The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities (Lee Rowley) I beg to move, That the draft
Voter Identification Regulations 2022, which were laid before this
House on 3 November, be approved. This statutory instrument is a
key part of how we implement the voter identification policy in the
Elections Act 2022. This area was debated extensively during the
passage of the Act earlier this year. Through this SI, we will be
fulfilling...Request free trial
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up,
Housing and Communities ()
I beg to move,
That the draft Voter Identification Regulations 2022, which were
laid before this House on 3 November, be approved.
This statutory instrument is a key part of how we implement the
voter identification policy in the Elections Act 2022. This area
was debated extensively during the passage of the Act earlier
this year. Through this SI, we will be fulfilling a Government
manifesto commitment to protect the integrity of our democracy by
introducing identification to vote at polling stations. Gaps in
our current legislation leave open the potential for someone to
cast another vote at the polling station. Our priority is
adopting legislation that ensures the public can have confidence
in the integrity of our elections and certainty that their vote
belongs to them, and them alone.
The introduction of a voter identification policy is the best
solution to the problem. It has been long called for by the
independent Electoral Commission, as well as by international
organisations, such as the Organisation for Security and
Co-operation in Europe, which regularly monitors and reports on
our national polls.
(Sheffield South East)
(Lab)
The Minister mentions the Electoral Commission. It issued a press
statement at the weekend that expressed continued concerns about
the delays in the Government getting their act together on this
policy. It said it was not now sure that all the considerations
it wanted taken into account to ensure the policy works properly
could fully be met. That was in the press release. That comes
alongside the Local Government Association and other council
leaders expressing real concerns about whether this matter could
be implemented properly and fairly and give people full access to
voting in the May local elections. Does the Minister not just
want to stop and think for a minute about the timing of the
implementation, if not the policy itself?
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. We
absolutely are thinking about how best to implement this policy.
In the period while I have been in post, I have already met the
Electoral Commission to talk about it. I have spoken to the
Association of Electoral Administrators about it, and today I
have spoken to the LGA about it. There are a range of views, but
we are confident and focused on ensuring that this policy is
implemented properly. We will continue to be so. On the key
point, the Electoral Commission has been clear since as early as
2014 that
“we should move to a system where voters are required to produce
identification at polling stations.”
This SI sets out further detail on the new processes that will be
put in place to help us to implement this policy in practice.
First, it sets out the updated polling station conduct rules for
a range of elections and referendums, and details exactly how
photographic identification documents will be checked and how
data will be recorded by polling station staff. Secondly, it sets
out a series of updates to election forms. As Members would
expect, a number of existing forms, such as poll cards, have been
updated to inform electors of the new requirement to show
identification and of the types of documents that will be
accepted.
On top of those changes, there are also new forms, such as those
for polling station staff, which we will use to record data that
will help our planned reviews of the policy in the future.
Lastly, the policy sets out the details of the new electoral
identity documents that can be obtained if someone does not
already have an accepted document: the voter authority
certificate and the anonymous elector document. These forms of
photographic identification will be available to voters free of
charge and will ensure that everyone who is eligible to vote will
continue to have the opportunity to do so.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I might be one of the minority on the Opposition Benches who
think that what the Government are bringing forward is the right
thing. The proof of pudding is in how the voter ID system works
in Northern Ireland. The system sets the example for all the UK,
and I know the Minister has had many discussions with his
officials in Northern Ireland to ensure that the system in
Northern Ireland can work here. It reduces electoral fraud and
increases fairness in the democratic system. The Minister has had
discussions with Northern Ireland, and electoral ID is of some
use to people in their daily life. Those are four things going
for it; it seems to me to be the thing to vote for. I just cannot
understand why anybody would not.
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for outlining the
importance of these policy changes. I fear it may be the only
thing we agree with coming from the Opposition Benches tonight,
but he has made an important point and he speaks from experience
and more than 15 years of knowledge about how these kinds of
changes make a difference to the integrity of our voter
process.
(Newcastle-under-Lyme)
(Con)
As someone who served on the Elections Public Bill Committee, I
know that the regulations that the hon. Member for Strangford
() referred to were actually brought in under a Labour
Government. Might the Minister like to comment on that?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I look forward to hearing
Opposition Front Benchers’ comments in support of this statutory
instrument, based on their previous support for strengthening the
integrity of our democratic processes.
This SI also sets out the processes for how electors can apply
for these documents, both online and via paper forms, and for how
electoral registration officers can process, determine and issue
the documents. Showing photo ID is a part of day-to-day life for
people in all walks of life. It is a perfectly reasonable and
proportionate way to confirm that a person is who they say they
are when it comes to voting.
(North Swindon) (Con)
I reassure the Minister that surely the Opposition will support
this statutory instrument, because only three weeks ago, my
Labour opponent was selected and as part of the rules for the
hustings, people had to bring voter ID.
My hon. Friend makes a significant intervention that highlights
the importance of consistency, which I am sure will shortly be
coming from those on the Opposition Front Bench. Showing photo ID
is a part of day-to-day life already, and as the hon. Member for
Strangford () has already outlined, it has been a requirement to
show photographic identification since 2003 in Northern
Ireland.
We are all rightly proud of the long history of our democracy,
but we should never take it for granted. An essential part of how
we keep our system functioning is by keeping the right structures
in place, through measures such as this SI, that stop our
elections being undermined. This SI will strengthen the integrity
of our elections, and I hope that Members will join me in
supporting these measures.
Several hon. Members rose—
Mr Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. I remind hon. Members that this is not a general debate on
voter ID; it is about the regulations that pertain to it, so I
ask people to stick to the regulations.
