Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill
Friday 17th January 2025
(6 months ago)
Commons ChamberAbsent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Ensuring that electors can vote is fundamental to our democracy. Although most of us choose to vote in person, many people face barriers that prevent them from doing so. In October 2023, the online absent voting application services were launched, giving voters the option to apply online for their postal or proxy vote for the first time. The services allowed people the choice to apply online or to use the existing option to apply through a traditional paper application, should they wish. The services are currently available for electors in Great Britain for United Kingdom Parliament elections and for police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales. In England, voters can also use the services to apply for a postal or proxy vote in all local elections.
The value of the new online absent voting application services was made very clear in the 2024 general election, not long after their launch. Data published by the Government show that over 1.5 million people in Great Britain made an application to vote by post or by proxy vote in the run-up to the general election last year. Between 22 May—the day the election was called—and the deadline for absent vote applications, 84% of postal vote applications and 93% of proxy vote applications were made using the online service. It is clear that electors found it effective, with over 90% of those using it during that period recording that they were satisfied with the service.
For voters in Scotland and Wales, the option to use the digital route for absent voting arrangements is limited. An elector in Scotland or Wales who wants a postal or proxy vote for a devolved Parliament or local election is still required to fill out a paper application form and physically send it in to be processed. The Bill would end the inconsistency and give voters in Scotland and Wales an equal choice in how they apply for an absent vote for use in the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru and local elections.
Graeme Downie (Dunfermline and Dollar) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does she agree that—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. Please be seated, both of you. Ms Gilbert, when you take an intervention, which is your choice, you must sit down.
Graeme Downie
Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill is vital to ensuring that everyone in Scotland, Wales and across the UK has every opportunity to vote in elections, and that we must continue to do all we can through schools and other means of encouragement to make sure that people fully understand the democratic process and that it is accessible at all times and in all ways?
Tracy Gilbert
Yes, I do agree. The Gould review and report made it clear that making voting accessible to everyone, particularly young and disabled people, is critical to encouraging as many people as possible to vote.
The Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru are both holding their parliamentary elections in May 2026, and it would be a great benefit to voters and electoral administrators alike if access to the online services were to be provided in time for those polls. This is not about forcing electors down a specific route to apply; all electors would continue to be able to make an absent vote application on paper if they wished. All the Bill would do is give them an additional option to apply online.
One consideration that I must emphasise is the importance of devolution. It is absolutely right that responsibility for local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru is devolved to those bodies. The Bill was carefully drafted to respect that, and the requirements for legislative consent in respect of relevant parts of the Bill will duly be followed. The Bill would give the Welsh and Scottish Governments powers to enable applications for postal and proxy votes for devolved elections to be made digitally through the new online services.
There are two further aspects to the Bill. First, regulations made under the Bill would require electors applying for an absent vote for devolved elections in Scotland and Wales to provide their national insurance number as part of their application. To be clear, that identity checking requirement is not the same as voter identification at polling stations, where photographic identification must be produced. Instead, it is an up-front check at the point the postal or proxy vote application is made, and simply requires the applicant to provide their national insurance number. The same requirement applies to absent voting applications for reserved elections and has been in place for applications to register to vote for devolved and reserved elections since 2014.
Secondly, the Bill would align the renewal cycles for devolved elections with the three-year cycles in place for reserved elections. Instead of having to refresh their signature every five years, electors would instead have to reapply for their postal voting arrangement every three years. That is done to avoid confusing electors and to ensure that the signature held on file is recent.
The measures in the Bill have been discussed with Scottish and Welsh Ministers, who have agreed to every element. Through the Bill, we can end the divergence and remove burdens on voters in Scotland and Wales. The Bill will remove inconsistencies across our democracy and ensure that it is modern, secure, transparent and fair. I commend the Bill to the House.
Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing forward this important piece of Member’s legislation. Having taken a Members’ Bill through the Scottish Parliament a number of years ago, I know how daunting and time-consuming the process is, so I am very grateful to all colleagues who have tabled Bills, allowing us to debate so many important subjects.
With turnout at elections dropping across the country, it is important that we as legislators do everything we can to encourage and facilitate voters. We all have a role to play, whether that is speaking to young people in our constituencies about the importance of their vote and their democratic rights being respected, or bringing forward legislation that makes the process easier for all. We have to take those responsibilities seriously—in fact, to grasp them with both hands.
Postal and proxy votes are a vital component of our elections, as they make voting possible for voters who are perhaps ill or on holiday, or whose working hours make it difficult to get to a polling station. As we have heard, since October 2023, the online absent voter application service has been available to voters who wish to vote by post and wish to apply online. The option to apply using a paper form is, of course, still available to anyone who wishes to use it.
Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)
I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing this Bill before the House. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) agree that the online service provides a vital resource for people with accessibility requirements—for those who are perhaps blind or partially sighted?
Patricia Ferguson
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. That is something I am particularly aware of in my constituency, which—as I will talk more about later on—has an ageing demographic. The online service is vital.
The option to apply by post is available for UK parliamentary elections and for police and fire commissioner elections in England and Wales. Voters in England can also use the service to apply for postal or proxy votes in local elections, but voters in Scotland and Wales currently have more limited options, as a paper form is still required for absent voting applications for a devolved Parliament or local election. The Bill will remove that restriction for voters in Scotland and Wales, and will also make the conduct of elections possibly cheaper and certainly more manageable for electoral administrators.
In Scotland, we use three different voting systems, which in and of itself can be complicating for voters. We ask them to vote by first past the post for elections to this place; we ask them to vote using the additional member system for elections to the Scottish Parliament; and we ask them to vote by single transferable vote for local authority elections. In spite of the fact that some of those methods have been in place since 1999, I have encountered voters over the piece who still find that confusing, so anything we can do to take away any complexity or complication from the process of voting must be very welcome.
The Bill is also respectful of the devolution settlement —something that is very important to me as a former Minister for Parliament in the Scottish Government. This Bill seeks to give the power to enact those parts of the system that are devolved to the Scottish and Welsh Governments, but importantly, it also allows enough time for the process to be introduced in time for the next round of Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections in 2026.
Euan Stainbank
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that many young voters—especially first-time voters—at the most recent election in 2024 will believe that they have already signed up for a postal or proxy vote, and that this Bill will be the first step in allowing people to permanently register for all elections in Scotland and Wales online?
Patricia Ferguson
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention—I was rather spoilt for choice. I absolutely agree: young people will think that. Young people are particularly used to signing up online and think that once they have done something online, it is probably there in perpetuity. In most cases, they are correct; in this, they are not. The Bill will help to resolve that issue.
I mentioned that we are going to have Scottish Parliament and Welsh parliamentary elections in 2026, but in Scotland, those elections will be quickly followed by local authority elections in 2027, so it is very important that the Bill is enacted in time for those elections to use this new system. This is a crucial step towards ensuring a consistent and straightforward voting process for people in Scotland and Wales.
Graeme Downie
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—and other Members for not asking her to give way at the same time. During the most recent general election campaign, an awful lot of time was spent explaining to voters exactly which elections they were signed up for, which ones they had postal votes for, where they had to sign up again, whether that could be done online, which confirmation they had to wait for and various other things. That caused extra complexity for returning officers and deputy returning officers in Fife, where there were many conversations, wasting a lot of time for candidates of all parties, to ensure that we all understood the process. Does she agree that this will make the process much simpler for everyone?
Patricia Ferguson
I agree that this will make it simpler. I think back to a number of conversations I heard or had on the doorstep on the issue. I thought I had begun to get my head around the situation, but I then heard colleagues who were knocking doors with me trying to explain it to citizens on the doorstep, and it became clear to me that perhaps I had not explained it properly to them. We all have a role to play, and anything we can do to make this process more obvious, more accessible and simpler will be very helpful.
I know from last year’s general election, Deputy Presiding Officer—sorry, Madam Deputy Speaker; old habits die hard—how important postal and proxy votes are to voters in my communities of Glasgow West, which had the largest number of registered postal voters in the city of Glasgow. As I said earlier, that perhaps reflects the ageing demographic in parts of my constituency. Voters should never be hindered in casting their vote by an overly complicated system, and this Bill is a major step forward in reducing that complexity. It is vital that every eligible voter has easy access to the democratic process, and this Bill will help to achieve that.
I was first elected in 1999 to another Parliament, and over the years I have worked with many returning officers and seen for myself the work that they and their staff do, year in, year out. Even when there are not elections on, they are preparing, and ensuring that electoral registers are up to date and the processes for postal and proxy votes are in place. I thank all the returning officers I have worked with over the years and their staff for everything they do to make the process as efficient as possible. Hopefully, today, with the help of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith and her Bill, we will help them to make that process even better.
Martin Rhodes (Glasgow North) (Lab)
I commend the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) to ensure that we debated this issue today. We must continue to break down the barriers to voting, to ensure increased engagement with and turnout at every form of election in all the nations of the UK. In my first speech in the House, I referred to the issue of turnout at the general election. We all have a duty to look, across all the systems we have in place, at how we can increase engagement with the political process, and with voting.
I am acutely aware of the importance of increasing engagement with our elections. My constituency of Glasgow North saw a turnout of around 50% at the last general election. That may have been in part due to a summer election in a constituency that contains a large amount of student accommodation, at which people are registered but not present. It remains incumbent on the House to continue to look at the electoral system to promote greater engagement in every election.
The Bill is important for making it easier to engage with our democracy for groups in Scotland and Wales who face barriers of accessibility to the voting system. I have mentioned the summer election happening while students were away, but when they are in student accommodation, they are away from their home, which may be where they are registered. Encouraging their access to proxy and postal voting is important in engaging them.
Graeme Downie
The point my hon. Friend makes about students during the summer is absolutely correct. Did he find on the doorstep, during the most recent general election, isolated incidents of families in Scotland having gone away on holiday, as it was during the Scottish school holidays, which are different from those in other parts of the United Kingdom? Does he also agree that the Bill proposed by the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) would help us to deal with that problem, as well as helping to deal with the issue in places where there are increased numbers of students?
Martin Rhodes
I agree with my hon. Friend. An issue raised during the election was that the period for applying did not allow much time for many families to apply who had booked to go away at the beginning of the school holidays. The Bill would make online applications easier and speedier.
Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
As ever, my hon. Friend speaks passionately about his constituency, but the Bill benefits us not just in the summertime. My constituency has a by-election for Colinton, Oxgangs and Fairmilehead next week on 23 January—I will not mention our candidate’s name, Madam Deputy Speaker—but it is wintertime; the days are short, and it is cold. A lot of people, particularly older people, would benefit from the ability to vote by post or proxy when the weather is so cold. Does he agree that people would also benefit from the measures in wintertime?
Martin Rhodes
I agree that there are benefits from the Bill in all seasons. I realise that I have now set Members the challenge of intervening to speak about spring and autumn. In winter, there are fewer daylight hours and it is colder, and people may not want to go out in the dark. The Bill would make it easier for them to access postal and proxy voting.
There was reference in an earlier intervention to those who are blind or partially sighted and use screen readers. Applying online is much easier for them; it lifts barriers to their involvement and engagement in the electoral process.
Those are just some of the groups who would benefit if we passed this legislation, modernised access to the electoral system for the devolved Parliaments, and provided the ability to introduce such measures for local government elections, too.
Steve Race (Exeter) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on bringing in the Bill. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) agree that the Bill demonstrates that Scotland’s Labour MPs are ensuring that both of Scotland’s Governments are working effectively for them?
Martin Rhodes
I certainly agree that it is important to see the Scottish Government and the United Kingdom Government working together.
Patricia Ferguson
On that point, is my hon. Friend as saddened and surprised as I am to see not a single SNP Member here? It strikes me that if they claim to be Scotland’s party, they need to be here to talk about legislation that affects Scotland.
Martin Rhodes
My hon. Friend asks whether I am saddened and surprised; I am saddened.
It is important that while we make it easier to apply online for postal and proxy votes, we do not take away any ability to apply via paper, and I welcome the fact that the legislation does not do that. Many do not have access to digital means of applying, so it is welcome that the Bill creates additional ability to apply.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
Does my hon. Friend agree that it is vital that people have a number of ways to access the democratic process, and that no one should be locked out of exercising their democratic right purely through a point of process?
Martin Rhodes
I absolutely agree, and it is important that we look to increase the ways in which people can access the voting system, because for many, digital is the usual way to apply for services, whether private or public. That is what they expect and their default. Similarly, there are groups of people for whom applying on paper, in writing and so on is their normal way of interacting with a whole range of services, whether private or public. It is important that all people find a way that they are comfortable with to access the electoral system.
Matt Turmaine (Watford) (Lab)
We all agree that we need better systems and support for ensuring increased participation in democratic processes and elections. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Bill makes participation in elections more effective and easier, and makes the application process more reliable, which has the potential to drive up turnout at elections and improve our democracy?
Martin Rhodes
I agree with my hon. Friend—I am not used to agreeing with so many people. It seems unusual, but I will carry on. My hon. Friend makes an important point, and if we can increase participation by looking at the processes in place, we should welcome that. It is important to look at all the systems.
However, simply changing the systems and processes for accessing the voting system will not in itself reduce disengagement with the political process. There are bigger and wider issues than just the form of application, so while I very much welcome the Bill as a means by which we can help people to access the political process, we all need to think about how to engage people across our countries of the United Kingdom with it.
