Elections Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord, Lord Moore, whose excellent maiden speech I thoroughly enjoyed.

I share the considerable concerns expressed across the House about the introduction of political control over the Electoral Commission. The reference made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, to the proposals for the Electoral Commission as “chilling” clearly resonated across the House. Does the Minister really support the consequence of Part 3: that the sitting Government—which, somebody mentioned, could be led by Jeremy Corbyn, or perhaps even worse—would have the power to change how our elections are conducted and policed? The noble Lord, Lord Wallace, made the point that there is no evidence to support the need for this change.

My concerns about the provisions of the Bill are not limited to Part 3 but pretty much everything that needs to be said has already been said, so I will keep my comments brief. However, the Minister needs to take on board not only the depth but the breadth of concern about a number of the provisions in this Bill. Those have been expressed not only here but by many organisations, parliamentary committees, Conservative MPs and, indeed, Conservative donors.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, quoted, experts in this field have said that this Bill would not look out of place in Hungary, Russia or China. That is one hell of a thing to say about a UK Government’s proposition. It undermines our democracy and risks further reputational damage to the UK across the world. A major donor to the Conservative Party expressed his concerns on Radio 4 this week, saying that the Government are introducing policies that he would not expect from a UK Conservative Government. Surely he is right. Policies such as this one would not have been conceivable under previous Conservative Governments.

The Bill has been condemned from all sides. Free and fair elections are, as others have said, fundamental to our democracy. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee points out that we could expect about 1.1 million people not to vote if the Bill goes through as presently presented with a mandatory voter ID requirement. David Davis, no less, a Conservative MP, describes this Bill as an

“illogical and illiberal solution to a non-existent problem.”

Again, surely he is right. Since 2014, only three people in the UK have been convicted of voter fraud—impersonation, basically. Can it possibly be proportionate to introduce a policy resulting in more than 1 million people not voting in order to prevent an entirely insignificant number of people per election committing voter fraud?

According to the Electoral Reform Society—other noble Lords referred to this point—about 9 million eligible voters are missing from the electoral roll. Surely an important role for the Bill would be to do something about that appalling state of affairs. The voters lost as a result of the Bill would be concentrated among the very elderly, ethnic minorities and the poor, and could therefore significantly change the result of any election. As has already been said, this is a deeply partisan Bill with a very clear intention to skew election results. That is deeply worrying.

Along with others, I sincerely hope that the Government will take back these proposals and think again.