7.19pm
(Ashton-under-Lyne)
(Lab)
I would like to say that it is a pleasure to speak in this
debate, but frankly, I am sad that we have reached this point. It
is a stain on Britain’s democratic history that, if the
Government have their way with these regulations, we will take a
historic step away from making our democracy more open and
accessible and towards closing it down, shutting people out and
making it harder to vote.
Opposition Members have been clear from the start that this
legislation is a wasted opportunity. It is a step backwards at a
time when so many improvements are needed to widen participation
in our democracy and to make it fit for the 21st century. The
regulations arise from a slapdash, short-sighted and politically
motivated act that turns the clock back on democratic progress. I
pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North
() for his work throughout the
stages of the Elections Act 2022, highlighting the dangers of
mandatory photo ID, which we are debating today. I thank him for
helping to secure this debate on the Floor of the House when
Ministers would no doubt have preferred to sneak it through
upstairs.
The basic fact is that voter ID is not only a backwards step for
democracy, but completely pointless. It is a solution in search
of a problem. Ministers claim it will combat voter fraud, but
voter personation—the voter fraud which voter ID apparently
targets—is vanishingly rare. Over the last 10 years, there have
been about 243 million votes cast in elections, and how many
people have been convicted of voter fraud? Four. That is
0.00000005%. I am under no illusion that the Government are in
the slightest bit interested in genuinely tackling fraud. The
Tories’ Minister responsible for fraud summarised it when he
resigned at the Dispatch Box, saying that the Government had
“no knowledge of, or little interest in, the consequences of
fraud to our economy or society.”—[Official Report, House of
Lords, 24 January 2022; Vol. 818, c. 20.]
While the Government focus on measures like these regulations,
serious fraud, where criminals target vulnerable people with
scams to steal bank details, is running rife under this
Government. Our economy loses around £190 billion every year to
fraud—more than the UK spends on health and defence combined.
People are being left terrorised by scammers pretending to be
their banks, mobile networks or family members, but instead of
actually tackling that, the Government are using parliamentary
time to tackle the virtually non-existent crime of voter
personation, costing millions of pounds in taxpayers’ money to
boot.
Will the right hon. Member explain why, if the system is so bad,
it is used in Labour selections?
I have just explained why this is such a tiny, not even
significant, minuscule issue that the Government are trying to
make hay over, when, in fact, we have fraud that results in
people being terrorised by scammers pretending to be their banks.
Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being wasted on this
Bill instead of dealing with the fraud that the hon. Member’s
constituents have to face every single day, which is not being
tackled. He needs to tackle that.
Perhaps the Minister lives in a bizarre alternative reality
where, across the country, people are attempting to impersonate
their neighbours to steal their votes, but meanwhile, in this
universe, you are more likely to be hit by lightning 54 times
than fall victim to voter personation fraud. So let us get back
to the reality that we face. The British public face a cost of
living crisis, freezing temperatures, with people too scared to
put their heating on, and cancelled Christmases, with working
parents unable to afford festive treats. And this Conservative
Government are planning to spend £180 million of taxpayers’ money
to introduce a completely pointless and eye-wateringly expensive
change.
We heard evidence from the police in the Bill Committee. They
thought that the measures on voter ID and the extra measures that
we are taking to avoid intimidation would make the Act really
useful for them on polling day, so that they can get on with the
job that we want them to do—that is, to keep our communities
safe—and not have to spend as much time dealing with cases of
personation at polling stations.
I say to the hon. Member: show us the evidence. Where is the
evidence of that? We have not seen the evidence, but we do know
that people are choosing between heating and eating this winter.
We do know that crime is on the rise and that people just do not
see the police on the beat any more. We do know that people are
targeted by online fraud every single day of the week, with no
protection and no action by their Government.
I ask the Minister: why will he not spend his time and energy
tackling the huge array of issues that face the British people
instead of flushing away yet more hard-earned taxpayers’ cash on
this pointless measure? I might be able to hazard a guess. I
notice that the regulations allow 60-plus, but not 18-plus,
Oyster cards—why is that? I notice that OAP bus passes will be
valid, yet students IDs will not—why is that? I notice that some
4.2 million voters do not have a photo ID allowed by these
regulations, yet the Government demand that we plough on—why is
that?
The Minister said that voter ID does not discriminate, but I am
afraid that the evidence does not quite stack up. When the
Minister’s colleague, a former Cabinet Office Minister—the right
hon. Member for Norwich North ()—said that
“the evidence of our pilots shows that there is no impact on any
particular demographic group from this policy.”—[Official Report,
11 June 2020; Vol. 677, c. 394.]—
the answer was based on the Electoral Commission’s evaluations of
the 2018 and 2019 voter ID pilots. However, in its most recent
report, the commission said that it had no way of measuring the
effect of voter ID on minority communities. It said:
“Polling station staff were not asked to collect demographic data
about the people who did not come back, owing to the practical
challenges involved in carrying out that data collection
exercise”.
Let us take a look into the pilots more closely. Pilots for voter
ID took place in just 10 local authority areas in England. In all
elections that took place in 2019, there was one conviction and
one police caution for using someone else’s vote at a polling
station, but during the pilots, 2,000 people were turned away
because they did not come to the polling station with ID. More
than 750 of those did not return with ID to cast their vote. How
can the Minister stand there and tell us that these measures will
not make it harder for people to vote? Perhaps they are less keen
on having the Government chosen by the voters than having the
voters chosen by the Government.