To conclude, the challenge we face across this House is finding new, more effective ways of engaging people and allowing them to fully participate in decision-making. I welcome this Bill as one small, but useful and effective, way in which we can achieve that.
Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for introducing the Bill, and for the work that has gone in to it, which I welcome, particularly as a Welsh MP for a rural constituency.
Thinking about the history of parliamentary reform, my hon. Friend is a modern-day Chartist woman. She is a fantastic woman in this place, and she is absolutely right that voting—the mechanism by which people exercise their electoral preference or express their sense of civic duty—is the backbone of our democracy. Ensuring that electors can exercise that democratic right is essential, and an important part of it is recognising that many people face barriers that prevent them from voting in person.
Thanks to the online absent vote application services enabled by changes in the Elections Act 2022, voters have the option to apply online for a postal or proxy vote in Great Britain for UK parliamentary elections, police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales, and local elections in England. If electors do not wish to apply online for an absent voting arrangement, the existing option to apply via a traditional paper application remains available to them. These services allow people to choose whichever route they find easier.
However, as has already been pointed out, there is an anomaly for voters in Wales and Scotland, which limits the extent of the digital application option for absent voting arrangements. While electors living in Scotland or Wales can apply online for a postal or proxy vote for general elections, they cannot do so for devolved parliamentary or local elections. I feel very strongly about that. In the Senedd parliamentary reform is happening and a great deal of change will come about, and I feel that there should be equality for everyone in the United Kingdom in respect of devolution.
Graeme Downie
I think we both hope that this fantastic Bill is passed today and continues its parliamentary journey, but will my hon. Friend join me in urging both the Scottish Government and the Welsh Senedd to do all that they can to provide additional education and accessibility so that everyone can access the voting arrangements correctly?
Tonia Antoniazzi
I welcome that intervention, especially because we are talking about many groups who do not access their right to vote. I am proud of the fact that in Wales and Scotland people can vote from the age of 16. I used to be a schoolteacher, and I know how important it is to have that democratic conversation with young people so that they understand their rights. It is important for a strong message to come from both the Welsh Senedd and the Scottish Government, because their voices need to be heard, and the same applies to people who are unable to vote because of a disability. It is incumbent on our other Parliaments to proceed with what is a very big piece of work.
As it stands, my constituents in Gower—a rural constituency containing many remote areas—who wish to vote via post or proxy in the upcoming Senedd elections in 2026 will still be required to fill out a paper application form and physically send it to be processed. That is time-consuming and people do not always do it. This lack of parity is unfair to electors in Wales and Scotland who should have the option of a digital route for absent voting arrangements in their devolved parliamentary or local elections. It is also not good for overall democratic health. We know that some people are deterred from voting if they encounter barriers in the run-up to an election or polling day.
That inconsistency presents a barrier to voting that would, in some cases, contribute to people not voting at all. I welcome the Bill because it seeks to end that disparity and give voters in Wales and Scotland equal choice in how they can apply for an absent vote in devolved and local elections. With both the Senedd Cymru and Scottish Parliament elections coming up in May 2026, we should be doing all that we can to remove disincentivising barriers and to make the process of electors exercising their right to vote as smooth as possible.
Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be doing everything we can to encourage political participation across the UK, to maintain our reputation as one of the world’s strongest democracies?
Tonia Antoniazzi
That really is true. In the seven years I have been in this place, I have found that people sometimes shut the door in my face and say, “You’re all the same.” There is a growing disrespect for parliamentarians, which I find hard to understand. Our democracy is the backbone of the United Kingdom and of our devolved countries, and I think it is really important for us to be positive and engaging and to let people know that their voices are heard in this place, whoever they voted for.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for how she has worked on the Bill. I understand that the measures within it have been discussed with Welsh and Scottish Ministers, and that is a wonderful way to make change happen. The Bill is also very carefully drafted to emphasise the importance of devolution and to respect the devolved nations’ responsibility for their local and devolved parliamentary elections. The manner in which she has approached that, as well as the Bill itself, firmly aligns with the Government’s intention to re-set the relationship between central and local governments as partners in delivering better outcomes for the communities that we, collectively, represent. The Government have already made welcome significant progress regarding that re-set. They have also noted how supporting the sector to modernise democratic engagement is key to that re-set. That is what the Bill does.
My constituents would really welcome the choice that the changes in the Bill would grant them in local and devolved elections. I thank the returning officers in Swansea and Gower for their hard work and for the even more hard work they will have with the upcoming Senedd reform in 2026. My constituents welcome the Bill and I thank my hon. Friend for bringing it to the House.
Claire Hughes (Bangor Aberconwy) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on bringing forward this important Bill. The inconsistency that currently exists between elections in England, Wales and Scotland is confusing and makes no sense—either for voters or for anybody else. As Labour Members have said, we all have a duty to do everything we can to encourage participation in our democracy, particularly at a time of alienation and when trust is low. The figures shared by my hon. Friend about the number of people who registered to vote online before the general election illustrate that point. There is clearly a demand. People want to use digital systems, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) said. People are used to interacting with systems and processes in that way, so that makes it very important.
Gill German (Clwyd North) (Lab)
As a fellow Welsh MP, I have to say that people are incredulous, when I speak to them on the doorstep, at the complexity of the system in Wales. A digital option is unavailable to them to participate in such important local and national elections. Does my hon. Friend agree that the maximum opportunity to vote in all elections in Wales and Scotland, in whichever way they choose, is crucial to create equality across the UK?
Claire Hughes
I absolutely agree. This democratic deficit really needs to be addressed. It is very important that that is done before the next Senedd and Scottish elections in 2026.
As other Members have said, there are real public transport challenges in largely rural constituencies such as mine. We also suffer a lot, would you believe, with bad weather, so having the options of postal votes and proxy votes is very important. We also have the university in Bangor and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North also said, having different options for students and young people is particularly important.
There are very many reasons to make it easier for people to vote by proxy and by post. As I said, it is urgent. I hope all Members see that and back the progression of the Bill.
Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing the Bill forward. We heard from her and from other hon. Members about the difficulties that voters in Scotland and Wales face due to the fact that, following the passage of the Elections Act 2022, the equivalent powers were not introduced for England and Wales.
I have been campaigning in elections since 1979. I hugely enjoy the interaction with voters, despite being shouted at occasionally. It is so important. We are linking their concerns for their communities and their families with our role as actual or potential elected representatives. The bit that gels all that together is the process of voting. The process of voting needs to be made as simple, easy and accessible as possible to everybody, so that everyone has equal access.
Matthew Patrick (Wirral West) (Lab)
The Royal National Institute of Blind People’s report demonstrates that only 50% of blind and partially sighted people were satisfied with their experience of voting at the last general election. Does she hope, as I do, that the Bill will make the process smoother, make it easier for people to apply for absent votes, and make some much-needed improvement on that figure?
Ruth Cadbury
I know that the RNIB has campaigned for many years to improve accessibility to elections for people with sight loss. I do not know whether this Bill will actually make the change that my hon. Friend desires, because it brings the Scottish and Welsh systems up to the standard that we have in England, and I know that the RNIB is not yet satisfied with the process. If people have chosen not to have a postal vote, a lot depends on whether the polling clerks at the election centre feel confident enough to help those with sight loss to vote if they do not want to do so with a family member, neighbour or friend.
I have stood as a candidate in 11 elections, and I have won every one of them. I have also campaigned in many more general elections, council elections, by-elections and London Assembly elections, and I have helped colleagues in by-elections across the country. When I first started, there was no such thing as online voter registration—in fact, there was no online anything. I attended statistics classes at university, and computing then involved stacks and stacks of cards—I do not know how many Members remember that. It took another 15 years, roughly, for most of us to understand what the internet was. It has only been since 2023, I think, that one can register online for a postal or proxy vote. We cannot underestimate the importance of being able to register for a postal or proxy vote with ease.
Graeme Downie
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech about accessibility and the need for proxy votes. I did some research on this issue prior to today, and I discussed with a constituent the difficulty that people with autistic spectrum disorder experience when voting. They have a lot of anxiety about going into polling stations and the potential complications that they face when making sure that they are able to exercise their democratic voice. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must do everything we can to support those with autistic spectrum disorder, to make voting as accessible as possible?
Ruth Cadbury
Absolutely. Many neurodiverse people find the process of voting difficult, and that is one example of why postal voting is so valuable to so many people.
Up until 2001, one needed approval from either a doctor or an employer to be able to get a postal vote. People could not just say that they would prefer, or would find it easier, to vote at home; they had to justify that, which was easier said than done. There were huge discrepancies in whether doctors could sign off such a request, and in whether employers were prepared to say that an employee would be away and unable to vote in person on election day. We have seen a huge improvement. Only 2% of voters had postal votes before the change, but the figure had grown to almost 20% by the time of the 2010 general election. We have, over the years, made postal voting easier.
The variation is quite high: 50% of voters in Sunderland vote by post, while only 8% of voters in Lewisham do so. The most important thing of all—and why postal votes make such a difference to engagement in our democracy—is that 80% of people who have a postal vote use it. Would we not like that kind of overall voter turnout? That is hugely important.
Euan Stainbank
My hon. Friend is making a good point about turnout. Does she agree that although there may be multiple reasons why someone might not choose to come out and vote, ease in accessing a ballot should never be one of them?
Ruth Cadbury
I absolutely agree. That is why voters in Wales and Scotland need equality of access with voters in England, and I hope that the Government will support the Bill. In 2023, the then Government launched online voting applications for postal and proxy voting. If I have read the explanatory notes correctly, that is the discrepancy that the Bill is set to address.
We do not knock on doors only at elections—of course, we cannot get anybody to sign up for postal votes for the next election during the short campaign period. Most of us, and I hope all of us on the Labour Benches, are door knocking week in, week out, not just for the next election—and sometimes not even for the next election—but because, as elected representatives and community and party activists, we need and want to engage with our communities. Part of that conversation is, “I find it difficult to vote,” “I can’t vote,” or, “I missed the last vote because of this.” That is where we ask, “Well, what about a postal vote?”
Steve Race
Does my hon. Friend believe that the Bill will benefit the older voters we speak to on the doorstep, many of whom are digital natives and actively use online technology? Older voters in Scotland and Wales would, I am sure, like to use technology in the same way as older voters in England.
Ruth Cadbury
That is absolutely right. We must listen to older voters’ needs. Some are digitally excluded, which is why it is always a good idea to have paper copies of the form to give them, and to tell them what they need to do to get that application off. Others are not digitally excluded and, like my mother, have smartphones and do more and more things online. One thing that we have been doing, as I am sure have many colleagues, is having a QR code to hand, so that voters can put their phone over the QR code, which immediately opens up the form. Then, we say, “Goodbye and thank you very much”—we obviously do not have anything to do with their completion of the form. That makes it easier.
The problem with handing over a form or saying, “I suggest you go on the Government website,” is that, with the best will in the world, many people really do want to apply for a postal vote but life gets in the way, as it does for us all. Applying is not the most important thing when, say, the baby is crying, dinner is about to burn, or someone is late for work. We have found in England that the easier the technology, the more people apply for postal votes. As I have just said, if they have applied for and got that postal vote, they are more likely to use it. A lot of what I am saying also applies to proxy votes.
Patricia Ferguson
It was said earlier that the fact that last year’s general election occurred during the Scottish school holidays meant that, in the chaos and confusion that happens in most households preparing to go on holiday, voting fell off the agenda for a lot of people who had perhaps thought about applying for a postal vote but not got around to doing it. Does my hon. Friend agree that, were another election like that to be called, the opportunity to do that chore by post might make a difference to a lot of people?
Ruth Cadbury
We were all aware and deeply conscious of how many Scottish voters were disadvantaged in the July 2024 election. As Scottish summer holidays start some weeks earlier than in England, many Scottish voters were disenfranchised. The Bill in itself will not change that, but like a broken record, I go back to the point that the easier we make applying for postal and proxy votes, the more people will do it, not when an election is imminent but at some point well before that. Then they will not be disenfranchised.
The Bill will make life a lot easier for electoral registration officers in Wales and Scotland, who have a terrible time dealing with two different sets of elections. Scottish and Welsh voters are able to apply for general election votes in the same way as English voters, but for some reason—I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong—a different application form is needed for the different levels of election, such as the Scottish Parliament election versus the UK general election.
Dr Arthur
It is more confusing than that. It is actually the same form with several different options, which explains the different scenarios. I recently applied for a postal vote, because there is a by-election in my constituency next week, and it is not a straightforward process. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is even more confusing than having two separate forms?
Ruth Cadbury
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. It is not just confusing for the voter; it is more difficult for the already stressed-out EROs. They have a difficult enough job, they often do not have enough colleagues with them, and if they do not do their job absolutely perfectly, there is the potential for mistakes to be made, which becomes challengeable. I endorse the Bill, because apart from anything else I want to make sure that every voter in every area gets an equal chance to apply for and get a postal vote or a proxy vote.
Euan Stainbank (Falkirk) (Lab)
First, I wish to apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) for nicking his point in an intervention earlier. In mitigation, I am sure he will agree that it is hardly likely to rank particularly highly in the list of rude interactions between people from Dunfermline and Falkirk.
