Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD) (Urgent Question): To ask
the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to
make a statement on the voter identification scheme. The Minister
of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
(Rachel Maclean) We were pleased and encouraged by the first
roll-out of voter identification at the local elections in England
in May. The data gathered in polling stations showed that the vast
majority of...Request free trial
(North East Fife)
(LD)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling
Up, Housing and Communities to make a statement on the voter
identification scheme.
The Minister of State, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and
Communities ()
We were pleased and encouraged by the first roll-out of voter
identification at the local elections in England in May. The data
gathered in polling stations showed that the vast majority of
electors—99.75%—were able to cast their vote successfully and
adapted well to the roll-out of the changes. We are grateful to
local authorities and other partners for their work to deliver
the change in requirements.
The Government committed in legislation to conduct an evaluation
of the implementation of voter identification at the local
elections in May and at the next two UK parliamentary general
elections. Our intention is that the first of those reports,
evaluating the implementation at May’s local elections, will be
published in November 2023. Yesterday the Government published
two documents that demonstrate that we are making clear progress
with the evaluation, and that provide more detail on the evidence
upon which it will be based. We are determined to ensure that we
fully understand how the policy has operated in practice, what
has gone well, and any ideas for improvement.
There are few tasks more important in public life than
maintaining the integrity of our democratic processes and the
British public’s trust in them. We are not just committed to
doing so; we are acting to achieve that. The Government have
taken seriously the important recommendations made by the
independent Electoral Commission, by international electoral
observers and by Sir Eric Pickles—now Lord Pickles—in his report
into electoral fraud, and we have been committed in the years
since to addressing what has been a staggering vulnerability in
our electoral system. It was previously far too easy to commit
the crime of electoral fraud in the polling station and almost
impossible to detect it. I am immensely proud that we have now
delivered this new process and fulfilled our manifesto
commitment.
I suspect that the Minister and I were reading different reports,
because the first report cards on the roll-out of voter
identification in England are out, and they are not good. The
Electoral Commission’s report—the result of extensive work
monitoring and analysing the recent elections—warned that
disabled people and the unemployed found it harder to show
accepted voter ID, as well as younger people and people from
ethnic minorities. It also reported that on average more deprived
areas had a higher proportion turned away compared with less
deprived areas. The Local Government Information Unit reported
that approximately 14,000 voters were not given a ballot paper
because they could not show an accepted form of ID and
significantly more were deterred from voting because of the ID
requirement.
This is not just about England, because the next election is UK
wide—it will affect my constituents in North East Fife. Hundreds
of thousands of people risk being turned away at the next
election, at a cost to the taxpayer of £120 million over the next
decade, and all of that to combat levels of voter fraud that, at
the last election, stood at six cases—talk about using a
sledgehammer to crack a nut. A general election is perhaps no
more than a year away, but it is clear from reading the reports
that we are teetering on the cliff edge of a democratic travesty,
not just because the roll-out of voter ID has been botched—many
of us believe that it should never have been implemented in the
first place—but because of the Government’s apparent refusal to
listen to the concerns of members of the public and Members of
this House. That was what they did in the run-up to the local
elections, when take-up of voter authority certificates was
pitiful and local authorities were warning that they were
unprepared, and that is what the Government are doing now.
I was hugely disheartened that in both the Minister’s response
and the written statement published yesterday the Government seem
to be taking a stance of blindly ignoring the warning signs. So
far, I see no evidence to suggest that that stance will change in
the Government’s evaluation report in November. I hope that the
Minister will use the opportunity to start setting things right.
Will the Government ensure that the evaluation report in November
is truly independent? What measures are under consideration to
ensure that voters will not be turned away at the general
election, as the LGIU report warns? How do the Government intend
to expand the roll-out of voter authority certificates ahead of
the general election, and will they expand the list of acceptable
forms of identification?
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments, but I remind all Members
in this Chamber that we have already passed the Elections Act
2022; it passed the scrutiny of both Houses and is now law. If
she refers to the debates in Hansard, she has treated us to a
compilation of the Liberal Democrats’ greatest hits—and that is
no surprise because, as always, they do one thing and say
another. If she is so opposed to the principle of electoral
identification and photographic identification, why did her party
support its introduction in Northern Ireland? At that time, the
Liberal Democrat Front-Bench spokesperson told Parliament
that
“we accept the need for a Bill… The Liberal Democrats…welcome the
Government’s intention to introduce an electoral identity
card”[—[Official Report, 10 July 2001; Vol. 371, c.
