One of the bills we shall be dealing with when we return from the Easter recess is the Political Parties and Elections Bill. This has already had its Second Reading. It goes into committee in a couple of weeks.
The Bill itself is a good example of the problems associated with the way legislation is constructed. As I have mentioned before, 21 of the 24 substantive clauses (before the standard clauses dealing with interpretation and the like) amend earlier legislation, especially the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. If you are not familiar with the 2000 Act and the other legislation, you may have difficulty making sense of it. Fortunately, the Explanatory Notes provide some guidance, though the usefulness of the notes does vary from Bill to Bill. It would be interesting to have readers comments on the value, or otherwise, of the Explanatory Notes.
I am contemplating tabling amendments to the Bill to change to the provisions governing the edited version of the Electoral Register. As I have made clear before, I would like to abolish the edited version. It generates unnecessary work for electoral registration officers and local authorities are required to sell it at cost. However, the government are intending to consult on the issue – though, as yet, I am not aware of them having done so. In the interim, I thought I would pursue the case for moving from an opt-out to an opt-in requirement for the edited register. At the moment, electors have to opt out when completing the electoral registration form. My view is that informed consent is required and that therefore we should move to an opt-in requirement.
If there are any other issues that readers would like to raise in respect of the Bill, please feel free to take this opportunity to do so.
I also believe the edited register should be scrapped. However, I have a slight reservation about the amendment you propose. If the column on the form simply switches from opt-out to opt-in, many people who are used to opting out might tick the box as usual without reading it properly, and unwittingly end up on the edited register. Could a separate signature on another part of the form be required to opt in?
One interesting thing I noticed is that some local authorities pre-print a tick on the form for people who opted out last year, but others do not.
As for amendments in general, I find the database at http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk a great concept. However, it never seems to be up to date, and I don’t think it includes Bills. With modern technology, it shouldn’t be necessary to go back through all the old legislation to see what would be amended. That should be automatic. Anyone who has done any programming will be familiar with systems such as SVN, which can show changes between any two versions, etc. – I don’t see that laws are any different, but I guess the issue is scanning all the documents to get them in an electronic form.
I think that would be an extremely wise amendment and wholeheartedly back you in doing so.
Indeed, the electoral register needs changing. And while I completely agree with the opt-in clause, there is probably more work to be done.
First of all data protection standards (very much lacking in the UK, I know, but some are inherited from the EU) require that data is only processed in clearly defined use related to the original purpose of the data collection. So the electoral register is meant for checking and reviewer whether people are allowed to vote, and no other purpose! I fail to see how the extensive use of the edited register can even be compatible with this requirement, irrespective of whether it is based on opt-in or opt-out.
The next problem is discrimination based on nationality. We all know that the register is used for credit rating purposes. Now some foreigners are not eligible for inclusion, and thus they face discrimination concerning access to credit. That is exactly the situation that data protection should be preventing, and fails to. Maybe we need a general register instead of the edited electoral register? Allowing inclusion of people not allowed to vote would be a first step.
Finally the requirement to sell the register at cost is ridiculous. It is clearly used for commercial purposes, so it should be sold on commercial terms.
Jonathan: you are right that the website is unnecessarily complicated to use. I am not sure the process can be completely automated, but a bill that modifies other bills should have to be presented in the context of the current version of those bills. Of course if you have to modify more than 10 other bills, you have to ask yourself whether you are actually improving the legal situation, or whether things are just made more complicated.
Jonathan: Agree per SVN.
The fact that you need to have tiled windows open to read the bill + old bill(s) being amended + explanatory notes + amendments list to make much sense of many bills is unreasonable.
I find the explanatory notes can be useful (I’d prefer it in a single form where it is commented alongside the act itself) but too often they assume you know what is being amended or provide a statement little beyond the act. It’s not much use telling a non specialist that the ‘spending limit is being raised’ or a ‘power transferred’ unless the status quo is made clear.
On the act:
The 55 month spending trigger still seems to be there which as long as sitting MPs enjoy their *cough* ‘communications allowance’ seems to be designing in a unfair playing field.
I can’t quickly find it in the bill, but I’m pretty tired, I seem to remember that the bill originally gave the electoral commission the power to enter homes without a warrant in pursuit of electoral offences. Is that still there wrapped up in some language I’m missing?
The act creates some electoral commissioners as party nominees and allows political active individuals to work as staff. I’m struggling to see how this can be beneficial to an impartial process – perhaps that’s not the intent though :-(.
Amendments were put down in the commons for individual registration but were defeated on party lines – is an attempt being made to reinsert these in the lords?
Not a change to the Bill as such (I haven’t had a chance to read it) but I think more publicity should be given to the fact that credit reference agencies use the full version.
You remember that I said that I was under the impression that I had to be on the edited register for credit reference agency to be able to confirm my address using the electoral register? What I forgot, at the time of the last post, was that was because when my fiancée and I enquired about a mortgage together (with a High Street financial institution) we were specifically told that, as we were on the edited register, they could confirm our address whilst doing their credit checks. I think the advisor was logged into an Experian system at the time.