I declare an interest as a member of the all-party parliamentary group on fair elections, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for introducing the Bill. Like many hon. Members I am sure, for six months last year—all the way up to 9.30 pm on polling day on a remarkably damp 4 July—I was out chapping on doors, speaking to thousands of Falkirk residents, discussing their views and seeking to persuade them of the benefits that Labour representation could bring to the issues they cared about. I have been doing that sort of thing since I was 15, which despite what some might say about my experience elsewhere has made me a bit of a canvassing veteran. I have stood in two elections and won both of them—I have nine to go to match the record of my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury).
Fellow experienced canvassers will know that conversations on the doorstep can often stray from the alleged topic, and the question can change from why the person should vote in a particular way to how they can access their vote. That is often the case when you are the first person to chap on their door to talk to them about politics for a while, or perhaps ever. My team and I faced countless questions during the election about where the polling station is; whether people need to bring their polling cards; for the first time six months ago, whether they needed to take ID to the polling station; and how they could apply for a postal or proxy vote, especially in Scotland because it was during the start of the Scottish summer holidays, as colleagues have mentioned. I may swear by my powers of persuasion on the doorstep, but I have no doubt that in some of the elections I have participated in, the time it takes to apply for a postal or proxy vote has deterred some people, potentially even those who I thought to be guaranteed voters for Stainbank or alternative Labour representatives in Falkirk.
The Bill would provide easier access by giving powers to implement the same additional online registration option that was open to Scottish and Welsh voters in the 2024 elections for local and devolved elections, as in England. Looking at the substance and the context of the Bill, I am in some confusion about why legislative consent was not passed over as part of the Elections Act 2022. I would definitely be interested if anyone can provide some clarity on that. Currently, if someone wanted to do it in a oner and register for a postal and proxy vote for all elections for which they could cast a ballot in Scotland or Wales, they would have to do so on a paper application, despite the online option being available for a general election. That shows the contradiction that the Bill seeks to solve.
I hope we all agree that we should be making the right to vote in our elections as easy as possible, and we should recognise that the responsibility sits with the devolved Governments for devolved and local elections. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith on seeking to correct that with the urgency that it warrants before the 2026 Scottish and Welsh elections, and the 2027 Scottish local elections.
As a former councillor, like many colleagues who have spoken today, I remain concerned that turnout in local elections in Falkirk and across Scotland has been remarkably poor. It was 44.8% in 2022 across Scotland, down 2.1% from the previous election and nearly 10% from the first time we used the single transferable vote system in Scottish local elections in 2007. As I mentioned in an intervention, there are many reasons cited by those on the doorstep for choosing not to vote in election. Difficulties accessing a ballot paper should never be one of those.
It is a well-known fact that those who register for a postal ballot are far more likely to turn out. While researching my speech I found that that is true in my seat. According to the Falkirk Valuation Joint Board, 81% of those registered for a postal vote in Falkirk in the 2024 election cast a ballot. Standardising the process for postal and proxy votes in UK, Scottish and local elections will ease applications. Importantly, the consistency that that will provide the electorate will give people confidence to register and use their vote time and again, especially first-time voters in the recent 2024 election who may be under the misapprehension that they have already competently registered for a postal and proxy vote for every election, including devolved and local elections.
Gill German
I am a mum to not one but two 16-year-olds, who I am pleased to say are newly eligible to vote in both the local and Senedd elections in Wales. Because of that, I know at first hand how all-encompassing exam periods are. Elections often occur at these times. Does my hon. Friend agree that allowing young people to apply for a postal or proxy vote online—a way that will be most familiar to most of them—is important to get around that issue?
Euan Stainbank
I wholeheartedly agree. I am a fantastic example, as I was sitting my higher English exam the first time I voted as a 16-year-old in 2016 in Scotland. Given the exam stress and other considerations in young people’s lives and that online is the presumptive option to register for everything, it should be available to them. It will be essential in driving up turnout. We should extend that to UK elections as well, for the benefit of consistency.
The impression from the Electoral Commission report on voting systems and trust in voting is that, although trust remains high in the integrity of the electoral process in the UK, an increasing proportion of the electorate are concerned that our elections are not well run. Consistency, especially avoiding the appearance of arbitrary difference in the administration of elections, is an important feature to rebuild that trust.
Elections in the devolved nations of the United Kingdom can often be unduly different: for example, 16 and 17-year-olds can vote in Scotland for their MSP, but not for their MP in a general election. Members may be able to guess my age from this: I was permitted to vote for my MSP in the 2016 Scottish parliamentary election, but in the 2017 general election the following year I was unable to cast a ballot for my MP. With the passage of the Bill, I hope to see the options available to those in England extended to Scotland and Wales. Votes at 16 is an area for another day, and I hope that this Parliament will choose to converge with Wales and Scotland on that.
This inconsistency in voter eligibility in our electoral systems in Scotland led to concern that there would be a depression in turnout among 16 and 17-year-olds in the 2016 Scottish parliamentary elections. That fear was ingeniously and partially cured by an examiner at the Scottish Qualifications Authority who, as part of a higher English exam scheduled on the exact same day as the elections, included an article by Julia Hartley-Brewer with a headline stating that letting 16-year-olds vote would be a disaster. To my delight, my pals were indignantly flocking to the Dobbie Hall polling station to exercise their democratic rights before discussing how well we had done in the exam that day. I doubt that anybody is forthcoming with an article saying that letting people register for a postal or proxy vote online would be a disaster. This is an inconsistency that we should seek to fix now.
Access to proxy and postal voting is not a theoretical concern. When the former Prime Minister called the election in the early days of the Scottish summer holidays, I and my team had to field countless questions about which postal and proxy voting applications were available, and the turnout in particular Scottish seats reflected that. The Electoral Commission report found that in Scotland, confusion, late postal ballot arrival and the timing of the election disproportionately impacted turnout. That was due to direct interaction with confusing systems —people going away on their holidays were unable to get a postal or proxy vote, or did not know how to do that—and the media commentary around it. Standardising the way we do this across the United Kingdom and across the various elections would help remarkably. This is an arbitrary difference that we should seek to resolve.
In conclusion, the Bill would allow online registration for postal and proxy voters in Scottish, Welsh and local elections, which simply would make life easier for the electorate, give folk another option and hopefully drive more people to the polls, whichever way they choose to vote in 2026, 2027 and beyond.
Adam Thompson (Erewash) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing forward this wonderful Bill. It is important to say that this Bill is fundamentally about making it easier to vote in Scotland and Wales. It would improve the situation for residents in those areas by allowing them to vote by post and proxy in a way that they would not necessarily be able to at the moment.
I grew up in south Wales, so this issue is close to my heart. I was consistently impressed when I was growing up by the work of the Electoral Commission, or as it would rightly be known in Wales, Y Comisiwn Etholiadol. I must declare that I had a special closeness to the Electoral Commission, because during the noughties my mother was the leader of the Wales office, so the fact that I had great respect for its work is maybe a little close to home.
In the 2000s, the commission had a great advert on television, and it stuck with me. Maybe I was paying a little more attention to adverts put out by the Electoral Commission than many of my teenage colleagues at the time, but this wonderful advert had a series of vignettes of cartoon characters, with two guys going about their daily life and talking about various issues they were coming up against. One of the guys was saying, “You should make sure you vote, man,” and the other one kept saying, “I don’t do politics, me.” They would go into, say, a supermarket, and the guy who says he doesn’t do politics says, “The price of milk’s too high.” The next scene is in a pub, and he says, “The price of beer is too high.” The whole message of this advert was that politics is in everything. It is really important that we, as politicians, drive that message home always. We should be doing everything in our power to expand and improve access to politics. That is why the Bill is really important.
Those adverts—and there were many put out by the Electoral Commission at the time—were focused on making sure that people had access to voting and were going out and voting. I was not so lucky as to get the vote at 16 in Wales—I was too old for that—but when I got the opportunity to vote for the first time aged 19, I remember getting multiple phone calls from my mum shortly before saying, “You make darn sure you sign up for a postal vote in advance,” because I was at university and had to make sure I was signed up.
I am a big proponent of making sure that young people have access to voting and that we do everything we can to encourage them to vote. We should support all young people to vote more easily, and the measures in the Bill are really important in that work. We need to be removing the barriers.
Graeme Downie
Although my mum did not work for the Electoral Commission, she was a polling counter both at polling stations during the day and at the count, including for the very first Scottish Parliament election; I remember vividly picking her up from the count at about 5 o’clock in the morning, having stayed up all night to watch it. Does my hon. Friend agree that if we are to improve the smooth running of elections in this country, we must support more people to participate in those vital roles, which involve very long shifts at polling stations followed by the counts, which can go on much longer? Anything we can do to support them would be much appreciated.
Adam Thompson
Of course, I completely agree with everything my hon. Friend just said. I am sure that many Members—probably all right hon. and hon. Members—agree that the polling clerks and all the attendants on election day are a vital part of our democracy, and they have our thanks for their work, year in, year out, in all elections.
As I was saying, I am a great fan of doing everything we can as a Government and as Parliament to improve access to elections and to remove barriers. Digital measures of the sort in the Bill are a really important part of that. We have heard Members on both sides of the House talk about the importance of breaking down the barriers in the way of those who are digitally illiterate and giving everyone access to a way of signing up for postal and proxy votes online. I also advocate for more education in schools.
Linsey Farnsworth (Amber Valley) (Lab)
I am in the fortunate position of being the neighbouring MP, so you may well be familiar with the school I mention, which is just down the road from your constituency. Will you commend Langley Mill academy for its great work to raise awareness among young people of British values and our voting system, and sadly for putting a photo of me on the overhead projector when I visited? They asked me lots of insightful questions, which really showed that they are learning about our democracy.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. I remind the hon. Member that the words “you” and “your” refer to me, and I am not the person she intervened on.
Adam Thompson
I thank my neighbour and dear friend, my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Linsey Farnsworth). I certainly agree with her and commend the school in Langley Mill. I was her predecessor as the Labour candidate in Amber Valley in 2019, and I know the fantastic work the school is doing. I am a great proponent of visiting schools. I went to two last week: Ladywood primary school in Kirk Hallam, and Saint John Houghton Catholic voluntary academy, which I know my hon. Friend attended as a pupil many years ago. I am a fan of school visits, and as a trained former teacher, I find it one of the most enjoyable parts of my job. I know that many right hon. and hon. Members are similarly strong advocates.
I was talking about the importance of better education in school, breaking down the barriers to opportunity and ensuring that all our pupils get access to the knowledge they require to engage fully in our political system. I remember the few short hours when I was a pupil at Llanishen high school in north Cardiff when the headteacher, Mr Robert Smyth, came in and taught my class about politics. He was given just four or six hours over the five years of my time in state education. It is disappointing that we have such a small amount of politics education available to pupils in state schools. I have long been a great advocate of expanding the time given to that. It is one of the things I greatly enjoy doing as a Member of Parliament—joining as many schools as possible to impart to pupils the knowledge that I have gained in this place and through my experiences.
Kirsteen Sullivan
Does my hon. Friend agree that education in schools is absolutely central to making sure that Chambers across the country start to look like the communities they represent and to achieving 50:50?
Adam Thompson
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention and, of course, I completely agree with everything she says. I firmly believe that education, skills development and all the aspects we have just been discussing should be core to all of our policies. Indeed, my previous role prior to coming to this place was as an educator at the University of Nottingham, where I taught degree-level apprenticeships in electromechanical engineering. I am a great advocate of the apprenticeship system, and I am very pleased by the Government’s commentary over the past few months about expanding skills provision across the board.
As I have said repeatedly throughout this speech, it is really important that we advocate for these points as much as possible. I am sure that colleagues across the House will be au fait with the comments we often receive on the doorstep. Like many colleagues, I will be out knocking doors tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon, and very often people say how difficult they find it to access our political system. Many areas such as mine have multiple tiers of government: councils, local government, mayors and MPs. We are talking about devolution at the moment and maybe reorganising some of those systems, and I think there is an opportunity to simplify them.
John Cooper (Dumfries and Galloway) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman talks about simplifying systems. My father applied for a postal vote because he was taking advantage of the early Scottish holiday and was going to be away on 4 July. When he tried to access a postal vote to vote for me, he found that the council could not recognise him, yet as he pointed out, it had been able to collect his council tax for some years. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that if we are going to increase the number of postal and proxy votes, we must also have better systems on the other side to short-circuit those problems?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Since the vote is private, who knows how the hon. Gentleman’s father actually voted?
Adam Thompson
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention, and I agree. It is important that when these difficult scenarios arise, we are able to account for them and have systems in place to deal with them.
To conclude, we have had a really interesting discussion today. The points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith are very valuable and will allow a whole group of extra people to access our electoral system, which is complex. The Bill will allow us to simplify it, homogenise systems between England, Wales and Scotland, and generally improve things for voters across the country.
Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing this valuable debate and Bill before the House today.
As has been made clear by many speakers, for as long as we have known it, there has been a weird hotchpotch of different regulations concerning different elections in the UK. We have different voting systems for different elections; we have parliamentary boundaries that take little account of the boundaries for local elections; and we have age differences for different elections in different parts of the country, with votes at 16 in some parts of the country for some elections. We have voter ID regulations. We have the single transferable vote, top-up systems and first past the post. That whole hotchpotch of different regulations needs to be simplified and standardised.