I come on to the Government’s so-called “free elector IDs”. Not
only are they unworkable, they are hugely expensive for already
overstretched local authorities. Council leaders have warned the
Government that voter ID risks damaging access to democracy and
must be delayed. They say that there is simply not enough time to
deal with all the risks that will be created by the new system. I
wonder what the Minister has to say to the Conservative chair of
the Local Government Association, James Jamieson, who said that
voter ID must be delayed because:
“It is a fundamental part of the democratic process that
elections can run smoothly and effectively where every citizen is
able to exercise their right to vote.”
What does the Minister have to say to the leader of his party’s
councillors?
The language and politics around voter ID used by this Government
is frankly dangerous. Does the Minister not trust the voters of
this country to continue to cast their ballots securely, as they
have done for generations? Does he really believe that voting is
not safe and secure in Britain? Ministers should be promoting
confidence in our elections, not spreading baseless scare stories
that threaten our democracy.
Finally, the Minister will be aware of an amendment tabled in the
other place by my noble Friends on the Labour Front Bench to
establish a Select Committee to conduct an assessment of the
impact of the voter ID regulations on turnout in the local
elections next May. If the Minister is so confident that the
regulations will not create barriers to people voting, surely he
cannot object to that pragmatic, common-sense proposal. Surely he
has absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
I urge Members across the House, when they enter the voting
Lobbies this evening, to think about our constituents who have
the right to vote and may have done so for decades, but will be
turned away for the first time in May. It is for that fundamental
reason that these backward, unworkable and anti-democratic
regulations must be stopped in their tracks.
7.30pm
(North Swindon) (Con)
I will make just a few quick comments. My seat of North Swindon,
as part of the Swindon Borough Council area, was part of one of
the initial pilots in 2017 or 2018, so I want to make a few
observations. First, turnout was up, not down. Secondly, when the
pilot came to an end and we were not made part of the bigger
pilot, we were inundated with complaints, because people thought
that the new system was far better. That is why I am very pleased
to advocate this welcome change.
I have a bit of a soft spot for the deputy leader of the Labour
party, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (), perhaps because we have
similar music tastes. She talked about trusting people. I have
now had not one, not two, not three, not four, but five Labour
opponents. I can assure her that every single time one of them
has been selected, the adverts for the selection meetings—in
which, of course, we take a mild interest—very clearly say, “You
must bring voter ID.”
The whole thrust of the argument against the draft regulations is
that the number of people looking to cheat the system is so
small. That seems to indicate that the right hon. Lady believes
that North Swindon Labour party members must all be truly
terrible people—that the terrible people must all be consolidated
there. I want to reassure her that that is not the case. They are
actually very nice people.
(Brighton, Kemptown)
(Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Gentleman is misinterpreting the Labour rules, is he
not? They do not require photo ID; they require any ID. They
allow student ID, student bus cards and student railcards, all of
which the Government have excluded in their gerrymandering
efforts. Does he acknowledge that this Government have
gerrymandered voter ID?
The hon. Gentleman, bless him, has got absolutely muddled. As he
would have seen from the pilots if he had taken the time to look,
anybody can access IDs. They are commissioned by the local
authorities. It is straightforward.
The proof of the pudding was that turnout in Swindon was up
during the pilot. Sadly, that pilot came to an end and we were
not part of the second pilot, so we were inundated with
complaints. People want to have trust in our democracy. The
regulations are a brilliant thing to have brought forward.
(Caithness, Sutherland and
Easter Ross) (LD)
The hon. Member talks about increased turnout. One of the highest
turnouts in British history was for the 2014 Scottish
independence referendum, which had a very clear result: Scotland
voted to remain part of the United Kingdom. A conspiracy theory
was circulated at the time that votes would be altered if people
put their cross in the box with a pencil instead of a biro or a
pen. That was rubbished by the general public and put in the
dustbin where it belonged. Should we not trust the great British
public to get these things right, as they have in the past?
Yes, it is about trust: trust in our world-leading democracy and
trust in making sure that we can safeguard what matters. I will
not stray into conspiracy theories about Scottish elections, but
trust is the proof of the pudding. When there was a pilot in my
constituency, voter turnout went up and people complained when
the pilot came to an end. It is quite straightforward.
(Luton North) (Lab)
The hon. Member talks about trust. Trust is incredibly important,
so can he tell me why anybody should trust the Conservative party
when it comes to voter fraud, given that its last leadership
election—not the coronation that we have just had, but the
leadership election—was delayed because of security fears and
possible breaches of ballot paper processes?
If there is ever any question of any threat in any form, it
should always be investigated. The sun comes up in the morning—it
is that obvious.
I say to the Minister: hold firm. This is what the public want.
It has worked in the pilots, and proceeding with it is an
absolute must.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the SNP spokesperson.
7.34pm
(Inverclyde) (SNP)
When we stand for election, every one of us appeals to the
electorate to get out and vote. We impress on them how important
it is that they use their democratic right to express their will
through the ballot box. We want bigger turnouts and we seek more
and better engagement, yet voter ID will have a detrimental
effect on turnouts. We know that because we can measure it.
The UK Government have tried on several occasions to justify
voter identification cards by stating that they already exist
within the UK: they are used in Northern Ireland. What they
cannot say with any conviction is that they have been a success
in Northern Ireland. In fact, the turnout in the first election
in Northern Ireland after photographic ID was introduced was 2.3%
down. If we extrapolate from the data to a UK general election,
approximately 1.1 million people would not vote. That would not
fall evenly across the population, so who is it that we are
disenfranchising?
Angela Kitching, head of external affairs at Age UK, points out
that the Government’s own research has found that 6% of people
over 70 would have problems with presenting the right kind of ID.
It is reasonable to believe that that estimate is low, because
the UK Government did not include the 500,000 people in care
homes and sheltered accommodation in their research. It is no
surprise that Angela Kitching has described the idea as being
“for the fairies”.