705-707.]](/search/column?VolumeNumber=371&ColumnNumber=705&House=1)
That legislation passed Second Reading without a vote. If we
separate the points of substance and process from re-running the
battles of the past, of course we take the recommendations of the
independent Electoral Commission extremely seriously, as we set
out in detail in the report and as I set out in my remarks
earlier.
(Worthing West) (Con)
The Minister has rightly distinguished the political from the
practical. The Electoral Commission itself recommended
photographic ID, and it has now come forward with other
comments.
We must recognise that the biggest deficit is the inadequacies in
the completeness of the electoral roll, and the fact that one
third of people do not vote in general elections and up to two
thirds do not vote in local elections. We ought to spend as much
time on that issue as we do on this.
We ought to consider the suggestion of attestation, where someone
in a household who does not have voter ID can have their identity
attested by a person in the same household who does. Perhaps
neighbours ought to be able to do that, and other people with
some kind of standing in society might be able to do the same
thing for people who find they cannot vote on the day. It seems
to me that we can improve what we have without throwing out the
whole system of photographic ID, which, as the Minister has said,
was supported by all parties when it was first brought in for
Northern Ireland.
I thank my hon. Friend the Father of the House for those very
sensible and proportionate comments. He is right that, as
political parties, we all have a responsibility to ensure that
our constituents and those voters take part in our democratic
process. That is what this process is about. I am afraid that the
kind of scaremongering comments that we have just heard from the
Liberal Democrats, and that no doubt we will hear from all the
other Opposition parties, are damaging the important cause that
we all stand behind: ensuring the safety of our precious
democracy, which now more than at any other time could
potentially be at risk. I am proud to be part of a Government who
are taking sensible steps to protect our democracy from the kind
of interference that we all fear could happen in this day and
age.
Mr Speaker
I welcome the shadow Minister.
(Vauxhall)
(Lab/Co-op)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I echo the concerns raised by the hon.
Member for North East Fife () in her urgent question
and by the Father of the House in his sensible remarks. The
Minister should be promoting confidence in our electoral system
and concentrating on getting the millions of people who are not
registered to vote on to the register. Instead, she has tried to
pull the wool over our eyes this morning by presenting the
Electoral Commission’s report as a ringing endorsement of her
Government’s dangerous policies.
The reality is far from that. This extremely concerning report
brings into sharp focus the consequences of the Tories’ failed
photo ID regulations. By introducing such strict regulations,
against the advice of experts and equality groups, the
Conservatives have snatched away the ability of legitimate voters
to have their say on services and society. One former Minister,
the right hon. Member for North East Somerset (Sir ), admitted that this
partisan scheme was designed to rig the rules and lock voters out
of democracy. The Minister claims that she is concerned with
protecting our democracy, so will she agree to the entirely
reasonable Electoral Commission reforms and the widening of the
list of ID that people can use to vote, or will she commit to
introducing a vouching rule for those without voter ID?
Given that the Electoral Commission said that the rules risk
widespread disenfranchisement at the general election, will the
Minister commit now to publishing the evidence to prove the
commission wrong? That should not be a problem if she has nothing
to hide.
Is the Minister concerned by the watchdog’s findings that the
laws could have a disproportionate impact on people from minority
ethnic backgrounds? When the independent review concludes, will
she commit to making a statement to the House?
May I take this opportunity to warmly welcome the hon. Lady to
her place and to thank her for her comments? On the substantive,
non-political points that she made, I have been extremely clear,
and am happy to repeat the assurance, that we are working
carefully with the independent Electoral Commission, which itself
recommended the introduction of photographic ID to safeguard our
precious democracy. We are looking at all its recommendations. We
will, of course, naturally come forward for scrutiny when the
findings are published, as we do as a matter of course.
On the substantive point, is the hon. Lady really saying that the
Labour party will repeal the Elections Act should it come into
government? What exactly has the Labour party done to raise
confidence among Labour voters? Or is this just a case of Labour
Members standing on the sidelines making shrill, scaremongering
claims? Time and again, Labour has made such claims ahead of the
sensible and proportionate pilot schemes that we have rolled out,
but none of the things that Labour Members have warned about has
happened—[Interruption.] Perhaps she would like to listen to my
remarks.
The new shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, the right
hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (), warned of shortages of
electoral staff, lack of venues and funding uncertainty ahead of
the local elections in May 2021. The Mayor of London, , warned that elderly people and
ethnic minorities would not visit polling stations. None of those
things has happened. The Electoral Commission—[Interruption.]