Graeme Downie
The stramash that my hon. Friend refers to around electoral systems is added to in Scotland, where initially the Scottish Parliament had a four-year term. That was extended—temporarily at first—to a five-year term to take account of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 that was enacted in this place. That has not yet been mended; it now seems to have become a five-year term, which causes additional confusion that I am not sure has been properly and adequately explained to the Scottish people. Does my hon. Friend agree that that adds a further complication to the problems he is describing?
Patrick Hurley
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend—the amount of complications and complexities in the voting system in this country needs addressing. This Bill will address just one of those complexities, but I fully agree with what he has said.
My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) mentioned that we could perhaps guess his age from the elections he had taken part in. In a similar vein, perhaps Members can guess my age when I say that the first national election I voted in was the landslide Labour victory of 1997. At the time, I was living in the marginal constituency of Knowsley South—it was one of the safest seats in the country. I am sure it was not the vote of my 20-year-old self that tipped the balance in that election, but none the less I was very proud on that May morning to go down to the community centre around the corner from my house, with my voting card in hand, and cast my vote for the first time in a national election for my MP.
I am still very proud that at every election, I cast my vote in person, but just because I am a hopeless old romantic who wants to go down to the polling station, it does not mean that we must ensure that everybody does that. On the contrary, we need to make voting as easy and engaging as possible, so that the majority of people can engage with the process. For those people who cannot vote on the day, we need to ensure that proxy and postal voting, and absent voting more generally, is as easy as it can be.
I will talk briefly about an issue in my constituency and across my wider combined authority area. Over the last couple of years, since voter ID has become mandatory, there has been a localised concern. The law states that an older person’s bus pass is an acceptable form of ID, but the common bus pass in my part of the world is the Merseytravel over-60s bus pass, which the law does not allow to be used as voter ID. My council, and neighbouring councils across the local authority and combined authority area, had to write to every single Merseytravel over-60s bus pass holder in the borough to tell them that their bus pass was not valid to vote with, contrary to what they had been led to expect and believe by the national press in its reporting on the law change.
Graeme Downie
Does my hon. Friend agree that the move to ensure that veterans’ passes could be used as voter ID, which was one of the first things that this Labour Government did, was a welcome change?
Patrick Hurley
I again agree wholeheartedly. The omission of veterans’ passes from the previous legislation, which meant that they could not be used, was shameful.
We have all talked about the complexities, but the cherry on top of the 57 varieties of voting system that we have all got used to over the years was the old European Parliament elections being held under the d’Hondt system. I am mindful of time, so I will not go into detail on that—I am sure that even Mr d’Hondt could not come up with a better method of filibustering than doing so.
Much to my dismay, this Bill is not intended to correct every single peculiarity of the voting system, but it is intended to correct one. The Elections Act 2022 made it easier to apply online for absent voter arrangements, but it included Scotland and Wales only when it came to UK parliamentary elections. For some reason, Wales was included when it came to police and crime commissioner elections, but Scotland was not. Unwittingly, the weird hotchpotch of systems was made worse, rather than better.
People in Scotland and Wales who thought that they had registered for a postal or proxy vote found out when it was too late that they had registered for one set of elections but not another. Unwittingly, they were being disenfranchised, due to the nonsensical bureaucratic changes that had been brought in. Even council officers, as has been made clear, did not want this change; it heaped further administrative and cost burdens on electoral officers and local authorities. Nobody wanted it to happen, yet almost by accident, the complexity was increased.
There needs to be a raft of changes. The remits of the various boundary commissions need revisiting, and the voting system needs updating to ensure stability and good governance. In July last year, we achieved stability and good governance almost by accident, despite the voting system. Voting needs to be made more accessible, and engagement with the democratic process needs to be made easier.
In conclusion, there is a huge patchwork quilt of rules that make sense to almost nobody. The Bill seeks to rectify one small aspect of the increasingly daft situation. I hope it is allowed to make progress.
Kirsteen Sullivan (Bathgate and Linlithgow) (Lab/Co-op)
I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing forward the Bill, and for working constructively with parliamentarians in other places. I am not sure what I can add to this full, thorough, enjoyable and important debate, but I will cover two points: the inconsistency in current arrangements, and the effect on those most likely to need a proxy vote.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) said, many of us in this place will fondly remember the first time we went to vote. For me, as for my hon. Friend, it was at the 1997 general election that I first felt the buzz of putting an x in the box and exercising my democratic right. However, for an increasing number of our fellow citizens, that is not what democracy means to them.
As we have heard, participation in democracy is falling around the UK. Turnout at local elections is consistently disappointing low, whether they are part of the cycle of regular elections or by-elections. There is much to be done to correct that trend, re-enthuse people about our democracy and rebuild the bonds of trust that have been tested over the past few years, and a vital part of our strategy must be around greater consistency and access to voting. It is bizarre to me, and, I assume, many hon. Members in the Chamber today, that a simple and quick way of registering online a request for a proxy vote is not available at every election.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith said, the difference between general election registration and devolved or local election registration is unnecessary and inconvenient. It causes huge confusion among voters and, I assume, elected Members too; we rushed to find out the rules for the previous election whenever we were presented with questions on the doorsteps.
One of the greatest strengths of our democracy is the speed and expertise with which our elections are arranged. However, real life is rarely so easy to plan. Proxy voting is an important and flexible arrangement that enables hundreds of thousands of citizens to exercise their right to vote. I add my thanks to the returning officers, electoral teams and police, who are essential to safeguarding the democratic process in our communities.
The process of registering a proxy vote ought to be consistent for voters, so that registering for a proxy vote in the July 2024 general election is no different from registering for one in the Holyrood elections in May 2026 or the Scottish local elections in May 2027. If we are keen to increase democratic participation, as I believe all hon. Members present are, we must ensure consistent and comprehensive registration processes. We value our elections, but when we fail to digitise or make registration for proxy votes more accessible, we create unnecessary differences that confuse voters and act as a barrier to participation. To put it simply, the law in Scotland for one election should match the law in Scotland for all elections.
The people who rely on proxy voting the most are young people, students and those with disabilities. The young are part of a digital generation whose university applications and rental contracts are digital, but they cannot arrange a proxy vote for a local or devolved election digitally. However, young people increasingly live further from home in temporary accommodation for study before returning to their family homes. However, young people increasingly live further from home in temporary accommodation for study before returning to their family homes. Students from my constituency who are temporarily living away and who registered online for a proxy or postal vote in the general election cannot do the same for the upcoming Scottish elections. I want to add my full support for my hon. Friend, and I thank everyone, certainly on the Government Benches and hopefully in the Opposition too, for their support in making it easier for everyone to access our democratic processes.
James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)
I rise to express my full support for the Bill, which would uphold our democratic principles by ensuring that absent voting is more accessible, consistent and secure across Scotland and Wales, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for introducing it. We debated the sunshine Bill earlier, and as we were going through all the different weather types, I was starting to think we should maybe name this one the no sunshine Bill for all types of election.
Democracy flourishes when it is inclusive, when it reaches out to every citizen and when it removes unnecessary barriers to participation. The Bill seeks to strengthen our democracy by ensuring that those unable to attend polling stations in person are still able to make their voices heard. As a former leader of a district council that oversaw local and national elections, I am acutely aware of the vital role that local government plays in serving our communities and contributing to their wellbeing. It is imperative, therefore, that we safeguard and strengthen the legitimacy of this crucial tier of governance by promoting greater accessibility and encouraging broader participation in local elections.
The cornerstone of the Bill lies in recognising that no eligible voter should be excluded from participating in our democratic process due to personal circumstances beyond their control. Digital tools are essential to that, so I look forward to hearing from the Minister about the options. Our electoral system must evolve to meet the demands of a changing world. The Bill builds on existing provisions for absent voting and brings them in line with modern expectations of accessibility and efficiency. Although the Bill makes voting more accessible, it also ensures that our elections remain secure, and that public confidence in the democratic process is upheld. This House must always strike a balance between empowering voters and safeguarding the legitimacy of our electoral outcomes. I would welcome an update from the Minister on the anticipated costs of the change.
The Bill is also a reminder of the strength and cohesion of our Union. While respecting the devolved responsibilities of the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd, it ensures that the principles of democracy are upheld uniformly. The Bill is timely and necessary, and it reflects the values we hold dear as a nation, such as belief in the right of every citizen to participate in the democratic process, and the importance of ensuring that that process remains accessible, secure and fair. I encourage all Members to support the Bill. Together, we can demonstrate our commitment to a modern, inclusive and resilient democracy that works for all.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on securing the Bill and bringing it to the House. The Bill represents an important step forward in making voting more accessible and efficient for all. The focus of the Bill is clear: to streamline and modernise the process of registering for absent voting, whether by postal vote or proxy, particularly for elections held in Scotland and Wales.
I join hon. Members in paying tribute to all electoral staff across the whole United Kingdom. We know that, as elected politicians and candidates, we put them through stress when we phone them to say, “This person hasn’t registered. Can I get them down?” or “Where’s this polling station?”. They go through a lot, and we thank them for what they do.
We welcome the Bill. The changes it would make were originally proposed under the last Conservative Government, but as hon. Members will know, the Welsh and Scottish Governments declined to provide the necessary legislative consent motions when the Elections Bill 2022 passed through the UK Parliament in 2022. That meant that all the strengthened rules on postal and proxy voting could be applied only to reserved elections. Under the current arrangements, electors must submit paper forms to apply for or to modify absent votes. The Bill seeks to align that process for devolved elections with reforms introduced in the Elections Act 2022 for reserved elections. By enabling the use of the UK digital service for online applications, it will simplify and modernise the system, ensuring greater accessibility and efficiency for voters.
I appreciate that, as a consequence of devolution, electoral law will diverge due to the policy choices of the different Governments and legislatures, but we should avoid divergence for divergence’s sake. Since some elections will remain reserved, such as those to the UK Parliament, it would make sense to facilitate the smooth administration of elections by aligning processes for electoral administrators and political parties as much as is practicable. Otherwise, it just creates more work for everyone and confuses voters, as has been outlined by Government Members.
The provisions of the Bill will allow Scottish and Welsh Ministers to implement the measures ahead of the next devolved elections in 2026. The ultimate goal is to encourage participation in the democratic process while safeguarding the integrity of our electoral system, and we must recognise the differences in turnout between general elections and elections for devolved Governments. In Wales, turnout for Senedd elections has historically lagged behind general elections, as evidenced by the turnout rates of 46.6% in 2021, compared with 56% in 2024. In Scotland, turnout for the Scottish Parliament elections is comparatively higher, but there remains room for improvement. Making voting easier and more accessible is one way to address that disparity.
It is important that online applications do not open the door to electoral fraud, as the whole point of the Elections Act 2022 was to toughen the rules and practices for electoral integrity. That is why it is essential—we will scrutinise this in Committee—that there are strict online verification checks for online absent vote applications for devolved elections, and that those are the same checks as for hard-copy applications. Fraudsters will just divert their malpractice if one venue is more lax. Electronic applications are more vulnerable to external interference, as a hostile actor can be literally anywhere in the world. If the Bill goes into Committee, I would like to see a requirement in primary legislation for the necessary checks already operational in reserved elections to be required in secondary legislation. That would help to ensure consistency across all elections, as many Members have outlined that they want.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has been consulting on legislative reform orders to implement the same provisions. Will Ministers indicate how that interacts with the proposed passage of the Bill? For example, do Ministers intend to opt for a legislative reform order if the Bill does not have sufficient parliamentary time? It is worth noting that the electoral bodies, including the Electoral Commission, support these changes. The commission highlights the need for clarity and preparation to ensure that these provisions are in place by October 2025, giving electoral officers ample time to adapt, and giving voters sufficient awareness, before the 2026 elections.
In conclusion, the Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill is a pragmatic and necessary step towards improving voter access and protecting the integrity of our electoral processes, by bringing absent voting practices in devolved elections in line with the rest of the UK. It will modernise and future-proof our democracy while empowering citizens in Scotland and Wales to participate more easily in elections.
I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on the spirit with which she has brought forward this legislation: to make voting and access to voting easier for people while ensuring that voting remains secure. I hope that her Front-Bench colleagues take that same stance and change their mind on watering down voter ID, which will have the opposite effect from the aims and aspirations of this Bill.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on her Bill successfully reaching Second Reading. I thank election officials and express my gratitude for all the work they did at the general election and in other elections.
The Bill provides the legal framework for applications to vote by post or proxy in devolved elections in Scotland and Wales to be made online through the services already in place for UK parliamentary elections and local elections. It will also deliver changes to align application procedures for different types of elections, which will reduce the risk of confusion among electors about which arrangements they have in place for different elections, as has been said. By enabling access to those online services, the Bill will make the lives of thousands of electors easier and encourage participation in our democracy. In short, my hon. Friend’s Bill addresses a difference that, if not resolved, would see electors in Scotland and Wales having less choice than those in England when it comes to electoral services. The Government wholeheartedly support the aim of removing that divergence.
