasion, but the circumstances between Second Reading and now have changed very substantially. I intend to concentrate on the amendments relating to delayed elections.
Before I do so, may I make an observation? I shall go no further at this stage than making it clear to the noble Lord, Lord Pack, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and others that I do not support their proposals in relation to changing the voting systems. Although I know that they pursue this matter on a point of principle, I warn them that, under the current political circumstances, trying to change the electoral systems will be portrayed by one political party in particular as denying it the opportunity to be represented on councils. I make that observation in passing.
Like the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, in principle. I have tried to make contact with the Association of Electoral Administrators to establish its view on this but, unfortunately, its excellent chief executive, Peter Stanyon, who is normally enormously helpful on such matters, is currently off in ill health. So I could not get any clarification, but I am sure that, in broad principle, it would want to follow what this amendment is pursuing.
I turn now to the nub of this whole issue, which is the delay in elections. I first spoke on electoral matters in the other House in 1984. I voted against the then Conservative Government on a three-line Whip—I was one of the first new boys to do so—because I believed that the Government were, in the process of abolishing the GLC via the paving Bill, interfering with democracy. Looking back on that proposed Bill, I still take that view and am pleased that I voted against the Government on that occasion. It is interesting that the Government dropped the specific proposal against which I voted after the House of Lords passed its opposition to that same clause by a majority.
Since that time, I have never given consideration to the possibility of deferring elections for up to seven years. If somebody had suggested to me that that was going to happen in this democratic country, I would have said that they were positively insane. The history of the last few weeks has really called into question my faith in the legislation that we have on our democratic process. On 18 November, the Minister’s response to me and others was that the intention of the Government was to hold the elections as identified in full. We received the same response on 8 December.
On 18 December, the day we went into recess, the Government issued a letter to 63 councils asking whether they wished to defer the elections. Please do not tell me, or other Members of this House or the other, that no consideration was given on 18 November or during the five weeks that followed—or even on the night of 17 December—to the fact that there might be delays in elections, because nobody will believe you, I am afraid. It is a question of competence and honesty in relation to the processes. I have come to the conclusion that, sadly, we are witnessing a serious erosion of our democratic principles in this country by silence at different stages.
I do not mind which amendment we adopt, in what form, but we have to ensure that, as a democratic country, which I believe the United Kingdom to be, we are never again in the position where a Government announce their actions in the way that they have, with the result—as the noble Lord, Lord Fuller, and others have said—that people who have a vested interest in not facing re-election are taking the decisions on those elections. I despair of what I have witnessed over the last few weeks. I ask the Government to be more honest and open throughout, because it is not acceptable that I find myself, for the first time in 40 years of reviewing elections, seriously questioning whether a Government can interfere with elections when they really should not.