Elections Bill

Baroness Chakrabarti Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)]

My Lords, I join the lengthy welcome queue to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moore of Etchingham. We have friends and—I believe—values in common. We have some differences, including perhaps even some around this Bill. But I have no doubt that he will be an asset to your Lordships’ House.

To be a passionate democrat is not uncomplicated. It often comes with zeal for a particular political persuasion and programme—but surely also a jealous defence of rights, freedoms and the rules of the game. To have the privilege of being in government must surely be to attempt to balance the instinct permanently to campaign, and to use the tools of government in that endeavour, with the precious stewardship of our constitution in general, and our electoral system in particular.

The noble Lord, Lord Moore, referred in his eloquent maiden to the pandemic. For me, some of its most moving moments involved the courage and sacrifices of ordinary citizens, including volunteers and front-line workers, as well as the wonderful scenes of lines and lines of our people queuing for their NHS vaccinations—not unlike people throughout the democratic world, and history, queuing to exercise that precious right to vote. It would be odd and self-defeating for any democratic Government with a clear Commons majority to cast too much doubt on the integrity of our popular mandate in action—still more to be seen to legislate to make it harder for poorer people to vote and easier for the wealthy and powerful, and governing party interests, to influence the administration of the polls. This spring, the minimum wage for people over 23 will rise to the princely sum of £9.50 an hour; and universal credit for those aged 25 and above will rise to £334.91 per month. Therefore, at £75, a passport costs a great deal of money for many of our ordinary citizens.

At the risk of irritating some of my noble friends—and perhaps not for the first time—I have spent a great deal of my working life in concert with Liberals and Conservatives against the principle of compulsory photo ID before ordinary Britons may exercise their fundamental rights. So I shall be listening to, and working with, noble Lords across your Lordships’ House on amendments on voter ID and, furthermore, to achieve automatic voter registration for citizens. If a national insurance number is automatically generated and issued on an 18th birthday, why not a registration to vote?

A poignant moment of contemporary cinema comes to mind. In Ava DuVernay’s 2015 “Selma”—which I commend to all noble Lords, particularly those who propose to spend time in Committee on this Bill—a care home worker, played by Oprah Winfrey no less, seeks to register to vote. A white male bureaucrat accuses her of “starting a fuss”. He proceeds to ask her to recite the preamble to the United States constitution. He asks her, “Do you know what a preamble is?” As a viewer, I had my heart in my mouth, along with—I have no doubt—my democratic friends of all stripes on both sides of the Atlantic. She begins, “We the people”, and proceeds flawlessly—I am not spoiling the film; there is much more to it—before he interrupts with, “How many county judges in Alabama?” She says, “67”, and he replies, “Name them”. She sighs and, on her application, he stamps “Denied”. The rest, as they say, is history.