I am delighted that we have had such a great turnout of Members for the debate. I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank), for Erewash (Adam Thompson), for Southport (Patrick Hurley), for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury), for Bathgate and Linlithgow (Kirsteen Sullivan), for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), for Bangor Aberconwy (Claire Hughes), for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes), for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson) and for Rushcliffe (James Naish) for their contributions. I thank the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), for his contribution. It is extremely beneficial and helpful that there is agreement on the need to do this, and I am grateful for that cross-party support. I will not have the opportunity to respond to all the points in the debate. If I do not cover them all in the short time I have, I will be happy to follow up in writing.
We are committed to supporting returning officers in ensuring access to participation, particularly of those with disabilities and older voters, as mentioned by my hon. Friends. We continue to work closely with organisations that support disabled individuals to participate in our democratic process. On the point made about the complexity of the electoral system, we will work closely across the sector to gather feedback, analysis and ideas.
A number of hon. Members raised the importance of increasing engagement in the political process and increasing participation, including the voting age and younger voters. Various factors can impact voter turnout levels at elections, as was highlighted in the Electoral Commission’s report last year in the general election. As set out in our manifesto, the Government are committed to strengthening our democracy and widening participation in our elections. We will ensure that every legitimate voter has the opportunity to vote and is encouraged to exercise their right to vote, and we are making good progress on several areas to deliver those commitments.
Work is also under way on extending the franchise for all UK elections to 16 and 17-year-olds, and legislation for that will be introduced in due course, strengthening our democracy and empowering young people to participate in it. We firmly believe in building a strong foundation for democratic participation among young people, and we will work closely with stakeholders to ensure that it is implemented appropriately.
The Bill puts citizens’ needs at its heart and supports the use of technology in delivering services. Ensuring that people’s voices can be heard and encouraging participation are vital to our democracy. I know that colleagues in the Scottish and Welsh Governments share the same objectives. I am therefore delighted that they have chosen to take advantage of this innovation in their elections. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith articulated the benefits to electors of bringing Scottish and Welsh elections into the scope of the digital service, and I do not intend to repeat them. Instead, it may be helpful to provide some context by giving Members a brief overview of the history of the online absent vote applications services and outline how this Government will support the implementation of the legislation.
Before the launch of the digital service, any electors who wished to vote by post or proxy would have to request a form by post—as has been pointed out—or print out a form, complete it and return it to their local electoral registration office. That could be a cumbersome and difficult process, and some electors may have had to rely on others to help them with it. The online postal vote and proxy vote allocation services, launched on 31 October 2023, resulted from a thorough design and testing process involving 3,000 citizens across the UK. They have been used to great effect by more than 2 million citizens, both at the local elections in May 2024 and at the most recent general election.
The Bill provides the legal framework for applications for devolved elections in Scotland and Wales to be received through the UK online service, along with some changes to align application procedures, which my hon. Friend has described. Making that legal framework a reality will require further regulations to be designed and delivered by the Scottish and Welsh Governments, with whom the responsibility for devolved polls lies. The Government, having had the experience of delivering these changes for reserved elections, stand ready to provide any advice and support that may be required, and will work closely with the devolved Governments in facilitating the digital change. I assure the House that any changes required to the digital services will need to meet the same robust standards required of all gov.uk services.
Let me turn to some of the points that Members have made. We acknowledge that the Electoral Commission’s findings, set out in its report published last November, identified some problems with aspects of the system for voting by post. In a minority of cases, electors were unable to return their postal ballot packs in time for the 2024 general election, which was a particular problem for overseas electors. We are carefully considering the commission’s findings and recommendations, and we will respond to its report on the 2024 election in the coming weeks. However, it is important to note that the Electoral Commission also found that the majority of people who voted by post were satisfied with the method, and overall postal voter turnout remained high, at 80%. I am confident that the introduction of online absent vote applications for devolved polls would have benefits for administrators in Scotland and Wales rather than having any negative impact.
Discussions have been held with the Scottish and Welsh Governments about the costs associated with their joining the online absent vote application services. As the work involved in the extension of the service is being done at their request, it is appropriate for them to cover the costs of any further work that needs to be completed to achieve alignment. Both Governments have agreed to cover the costs of implementing the services for their devolved elections. Because much of the work involved in designing the services has already been completed, the costs associated with their adoption by Scotland and Wales are likely to be lower than the initial costs incurred before the launch in October 2023.
I hope that, given the time, I can respond in writing to the point made by the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes). I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for her brilliant work on the Bill. I look forward to taking this work forward with her in Committee, and I hope that she is pleased with the outcome today.
Tracy Gilbert
With the leave of the House, I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who contributed to the debate, including the many, many interventions. In particular, I thank my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow West (Patricia Ferguson), for Glasgow North (Martin Rhodes) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury). To answer the point made by my hon. Friends the Member for Falkirk (Euan Stainbank) and for Southport (Patrick Hurley), I understand that legislative consent was sought during the passage of the Elections Act 2022 by the UK Government to enable online services to be used for devolved Scottish and Welsh elections, but it was not granted by either devolved legislature at that time. Through the Bill, we can help Scottish and Welsh voters to apply online for absent votes in all elections for which they are eligible. If the Bill passes swiftly, they will be able to use those benefits in time for the May 2026 Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd elections.
The Bill will make it easier to participate in our democracy. I believe that the more electors who are able to exercise their democratic right, the stronger our country will be.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).
Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill
Wednesday 11th June 2025
(1 month, 1 week ago)
Public Bill CommitteesAbsent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 11 June 2025 - (11 Jun 2025)
The Chair
Before we begin, I remind everybody to switch off their electronic devices. No food or drinks are permitted in Committee, but I hope you all have plenty of water. Hansard colleagues would be grateful if Members could email their speaking notes to hansardnotes@parliament.uk. Members who wish to catch my eye and speak in the debate should bob.
The selection and grouping for the sitting is available online and in the room. Four amendments have been tabled by the Member in charge. We will have a single debate on all the amendments and clauses in the Bill, as indicated in the document.
Clause 1
Local government elections (Scotland and Wales)
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 1, page 2, line 12, at end insert—
“(4A) Regulations under this paragraph may, in connection with provision under sub-paragraph (1), include transitional provision under section 201(3) which makes provision for, or in connection with, the expiry of some or all devolved election proxy appointments.”
This amendment enables regulations made under new paragraph 5ZB(1) of Schedule 2 to the Representation of the People Act 1983 to include transitional provision which makes provision for the expiry of proxy appointments relating to local government elections in Scotland or Wales.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 2, in clause 1, page 2, line 15, at end insert—
“‘devolved election proxy appointment’ means the appointment of a person as a proxy to vote for another person at local government elections in Wales or Scotland, where the appointment was made before a date specified in the regulations on an application under paragraph 6(7) of Schedule 4 to the Representation of the People Act 2000;”.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.
Clauses 1 to 3 stand part.
Amendment 3, in clause 4, page 6, line 8, leave out from “entitlements” to the end of line 9.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.
Amendment 4, in clause 4, page 6, leave out lines 22 to 26.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.
Clauses 4 and 5 stand part.
Tracy Gilbert
It is my pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Hobhouse. I was very happy about the unanimous support the Bill received on Second Reading, and look forward to examining it in detail today.
The health of our democracy depends on ensuring that all electors are able to participate in the process to choose who represents them. While many people vote in person, there are those who face challenges that make that difficult or impossible, so absent voting arrangements—the option to vote via post or proxy—are vital. In October 2023, the online absent vote application service was introduced, allowing voters to apply online for postal or proxy voting arrangements for the first time. It offered a digital alternative alongside the traditional paper application process.
The online service is already available to electors in Great Britain for UK parliamentary elections, and for police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales. In England, the service is also available for all local elections. However, voters in Scotland and Wales are currently at a disadvantage. At devolved elections—that is, elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Senedd Cymru and local councils—electors must still complete and submit paper forms to apply for postal or proxy votes. The Bill aims to address that disparity.
The benefits of the new online service were made evident during the 2024 general election. Government data shows that over 1.5 million people in Great Britain applied for a postal or proxy vote in the lead-up to the election, and between the announcement of the election on 22 May 2024 and the absent vote application deadline, 84% of postal vote applications and 93% of proxy vote applications were submitted online. The Bill’s purpose is to extend the same digital application options to voters in Scotland and Wales for devolved elections, thereby ensuring consistency across Great Britain. In particular, the Bill seeks to provide that consistency in time for the May 2026 devolved elections. To be clear, the Bill does not remove the paper application route; it simply gives voters an additional, more convenient option to apply online, should they choose.
Respect for devolution is central to the proposals in the Bill, which has been carefully drafted to ensure that the powers of the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru are upheld. The proposals have been discussed with Ministers in both the Scottish and Welsh Governments, who have agreed to all elements of the Bill. By passing this legislation, we can remove unnecessary barriers and make it easier for voters in Scotland and Wales to participate in our democracy, by providing an online absent voting application option.
Clause 1 will enable regulations to be made that will allow electors in Scotland and Wales to make and submit applications online for absent voting arrangements for local elections through the UK digital service. Currently, electors in Scotland and Wales can make an application for an absent voting arrangement using the UK digital service only for reserved elections, such as a general election. The provisions in the clause will change UK Government legislation to allow Scottish and Welsh electors to make and submit applications online for devolved local elections as well.
To support the integration of the service, the clause enables regulations to be made to apply to devolved absent voting applications the same identity-check requirements as are used in reserved absent voting applications. A national insurance number check will be added to devolved absent voting applications, as is already the case for absent voting applications for reserved elections. The clause will also enable regulations to capture the signature required for postal and proxy vote applications digitally.
The addition of the identity check will make the requirements to apply for a postal or proxy vote the same for all types of election in Scotland and Wales. That will reduce the risk of electors becoming confused about what arrangements they have in place for different types of election, and will give them confidence in the ongoing security of the electoral system by ensuring that postal and proxy votes are applied for only by the voter whose name will be on the ballot. The clause also provides a route for any elector who is unable to provide a national insurance number to submit documentary evidence to confirm their identity.
Clause 1 also amends the time for which postal voting arrangements for local elections remain valid in Scotland and Wales. Currently, postal voting arrangements are potentially indefinite, with a signature refresh required every five years for local and devolved parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales. The clause will set a maximum time of three years, to align the period with UK arrangements. That is important for electors, who might find it confusing and inconvenient to have different postal voting arrangement lengths for different types of election. A more frequent opportunity to review their voting method, combined with the ease of being able to apply online, supports the elector in ensuring that their arrangements remain the best option for them.
Amendments 1 and 2 are technical amendments that will enable Scottish and Welsh Government Ministers to make transitional provisions for proxy voting arrangements for devolved local government elections. As the Bill currently stands, the power to make transitional provisions for proxy voting arrangements sits with UK Government Ministers. The amendments transfer that power to devolved Government Ministers. The adjustment is proposed to maintain consistency with existing electoral legislation, in which it is standard for such powers to reside with devolved Government Ministers and to be scrutinised by devolved legislatures. Allowing transitional provisions for proxy arrangements to be made through Cardiff Bay and Holyrood will mean that provisions related to devolved local government elections will be made in the appropriate devolved Parliament.
In addition to ensuring consistency, the amendments will provide a practical benefit. As many hon. Members noted on Second Reading, a key aim of the Bill is to deliver the changes in time for the May 2026 Senedd Cymru and Scottish Parliament elections. There is a lot to do between now and then to achieve that aim, and this approach will be helpful and appropriate to maximise the chances of delivering the changes in time for those elections.
The Bill allows the devolved Governments to move swiftly to implement the changes needed to enable online absent voting applications, and the amendments provide for them to make transitional proxy voting arrangements through their own Parliaments. To achieve the desired effect, the amendments will amend proposed new paragraph 5ZB(1) of schedule 2 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, so that the devolved Governments may provide for the expiry of some or all devolved election proxy voting appointments as part of transitional arrangements.
Clause 2 will enable regulations to be made to allow electors in Scotland to make and submit applications online for absent voting arrangements for Scottish parliamentary elections through the UK digital service. It includes provisions to amend the Scotland Act 1998 for the same purpose of supporting the online journey described in clause 1, but with regard to Scottish parliamentary elections rather than local elections. As the UK digital service is reserved to the UK Government, the provisions also ensure that Scottish Ministers may not make regulations under the clause without the agreement of a Minister of the Crown, where those provisions relate to the UK digital service.
Clause 3 will enable regulations to be made to allow electors in Wales to make and submit applications online for absent voting arrangements for Senedd Cymru elections through the UK digital service. Currently, electors in Wales can make an application for an absent voting arrangement using the UK digital service only for reserved elections, such as UK Parliament or police and crime commissioner elections.
Clause 3 includes provisions that amend the Government of Wales Act 2006 for the same purpose as described in clause 1, but with regard to the Senedd Cymru elections rather than local elections. As outlined previously, as the UK digital service is reserved to the UK Government, the provisions ensure that Welsh Ministers may not make regulations under the clause without the agreement of a Minister of the Crown, where those provisions relate to the UK digital service.
Clause 4 will provide for commencement and insert a power to make transitional or saving provision. The transitional power allows provision to be made to align the expiry dates of a person’s postal voting arrangements where they already hold a postal vote for both a UK parliamentary and a devolved election.