The Royal National Institute of Blind People says that
“this will disproportionately disenfranchise blind and partially
sighted people, particularly older blind and partially sighted
people.”
The Royal Mencap Society has raised concerns that
“voter ID could simply result in yet another barrier to people
with a learning disability participating in elections.”
Sense, the national charity that supports people with complex
disabilities, has also raised concerns, saying:
“Given the barriers that already face disabled people while
voting, Sense is concerned that this could make it harder for
some disabled people to vote.”
Concerns have been raised by groups representing LGBTQ+
communities, including the LGBT Foundation, Mermaids and
Stonewall. The Runnymede Trust has raised concerns that
introducing a voter ID requirement would add further barriers to
voting for black and ethnic minority groups.
Those groups should not be disadvantaged. Their votes and their
views are not worth less. Pilots have shown that 30% of people
who had their ballot paper refused for lack of ID did not return
later with an ID to vote. Were all those people trying to
impersonate someone? I do not think so.
As has been mentioned, this measure will disproportion-ately
impact younger voters. ID such as an Oyster 60+ card is valid,
but an Oyster 18+ card is not. Despite the calls for railcards or
student IDs to be accepted, the Government have refused.
Of course, change attracts a financial cost. Disappoint-ingly,
the UK Government do not know how much this change will cost.
Their assessment is £150 million, based on an assumed take-up of
2%, but a UK Government survey found that 31% of people said they
would apply for a voter ID card. The impact assessment estimates
that an additional £10.2 million should be added for each
additional percentage point, which brings the cost of that 31% to
£450 million.
In truth, we do not know, because the people surveyed were not
informed of the existing photographic ID that would be
acceptable, nor were they informed that out-of-date photographic
ID would be acceptable. There is more confusion on which we are
supposed to legislate: we need a clearer explanation of how
having a period of validity for a voter card could work if its
expiry date was not a bar to using it for its sole purpose at a
polling station.
What is driving this change? Photographic voter ID is supposed to
be required to address the issue of personation —occasions when
somebody pretends to be another elector and votes on their
behalf. We are asking people who work a very long day in polling
places to verify visually that each voter looks like the photo ID
that they present and, if they are not happy, to refuse that
person the right to vote. That is a burden that will weigh
heavily on many of those who, until now, have diligently staffed
polling places.
For us to go to such lengths as introducing photographic voter
ID, placing such a burden on electoral staff and risking
disenfranchising 1.1 million voters, personation would have to be
a massive problem. Yet, as the right hon. Member for
Ashton-under-Lyne () said, with more than 58
million votes cast in elections in 2019, there were 33 counts of
personation at a polling station. As we have heard, that
comprises 0.000057%. When we consider the number of people
cautioned for or convicted of personation, the proportion is
reduced to 0.0000035% of votes cast. This is a sledgehammer
looking for a nut to crack. It is a solution looking for a
problem. The long and short of it is that this legislation has
been pushed through with little substantial evidence of its
value.
For as long as Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom and
Westminster has the power to affect the voting franchise and the
electoral process in Scotland—even if that involves elections to
this place—we in the Scottish National party will hold
Westminster to account, and will demand that any changes must be
transparent, considered, constructive and inclusive. The motion
does not satisfy those criteria.
7.40pm
(Leeds East) (Lab)
I have listened with great interest to the Minister’s assurances
to the House and the country, but it will not surprise
Conservative Members to learn that I am not assured, nor will my
constituents be assured.
Tony Benn talked of the importance of the vote. He talked very
movingly of the way in which universal suffrage had helped to
transfer power from the marketplace to the ballot box, giving our
citizens the right to obtain through voting what they could not
obtain through their wallets, whether it be free healthcare, free
education, or a say in our country’s laws. That right is under
threat from these regulations, which are littered with
discriminatory inconsistencies. They are not, in fact, a
sledgehammer to crack a nut, but, in my view, a deliberate voter
suppression strategy—a strategy not to suppress just any voters,
but to suppress certain groups of voters in particular.
These regulations are straight out of the right-wing United
States Republican playbook. Over there, they try to find ways of
stopping people being able to vote. How else can we explain the
way in which young people are discriminated against in the
regulations? I believe they are a deliberate voter suppression
strategy against working-class communities in particular, and, in
particular, black and ethnic minority working-class communities
and young working-class people, because the Conservatives have
taken the view that those are the people who are less likely to
vote for them.
The regulations also have a broader context that should disturb
all of us who are concerned about hard-won British democratic
freedoms. In our society, there are three main ways for people to
fight back against unpopular policies or express discontent with
a Government they do not like, or an employer they do not like.
There is the right to protest peacefully, the right to take
industrial action and withdraw labour, and, of course, the right
to vote. These regulations on voter ID need to be seen within the
context of an authoritarian drift on the part of a Government who
have in their sights the right to protest peacefully, the right
to take strike action, and the right to vote with ease. That is
profoundly disturbing. The Members on the other side of the
debate are probably split between those who believe that this is
necessary and desirable and those who do not really believe that
it is necessary and desirable, but are going along with it
because they are going along with that authoritarian drift.
Even if we were to accept the introduction of voter ID, which I
and others certainly do not, when we look at the inconsistencies
in the regulations with regard to which voter ID is acceptable
and which is not, we see that it is a real dog’s dinner—a real
anti-democratic dog’s dinner. These regulations should send a
shiver down the spines of all those who believe in civil and
democratic liberties in our society. They should send a shiver
down the spines of people, regardless of their political views,
who believe that the right of every citizen to vote, the right of
every worker to withdraw labour and the right of every citizen to
engage in peaceful protest are rights that were hard won and
should be cherished and defended. It is because we defend those
hard-won civil liberties and principles that we oppose these
regulations, and oppose this Government’s disgraceful
authoritarian drift.
