Voter Identification Regulations 2022

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Lords Chamber

According to openDemocracy, Ministers told the Electoral Commission that introducing photo ID in next year’s local elections has the advantage of providing a learning exercise. Certainly, it is to be hoped that the Government will be open to learning from the exercise. In that context, I welcome what the Minister said about independent review of the exercise in May, as far as it goes, and I hope that she can answer my noble friend’s questions adequately. However, the implication seems to be that, because only some authorities have elections next year—including my own authority of Nottingham—it is okay if some electors, particularly the most marginalised in those authorities, lose the right to vote because of the rushed implementation of voter photo ID. It is not okay, and I hope that, even at this late stage, the Government will think again.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord opposite—he is not a Minister, I think he used to be something in the Government—has got a real cheek to talk to this House about honouring conventions when his Government colleagues have trampled over dozens of them. They put in a masquerade of a Budget, which then tanked the economy. They have introduced a new Prime Minister every few weeks—another incompetent Prime Minister, I might point out—and have generally behaved like savages at a feast with taxpayers’ money. He should really not stand up and defend the sort of thing he just has when his Government colleagues do not do it anyway. This House, to some extent, is self-regulating and can make its own decisions.

[Lord Strathclyde (Con)]

My Lords, it might be worth saying that I was only commenting on the passage of the Motion that the House had carried in 1994 and I certainly do not oppose that position. I then explained the conventions by which we exist when we look at fatal Motions—none of the stuff mentioned by the noble Baroness.