The clause also provides for the ending of existing postal and proxy voting entitlements for devolved elections. In some limited cases, it may be necessary to end existing postal and proxy voting arrangements for devolved elections to enable the implementation of the three-year maximum period for postal voting arrangements, to resolve operational difficulties arising from unaligned absent voting arrangements held by the same elector, and potentially to ensure that absent voting arrangements are held by electors whose identity has been properly verified.
Amendments 3 and 4 are technical amendments that are consequential on amendment 1. Clause 5 provides the Bill’s short title and explains the territorial extent of the various clauses. The Bill extends to England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. I look forward to Members’ contributions to the discussion on this important Bill, and I commend the provisions to the Committee.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Hobhouse. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for her continued hard work on the Bill, and for her clear explanation of its clauses—huge congratulations to her for all her work.
On 17 January, I indicated the Government’s support for the Bill, and that support is unchanged. Without the Bill, electors in Scotland and Wales have less flexibility than those in England in arranging the way they wish to vote. That is an unacceptable difference that must be addressed. The Government were elected on a manifesto commitment to improve voter registration, and the Bill is clearly attuned to that goal.
As hon. Members have heard, the Bill will allow the online postal vote and proxy vote application services—launched for reserved elections on 31 October 2023 and used in the most recent general election by over 2 million citizens—to be extended to cover all types of election in Scotland and Wales. I am grateful for the support of the Scottish and Welsh Governments for the Bill and for delivering this change. I look forward to seeing the Bill become law and deliver the benefits for electors in Scotland and Wales that my hon. Friend set out clearly.
The Government firmly support the addition to the Bill of the technical amendments that my hon. Friend has tabled. My officials have worked closely with her, as well as with the Scottish and Welsh Governments, to develop the amendments and ensure that the Bill provides the devolved Governments with the transitional powers they require. The amendments will allow the UK Government to work closely with the Scottish and Welsh Governments to implement the Bill.
Importantly, the Senedd Cymru and Scottish parliamentary elections are less than a year away, so there is a need to ensure that the Bill is implemented effectively and at pace. It is also important that the Scottish and Welsh Governments have an active role in making the relevant election regulations, and have the necessary powers to ensure a smooth transition for all voters with existing proxy voting arrangements. Having considered those points, and those presented by my hon. Friend, I hope the Committee will support the amendments.
As hon. Members have heard, as things stand any voter in Scotland or Wales who wishes to vote by post or proxy in a Scottish parliamentary, Senedd or local election has to ask for a form to be sent in the post, or print one out, then fill it in and send it to back their local electoral registration office. Some people will prefer to apply using a paper form, and that option will remain, but for a paper form to be the only way to arrange an absent vote is not right for a modern democracy in 2025.
I am very happy to support the Bill, which will allow our electoral system to take full advantage of the benefits of digital online services. Once it passes, implementing regulations will be required to be made by the Scottish and Welsh Governments, with whom the responsibility for devolved polls resides. My officials are working closely with their colleagues in the devolved Governments to help them to prepare those regulations, and to prepare the digital services to be updated once the regulations are in place.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for her superb work on making these important changes. I look forward to working with her to progress the Bill through its remaining stages in the Commons and beyond.
Tracy Gilbert
I thank you, Mrs Hobhouse, and all Committee members, for your time today. I also thank all the officials who drafted the Bill and have supported me through the process thus far—I greatly appreciate it. If the Bill passes, it will help tens of thousands of voters in Scotland and Wales to exercise their democratic right. Once again, I commend its clauses, and the minor amendments to them, to the Committee.
Amendment 1 agreed to.
Amendment made: 2, in clause 1, page 2, line 15, at end insert—
“‘devolved election proxy appointment’ means the appointment of a person as a proxy to vote for another person at local government elections in Wales or Scotland, where the appointment was made before a date specified in the regulations on an application under paragraph 6(7) of Schedule 4 to the Representation of the People Act 2000;”.—(Tracy Gilbert.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.
Clause 1, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clauses 2 and 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Commencement and transitional provision
Amendments made: 3, in clause 4, page 6, line 8, leave out from “entitlements” to the end of line 9.
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.
Amendment 4, in clause 4, page 6, leave out lines 22 to 26.—(Tracy Gilbert.)
This amendment is consequential on Amendment 1.
Clause 4, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Bill, as amended, to be reported.
Absent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill
Friday 4th July 2025
(2 weeks, 3 days ago)
Commons ChamberAbsent Voting (Elections in Scotland and Wales) Bill 2024-26 Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 4 July 2025 - (4 Jul 2025)
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Before we begin, I remind Members of the differences between Report and Third Reading. The scope of the Report stage debate is only amendment 1 in the name of the Member in charge. The scope of the Third Reading debate to follow will be the whole Bill as it stands after Report. Members may wish to consider those points and then decide at which stage or stages they want to try to catch my eye.
Clause 2
Elections to the Scottish Parliament
Tracy Gilbert (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 2, page 4, line 37, at end insert—
“(3A) In section 114 (subordinate legislation: particular provisions), in subsection (1), after ‘sections’ insert ‘12B,’”.
This enables regulations made under new section 12B of the Scotland Act 1998 (as inserted by clause 2) to be exercised by modifying provision made by or under that Act.
I am pleased to be in the Chamber today. I thank all Members who have taken part in the passage of the Bill so far. It addresses an issue that needs to be resolved at pace to ensure that electors in Scotland and Wales can benefit in time for their devolved parliamentary elections next May. I am grateful to the House for the unanimous support I have received.
I hope to complete the Commons passage of this important Bill today, but before that is possible, a minor and technical amendment must be made. Amendment 1 to clause 2 amends the power in proposed new section 12B of the Scotland Act 1998 to expressly indicate that the power can be used to amend secondary legislation made under the Act. The amendment came at the request of the Scottish Government to correct an oversight concerning how their devolved legislation operates and how the Bill will be implemented.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the UK Government’s focus, under the Secretary of State for Scotland, on working closely with the Scottish Government—where possible, to be pragmatic—is important? It has secured an amendment to the Bill that will be of benefit to the voters in Baillieston in my constituency, who go to the polling stations at Broomhouse Hall and in the wonderful primary schools of Garrowhill, Swinton, Caledonia and St Bridget’s.
Tracy Gilbert
Yes, I agree. There has been support from the Scottish Government and we have been working in co-operation. How the Bill will be implemented by the Scottish Government is a core part of the amendment.
Without the amendment, the Bill could still deliver on its purpose. However, the Scottish Government would have to repeal and restate the entire Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2015 with renewed provisions. The amendment seeks to remedy that oversight and ensure that the Scottish Government are able to implement the Bill in their own devolved legislation, so that Scottish electors may benefit in time for the May 2026 Scottish Parliament elections.
It is unfortunate to need to make a technical amendment this late in the process of parliamentary scrutiny, particularly given that the error could have been identified some time ago, but I am glad to be able to assist the Scottish Government with this matter. I commend the amendment to the House.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on all her work. She has shown admirable commitment during the passage of the Bill so far, and her commitment to delivering it for the benefit of voters in Scotland is evident. I also take the opportunity to reaffirm that the Bill has the full support of the Government. I am grateful to have seen support from across the House for the changes that it will make possible.
Amendment 1 is further evidence of the diligence that my hon. Friend has shown towards the Bill. I am particularly grateful to her for accommodating the Scottish Government’s request for the amendment at this late stage. She has clearly explained that it is a minor and technical amendment that will simplify the implementation process for the Scottish Government. The change in clause 2 makes it explicit that the new section 12B power introduced by the Bill can amend secondary legislation made under the Scotland Act.
The amendment has been considered by my officials, who are content that it does not present any kind of novel approach to legislation or set any precedent. It is simply a sensible change that will avoid unnecessary restatement and then reconsideration of existing legislation by the Scottish Parliament, thereby increasing the chances of the important changes that the Bill will make possible being delivered in time for the May 2026 Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru elections. I am pleased that the issue has been identified at this stage, and confirm that the Government support the amendment.
Amendment 1 agreed to.
Third Reading
Tracy Gilbert
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
With your leave, Madam Deputy Speaker, I want to thank hon. Members across the House for their contributions during the various stages of the Bill’s passage. I also thank the civil servants in the registration and franchise policy team and the Public Bill Office in Parliament for providing me with so much support with the Bill—I can confirm that I have received quite an education in the legislative process. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Minister for her steadfast support throughout the passage of this Bill.
The introduction of the online absent voting application service has given electors in England, Scotland and Wales the option to apply online for a postal or proxy vote in UK general elections. Electors in England are also given the option to use the online service to apply for a postal or proxy vote for all other types of election that they can participate in; unfortunately, the same cannot be said for voters in Scotland and Wales. As it stands, voters in Scotland and Wales face a fragmented system in which they may apply online for a postal or proxy vote for a UK general election but still rely on filling out paper forms for their local council or devolved Parliament elections. The Bill enables that inconsistency to be ended.
In short, the Bill will allow for the extension of the same online application options to voters in Scotland and Wales for devolved elections. The goal is to have the measures in place ahead of the devolved elections scheduled for May 2026. I have emphasised this before, but I again stress the importance of devolution. The responsibility for local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru is rightfully devolved to the respective nations. The Bill has been drafted to ensure that devolution is respected, with the proposals having been discussed with Ministers from both the Scottish and Welsh Governments. Alongside support from those Governments, the Bill has enjoyed cross-party support throughout its passage.
John Grady
My hon. Friend—who recently had her birthday—is quite right to emphasise the importance of good working between the Scottish Government and the Westminster Government to ensure that the voting rules are harmonised. Will she outline how that benefits voters at Eastbank primary school and Eastbank academy in Shettleston in my wonderful seat?
Tracy Gilbert
I would imagine it means they will get an extra day off school for the elections, which most kids enjoy.
The Bill enhances democracy. Last year, when the general election was called, it was quite tricky for Scottish voters because there was a tight time window; the Bill will allow people to apply more easily for access to a ballot if they are going to be away on holiday. It has also been welcomed by the electoral sector, which recognises the benefits of expanding a streamlined and secure system. This is testament to what can be achieved when we work collaboratively across Governments and parties in the interests of democratic participation, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) mentioned. I hope the Bill will proceed through this House and swiftly move to the other place, and I urge Members to support its passage today.
Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on getting this Bill to its Third Reading and getting both sides of the House behind it, although I note that there are no SNP Members in the Chamber. I am a proud Member for an English constituency, but we in Newcastle-under-Lyme have seen the benefit of a system that defends and supports the franchise and ensures that people are able to have their say. As such, I wanted to gently contribute to this debate, to give my support to my hon. Friend and encourage colleagues to get behind the Bill.
Democracy is important. It is so important that we discuss the Bill, ensuring that people up and down the United Kingdom, including in Wales and Scotland, are able to hold their elected politicians to account to ensure that their decisions reflect their views. We do so on the first anniversary of this Labour Government—that speaks very much to the power of the vote. The Bill is about ensuring that people have as much support as possible to vote, to have their say, to shape the future and, as I say, to hold their elected representatives to account at local and devolved level in Scotland and Wales.
I used to work for a Welsh MP, and I lived in Scotland and also worked for a Scottish MP before my election to this House, so I well recall the challenges and experiences.
John Grady
My hon. Friend is the Member of Parliament for the wonderful place of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Does he agree that the purpose of the Bill is to bring some much-needed consistency to voting arrangements across our family of nations? Voters in Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newcastle upon Tyne or the wonderful Newcastleton in Scottish Borders should all be able to vote in a reasonably consistent way.
Adam Jogee
My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am an English MP; we are talking about Scotland and Wales; and my wife is from Northern Ireland. Our four nations are very much represented in my short contribution to this debate.
I have seen personally the ease of the postal and proxy vote system. I love to vote in person, but those in the west midlands Labour party are hard taskmasters and encourage us to vote by post so that we can be knocking on doors, seeing my hon. Friend the Minister beating Torys where and when we can. However, making it easier to vote for people who have health or family issues, or who are called away for work and the rest, is vital. We have seen the consequences—the threats to our democracy—of people not thinking that politics represents them and their issues, and does not involve or include them. We must think about what we can do to neutralise those concerns and those fears, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) has done so brilliantly in her Bill, notwithstanding her technical amendment, which was supported by the House. It speaks for itself.
I am grateful to you for calling me, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am here to support my hon. Friend before I get the train home, and I look forward to the Bill successfully passing its Third Reading.
Laura Kyrke-Smith (Aylesbury) (Lab)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing forward the Bill, which I rise to support. It seeks not only to modernise our democratic processes but to safeguard the rights of every citizen across the devolved nations of the UK. At its heart, the Bill is about strengthening participation and ensuring that no one is left without a voice in our democratic institutions. In particular, it seeks to streamline and clarify the mechanisms for absentee voting—by post or by proxy—in the Scottish Parliament and in the Senedd Cymru elections, to align them more effectively with the broader UK framework while respecting the integrity of the devolved powers.
The right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy, but a right is meaningful only if it can be exercised in practice. Too many voters across Scotland and Wales, especially those in rural areas, students, those with disabilities and military personnel, have faced avoidable barriers to postal or proxy voting. Inconsistent regulations and outdated application processes have led to confusion and delays, and the result is that people are prevented from participating in our democracy. They may be serving overseas or temporarily relocated for work or on caring duties for a loved one—playing a vital part in our society or our economy—yet they are penalised for it by being unable to vote.