7.44pm
(Plymouth, Sutton and
Devonport) (Lab/Co-op)
The proposal will result in voter suppression, and I want to
raise a number of concerns about its implementation, based on
feedback from colleagues on Plymouth City Council, which
represents one of the poorest communities in the country. Being
in the south-west of England, surrounded by lovely beaches and
gorgeous countryside, we are often not considered to be one of
the poorest communities, but many of the problems experienced by
some of the poorest communities in the north and the midlands are
also present in the south-west.
I greatly fear that this proposal will not increase turnout, and
I think that any Government who seek to introduce electoral
reforms with the objective of not increasing turnout should look
again at why they are doing it. What is their motivation? The
proposal will cut turnout; in certain target demographics, the
Conservative party will have a partisan advantage over other
parties, which should also make us look again at the reasons for
the proposal.
Many of the concerns were expressed during a group discussion
between Councillor Tudor Evans, the leader of the Labour
opposition on Plymouth City Council, and his councillors. I think
they are genuinely meaningful, and I should be grateful if the
Minister responded to them when he sums up the debate. One of
them relates to the number of people who might be unable to
obtain voter ID. On the basis of Government figures, the council
estimates that about 4% of voters—8,000 people in Plymouth—will
not have access to the photo ID that will be required for them to
vote, which means that a great many people will not be able to
cast their ballot without embarking on a bureaucratic process to
secure it.
The concern in this regard is that councils will not be able, in
the time that is allowed, to process the necessary number of
applications. Councils are not full of staff twiddling their
thumbs and looking idle, but they do not have the capacity to
enable electoral officers to work flat out to process these IDs.
Even if it were possible for that to be done on time—which it is
not—resources would be diverted from jobs on which councils
should be focusing.
(Weaver Vale) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is right to say that this is about the
disenfranchisement of, in particular, young people and black and
ethnic minorities. As he also said, it is impractical too. The
Local Government Association has talked of delaying the timetable
beyond the local elections. I am fundamentally against the
proposal and will vote accordingly, but I hope my hon. Friend
agrees that we need to look again at this unrealistic
timetable.
I agree that the timetable is important. Regardless of party, we
should all be seeking to make good legislation, with a good
outcome. Rushed legislation will not lead to a good outcome, and
I fear that rushed legislation is exactly what we have before
us.
One of the concerns that many councils have is that the software
required for them to produce valid certificates enabling people
to vote if they do not have what legislation defines as
legitimate forms of photo ID will not arrive until the start of
next year, and has not been tested and integrated into other
local IT systems that councils possess. Even councils that want
to process the IDs for as many people as possible cannot yet do
so. Plymouth City Council estimates that it will take eight
minutes to process a single piece of voter ID for someone who
does not have one, and 8,000 people in Plymouth do not have one.
That means an awful lot of work: someone will be working their
socks off to be able to deliver it.
This will also involve additional bureaucracy and cost. I asked a
parliamentary question about the number of mirrors that would be
required for the legislation to work, which produced some very
puzzled faces. Why was I asking about mirrors? The answer is that
the legislation will require 40,000 mirrors to be purchased by
local councils to enable people in polling stations to readjust
their masks or religious garments after taking them off to
demonstrate that they are who they are, should they be asked to
do so. It will also require the purchase of 40,000 privacy
screens so that people can do that outside the public gaze,
particularly for religious reasons.
Furthermore, the legislation will require a woman to be present
as one of the polling clerk staff throughout the day. I think we
should be seeking more women to be polling clerks, but we know
that many polling stations do not have female coverage across the
entirety of the day. That would now be required, under these
regulations, so we are asking councils that are deeply in debt
and struggling to afford social care for some of our poorest
people to go on to eBay and buy mirrors. We would need one mirror
for every polling station and we would probably need some spares
in case one got smashed along the way.
It is a warped priority for councils to be buying mirrors, so can
the Minister say whether the Government will be providing privacy
screens and mirrors for every single polling station, or whether
that cost will be put on to hard-pressed council taxpayers? I
suspect that if the parties were in opposite positions and we
were introducing this, Conservative Members would be saying,
“Look at this Labour Government waste, buying mirrors and privacy
screens.” Why is that not being said here? The £180 million cost
is a significant amount of money that should be being spent on
social care. The Tory-run Plymouth City Council is £37 million in
deficit at the moment, and I want it to spend every single penny
on essential public services, not on this type of
bureaucracy.
Another concern I would like the Minister to address is the
safety of polling clerks at the polling stations. We have to
assume that refusing people or asking them for ID will generate a
certain level of friction among some of the people seeking to
cast their vote. Plymouth has 105 polling stations and there is
real concern about what advice has been and will be given to
those polling clerks about what happens if that friction turns
into violence. Will there be adequate policing resources
available on polling day to ensure that those polling clerks are
safe when they ask people for ID or when they have to refuse
them? What about the people who do not return when they have been
refused? Our SNP colleague, the hon. Member for Inverclyde
(), estimated that this would
involve nearly a third of the people. That is an enormous number
of people who might be in possession of the correct form of
identification but do not have it with them when they go to vote.
That is an awful lot of people who simply will not return, and
not just for that election, because it will damage their voting
experience for the rest of their lives.
I want to put on record a concern about the rural impact of the
proposal. People who live in an urban area who are refused
because they have left their ID at home might be able to walk
back to their polling station easily, but those who live in a
rural area and must travel large distances to get to their
polling station are less likely to return. There is an
urban-rural divide.
