rose to move, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2007.

The noble Lord said: These regulations concern the procedure at referendums held by local authorities under the Local Government Act 2000. These referendums relate to the question of whether a county or district council, or London borough, should adopt executive arrangements—that is, the referendum is to determine how the authority is run. Executive arrangements include a mayor and cabinet executive, a mayor and council manager executive, or a leader and cabinet executive.

The principal purpose of these regulations is to implement changes introduced by the Electoral Administration Act 2006. The provisions need to be in place for a planned referendum due to take place later this year. The regulations are needed to ensure that there is consistency of electoral practice between the elections of local councillors and elected mayors and the conduct of such local authority referendums.

These regulations re-enact the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2001 and apply only to referendums held in local authorities in England.

The Committee will be pleased to note that my officials have worked closely with both the Electoral Commission and electoral administrators in developing these regulations. The Electoral Commission was also consulted formally on a draft of these regulations and its comments were taken into account in the draft before you.

The regulations also set out the rules for the conduct of referendums in full. This will make the rules more easily accessible and user-friendly for electoral administrators and other practitioners. This approach was commended by the Merits Committee.

The regulations have three key aims: first, to implement changes introduced by the Electoral Administration Act 2006; secondly, to set out the rules for the conduct of referendums in full; and, thirdly, to remove the option of a referendum being conducted by means of an all-postal ballot following the introduction of personal identifiers for postal voting.

Members of the Committee will know that the Electoral Administration Act 2006 made wide-ranging changes to the way that the electoral system is administered. The changes in these regulations implement those new electoral arrangements, which include ballot paper changes aimed at strengthening the security of the electoral process, and to allow more automated procedures to be used in the printing of ballot papers. In particular, the regulations provide for new security markings and unique identifying marks to be used on ballot papers; for the counterfoils to be removed from ballot papers, which will be replaced by a corresponding numbers list; and for a full set of prescribed forms for use in referendums, which include new forms introduced as a result of the Electoral Administration Act.

The new official poll card provides a wider range of information for voters, and the regulations introduce new poll cards for postal voters and proxy postal voters. There will be a new postal voting statement which removes the witness declaration but includes a new requirement for postal and proxy postal voters to provide their signature and date of birth.

The regulations prescribe the form of words for the question to be asked in the referendum. In particular, we consulted the Electoral Commission, as required by the Local Government Act 2000, for its views on the intelligibility of the questions which may be asked at these referendums. Full details of the Electoral Commission’s comments and the Government’s response are set out in the report, prepared by the Government in pursuance of Section 45(8B)(b) of the Local Government Act 2000, and which the Government have laid before each House of Parliament.

In its response, the Electoral Commission made some suggested changes to the wording of the questions. However, the Government were not able to agree to those changes, largely because the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill currently before Parliament will make significant changes to the structure of local authority executive arrangements. Although we agree that the referendum questions should be reviewed, it would be more appropriate to do so in the wider context of the implementation of the local government Bill. Therefore, no changes to the referendum’s questions have been made in these regulations. However, for the longer term, we look forward to working with the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders, and reviewing the wording of the referendum questions.

We also sought the views of the Electoral Commission on the limitation of referendum expenses as required by the Local Government Act 2000. As a result, we have increased the referendum expenses limits so that the base figure will be £2,362, an increase of £362, and the additional figure will be 5.9p for every entry on the register of electors, an increase of 0.9p. These changes take into account rises in the level of inflation since the limits were last set on 2 April 2001.

In conclusion, the regulations incorporate into the conduct of referendums important changes to our electoral system made by the Electoral Administration Act 2006. They will come into force 14 days after they are made. I beg to move.

Moved, That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2007. 19th Report from the Statutory Instruments Committee.—(Lord Evans of Temple Guiting.)

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Evans, for introducing the regulations, and I am particularly grateful for the assurance that there will be a referendum later this year. For one brief moment, until I remembered that this relates purely to local government referendums, I thought that this might be the Government meeting their manifesto commitment to give us a referendum on the new EU constitution, but sadly I understand that it is merely to hold a referendum in Darlington some time later this year.

I have a number of questions that arise from the regulations. I should like to start by referring to the Explanatory Memorandum, for which I am grateful to the noble Lord for providing because it is very helpful. My first question relates to the comments in the Explanatory Memorandum at paragraph 7.3 on postal ballots:

“It is worth noting that the option of a referendum being conducted by means of an all-postal ballot has been removed”.

I would like to hear more generally about the Government’s views on all-postal ballots for the future and whether they think that postal ballots as a whole have been a success. The Minister referred to the disasters in the Birmingham City Council elections, a case which the judge who tried it referred to as being one that would have “disgraced a banana republic”. There was a great deal of electoral fraud as a result of the postal ballot. To remove the possibility of having an all-postal ballot for such referendums is probably a step forward. I was therefore a bit alarmed when the noble Lord said in his opening remarks that the Government would come back to all-postal ballots when there are slightly more secure means of checking people’s identities. I should like to hear a little more on that, and to be absolutely sure that we will not see all-postal ballots or any further encouragement of all-postal ballots until we are convinced that the system is secure.

In passing, I shall make one other comment on postal ballots, which no doubt the noble Lord will be able to answer on behalf of his department. At the moment, most local authorities are strongly encouraging us to move over to all-postal ballots. I certainly have a postal ballot for my vote in London because it normally tends to be more convenient. But I notice that, whenever one gets a chance to renew one’s entry on the electoral form, to go back from a postal ballot to voting in the proper manner is rather difficult. Will the Government consider making it easier to revert to the more traditional means of voting rather than leaving us on postal ballots, about which some of us have increasing doubts?