The Bill’s reforms are sensible and pragmatic and aim to standardise the application procedures for such votes, improving the accessibility and transparency of the system but keeping it inclusive and fair. I am well assured that in doing so, the Bill does not seek to override or diminish the autonomy of the Scottish Parliament or Senedd Cymru, but rather offer a legislative framework that can be adopted in co-operation with them. It should be seen as an opportunity for collaboration—a chance for all corners of the UK to work together to improve the democratic process for every voter. A voter in Aberdeen should have exactly the same confidence in the integrity and accessibility of their vote as my constituents in Aylesbury have. Uniformity strengthens, rather than weakens, our Union and our democracy.
I want to make a wider point about the context. We have seen a decline in voter turnout in recent years, especially among younger and transient populations. I think that stems from the wider challenge that we have in society of young people, and people more broadly, feeling a bit disillusioned and disengaged from politics.
John Grady
My hon. Friend mentions the lack of enthusiasm for voting among some young people. That is a real problem in Scotland. Does she agree that one potential explanation is the catastrophic decline of education standards, the insolvency of universities in Scotland and so forth? That may be contributing to a decline in voter enthusiasm.
Laura Kyrke-Smith
I agree; the education system plays a big part. I thank my hon. Friend for making that point, which brings me to a related point.
I recently ran a work experience programme for a fantastic group of 16 to 18-year-olds in Aylesbury, and I asked the students to come up with ideas for what more the Government could do for young people in this country. One group came straight to this point of politics, democracy and law. I thank the young people in that group—Ruqaiya Begum, Jacob McNorton, Munashe Ndoro, Georgia Bolland and Alex Foster—for their suggestions. Their ask of the Government was that we give the school curriculum a much greater focus on voting systems, political awareness, civic engagement, the rule of law and human rights. They were spot on, and we had great discussions about how that should help to increase understanding, engagement and participation in our democracy. I shared my hopes that our manifesto commitment to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 in general elections will help to do just that. I really hope that we as a Government will take that forward as quickly as possible.
Amanda Hack (North West Leicestershire) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for bringing forward this important change. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) agree that we need to continue to have the conversation about what democracy means to people, and that creating consistency in the voting system aids that conversation?
Laura Kyrke-Smith
I do agree. It is exactly that: if we are going to rebuild trust in democracy, that has to start with elections, and with a voting system that people have faith in.
We have discussed the urgent need to rebuild engagement and trust in our democracy. That is fundamental, and the Bill, which will make absent voting more user-friendly and dependable, is a really important, concrete step forward. I urge colleagues across the House, regardless of which party or region they represent, to support it and help to ensure that no voter anywhere in the UK is absent from participating in our democracy simply because they are absent on polling day.
Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for introducing the Bill and welcome the opportunity to raise issues of fairness and equality in the UK’s democracy.
We have seen in England that absent voting, by post or proxy, has empowered thousands of people to make their voices heard, even when life gets in the way, whether in the form of illness, work commitments, accessibility concerns, disability, caring commitments, simply being away on holiday or, in the case of my city, serving in another country. No one should be forced to choose between voting and the demands of everyday life, so it is only right that voters in Wales and Scotland have the same protections and access. We must not allow a postcode lottery when it comes to democracy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) noted, if we as a Government are serious about strengthening trust in politics, we must make voting easier, not harder.
On that note of making voting easier, it would be remiss of me if I were not to welcome the Government’s move to allow the veterans ID card to be used as valid voter identification. That is really welcomed by many Portsmouth North residents who have served our country. It is absolutely right that those who have served our country are not excluded from democratic participation due to ID restrictions. Many veterans, particularly those who are older or more vulnerable, told me how they faced real challenges accessing approved forms of ID, so recognising the veterans ID card as valid is a small but significant step towards honouring that service and ensuring their voices are heard in the ballot box.
Although the Bill does not address voting age, I want to place on record my strong support for extending voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds across the whole of the UK to ensure fairness, whether in absent voting or by age. Young people in Scotland and Wales already vote in devolved and local elections, and it is time young people in England and Northern Ireland had the same voice across all elections. The Bill is a step towards a fairer and more accessible democracy. It is a step we must take.
Peter Lamb (Crawley) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on bringing forward the Bill. Devolution has been an interest of mine for a very long time. It was the topic of my master’s dissertation and my first job outside politics, so I am thrilled to be back dealing with it all again as a member of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
The Bill reminds me that one of the main arguments in favour of introducing devolution was to free up parliamentary time. It was considered bizarre that there we were, in the late 20th century, when devolution was being debated, with feudalism still in Scotland because no Government could possibly find the parliamentary time in the UK Parliament to try to resolve those issues and other issues of concern to residents in Scotland. That highlighted the importance of producing bodies that could grant that time to consider those issues, and many other issues, on a local basis of what could be the best for residents in those areas.
The fact that these measures are coming via a private Member’s Bill continues to highlight the importance of trying to secure better parliamentary time for different parts of the UK for the issues that matter to them, and the importance of devolution to ensuring that matters of relevance for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—and hopefully for England in due course—are addressed. I note that the amendment continues with that approach, empowering devolved Governments’ ability to implement changes in their own way. It highlights how it remains entirely possible for the nations to have the right powers to deliver for their citizens in the right way without having to engage with all the problems that would come with any approach to independence, so long may that approach continue.
I am glad to see the consultation that has taken place with devolved Administrations, as I believe consent is an incredibly important part of the process of ensuring that our devolution settlement operates well. I believe that that is critical. Technically, as a unitary system we have parliamentary sovereignty in this place and the UK Parliament can still legislate unilaterally in these areas, but if the devolved settlement is to survive, every part of the United Kingdom must be prepared to play their role in that partnership.
I cannot claim to be a fan of the Elections Act 2022, which brought many of the provisions into place. During my time in local government, I was the chair of the working group that the Local Government Association set up to go through the provisions in the Bill, which was assisted by representatives of returning officers and representatives of electoral services administrators. It would be fair to say that their views of most of the provisions were wholly negative in the context of what the Bill sought to do, and many of the arguments did not seem to make a huge amount of sense at the time. None the less, we did produce a number of cross-party conclusions. Regrettably, they were not adopted by the LGA until far too late in the process to have had any viable impact.
The aspects in the Bill are, I believe, positive. They should help to enable greater access to absent voting for residents in Scotland and Wales, and hopefully avoid some of the confusion that arises.
As a country, we have an increasingly confusing set of election arrangements. Many different types of electoral systems are employed, there are different age arrangements in different places and there are different rules around this, that and the other. When people think that one set of rules is in play and in fact, given a particular context, there is another, that creates growing problems with confidence in our electoral system. Although it is a challenge, it is important to our democracy that, as far as possible, the general public understand how the systems operate, how they select their governors and how they express their voice. That is a critical part of the UK retaining genuine democratic accountability.
The more that can be done to harmonise arrangements across the entire United Kingdom, and to ensure that there is a much simpler approach to people expressing their views to us, the greater the level of confidence in the system. Having two different sets of arrangements around casting votes cannot do much to encourage people to engage in the process. The very low levels of turnout at the last general election, which was a year ago today, suggest that there are issues that need to be addressed in how we try to engage people in the process and encourage them to participate.
One big problem is that if we do not have a viable system to enable people to cast their votes, taking into account people’s differing capacities to attend polling stations, we risk having a bias in the system in favour of one set of groups and against another. Younger able-bodied people and those who are less busy will be in a better position to participate and submit their votes, meaning the electoral system will gradually move in favour of only part of the population. That will deliver outcomes in those elections that may result in the system no longer acting as a voice for the whole of society, only a part of that society.
We are all aware of some areas where that already happens, where there is higher turnout by some groups relative to other groups, resulting in them having preferential status in our electioneering. The more that can be done to make it as easy as possible for people to cast their vote, the greater the likelihood that we will have a more representative sample of electors participating in the system, and that all our different institutions will genuinely represent the views of constituents within the country, and consequentially within policy.
I conclude by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith on introducing the Bill. It is an important step towards addressing many of the issues, and I hope further steps will be forthcoming to increase greater accountability and democratic participation in our democracy.
John Grady (Glasgow East) (Lab)
I am obliged to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) for introducing this important piece of legislation. For hon. Members who do not know Edinburgh North and Leith, the word “and” is very important in the name of that constituency: Leith is quite separate from Edinburgh—it is a separate city and a wonderful city too. I have many fond memories of being in my hon. Friend’s constituency, because I studied in Edinburgh and I was involved in the Children’s Holiday Venture charity, which is still going strong. Students would take children who had been referred by social workers out swimming, ice skating or away to the countryside for the weekend. I loved my time with that charity, known as “The Students” in Pilton, in my hon. Friend’s seat.
The Bill tackles the important issue of trust in politics. In a way, it is mechanistic, in that it looks at mechanisms for voting, but trust in politics is damaged if people feel that they cannot exercise their right to vote because they have been excluded by being disabled, on holiday or for other reasons. People’s trust in politics is damaged if they feel that they are prevented from voting for reasons that they, quite properly, view as being archaic and anachronistic.
These issues were raised with me during the last general election campaign, as it took place during the Scottish school holidays. We have different school holiday dates in Scotland. They start earlier because our harvests are earlier—not very important in Glasgow East, where there are no farms whatsoever. People felt excluded from voting because they had gone on holiday, and the arrangements did not run as well as they ought to have done.
The Bill gives the Scottish and Welsh Governments concurrent powers to introduce regulations to enable applications for postal and proxy votes for the devolved Administrations to be made online using the Government Digital Service. That will make it easier for my constituents in Carmyle, a wonderful mining village, to vote. The Bill also aligns postal voting renewal cycles. This is confusing for me, but postal voting cycles in Scotland are not aligned, and postal votes are very important for many people. That will help, for example, a postal voter in Mount Vernon who cannot get to Mount Vernon primary school to exercise their right to vote. That is important for confidence in democracy.
Other examples of divergence are set out well in the explanatory notes, which were pulled together by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith and the relevant Department. It is important to minimise divergence in this area and harmonise the rules, because people will question our democracy if those in, for example, Wishaw and Tollcross—I spoke about it earlier, with its wonderful park—are subject to different rules from, say, relatives in Northumberland, Newcastle, Corby or London.
That has been the subject of comment in reports by the Electoral Commission and the Electoral Management Board for Scotland, which does much important work in scrutinising election rules. I understand that PACAC also took an interest in it. It is important that these rules operate effectively so that, for example, constituents of mine in Calton and Bridgeton—voting, perhaps, at Bridgeton library, Sacred Heart primary school or Dalmarnock primary school—can cast their votes. It is important that those bodies keep this under control.
The Bill results from close working with the UK Government and the Scottish Government. The Secretary of State for Scotland has put a lot of work into ensuring that the Governments work together where possible for the good of people in Scotland.
Peter Lamb
My hon. Friend has highlighted PACAC’s work scrutinising elections. As Parliament’s Select Committee that is overseeing this part of the process, we produced recommendations on behalf of the United Kingdom as a whole. Given that the Bill will devolve to Scottish Government representatives more delegated legislation powers around implementation, does he think it is important that we have a close link between our own Select Committees and those in Scotland and Wales, to ensure that the right lessons are learned and implemented across the whole United Kingdom, rather than just in any one of its constituent parts?
John Grady
That is a very good point, and I suggest that the Chair of PACAC picks it up with the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee. There are learnings from what happens in Scotland that we can apply in the rest of our family of nations, and vice versa—although I would say that there are no learnings that we can draw from the SNP Government on running a health service, which is in a catastrophic state in Scotland. Speaking of the health service, which is suffering in Scotland, it is important—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
Order. I remind Members that we really ought to stay in scope and discuss absent voting in Scotland and Wales, and not necessarily the health service.
John Grady
I do apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I was just coming to the point that this Bill is so important because voters need to be able to exercise their right to vote to express their views on the management of councils and the Government in Scotland, and the Bill enables people to do so. I apologise for appearing to stray slightly, but it was bringing me to that important point. With that, Madam Deputy Speaker, I think we have heard enough from me.
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
First, I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on her tenacity in getting this Bill through its parliamentary stages. It is timely that the hon. Lady has today—on the first anniversary of an election that I might care to forget, but that she will definitely care to remember for the rest of her career—made such a great change to our democratic structures through our Bill. If she has achieved this much in the first 12 months, I, for one, look forward to seeing what she will achieve in the next four years. I would like to genuinely congratulate her on behalf of the official Opposition and Members across the House on the way she has conducted herself in getting this legislation on the statute books. Her constituents will also quite rightly be proud.
I also want to take this opportunity to wish Members across the House a happy first anniversary—although, technically, the anniversary is tomorrow. We were all tired in the early hours of that morning; for me, it was 4.36 am, as I remember. I wish a happy anniversary to all new MPs across the House on their first anniversary of serving in this place. I look forward to working with them on a cross-party basis over the next four years, and maybe beyond.
Paul Holmes
I was just about to refer to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), but I will let him go first.
Paul Holmes
Well, I thank the hon. Gentleman—my friend—for what I know are warm and genuine congratulations. I was about to say that I even congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme a happy anniversary on his election. I am still utterly convinced that while he is the most sartorially elegant MP on the Labour Benches—[Interruption.] The Whip on duty, the hon. Member for Bury South (Christian Wakeford), who has not even bothered to wear a tie, is somehow shouting “Shame”. I say to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme that I am still convinced that deep down, he is a secret Conservative, and we look forward to seeing his slow conversion to this side of the House over the next four years.