Opposition Members are chuntering from sedentary positions, but
perhaps they should listen to the words of the independent
Electoral Commission—not my words—which found that
“the polls were delivered safely and successfully”,
and that changes put in place by the UK Government, the
commission and electoral administrators helped to “support and
reassure voters” and campaigners.
I think it important to make this final point. The hon. Lady
talks about ethnic minorities being disenfranchised and
discriminated against, but we know from the type of heinous
behaviour that we saw in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham that ethnic
minority voters are most disenfranchised and disadvantaged by not
having security in our elections.
(Harrow East) (Con)
The crime of personation has been notoriously difficult to prove.
We have functioned on the basis of trust that people who go to
the polling station are who they say they are. The sad reality is
that when I was elected in 2010, we found after the election that
scores, perhaps hundreds, of people who had voted in my
constituency were actually abroad at the time. The police refused
to do anything about it. People impersonated those voters. I do
not how they voted, but clearly those votes were stolen from
people. Voter ID ensures that that sort of activity cannot
happen. Will my hon. Friend also take up the issue of postal and
proxy voting to ensure that their proper policing is integral to
our system?
My hon. Friend is totally right. The suggestion from the
Opposition parties is that we should just wait and see whether
something bad happens, and then take action. That is the wrong
way to go about safeguarding our democracy, which we should all
be proud of. He makes the extremely valid point that it is
impossible to detect impersonation. When it has been detected,
such as in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham—the Opposition do not
like me mentioning it—people have been taken to court and found
guilty of these offences. He is also right to raise the issue of
postal and proxy voting, and he will know that we are commencing
provisions to safeguard some of those processes, which is the
right thing to do.
Madam Deputy Speaker ( )
I call the SNP spokesperson.
(Glasgow North) (SNP)
The incredibly hard-working team at the Electoral Commission are
far too polite to say, “We told you so,” but that would be a
pretty easy way to sum up most of what is in this report.
Practically every concern about the introduction of photo ID that
was raised during the passage of the Elections Bill has been
borne out in the by-elections and local elections that have taken
place since it became law.
The Government say that they want to increase democratic
participation and not suppress turnout among minority and
disadvantaged communities, but the evidence suggests that that is
exactly what is happening—fewer votes from sections of society
that it just so happens are less likely to vote Tory. What steps
will the Government take in advance of the general election to
remove barriers to voting established by the Elections Act 2022?
Will they expand the list of acceptable ID? Will they make sure
that, as the Father of the House suggests, people can vote on
polling day through attestation? Will they make sure that the
Electoral Commission and local authorities are properly resourced
to fulfil their functions? They already have to deal with
boundary changes and polling district redraws, and now they have
to deal with the Elections Act. Will the Government look to
Scotland as well, where with votes for 16 and 17-year-olds,
refugees and EU citizens, we are seeking to expand, not restrict,
the franchise?
I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman listened to the response
that I have given multiple times, but I am happy to repeat it, in
case he was reading his brief at the time. We are working with
the Electoral Commission on all the recommendations it has made.
It made several recommendations, and we are looking closely at
them. I hope that we all share the same objective of making sure
that this change is rolled out successfully.
If the hon. Gentleman does not like our proposals—I am sure he
does not, because he wants to break up the United Kingdom—could
he explain why they are working so well in Northern Ireland? The
incredibly hard-working people, as he puts it, from the Electoral
Commission have observed there:
“Since the introduction of photo ID in Northern Ireland there
have been no reported cases of personation. Voters’ confidence
that elections are well-run in Northern Ireland is consistently
higher than in Great Britain, and there are virtually no
allegations of electoral fraud at polling stations.”
Why is it perfectly acceptable for us to listen to the Electoral
Commission in Northern Ireland, England and Wales but not in
Scotland?
(Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
One of the problems was that people took ID that had run out,
such as driving licences and passports. Does the Minister agree
that if a document has recently run out, as long as it has a
photograph of the person, it is admissible? Furthermore, could
the amount of ID that can be shown be broadened slightly, so that
people have a bit more choice in what they can use?
I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestions. It is right that we
look at all the practical barriers that have been encountered at
polling stations. That is why we are working closely with the
sector to listen to its feedback and to representations from
civil society, disability charities and others. We know that
where voter identification was trialled in pilots, the proportion
of people who agreed that electoral fraud was not a problem
increased from 13% to 32%. We know that most people were able to
vote successfully in both the pilot and the last local elections,
but it is right to look at all the details, and we will be doing
so, in line with the Electoral Commission’s recommendations.