Just before I leave postal ballots, I should say that the Minister referred in his Explanatory Memorandum to,

“urgent policy discussions with stakeholders”.

He used the word “stakeholders” again in his opening remarks. I would be interested to know who the stakeholders are. I would rather have hoped that an educated chap like the Minister, a former publisher, would try not to use words like “stakeholder”, which are fairly meaningless. I am sure that he could come up with something better. If he could tell us who the stakeholders are with whom they consult, we would be grateful.

I turn to the question of expenses. I am grateful to the Minister for explaining just how they were going to increase in line with inflation. Will he comment on how that compares with the expenses in general elections and in local elections? I imagine that they are broadly similar in some manner to the amount people have to spend in local elections, but no doubt he can assist me on that.

On the question of publicity and other information in connection with referendums, I understand that the proper officer of the local authority has only in to publish the fact that there is going to be a referendum in one newspaper circulating in the local authority’s area; it does not even say the principal newspaper, or the newspaper with the greatest coverage. What measures are there to ensure that he goes to the right paper and makes sure that there is proper coverage, rather than having to publish in just one newspaper that circulates to some extent in that area? We would not want to be in a position where the officers of an authority could discriminate against certain papers purely because they did not like those papers’ political bent and not offer them the advertising when dealing with such matters. No doubt the Minister will be able to assist me on that.

Moving on, I dealt with referendum expenses in terms of the increase in the amount that people will be able to spend. Can the Minister say anything about how the Government deal with exactly who is covered by the expenses? What about non-affiliated supporters of a particular group, the “no” faction or the “yes” faction, in any referendum? How will the Government ensure that those groups are covered?

I have been through quite a lot of the rest of the statutory instrument, and I am grateful for it. It makes a lot of things much clearer. I particularly commend Schedule 3, which sets out the Local Government Act referendum rules. Those are clear, and are easily understood by anyone who is concerned by them. Again, I would be grateful for an assurance that they broadly follow similar guidance to that offered for elections to local government, city councils, county councils or whatever, or indeed for general elections.

The I trust that the Minister will be able to give me some answers to those brief questions, but if not, I am sure that he will be able to write to me.

I looked at the title of the statutory instrument—Local Authorities (Conduct of Referendums) (England) Regulations 2007—and thought, “What an opportunity for a man from Wales”. Some people are born to greatness, some people achieve greatness and others, like me this afternoon, have greatness thrust upon them. I shall tell them in Wales that England matters are interesting even to people from the Principality. I will not keep the Committee at great length.

The regulations largely replicate the previous regulations from 2001. They include some changes made under the Electoral Administration Act 2006. The Government consulted the Electoral Commission and others in that field on the drafting of the regulations, and they are broadly content. There does not seem from our Benches to be any great worry or concern about these regulations. Therefore, I am happy to say that we shall support them in this Grand Committee.

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for his contribution to the discussion. Before I answer as many questions as I can asked by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, asked, perhaps I may say that I think this is the first time I have uttered the word “stakeholder” in either the Moses Room or the Chamber. I usually cross it out and put in something like “interested parties”, which sounds awful but not as appalling as “stakeholders”. I am afraid that it is a fashionable word which pops up all over the place.

I was very sorry to disappoint the noble Lord about the proposed referendum. I absolutely understand why he had a greater ambition for it. I confirm that the authority mentioned is Darlington Borough Council, which will have a referendum in September of this year.

The first substantive question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Henley, was: why can a referendum no longer be run as an all-postal ballot? The changes set out the rules for the conduct of referendums in full and remove the option of a referendum being conducted by means of an all-postal ballot. The law now requires the checking of postal voting statements before they go forward to the count. To conduct an all-postal referendum would mean collecting the signatures and dates of birth from every eligible elector in the authority in order to verify personal identifiers on postal voting statements. That is not possible in the time available to call a referendum and risks disfranchising electors. Personal identifiers are designed to strengthen the security of the postal voting system and to respond to concerns expressed that postal voting should be made more secure.

The noble Lord asked whether it is possible to revert from all-postal to traditional voting. Each elector simply needs to contact his local authority to cancel his postal ballot. The noble Lord also asked about publication in newspapers. The requirement in the regulation is the minimum legal requirement and is identical to the provision in previous regulations. Local authority officials will exercise their discretion to decide how to advertise the referendum. It would be improper to deal with such matters for irrelevant reasons, and to do so would be unlawful. He asked who were the stakeholders—the interested parties—mentioned in my speech with whom they consult. The Local Elections Advisory Group was set up in the summer of 2005 to look at issues for implementing changes from the Electoral Administrations Act 2006, and electoral administrations with experience of running referendums.

The noble Lord, Lord Henley, also asked whether expenses were covered for non-political groups. A campaign organiser does not need to represent a political party, just an outcome in the referendum.

Finally, he asked whether referendum rules follow similar guidance in similar matters to those implemented in local authority elections. The referendum rules are on those that apply to the election of councillors, making those changes necessary to reflect the differences between elections and referendums—for example, the absence of candidates in the latter.

It may be that I have not answered some of the noble Lord’s questions, but we will look at Hansard very carefully and he will receive a letter within the next few days. I commend the regulations.

On Question, Motion agreed to.