Adam Jogee
Wishful thinking is all I will say, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am very proud of my Labour party membership card, thank you very much.
Paul Holmes
Thou doth protest too much—I think we will just keep it to the fact that the hon. Gentleman is the most sartorially elegant member of the Labour parliamentary party, and I would be grateful, after this debate, if he could tell me where he gets his ties.
By the way, I also want to say happy anniversary to those of us who survived the last election, too—especially my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew), who is sitting on the Front Bench next to me.
I welcome the Minister being in her place. The Conservatives completely agree with her remarks on the amendment that was tabled. It is perfectly straightforward, and we support it. In a rare moment of cross-party unity, we completely echo what the Minister has said, and therefore we do not need to say much more on that.
I will just pay tribute to the four Back-Bench contributors for their remarks. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme has said he is making a habit of beating Conservatives, but let us just see what happens in four years’ time—I will not predict what will happen at the next election. As I said earlier, he is a genuine friend, and I genuinely like his engaging contributions to many debates in this House; they are always backed up by the principled aims he has in any area of policy in this House—long may that continue.
The hon. Member for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith) gave a great speech. She set out the full scope of the Bill clearly and how it will make a tangible change to many people who live in Scotland. I congratulate her on that.
Even though the hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) is from a rival city down the Solent from me, I thought she made an excellent contribution. She made important points on the changes to the legislation to ensure that veterans cards can be used as official ID for voting. I represent many veterans in my community, particularly naval veterans—as I know the hon. Lady does, with the home of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth North—and I know that that is a vital change that is being made. It was a commitment of the previous Government; I think it is fair to say that parliamentary time ran out, so we were unable to do that, so I am pleased that that the new Government took that forward.
The hon. Member for Crawley (Peter Lamb) was right to share his expertise on devolution, and gave fascinating historical context for this Bill. I remember being in the Stag’s Head pub on the University of Southampton’s campus in 2006, when he was chairman of the university’s Labour Society and I was chairman of its Conservative Association. For transparency, I will declare that it was a lot smaller than the Labour Society. I am not sure whether he ever imagined that we would share a Chamber today. As we saw from his speech, he is a fierce defender of democracy, a fierce supporter of devolution, and a passionate defender of his beliefs and principles. I wish him well going forward.
Peter Lamb
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for his kind remarks. Given that we are talking about democratic engagement and encouraging greater participation, does he agree that there are few better ways of encouraging people to engage with the system than getting them into student politics at university?
Paul Holmes
My hon. Friend the Member for Broadland and Fakenham (Jerome Mayhew) just said that he could not think of anything worse, but I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I saw something very special in him when we battled together. He was in the year above me, though hon. Members might not think so from looking at him. I absolutely agree that universities can be at the forefront and heart of early democratic engagement, and can shape people’s views and political compass. I am perfectly willing to say in this House that my politics 15, 16 or 17 years ago were very different from my politics today. That is down to the genuinely open nature of debates in this Chamber and, most importantly, on university campuses.
I am feeling a bit left out, because the hon. Member for Glasgow East (John Grady) regularly intervened on others but has not intervened on me. He gave a staunch defence of the Bill in some particularly pertinent areas, and talked about other areas that are maybe not so pertinent. I will watch him over the next four years. I wonder how many schools in his constituency he has mentioned in his first 12 months in this House.
John Grady
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. Having spent a lot of time with him on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill Committee, I know that the charming way in which he presents his submissions would enhance people’s trust in politics, including those voting at Calton Parkhead parish church hall. I am obliged.
Paul Holmes
The hon. Gentleman never lets me down. I hope he does not say that within earshot of the Leader of the Opposition, but I can promise her on the Floor of the House that she has nothing to worry about from me. Like him, I will carry on engaging in debates in this House. Where we do not agree, we can do so in a nice, polite and respectful way. We are talking about enhancing democracy for the people of Scotland through this legislation; the way that Members have conducted themselves today serves as a lesson on how people should conduct themselves. I am not talking about any specific parties.
The Bill is welcome, and makes the necessary provisions to ensure that where there is divergence, the whole of Great Britain’s shared democratic values are brought into closer practical alignment. It supports the unity of our democratic system while respecting the devolved nations’ identities. The Conservative party will always look to bridge the gaps between the constituent national communities that make our country so vibrant.
In my role on the Opposition Front Bench, I spend much of my time fighting against what I perceive to be the Government’s repeated attempts to strip local people of their agency and voice. I have had disagreements with the hon. Member for Glasgow East on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, but this Bill is refreshing. Frankly, it is a relief to be able to support the work of the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, who has brought forward a Bill that empowers, rather than undermines, our citizens. Specifically, we welcome the provisions that make it easier for people across Scotland and Wales to participate in elections. This Bill honours the principle that democracy should be accessible to all, not a privilege for the few. That is a principle that we on the Conservative Benches will always defend, as I know the Minister does through her role.
Accessibility is vital, but so too is security. Protecting the integrity of our elections and guarding against fraud or interference is a core responsibility of any Government. Ministers must take decisive and proactive steps, while modernising and reforming our system, to prevent malign influence, whether domestic or foreign.
We do not have to look for long to see instances of electoral interference from foreign state and non-state actors. Indeed, most recently, it was reported that dozens of anonymous pro Scottish independence X accounts allegedly operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have gone silent since Israel launched strikes on Iranian military and cyber targets on 12 June. The accounts, which seemed to use fake Scottish identities to spread anti-UK sentiment, were identified by Clemson University researchers as being part of a suspected foreign influence campaign.
That example is one among many, and it illustrates an important point that we all must take seriously. That is why I welcome the Government’s stated commitment to working closely with the Electoral Commission and others to protect the integrity, security and effectiveness of UK elections and referendums. I urge them to ensure that this is not just rhetoric but reality.
It is right to note that the Bill builds on work by the previous Government, including the Elections Act 2022, which took important steps to strengthen the security of our democratic processes, introducing requirements such as digital imprints on online campaign materials and enhancing transparency in political funding. Those were much-needed reforms, and it was a shame that legislative consent was not given to those measures in 2022. The Bill now mitigates the effect of that decision.
As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith said, the inclusion of identity verification for postal and proxy vote applications is another necessary measure to close off vulnerabilities in our system. There must not be a mismatch between how people register by post and how they do so digitally. These are technical details, but their impact on the integrity of our electoral process is profound. We must not allow inconsistent standards to become weak spots in our democracy, because we can be sure that our adversaries abroad would use those to divide us and cause chaos in any way they can.
This Bill represents a sensible and timely move to enhance voter access and uphold the integrity of our electoral system. By aligning absent voting procedures in devolved elections with those across the rest of the United Kingdom, it helps to modernise and safeguard our democratic processes for the future. Crucially, it also empowers voters in Scotland and Wales by making participation in elections simpler and more accessible.
I must reiterate what I said on Second Reading: I urge the Government to abandon their plans to water down voter ID requirements. They have found it within themselves to make U-turns in other areas. Today we are legislating to make voting easier for people while maintaining adequate security, but we cannot also have the Government watering down voter ID requirements, which would reduce security in our voting system.
On that rare note of disharmony during an afternoon of unity, I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith again on the constructive and inclusive approach that she has taken. I look forward to seeing this legislation on the statute book. Let us see whether she brings more legislation forward over the next four years to make a real difference in this country.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Rushanara Ali)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) on all her fantastic work, and on ensuring there is cross-party support for this Bill. I echo the point that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes), made about her ability to make such an important change so quickly; we are celebrating it being a year since the general election.
I commend my hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Adam Jogee), for Aylesbury (Laura Kyrke-Smith), for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin), for Crawley (Peter Lamb) and for Glasgow East (John Grady) for their excellent speeches, which highlighted the importance of this private Member’s Bill. They also pointed out some of the changes that we have already made; for instance, I am proud to have introduced the veteran ID card while in government. There is also a specific proposal in our manifesto to reduce the voting age, so that 16 and 17-year-olds can vote.
The Government share the commitment of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith to this Bill, which will give people in Scotland and Wales the same choices for managing their voting arrangements for devolved elections as they already have for reserved elections. Many of us will remember a time when absent voting in the UK was still governed by excessively restrictive criteria; electors had to provide valid reasons, such as illness, travel or occupational constraints, to qualify for a postal vote. Similarly, proxy voting was limited to those with clear impediments to attending the polling station.
This changed in 2001, when postal voting on demand was introduced in Great Britain, allowing electors to freely apply for a postal vote. That change was quickly embraced by the electorate: in the 2001 general election, there was a significant increase in the number of postal votes issued compared with previous elections, and by 2005, the figure had more than doubled. By 2010, over 7 million postal votes were issued across the UK. Now that electors have been given the choice to vote in a way that best suits them and their needs, it has become clear that there is significant demand for flexibility in how people exercise their democratic rights. While it is less commonly used, the option to vote via a proxy has also remained a viable and necessary alternative for many electors across the country.
In 2007, measures were introduced to verify the identity of postal voters. They added a layer of security to the process and ensured that electors could have confidence in the system. These included the requirement for voters to provide personal identifiers, such as their date of birth and signature, when applying for and returning postal ballots. The introduction of the “Register to vote” service in 2014 gave electors the ability to go online and make their application to vote without needing to submit a paper application. That change, much like the changes to absent voting, has proved extremely popular with the electorate; in 2024, over 92% of all applications to register to vote were made using the online service, with less than 8% taking the traditional paper route. The modernisation of our electoral system through the changes I have just laid out has proven popular with electors time and again.
The Bill relates to the online absent vote application service, which, as has been pointed out, went live in October 2023 as a result of the need to modernise the way in which electors apply for their absent votes. Given the enthusiasm that electors have shown for the freedom to decide the method by which they cast their ballot, and the clear preference for using online services to apply to vote, it is no surprise that the new online absent vote application service has also proven popular. Unfortunately, as we have heard, voters in Scotland and Wales can use the new online service to apply for postal and proxy votes only for reserved elections, such as elections to the UK Parliament. The benefits of extending the online absent vote application service to devolved elections for electors in Scotland and Wales are clear. It will allow people in Scotland and Wales the option of applying online for a postal or proxy vote for devolved parliamentary and local elections, or of applying through a traditional paper application.
In Scotland and Wales, voters who wish to apply for a postal or proxy vote in devolved parliamentary or local elections must still complete a paper application form and submit it by post. As we have heard, this Bill seeks to give electors in Scotland and Wales the same choice as others over how they apply for their absent vote for use in Senedd Cymru, Scottish Parliament, and local elections. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith has said, the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru will hold their parliamentary elections in May 2026. It would be hugely beneficial both to voters and to electoral administrators in Scotland and Wales alike if access to the online services is made available in time for those elections. There is a great deal of enthusiasm from the Scottish and Welsh Governments about the benefits, as was made clear to me in my meetings in Cardiff this week with the Scottish Government Minister for Parliamentary Business and the Welsh Government Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith said, the Bill has been welcomed by those working in the Scottish and Welsh electoral sectors. My officials work closely with the electoral administration community, and as such I can say with confidence that the Bill will deliver clear benefits for both electors and administrators, in particular by removing the need for duplicate applications to be made for devolved and reserved absent votes. That means less time for electors spent making applications and less time for administrators spent processing applications. We will continue to work closely with the Scottish and Welsh Governments, including on technical aspects of the Bill’s implementation.
The changes in the Bill represent just one of the ways that this Government intend to encourage electoral engagement and participation. As I have mentioned, we will also lower the voting age, giving 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds the right to shape their future at the ballot box. We will set out plans to further strengthen the integrity of elections and encourage participation in democracy. We are working in partnership with the electoral sector to bring about the changes in this Bill and the many other changes we are seeking to make.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith for her tireless work on this important Bill. I am also grateful to the shadow Minister for his and his party’s support for the Bill, for which I am glad there has been wider cross-party support. I am grateful to my hon. Friends and other hon. Members for taking such strong interest in the Bill and for coming here on a Friday to speak in support of it. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith once again for her work, and I look forward to working with colleagues to ensure that the Bill passes. I hope very much that Members will support the Bill’s measures and ensure that it advances to the other place.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)
With the leave of the House, I call Tracy Gilbert to wind up.
Tracy Gilbert
With the leave of the House, I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I thank Members from across the House for their contributions and support today. In particular, I thank the hon. Member for Hamble Valley (Paul Holmes) for his very kind remarks; it shows how we can work across the House with kindness and mutual support, which I am very grateful for. I thank my team for the work they have done to support me during this first year and for helping me to bring this Bill forward, along with officials from Government Departments. Without their support, I would not have been able to bring the Bill to the House. I look forward to the continued support of hon. Members for the Bill as it passes through its stages.
It is apt to be speaking today, when a year ago today we were all awaiting our fate to see whether we would be making the journey to this place. I put on the record my thanks to my constituents in Edinburgh North and Leith for enabling me to secure my place in this House, thereby enabling me to take forward this piece of legislation. It will enhance democracy and encourage participation for all our constituents across the whole of the UK. I look forward to the Bill receiving support to enable it to pass to the other place.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
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