How will the Minister judge the success or failure of this
measure? We know that there has been only one conviction, so in
the Minister’s eyes, how many people being refused their right to
vote will class the proposal a success, and what is the level at
which it tips over to be a failure? I think that a single person
being denied the right to vote is a failure, but I understand
that the Government have taken a different view, and I would like
to understand how many people must be turned away for this not to
be successful.
This is not a piece of legislation of which the House can be
proud. More importantly, it is not a piece of legislation of
which the Minister should be proud. After this piece of voter
suppression delivers partisan advantage in May and turns out to
be a failure because people are refused their right to vote on a
widespread basis—heaven help us if there is violence or if a poll
clerk gets injured because of this—what do the Government think
success looks like? Denying people their vote is never a success;
it is always a failure, and I think that is what this piece of
legislation will be.
7.53pm
(North Shropshire) (LD)
In mid-October, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stood here and
warned us that eye-wateringly difficult decisions would need to
be made by the Government to stabilise public finances following
the disastrous October mini-Budget, yet today we are being asked
to pass regulations and put the final touches to a scheme that
will cost £180 million over the next 10 years to solve the issue
of just 33 allegations of voter fraud in 2019, with only one
conviction and one caution. That might look like good value for
money to the Conservatives, but the truth is that it is a
staggering waste of money. In the midst of a cost of living
crisis and a self-inflicted financial disaster, it beggars belief
that this scheme is going ahead. Our councils are cutting
critical services because of extreme financial pressure and we
should not be burdening them with the additional cost of a scheme
that is totally unnecessary. Whether it is for mirrors, privacy
screens or ID cards, it is all a complete waste of their
time.
But is worse than that: not only is photo ID for voting not
really needed, but the plan is not even expected to work
particularly well. The chair of the Electoral Commission has told
Ministers that the plans cannot be delivered in a way that is
“fully secure, accessible, and workable”
in time for next May’s local elections. The Conservative chair of
the Local Government Association is calling for the
implementation of voter ID to be delayed because the LGA simply
does not have time to get the plans in place for May without
access to votes being put at risk.
The most worrying element, as colleagues have pointed out, is
that the likely effect of all this will be selective voter
suppression. Research has shown that there might be around 3.5
million people without the right ID and that those people are
more likely to be the most vulnerable in society, such as those
with limiting disabilities, as well as younger voters, black and
ethnic minorities and the least well off in society. The Cabinet
Office has already admitted that around 42% of those without
photo ID are estimated to be unlikely to apply for a voter ID
card. The proposed acceptable forms of ID include a 60+ Oyster
card or bus pass, but not the young person’s equivalent. This
will disproportionately disadvantage students and young people.
The Government have shown no concern at all about the possibility
of postal voter fraud, which will not require any form of ID; I
fear that is down to the fact that postal voters are most likely
to be older and to vote Conservative, while the young and the
other groups I have mentioned are more likely to support an
Opposition party.
There is no need to go into any further detail. In summary, I
urge the House to consider the facts: we do not need photo ID, we
cannot afford to implement the scheme and the proposals will
simply lead to voter suppression. This Government should be
trying to give the next generation a reason to vote for them, not
to supress their view because they have offered them nothing.
Scrapping this legislation is not an eye-wateringly difficult
decision. It would be a common-sense course of action. The
Liberal Democrats are determined to end this legislation and I
therefore urge all Members to vote against it today.
(Shrewsbury and Atcham)
(Con)
Where are they, then? Where are all the Lib Dems?
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
Order. No shouting out. I call .
7.57pm
(Hayes and Harlington)
(Lab)
The debate so far has been superb and I want to congratulate my
right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne () on the expert way in which
she completely took apart the Government’s arguments. I was 20
years in local government before I came here, and the last
exercise in voter suppression was the poll tax. I was in local
government at the time—I was chief executive of the Association
of London Authorities, which represented both Conservative and
Labour councils—and we explained to the then Government what the
effect of introducing the poll tax legislation would be. It might
well have been advertised as a fairer way of funding local
government and collecting resources, but we argued that the
Government needed to be careful because it could also possibly
result in voter suppression. Naively, we did not think that that
was an exercise being deliberately undertaken by the
Government.
Although the poll tax brought down Mrs Thatcher as Prime
Minister, it ensured that a Tory Government were elected in 1992
because of what happened in many constituencies. Take my own
constituency as an example, where 5,000 mainly working-class
people dropped off the register. As a result, there were four
recounts and I lost by 54 votes. I know every one of them and I
visit them every so often, but there we are. That was an exercise
that was done for one reason but actually had a sub-reason, which
was voter suppression, and unfortunately I think that is what is
happening today.
My second point is that, because of my local government
background, I know that there is a long tradition that we listen
to our electoral administrators. They are the one group of people
in an authority whose professionalism we do not contest, because
they serve all political parties, and they do so independently
and to the best of their abilities. Most of them have limited
staff and limited resources, and they are not particularly well
paid either. Survey after survey shows the majority have no
confidence that they can deliver this change in time for the
local elections. First, they do not have the staff in place
because of cutbacks. Secondly, they do not have time to have
their computer systems properly tested and operating effectively.
Thirdly, they do not have time to launch campaigns informing
people of what they need to do to register. Even if they launch a
campaign and it is sufficiently successful, the prediction is
that anything up to 16% of the electorate might apply but there
will not be the staff to administer it.
We should listen to the constitution unit’s report: this is an
accident waiting to happen. Just in administrative terms,
whatever the political motivations, this policy is not
supportable and is not needed, as has been demonstrated by speech
after speech. Unfortunately, not only is it a policy that will
ensure some people do not get the right to vote and will cause
conflict and contests at individual polling stations, but it is a
policy that people will come to regret. It smacks of the
dangerous dogs legislation, on which we cannot find anyone who
supported it or promoted it.
