Elections Bill

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to support the amendments to which I added my name: Amendment 80 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts—he made a very strong case for the amendment, possibly modified to take account of what my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said—and Amendment 78 in the name of my noble friend Lady Hayman. Again, my motivation in supporting these amendments stems mainly from my concern that the photo ID requirements will disproportionately exclude marginalised groups, including people in poverty and members of the GRT communities, who are also less likely to apply for a voter ID card, to some extent for the same reasons they do not have photo ID in the first place. The additions suggested by the noble Lord are much more likely to be held by these groups. For me, that is the key test: are these forms of identification that members of marginalised groups are more likely to have?

The noble Lord quoted the Pickles report. I will repeat the quote, because he rather rushed over it and it is worth emphasising:

“perfection must not get in the way of a practical solution.”

My fear is that perfection is getting in the way of not just a practical solution but, as I have said, inclusive democracy and citizenship. I am yet to hear a convincing justification for why this should be accepted as a proportionate response to the supposed problem of personation. Again, the noble Lord spoke eloquently about that.

I am also unclear why the Government are so opposed to a vouching system, as proposed in Amendment 78—they made it very clear in the Commons that they are opposed to it—not least given the fact, as my noble friend Lord Collins pointed out, that the Electoral Commission has supported the idea. Once again, it smacks of a worrying lack of trust in the electorate.

Finally, once again, I welcome the commitment to continued consultation with civil society groups to maximise accessibility for those most likely to need to apply for a voter card and/or who will find it most difficult to apply. Once again, will that include groups working with people in poverty and GRT communities? Will it include those who bring the expertise of experience to the table? That expertise will be of particular value in this context: who will know better what will work, or not, about applying for a voter card than the people who will make those applications? I am grateful to the Minister for promising last week to send me a list of those being consulted, but I would welcome an answer to this specific question about whose expertise will be taken into account in rolling out these provisions, because it is quite important.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I offer your Lordships an apology for not being able to contribute to Committee for all sorts of reasons, but I said at Second Reading that I would support amendments that introduced mitigating factors to reduce the risk of unintended exclusion, particularly for that group of people the noble Baroness, Lady Lister, referred to: those on lower incomes. There is real risk that that could happen through this immediate introduction of photo ID.

That is why I was very glad to add my name to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, which, as he said, seeks to widen the forms of photo ID available and extend the list to include other forms of ID that do not include photographic ID. I was going to make similar points to say that the amendment is consistent with the approach taken in the local council pilot scheme in 2018-19. As has been said, it is entirely consistent with the earlier report from the noble Lord, Lord Pickles, and the gradualist introduction, if I may put it that way, of photo ID in Northern Ireland.

It seems that the purpose of the amendment is to reduce the risk of people living on lower incomes—a significant proportion of whom we know do not possess the acceptable photo ID—being disfranchised, which is my particular concern. That would simply be a form of non-recognition, which would be a moral injury to them and an injustice that would damage the UK’s traditions of democratic participation. The amendment seems to follow the logic of the inclusion of 60+ Oyster cards and blue badges, allowing for greater accessibility to particular groups of the electorate by making provision for those on lower income and other potentially marginalised groups to retain the highest chance of inclusion in the democratic process.

[Baroness Meacher (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 63 to 69 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman of Ullock, to which I have added my name. I was surprised that we had a very long debate on Clauses 1 and 2 standing part but there was very little mention of any concern about the impact of this change on the overall turnout in elections, and the potential skewing of election results. I was delighted to hear the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, focus on elections that might be quite tightly fought with quite close results. You really might question those results, particularly in those constituencies where you might have a very tight result.

Before today, it struck me that this is really the big issue: there does not seem to be an issue about trust in our elections, certainly in relation to people who turn up at polling stations. I understand that there has been a problem with postal votes, but this reform does not touch that at all. I do not get it; I do not understand why there is this tremendous focus on photo ID for people who go to polling stations.

Elections Bill

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I too join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Moore, for his subtle and penetrating speech. I do so as someone who originates from Sussex, albeit the western part.

I shall address just one aspect of this Bill—the introduction of photographic ID. Other noble Lords have already raised specific issues presented by this clause. I echo their concerns, and I question whether photo ID is consistent with the UK’s democratic heritage. The fundamental duty of government as we know it is to ensure that all citizens have access to the resources they need to play a full part in the democratic process. Any action that risks reducing democratic engagement, especially one which excludes a significant sector of society, needs the most careful consideration, and it should be based on very sound evidence.

I am concerned that the Bill’s intention to increase trust in the reliability of the voting procedures risks reducing it. Currently, 90% of those asked by the Electoral Commission’s public opinion tracker see voting and polling stations as safe from fraud and abuse. This is precisely because we expect the Government to allow us to take part in the democratic process—if we choose to—without putting measures in place that might impede it. The high level of trust in our electoral system seems to raise comparison with the use of voter ID in Northern Ireland. As the noble Lord, Lord Moore, said, this derives from a historic mistrust among all communities about elections being free and fair. There is no such mistrust in this case. As the noble Baroness, Lady Davidson, has said, this is trying to solve a problem that does not exist—and that makes it politics as performance. Politics is, in many ways, a performance, but the performance should come second. Any performance which could disenfranchise voters risks withholding recognition from individuals and cultural communities.

