Elections Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Alec Shelbrooke

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Alec Shelbrooke]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and my—what a lively start we have got off to!

I intend to speak to the principle of the Bill, because we will come to amendments later. Despite my point of order, it is interesting that the American electoral system keeps being referred to, because it speaks to the wider issue of faith in elections. We have seen some disgraceful activity by the former President in America, which leads to an undermining of the basis of democracy.

There is no doubt that electoral fraud has taken place in this country, and I struggle to think of another crime that we would be willing to say we do not need to do anything about. I struggle to think of another crime where we say to the victims, “Well, it wasn’t many of you, so we’re not going to bother with it”. There is a very important principle about where we stand in this place.

[Brendan O’Hara]

The right hon. Gentleman seems to be saying that currently there is no law to stop electoral crime. Laws to stop electoral crime are in place at the moment and they seem to be working; as we have heard, Tower Hamlets and other elections have been refought. Does he accept that there are existing laws to tackle exactly what the Bill intends to tackle?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making that point, because, of course, Richard Mawrey said in his evidence that the threshold for proving in electoral law as it currently stands is too high to really get over the bar. By bringing in an extra set of checks and balances, we hopefully get away from the point that we would have to try to prove these cases to get over what is a very high electoral bar.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

The point I am making, drawing on the comments that have been made, is about faith in the electoral system, and this clause creates those levels of faith. It is all very well trying denial and complacency about where we are today, but we have to accept that we now have a mass media system in the world that makes it very easy for conspiracy theories to grow and be built very quickly. We must be in a position to ensure that our elections are deemed to be as safe and secure as possible.

I was disappointed on Second Reading that, when I intervened and asked Members about the recommendations of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, those recommendations were pretty much dismissed out of hand. It was argued that they did not apply in this country, but the OSCE has made it clear in its reports that the security of our elections cannot be guaranteed without voter ID, and that is a very important point.

Those who have done election monitoring will know that many countries in the G20, let alone the G7, ask for voter ID, and I fear that we are in a period of history where democracy—which is a precious thing, and must always be developed and worked on—is under threat from those who refuse to accept election results. I am basing those comments more on what has happened in the United States than what has happened in this country, but what happened there is pervasive because of mass media. This Bill is trying to ensure that the perception of the security of elections, which is a very important thing, is clear in people’s minds.

From the very beginning, there has been entrenched opposition to the idea of voter ID. The hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood—who I have a great deal of respect for, as she knows, and I enjoy serving on these Committees with her—talked about cuts to local government funding, but my council, Leeds City Council, is spending £10 million on the European city of culture campaign. The council bid for it before the referendum, then we left, so it is not getting the money and it is spending £10 million on it. It cannot say that it is being starved of funds when it is spending £10 million on something that is pretty irrelevant and certainly creates some lively debate in my home city.

When we come to debate the voting age—I know that we are not discussing that now—there will be some very important points to make about how the UN defines who is a child by saying that anybody under the age of 18 cannot fight on the frontline. Again, it appears that we are dismissing international bodies to suit the argument that is being made on the day.

I end my remarks by simply saying that this clause is a very important part of the Bill, ensuring that people have faith in our electoral system and that we do not allow a growth in voter fraud. We heard in evidence that bringing cases of voter fraud to court involves meeting an exceptionally high bar and that the financial constraints mean that people are not willing to bring those cases forward, so we cannot close our eyes and say that voter fraud is not happening because it is not getting to the courtroom. The proposals in the Bill go a long way to making people feel that when they cast their ballot, they have an equal say in those ballots, compared with people who may want to act criminally.

[Brendan O’Hara]

I always suspected throughout the passage of the Bill, whether on Second Reading or in our evidence sessions, that there was absolutely no evidence that voter ID cards would address an identified problem. In the evidence that we heard in four sessions over two days, not even the Government’s star witness said that personation was a sufficiently big issue to make voter ID cards essential to tackling it. Overwhelmingly, every single person who spoke to us about the subject said that the issue that needs addressing is postal vote fraud.

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[Brendan O’Hara]

Nobody on this side of the room is saying that electoral fraud should not be punished. It absolutely should be punished. It should not be tolerated and should never be tolerated. Any victim of it deserves justice. However, that must be evidence-led and proportionate. This is neither.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I will come to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment.

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[Brendan O’Hara]

The hon. Gentleman is making my point for me. He did not recommend ID cards. He did not. If he mentioned taking a utility bill, he is not talking about registering for and receiving a voter ID card. As he said, he did not recommend it. In the first bit of evidence, Lord Pickles says he did not recommend voter ID cards.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The hon. Gentleman has made the point, quite rightly, that there is electoral law in place that can be used to prosecute fraud, but we heard in evidence that there is a very high bar for people, not least financially. Prevention is better than prosecution. Preventing electoral fraud from happening in the first place is surely better than trying to prove it has happened and prosecuting.

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[Brendan O’Hara]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. I was unaware of that case, but it does seem to suggest that we are getting ahead of ourselves somewhat.

Moving on, what is the point of an evidence session if we are going to ignore the evidence? I refer the Conservative members of the Committee to the words of Baroness Davidson on voter ID—perhaps the only time her words were wise. I will not repeat what I said on Second Reading; it is there for all to see if they wish to go back and find it. Suffice to say, Baroness Davidson was correct in her assessment of voter ID cards in May, and she is correct today.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The hon. Gentleman seems to have a slight contradiction in his opinion. He said that there was minimal voter fraud and that we should take no notice of it. He has picked on one Conservative politician out of hundreds and used that as an argument.

[Brendan O’Hara]

I rise slowly to my feet, because I have no idea what the right hon. Gentleman is talking about. I will sit down as slowly as I rose if he wants to make that point again.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am merely making the point that to dismiss one argument because there are not lots of people coming forward with an allegation, to then pick on one person out of hundreds of Conservatives and say, “Therefore, this is why we should not do it,” seems slightly at odds with the balance of the argument.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Absolutely not. The idea that I would take any political lead from an unelected baroness is utter nonsense. I simply used her as an illustration of the deep divisions in the Conservative party.

Elections Bill

Debate between Brendan O'Hara and Alec Shelbrooke

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

May I ask the hon. Gentleman the same question I asked the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Cat Smith)? Does he disregard the recommendations of the OSCE?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I do not regard any findings of the OSCE, but what I think is important in this place, looking at UK-wide elections, is that we have a measure that works for United Kingdom general elections, and this is one that absolutely does not. The right hon. Gentleman says we should be reinventing the wheel and starting from scratch. There is a debate to be had, but the imposition of this kind of voter ID now is absolute nonsense and there is no evidence whatever to justify it. This is, therefore, actually a ploy to stop people going to the polling station in the first place. I believe it really is as crude as that. The Government plan appears to have been to conjure up a demon, convince people that that demon is posing a threat to them, and then allow themselves to introduce draconian and totally disproportionate measures to slay the demon they have just invented.

The fatal flaw in that argument is that there never was a demon. No matter how the Government have tried to spin this, people know that there never was a demon and that there is nothing to see. Now, the United Kingdom Government stand accused of a sleazy attempt to gerrymander the register for their own electoral gain.