My only reason for speaking in this debate, apart from my local
government experience, is so that when people examine this
legislation in six, 12 or 18 months’ time, or in the years ahead,
I will be on the record as speaking out against it. I think this
is a disaster waiting to happen.
8.01pm
(Swansea West)
(Lab/Co-op)
The policy of requiring people to have ID to vote is simply a
corruption of our democracy. It knowingly suppresses poorer
communities, so the Tories can cling on to power during their
economic disaster.
We know that some 30% of people do not vote in general elections
already; we know that, of the 243 million votes cast in the past
10 years, there are only a handful of examples of fraud; and we
know that some 2% of the population do not have a driving
licence, a passport or another form of ID, and that they will now
be required to go and get that ID. Many of them will not get that
ID and will therefore be automatically disenfranchised.
We know that the poor will be disproportionately hit; we know the
disabled will be hit; we know black and ethnic minorities will be
hit; and we know the young will be hit. We also know these
regulations allow older people, but not younger people, to use
travel cards, such as Oyster cards, as voter ID. This policy is
overtly discriminatory and is clearly designed to suppress votes
and to load the dice at a future election.
Aneurin Bevan, who famously started the health service, would be
125 years old if he were still alive today. In “In Place of
Fear”, his political analysis was that British politics is a
struggle between property and the interests of property, by which
he meant the Conservatives, and poverty, by which he meant the
mass of people represented by the Labour party. He took the view
that, in difficult economic times, property would attack
democracy itself.
At a time when one in four people is now in food poverty, thanks
to the incompetence and cynicism of the Conservative party, we
have a situation in which the Conservatives are attacking
democracy itself. They are attacking the right to peaceful
protest, and they are now attacking the right to vote by
requiring voter ID. This is a transparent attempt to corrupt
democracy. It is totally wrong, and I hope a future Labour
Government will repeal it immediately.
8.04pm
(Brighton, Kemptown)
(Lab/Co-op)
The whole debate around voter ID and the safety of our voting
system is slightly Trumpian. This is exactly what happened in the
US: the far right tried to claim the system is not safe and that
people cannot trust it, and then, when a clearly democratic
result came around that it did not like, the far right whipped up
its henchmen by saying, “This was an unfair vote.” We know that
that is not the case in Britain, and we know it has never been
the case in Britain.
The Conservative party and this Government talking down the
safety of our electoral system is exactly what these voter ID
regulations are about. It my view, it is extremely dangerous. I
asked numerous times in Committee on the Elections Act 2022 for a
public assessment of why certain forms of voter ID are acceptable
and others are not. I was particularly concerned about why
student cards and young people’s cards will not be accepted. Not
once have the Government published their rubric of why certain ID
cards will be accepted and others will not.
It is interesting that, in applying for temporary or permanent
voter ID, one piece of evidence that a local authority can accept
is that the applicant is on the roll of a local educational
institution, but a polling station will not accept the card from
that educational institution. That barrier makes no sense. The
Government cannot say, on the one hand, that evidence from the
educational institution is not acceptable to vote but, on the
other hand, that it is perfectly acceptable as the sole piece of
evidence to get a voter ID card from a local authority—no further
evidence is required—other than the barrier of having to apply
days in advance.
Under the regulations, however, a voter can apply for a temporary
ID card up to the day before an election, if the electoral
returning officer believes they would not have been able to apply
in advance. Why on earth could they not apply for it at the
polling station by showing another form of ID, by allowing the
polling clerk to make a determination? Surely it is only because
the Government want to make sure that people who would not have
ID cannot vote.
Government data shows that about a third of people have only one
piece of ID. My mother has only a passport. She has an
old-fashioned paper driving licence, and she does not have any
other form of ID. What would she do if her passport needed to be
renewed and an election were called? Given the mess in the Home
Office, she might be waiting months, if not longer, to get her
passport. It is the same with a driving licence. A person who
moves house might wait months to get their new driving licence,
but they have rightly chopped up their old licence and sent it
back. They might then have no voter ID. Despite the Government
saying that only a single-figure percentage of the population do
not have ID, anyone renewing an equivalent ID might have no form
of voter ID during the renewal period.
According to the Government’s data, 6% of people say they will be
less likely to vote. What is 6% in each constituency? It is about
3,000 voters on average. About 40 Conservative constituencies
have a majority of less than 4,000. That is 40 Conservative
constituencies that might hold on a bit longer, meaning the
Conservatives claw on to power despite the popular will.
Let us consider travelcards, for example. Even the Government’s
own research shows that 4% of young and middle-aged people
believe their travelcard can be used as voter ID. If they turned
up to the polling station with that ID, every single one of them
would be refused a vote—that is not to mention the embarrassment
of being turned away—and many of them, about a third, would not
bother to return. Those numbers would change about 15 results at
an election. That might make a difference in a tight
election.
The Minister said the professional world has mixed views about
the implementation of voter ID, which I am afraid is just not
true. The Minister is either mistaken or something far worse, and
I would not believe that of this very good Minister. The reality
is that every single professional body—the Local Government
Association, the Electoral Commission, the Association of
Electoral Administrators—says that the implementation of these
regulations at this time is dangerous. They know it is dangerous
because they have not been able to roll out even a card-based
voter ID. It will be a piece of paper produced by the local
authority. A piece of paper! Really? They will accept a piece of
paper that an electoral services officer may have authorised, but
they will not accept a travelcard that has to be applied for with
a proper form of ID. It is ridiculous.
