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Electoral System (Postal Voting)

Mr. Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath) (Lab): As has been said, the integrity of the electoral system is an extremely serious issue. I regret the fact that some of the debate has been partisan in tone, because very serious lessons need to be learned from what happened in the last local and European elections. I listened to the Minister's opening remarks, but I should like to share with right hon. and hon. Members the reality of what happened during the recent elections in Birmingham. I suspect that what happened there was replicated in other multicultural inner-city areas.

I wish to make it perfectly clear that I am not talking all-postal ballots— Birmingham did not have an all-postal ballot—and that I support the Government's efforts to increase turnout and participation in elections. Although turnout increased in the area of inner-city Birmingham that I represent and in surrounding areas, in reality that had very little to do with an increased interest in the local or European elections. I deeply regret to say that the increase occurred because postal voting was turned into a political currency in those areas.

To give hon. Members an indication of what I am about to say, I shall quote the opening remarks of the front-page editorial in The Birmingham Post, to which my colleague, the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler), referred. It was written the day after the election and headed, "Bribes, bullies and ballots". It reads:

"Those Brummies who could be bothered to participate in yesterday's city council elections should ask themselves a sobering question today.
Whatever happened to a polling system once praised as the cleanest in the world?

There is no point in being anything other than blunt: the 2004 Birmingham City Council elections were besmirched by a postal vote feeding frenzy.

Fights in the streets, postmen offered bribes for sacks of ballot forms, a post box torched, car chases, threats, bullying and intimidation and the unforgettable image of a . . . councillor 'sorting out' ballot papers in the shadows of a back street car park at midnight."

Sadly, the article is true. The reason why it is true is that, as I have said, postal votes became a currency, whereby a place on Birmingham city council, with a minimum salary of £9,000 and all the associated privileges, was the reward.

The Minister has said that the overall result of postal voting proves that it was a success. It may have been a success in all-postal areas, but I would strongly advise him to talk to John Owens, Birmingham city council's elections officer—together with his team, he did a magnificent job in difficult circumstances during the elections—and to West Midlands police to find out whether they thought postal voting was such a great success.

Let me tell hon. Members what happened in the reality of inner-city Birmingham. Birmingham has 40 wards, with electorates that range from approximately 17,000 to 20,000 people. Before the local and European election campaign, the highest numbers of registered postal votes were in wards such as Harborne, Quinton, Edgbaston and Sheldon—the Tory wards, traditionally, in the leafy suburbs. The highest number of postal votes registered was 1,616 in Quinton ward. However, by the end of the six-week campaign, the postal votes registered in some wards had increased. The number in Springfield went up from 812 to 3,796; the number in Lozells and East Handsworth went up from 529 to 3,998; in Sparkbrook, it went up from 1,067 to 4,483; in Aston, from 578 to 5,241; and in Washwood Heath, from 693 to 5,583.

All those wards are in the central area of the city and all are multicultural, with very large communities that originate from the Indian subcontinent, but what happened in them is as nothing compared with what happened in the Bordsley Green ward. That newly created ward has 19,715 electors, about 50 to 60 per cent. of whom are from a single cultural group. When the election began, 691 people in that ward were registered for postal votes. In fact, that ward had one of the lowest numbers of postal votes in the city—it was 12th out of 40—but, in week 1, the number increased to 768. In week 2, it went up to 1,750; in week 3, it went up to 2,495; in week 4, it went up to 5,124; and in week 5, it went up to 7,195. When a halt was called on 2 June at the close of postal vote applications, the figure had reached 8,488. I hesitate to think what would have happened had the election campaign gone on for another three weeks.

One would like to think that the dynamics of the campaign had galvanised more than 40 per cent. of the electorate in that ward to obtain their postal votes, but hon. Members can draw their own conclusions on why that happened. During campaigning in the ward, regular phone calls were made to the police by people complaining about the pressure that they were being put under. There was a fight between rival candidates' teams involving 200 people, which meant that a huge number of police from west midlands stations had to be brought into the area. A postman complained to his superiors that the brother of one of the candidates had offered him £500 for his sack of postal votes. That is the reality of what happened in an inner-city multicultural area.

You might think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that what I have described is at least highly suspicious, if not downright illegal. Unfortunately, you would be wrong. The West Midlands police carried out a survey by a special team, which concluded that, as the law is deficient, no one did anything wrong. Indeed, as the hon. Member for North Cornwall said, Councillor Albert Bore had something to say about that. According to The Birmingham Post:

"Albert Bore, the leader of Birmingham City Council, maintains he is allowed to apply for postal votes on electors' behalf, he can have forms delivered to his house, he can fill the forms in for other people and deliver them to the elections office."

The Birmingham Post then makes the point that that seems slipshod and unusual. It asked the Electoral Commission for its opinion and

"a spokeswoman was adamant that it is 'unlawful' for a person to complete a postal ballot on behalf of another person unless that person has applied for a proxy vote."

However, the Electoral Commission then changed its mind. It phoned The Birmingham Post back, insisting that

"it could not offer advice on the law and suggesting instead that only the returning officer for"

the city council, the

"chief executive, could pronounce on such matters."

So hon. Members will pardon me if my views on the Electoral Commission are somewhat jaundiced.

Hon. Members will no doubt be appalled by some of what I have said, but I counsel caution against a knee-jerk reaction by Ministers. The reality is that in certain communities, the showing of completed postal votes to the candidate is a way of demonstrating loyalty. It will be difficult to frame a law that makes it illegal for a person voluntarily to show a completed postal vote to a candidate to prove their loyalty to that candidate.

I regret that time is running out and I cannot share with hon. Members some other comments that I wanted to make. We must revisit the whole issue of postal votes, because we have to ensure that the electoral system is fair and seen to be fair. I have always believed that voting in public elections is a civic duty. I also believe that we would be better going down the road of compulsory voting, as Australia has done. Whatever happens, however, more safeguards need to be put in place. For example, electoral officers in the recent election were not compelled to have a marked register for people who voted by post. Thankfully, the electoral officer in Birmingham had a marked register. When it comes out, I have not the slightest doubt that the cemetery vote will be high and that a large number of people who were not even in the country voted on the day. We are privileged to live in a democracy, the cornerstone of which is the electoral system. Anything that brings it into disrepute undermines our democracy, and we must never allow that to happen.