(Denton and Reddish)
(Lab)
If we are to have voter ID at the next general election, which we
will, will the Minister seriously look at extending the amount of
ID that is acceptable? It is unfathomable that a concessionary
bus pass is acceptable, but an 18-year-old’s bus pass is not.
I would like the hon. Gentleman to look carefully at the
eligibility for 18-year-old Oyster cards and 60-plus Oyster
cards, because they are different. Eligibility for the 60-plus
card involves significantly more requirements, including a
passport or driving licence. Of course, when we try to expand the
forms of identification that can be used, we are going to say yes
in some instances and no in others if the eligibility is
different.
(Cleethorpes) (Con)
Despite what we are hearing from Opposition Members, my
experience at the local elections in May was that when people
were turned away, they did indeed return. They are used to
providing identification when dealing with so many other
services, and they found it quite acceptable. We need to
recognise that the public at large are very supportive of the
policy, but echoing other comments, could the Minister give an
assurance that the postal vote system will be thoroughly
examined? There are genuine causes for concern about that
system.
My hon. Friend makes an accurate observation, and he is right
that the vast majority of the general public support the policy.
I remind Opposition Members that we were elected on a manifesto
commitment to introduce these measures. They have been thoroughly
debated in both Houses and have received very serious
parliamentary scrutiny. Opposition Members are asking the same
questions that they have asked time and time again, and I remind
them that prior to the introduction of this policy, it was harder
to take out a library book or collect a parcel from a post office
than it was to vote in someone else’s name. This Government do
not agree that that is an acceptable state of affairs in Great
Britain today, and I find it quite astounding that members of
Opposition parties do.
(Bath) (LD)
If we as a country truly value democracy, it should be in the
interests of the state that as many people as possible vote,
rather than deliberately turning them away as this Conservative
Government have done. Since the Minister has chosen to attack the
Liberal Democrats’ legitimate concerns rather than answer
questions, I will start again and ask her to answer a specific
question: what measures are under consideration to ensure that
voters will not be turned away at the next general election?
For the hon. Lady’s benefit, I will repeat the specific answers I
have already given. We know that the vast majority of people were
able to vote successfully, so I have nothing to do other than
remind her that the Liberal Democrats, of which she is a member,
supported the introduction of photographic identification in
Northern Ireland. It is quite astonishing to me that the Liberal
Democrats continue to oppose introducing sensible measures in
England that they supported and voted for in Northern Ireland,
which is part of our United Kingdom.
(Leeds East) (Lab)
On the day of the local elections, I remember knocking on the
door of a constituent who told me that she usually votes, but was
not going to because she realised that she did not have the
necessary voter ID. That broke my heart: her democratic rights,
which she has exercised time and time again, were taken away, and
of course she will not appear in that figure of 14,000 people who
were turned away.
The Electoral Commission says that ethnic minorities and
unemployed voters were more likely to be turned away at the
polling station. When we show our constituents around this House,
we talk about the struggle for the universal franchise. Let us
remember that the establishment that the Conservative party
represents did not want women or the working class to have the
vote. Will the Minister reflect on our journey towards increasing
participation in democracy, and on how this rotten arrangement is
robbing people of their hard-won democratic rights?
I will respond to that by asking the hon. Gentleman to reflect on
his comments. Is he seriously suggesting that the introduction of
photographic identification is not suitable? Does he seriously
think that it should be harder to take out a library book than to
vote in his constituency today? If he is seriously suggesting
that, that—more than anything else—gives us evidence that the
Labour party is in no way ready for government. It is not a
serious party: it does not take seriously the threat to our
democracy from international actors, and would do nothing to
tackle the very real issues experienced by ethnic minorities in
Tower Hamlets and Birmingham, who are being systematically
disenfranchised by the corrupt practices of certain people in
their local areas.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I might be a lone voice on the Opposition side of the Chamber,
but I reinforce what the Minister has said. The electoral voter
ID system for Northern Ireland has been a tremendous success, as
is proved at every election. It shows that the system can
work.