The regulations will allow people in the community to attest that
someone is who they say they are, but they will allow a person in
the community to attest for only two people every election
publication cycle. A doctor, a teacher or the one lawyer in a
poor community might want to attest for many people, to say that
they have known a person for a long time, but they will only be
able to do so for two people. If those people cannot prove
through other means who they are they are—there are other means,
I grant that—they will not be able to go to their doctor, because
the doctor will have used up their two for that year. Those are
unnecessary burdens. We do not put that burden on applying for a
passport or any other form of ID. Those arbitrary numbers are
deliberately designed to attack the poorest who would not have
access to others.
The Government’s own data says that those who are trans or
non-binary, who might be sick or have cancer, or who have
experienced large amounts of weight loss and look significantly
different, might face difficulties getting past the electoral
services officer, but they have no plans to do anything about
that apart from highlight to the polling stations that they
should be cautious about that. How can they highlight to someone
that they should be cautious that someone might not look like
their ID, and at the same time say that they must refuse anyone
who does not look like their ID? The Government’s own impact
assessment does not make sense. The impact assessment on age says
that they do not think that will be a significant difference, but
the data itself says there will be a 4% to 6% drop in young
people going to the polls. We know that those people are already
less likely to vote.
We can have an argument about whether we should have electoral ID
or not. We can have an argument about whether it should be photo
ID or the wider version. The Electoral Commission said that it
preferred any form of ID, such as a credit card or other form of
named evidence. We can have those arguments and we will continue
to do so, but this instrument is being introduced with less than
five months to go before nationwide polls, and no council
administrator believes that they will be able to operate it
safely. That is undermining our local councils. We know why the
Government are trying to do that: they know that they will lose a
load of their councils because people are fed up with the nasty
Conservatives undermining their democracy and their councils.
This should not pass.
8.12pm
It has been an interesting debate, with quite a large proportion
of it rerunning the previous legislative discussion, which I will
not spend time at the Dispatch Box responding to. There is a
question about temperateness of language, particularly some of
the language used in places. This is our attempt to ensure there
is integrity within the voting system. Quite frankly, some of the
statements tonight should be considered in the round.
The Government’s focus is on ensuring that the system is set up
fairly, working with those who want to ensure that the
implementation works, dealing with the detail and making sure
that happens. We can rerun the previous debate, as many Members
seem to wish to, or we get on with the job. We are choosing to
get on with the job.
I will turn briefly to a number of comments from Opposition
Members. The hon. Members for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport
() and for North Shropshire
() both talked about resource
and funding. There is additional funding coming for this
activity. Some of it has already been provided to local councils
and is already being used today to prepare for what is coming in
a number of months’ time.
The Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for
Ashton-under-Lyne (), made a series of
statements, or claims—or however one would like to state it. One
of them was that voter personation is rare, but the OSCE report
says about the United Kingdom:
“concerns are regularly expressed with regards to the lack of
safeguards against possible fraud resultant from a weak system of
voter registration and postal voting, compounded by the absence
of a requirement to produce identification at any stage of the
process.”
[Interruption.] The right hon. Lady heckles because she does not
want to talk about what independent assessors have highlighted.
The Government are trying to respond to that over time.
Secondly, the right hon. Lady talked about the use of dangerous
language. She calls voter ID backwards and unworkable. The hon.
Member for Strangford (), who was the only Opposition Member who rose to
support the changes we are making, has been dealing with this
system for the last 15 years. Thirdly, the right hon. Lady
highlights the concern about the breadth of ID that can be used.
[Interruption.] For the record, I will read the list of
acceptable documentation, because the right hon. Lady does not
seem to want to either read it or understand it: a United Kingdom
passport, a passport issued by a European economic area state or
Commonwealth country, a driving licence—[Interruption.]
(Worthing West) (Con)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am trying to listen
to the Minister. Four Opposition Members are speaking at the same
time. It would be easier if they did not.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. There is quite
a lot of noise on both sides. I would suggest that we listen to
the list being read out by the Minister.
For the record: a United Kingdom passport, a passport issued by
an EEA state or Commonwealth country, a full driving licence, a
provisional driving licence, a UK biometric immigration document,
an identity card bearing proof of age, a standard scheme hologram
PASS card, a defence identity card, a blue badge, a voter
authority certificate or a temporary voter authority certificate,
an anonymous electors document, a Northern Ireland electoral
identity card, or a national identity card issued by an EEA
state. [Interruption.] The list goes on, because we are trying to
ensure that this approach works over the long term.
Several hon. Members rose—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. If the Minister does not want to give way, he is not going
to. It is up to him.
I am not giving way only because the Opposition asked a series of
questions and I am seeking to answer them. Indeed, it is
incumbent upon the Opposition to listen to the answers that I am
giving.
Finally, the hon. Member for Leeds East (), with his liberal
sprinkling of rather outrageous hyperbole, talked of Tony Benn
and the working class. This working-class kid from Tony Benn’s
constituency knows exactly what constituents in places such as
Chesterfield or the one that I have the privilege to represent
would say if they were asked about this. Their views would be
closer to mine than the hon. Gentleman’s quite outrageous
indications. It is for that reason, and for the security and
integrity of the ballot box, that I commend this SI to the
House.
Question put.
[Division 123
The House divided:
Ayes
298
Noes
199
Question accordingly agreed to.
Held on 12 December 2022 at
8.18pm](/Commons/2022-12-12/division/C70A3064-1054-4F1F-AFE8-8531FD12E4BF/CommonsChamber?outputType=Names)
Resolved,
That the draft Voter Identification Regulations 2022, which were
laid before this House on 3 November, be approved.
|