An unrelated question why is that in the commons one is able to see who voted for which candidate to be speaker? But the voting list in the lords is not available. I know that the commons vote through the aye and noe lobby, while the lords vote through ballot but this seems not very transparent on the part of there lordships. I like the current lord’s speaker but would have liked to see Baroness Fookes as Lords speaker.
Thanks for the supportive and very helpful comments.
Jonathan: I take the points you make. I will give some thought as to whether the amendment should include some provision relating to how the option is presented in order to distinguish it from past practice. I am not sure if requiring a signature wll be feasible; it could in any event complicate the move to individual registration based on signatures. I am aware of the different practices adopted by local registration officers. There may be a case for requiring a uniform approach. Thanks also for your observation about the potential now for showing changes from one version of legislation to another. This is something else I ought to pursue.
Andy: Thanks for your support.
Thomas: Thanks for drawing both points – data protection standards and the position of those not eligible to be on the register – to my attention. The former is one I have been pursuing (it was essentially my argument over the sale of the register); I share your view that the edited version is incompatible with those standards. I take a purist view not only on the edited version but also in relation to the full register in terms of who may have access to it. I am not sure if the second regarding non-EU nationals can be addressed through this particular Bill, but I recognise the significance of the point you are making.
Croft: I take a similar view about the Explanatory Notes; in some cases they simply restate what is in a particular clause. Going from the Notes to the Bill and back again can be confusing. Having them alongside the Bill would probably be the simplest way to proceed. The ideal would probably be to publish a bill with each clause followed with some explanatory notes in italics, but I suspect that is a step too far at the moment. On the power to enter homes without a warrant, this was taken out in the Commons following consultation. I recall that the Government and the Electoral Commission accepted this was a provision that went a little too far. The intention in having commissioners with some party political experience is to inject some awareness of the practice of politics: there was a view that the Commission had been a little unworldy at times in its approach and this had led to some of the problems that it encountered. I think it likely that we will be returning to the issue of individual registration during committee stage.
Francisco: Thanks for that. That is useful to know. I have been meaning for some time to explore what material drawn the register is available online. The danger is that some electors may come to believe that they need to be on edited register for the purposes of credit checks. That is why I agree with you that as much publicity as possible needs to be given so that electors know exactly what use can be made of the full register and the edited register.
Tory Boy: I think the answer is the voting method employed. The Lord Speaker was not elected in the same way as when a division takes place, so one was not voting Content or Not Content on a particular candidate. The method employed was the Alternative Vote, with votes having to be redistributed. It would be a rather complex exercise to show the process beyond,m say, revealing first preference votes. Furthermore, you will not be able to see how MPs have voted in future elections for the Speakership in the Commons. After the long-drawn out contest the last time, the House decided to reform the procedure and in future the voting for the Speakership will be by secret ballot.
Re: the difficulty of reading bills that make changes to existing law, it seems like a good moment to bring up the Free Our Bills campaign again.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/freeourbills/
Providing bills in a modern electronic markup format such that references to existing law could be determined and displayed in context would make reading such bills much easier – both for the public *and* for MPs and peers.
Relying on explanatory notes is dangerous as they are an interpretation of the meaning of the changes and may lean towards a reading favoured by the authors of the bill. Avoiding “mission creep” of law requires a strict reading of the wording.
(I don’t imagine any explanatory notes on the terrorism legislation would have mentioned anything about local councils spying on people for bin violations.)
Jonathan
@LordNorton: Whose ‘view’ was it that the Commission was too other worldly? This has something of the feel of the comments made about Sir Alistair Graham’s CSIPL – the issue there seemed that MPs preferred that he did not turn stones or ruffle feathers (if necessary) but let them get on doing things much as they pleased. Many outside Westminster felt quite the opposite. I’d be fairly concerned if the parties want, behind the scenes, to be able to ‘fix’ decisions in a way that best suits them.
@Jonathan: Oh how true. It’s actually somewhat surprising when you hear the various committees discuss this area how many are either indifferent or mildly hostile to making bills, and more generally parliamentary data in an open format, more accessible. I hope it is simply a generational blind spot as the alternative conclusions are thoroughly depressing.
I suppose having an independent writer of the explanatory notes who has not been part of the bill team and is not accountable to that department or minister might help put some safeguard in place though I think your point still essentially sound.
It’s really interesting how similar some of the processes in Parliament are to software development. This document is what we would call a patch.
The real difference is how far ahead software developers seem to be in terms of the tools we use; looking at this document is a little frightening!
Did one, or even multiple, people have to be employed just to type this monstrosity? 🙂
Parliament could adopt a better system, if you were to store all bills in a wiki. See how much easier it is to view changes, or see all the revisions of a document at one time.
I’m not getting my hopes up though. Such an idea would probably meet with considerable resistance; no doubt government procurement procedures would also mean that, instead of just downloading one of the many Free software wikis, a contract would go out to EDS who would then grossly overcharge for re-inventing the wheel. Perhaps this is an overly-pessimistic view, this site is running Free software on a free service, which is heartening.
You’ll vehemently disagree with this, Lord Norton, but there is a danger that one day some software engineer is going to decide that, not only is government is a really inefficient way of doing things, but that they’re going to fix it. Then they’ll rewrite the whole thing as a piece of software, which allows for an element of direct democracy (on the scale we’d need).
This is related to what Jonathan and Croft were saying above, about SVN.