A short time ago, along with my chief of staff, I visited the
Electoral Office for Northern Ireland to be constructive and
suggest how we could perhaps do some things better. The Electoral
Commission is agreeing to set up hubs across Northern Ireland
constituencies, giving people the opportunity to get their voter
IDs in person. That has not always been possible in areas of my
constituency, so I welcome that commitment, which will be
announced, I understand, in early October. Will the Minister
consider something similar for the United Kingdom so that
everyone can have the advantage of getting their voter ID in
person in their own constituency?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for sharing his really practical and
useful wisdom from the policy that has been rolled out in
Northern Ireland—a valued part of our United Kingdom—where it has
been working very well for many years. I note that a much smaller
list of documents is used in Northern Ireland and that that has
worked effectively. In the Electoral Commission’s recent 2021
public opinion tracker survey, not a single respondent from
Northern Ireland reported that they did not have ID and had found
themselves unable to vote.
Of course, we must always look at the sensible and practical
recommendations from the Electoral Commission. We will continue
to do that. Before this roll-out, we put a significant amount of
investment into working with civil society and charities. We have
made funding available for communications campaigns. It is just a
shame that the Labour party and Liberal Democrats did not take
the opportunity to amplify our messages among their own
constituents. We all have a shared responsibility in this place
to amplify messages and communicate effectively, particularly to
ethnic minority and disabled voters. I know that is what I did
ahead of local elections; I wonder what they did.
(Harrogate and Knaresborough)
(Con)
Has my hon. Friend the Minister received representations from any
colleagues in the House, particularly from Opposition parties,
about the arrangements for voter ID in Northern Ireland? After
all, those were introduced by the Labour Government of the time
and the arrangement is used by Labour at its own internal
elections.
My hon. Friend is absolutely spot on, as always. If Labour
Members now think that voter identification is so wrong, why are
they not campaigning to repeal their own laws? Why should
electoral fraud be tolerated in Great Britain but not in Northern
Ireland? Do they really believe that most European countries,
which require voter ID, engage in so-called voter suppression?
They seem to want to take us back into the European Union across
all areas of policy; perhaps this is their latest ploy to take us
back into the EU.
(East Renfrewshire)
(SNP)
For all the bluster that the Minister is deploying, I am not sure
that we are any clearer about what she actually thinks. A minute
ago, she referred to “international actors”. Which international
actors are pretending to be Mrs McGlumpher from the high street,
trying to vote? She is deploying a ridiculous argument. The
reality is that the Electoral Commission’s research has shown
that younger people, ethnic minorities and unemployed people were
all disproportionately disenfranchised by voter ID. Those are, of
course, all demographic groups less likely than others to vote
Tory. Does the Minister understand that those of us looking at
the issue with a perspective different from hers think that
rather than safeguarding democracy, as she would suggest, it
looks very much like voter suppression—“If you can’t persuade
them, don’t let them vote”?
No, I do not understand a single thing that the hon. Lady said,
which is hardly surprising from the nationalists across there.
She thinks this is voter suppression; her party is so keen to
break up the United Kingdom and rejoin the European Union, but
this is standard practice across the European Union in all manner
of elections. The fact that the hon. Lady cannot take seriously
the threats to our democracy shows the lack of seriousness that
the Scottish National party—[Interruption.] She does not like
what I am saying and is chuntering from a sedentary position, but
perhaps she ought to listen to a serious Government about the
serious actions we are taking.
(Stretford and Urmston)
(Lab)
The Government have committed to an independent review of their
voter ID changes. Can the Minister tell us who will conduct that
review and what its terms of reference will be? If she is not in
a position to do that today, can she confirm when she will be
able to share that information?
We will make further statements on that process in due course,
and we will be subject to the usual parliamentary scrutiny.
(Paisley and Renfrewshire
North) (SNP)
Following on from the question of my hon. Friend the Member for
East Renfrewshire (), the Minister’s answers
have taken sophistry to new levels. She said that 99.7% of voters
were able to vote, but that is only of those who turned up to
vote, and many will not have bothered to try and vote. The
Government knew that young people, ethnic minorities and the
unemployed would be disproportionately affected but they did it
anyway. Incidentally, having tried to apply myself, I can attest
to the fact that the Scottish young person’s concessionary travel
card requires a lot more proof of ID than the London Oyster card
for young people. Will she just admit that this Government’s
version of voter ID is blatant antidemocratic gerrymandering?
It is right that I put on record once again that everybody can
vote across the UK. The methods that have been introduced are
free methods available to everybody. On the hon. Gentleman’s
other points, I actually take his comments as a compliment and
refer him to my previous remarks.
|
