Representation of the People Bill

Debate between Lord Mackinlay of Richborough and Lord Jackson of Peterborough

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th November 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackinlay of Richborough (Con)]

My Lords, I have followed this debate over the last couple of days. I give huge congratulations to my noble friend Lord Frost on bringing this forward; this is an area that has exercised me for some years. I pay tribute to the House of Lords Library for extracting a lot of information on this to try to bring out where reciprocation exists—and I have to say that the reciprocation arrangements within the Commonwealth are very skinny indeed.

The Government have opened up Pandora’s box with this Bill, because at its heart is the franchise, which the Government are attempting to expand to 16 and 17 year-olds. If the Bill before us is trying to change and tidy up things, and widen the franchise, then surely it is the right Bill to consider a wider franchise, which has not been considered since the Act in 1969.

We have to consider this against the backdrop of CHOGM, which is in progress at the moment in Antigua. As a huge supporter of the Commonwealth, I am somewhat saddened that, in the post-Brexit world, we have not made a better arrangement with our friends around the Commonwealth to create a new friendship and trading arrangement on preferential terms. I hope those sorts of issues are being discussed at CHOGM as I speak. But the electoral franchise is surely very odd. We have vast countries, with huge populations—India, Pakistan, Nigeria and Bangladesh, to pick out a few—of probably 1.5 to 1.8 billion people between them. A transfer of such people to this country, as temporary workers, students and all those good areas, is to be welcomed, but surely to come on a student visa for a short time and then be allowed to vote is a very strange situation.

I might consider that to be fair and reasonable if there was a reciprocal arrangement with those countries. As my noble friend Lord Frost has said, perhaps that is quite complicated to achieve. It would require a department of the Home Office to keep an eye on electoral franchises in those countries of the Commonwealth. Perhaps Amendments 25 and 26, proposed by my noble friend, are cleaner. Perhaps this is the time to make that breakaway, which most other countries have considered to be proper and correct, and say one has to be a British citizen.

As we know, British citizenship can be obtained. One of the reasons some people never bother obtaining it, even though they have lived here for a very long time, is the cost and aggravation, but it is achievable and doable. One has to pay the fee and do the Life in the UK Test, and then, lo and behold, one can become a British citizen, with all the rights and duties that come with citizenship. The powerful point behind my noble friend’s suggestions is that feeling of being part of this nation—one cannot just up sticks and return back to the country where one holds citizenship.

The Australian situation is rather odd. I believe it was Australia’s 1984 Act that made quite a separation between the new country and what might be called the old country. At that date, Australia decided that one could vote in Australia only if one was an Australian citizen. As my noble friend alluded to, a British citizen who had lived in Australia prior to 1956 but had never taken citizenship could still vote there.

The anomalies around the world are few and far between. As the Government have opened up the franchise for discussion, it is time that we use this Bill appropriately to consider the franchise of Commonwealth citizens. It is a throwback of yesteryear and, much as I like yesteryear, we are not there any more. We are in the modern world of 2026, and the day is done for the old colonial arrangements that those on the Benches opposite would like to throw off as rapidly as they can. We cannot have this subsisting into the future. I hope we can have cross-party support for this measure, and I look forward to the Minister’s comments as to why it is unacceptable. I would have thought such a provision would more likely come from that side of the Committee than from this, strangely.

I hope that the Government will listen to this. I know my noble friend said that this was merely a probing amendment, but I think it deserves to be more than that. I would like to see this beefed up for Report, when we can perhaps vote on such measures.

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to support my noble friend Lord Frost’s amendments, particularly Amendments 28 and 29.

As we meet this afternoon and consider the American elections that took place yesterday, we can look back and think about the sanctity of the franchise and how important that is. We are very fortunate in this country that we do not, for instance, have gerrymandered electoral districts; we have independent Boundary Commissions. We are also fortunate in this country that most people believe that the franchise is clean and safeguarded and that the electoral process is one of integrity, honesty and transparency—and that is because, broadly speaking, it is.

Your Lordships will know that, in the United States, the Jim Crow laws and the residency, literacy and numeracy laws were used to ostracise and discriminate against African Americans and others. Thankfully, they are a thing of the past, but that goes to show how important it is that we protect the sanctity of our electoral process, which my noble friend Lord Hayward rightly mentioned.

The current Commonwealth voting right is outdated, as my noble friend said. It is anomalous and indefensible, and it is time to bring our legislation up to date. As has been said, the vast majority of Commonwealth nations do not have reciprocal voting arrangements with British citizens. There are around 1 million Commonwealth citizens living in the UK, 66% of whom are qualified and registered to vote, as at March this year.

The beauty of these amendments is that they are not harsh and draconian. They do not remove, with ministerial or statutory fiat, the right for Commonwealth citizens to vote. They are incremental, permissive, probing amendments that invite the Government to think about the reciprocity between countries. In so doing, they recognise how important the familial and friendship relationships we have with countries are, as my noble friend alluded to. The other thing is that they are colour-blind. They do not make reference to ethnicity, religion, background or gender. They talk about nations such as New Zealand, Nigeria, Ghana, Australia, Canada, Suriname—I think—Guyana and others that are members of our Commonwealth family.

Although the number of Commonwealth nationals residing in the UK and the percentage of Commonwealth citizens registered to vote in the UK have been estimated, the Government have been unable to produce accurate figures concerning the number of qualifying Commonwealth nationals in the UK. That is a very significant knowledge gap. If you are fighting a general election in good faith, you really need to know who the people are who are going to be able to vote for you. If you do not have a cumulative estimate nationally of how many of those Commonwealth citizens are able to vote, you may very well rather cynically feel that you are appealing to a nobbled jury. You have to be sure of who the electorate are.

Voting tied to citizenship is the global norm for a good reason. Elected representatives adopt significant responsibility to act in their electors’ best interests. If electoral accountability is to function properly, the electorate must be stakeholders in Britain’s long-term future. Unless this is robustly the case, representatives, be they mayors, MPs or councillors, will not be bound to deliver genuinely prudent decision-making. Allowing those who are not British citizens to contribute to electoral outcomes risks undermining the quality of that representation by detracting from candidates’ requirement to appeal to people who fundamentally care about their nation’s future.

This is the thin end of the wedge. If we do not get a handle and focus on that philosophical issue, we could quickly slip into the realms of divisive identity politics. We have already seen the beginning of that in our country, as we have in many parts of the world, and we wish to avoid that happening. At its worst, it may encourage political short-termism or the dilution of the representatives’ accountability away from the interests of British citizens and towards the interests of merely current residents. This is a nuanced yet important distinction. It is a fact that Britain is and has been for some time experiencing a sizeable growth in immigration, including from Commonwealth nations.