As your Lordships have heard, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation indicates that 1.7 million low-income voters could be disadvantaged. This would constitute moral injury and would be an injustice. A significant proportion of low-income voters are likely to come from UK global majority backgrounds or from white working-class communities. Both are among the least likely to own photographic ID or to have ID which would be recognised, because of the current costs of obtaining them. It has also been found that those with learning difficulties are likely to find it an obstacle too high to climb, as the Cabinet Office’s research showed.

Many in these already disadvantaged communities, the very people whom the Government’s laudable levelling-up agenda seeks to raise up, are less likely to have the time, access to equipment, or desire, to fill out additional forms or to register for the voter ID cards than more advantaged people. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation also found that 41% of those with unsuitable ID were unsure whether they would apply for free voter ID cards. Legislation that may make democratic participation for the most vulnerable and marginalised in society harder fails to meet the Government’s responsibility to enhance the practice of democracy and maximise involvement in the common project on which society is built.

Within the Bill, there is a commitment to a consultation with the electoral community on how the voter ID law would be introduced. Does this mean that the Government recognise the possibly harmful effects of making this a requirement? Will they seek to mitigate them through secondary legislation? If that is the case, why is the consultation coming after the law has been passed and not before? At the moment, the proposal for voter ID fails to provide the assurance that every voice in our community will be heard. If the Government proceed as planned, which I recognise is the manifesto pledge, I would support amendments that introduce mitigating factors to the Bill and reduce the risk of unintended exclusion.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, like other Members of your Lordships’ House, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for securing this debate and pay tribute to his great efforts on this vital issue. I thank him for his reference to the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta. I have a personal connection with the charter, as one of my predecessors, William, was among the reverend fathers who advised the King to enshrine its principles of justice and freedom, including freedoms of religion. Magna Carta, despite our own failings—to which reference has been made—to live up to its logic, remains the seed of a tree of which Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is part, and under the cover of which all the peoples of the world should be allowed to stand.

Freedom of belief, including the freedom to change one’s belief, is like a canary in the mine of human rights. Abuses of religious freedom are often an early indication that all is not well. Indonesia, to which we have already heard reference, has shown worrying signs of this dynamic, with properly licensed churches being closed by an alliance of local government and extremist groups tolerated by the national state, followed in its wake by wider restrictions on freedom of expression. We look for more hopeful signs in this new future.

Where religious freedom is abused, peace and security often become more elusive. Blasphemy laws in Pakistan give rise to societal hostility to minority groups, legitimising people of violence. And then, when extremism sets in and takes hold, Governments are tempted to restrict everyone’s liberty in their attempt to overcome extremists but, in fact, strengthen their hand by weakening the democratic voice of others and restricting the democratic space for all, as we saw in Egypt under President Mubarak, and there is a greater risk under President Sisi.

Promoting freedom of religion is an important counterterrorism strategy. Matters of religious freedom are woven throughout many of the greatest foreign policy challenges facing our nation so it is self-evident that we must have an effective, religiously informed, philosophically sound strategy to guide how our Government will protect and promote it abroad. I hope therefore that the Minister will be able to give assurances that the recent Cabinet reshuffle will not lead to a weakening in the Government’s own commitments to freedom of religion and belief, including the role of the former Foreign Secretary’s Human Rights Advisory Group and the newly formed working group on religious freedom. I hope that, on the contrary, there will be, following the very fine proposals of the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, a strengthening of our systems and capabilities.

Ensuring Her Majesty’s Government’s commitment to upholding and defending Article 18 remains critical since, by any measurement, as we all know, this freedom is under serious and sustained pressure across so much of the globe, with an estimated 76% of the world’s population enduring a high or very high level of restrictions, among them the estimated 250 million Christians bearing persecution in one form or another and nowhere more so, as we have heard, than in the ISIS-controlled areas of Iraq. The desperate, dignified letter of the Armenian Patriarch of Babylon following recent events in Mosul,

“to all who have a living conscience in Iraq and all the world”,

is a tract for our times. We cannot be silent or inactive in the face of such suffering. We must also, according to the same conscience, at the same time, with the same resolve—as the noble Lords, Lord Anderson and Lord Avebury, and others have said—speak out for the Shi’ite Muslims and Sufi minorities in that place, who are facing barbaric cruelty. I was very impressed with the Iraqi al-Khoei Foundation’s statement this week, condemning the destruction of the Christian community in Mosul and beyond.

In that spirit, my hope is that churches and faith communities here in the UK will find ways to speak out together in a regular and routine manner whenever Article 18 is threatened, giving people a clear space and affirmation, encouraging them to be able to sing their song in different places and in different ways. Speaking together and acting in this way would draw on the deep patterns of peaceful coexistence that religious communities at their best have lived out through the centuries in cities such as Mosul throughout the world. It would be a common witness against the politicisation of religion and the manipulation of it by people of violence with evil intent, and a witness against the internal degradation of religion. It would model new ways of relating that would challenge the way international religious freedom is understood. It would help to counter accusations of colonialism, often reinforced in media reporting, that sometimes construe Article 18 along narrowly confessional lines. It would help to build a wider international consensus that creates the necessary space for Governments around the world to defend this most basic freedom of humanity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I am afraid that in the very short time I have, because we are running a little late in this debate, it will be impossible to respond to everybody on every point that has been made. I apologise for that.

I was also going to apologise that, in this instance, I am summing up on something that is so very much the subject of my noble friend Lady Warsi. In preparing for this debate, I read the speeches she made in Georgetown, at the Pontifical Academy in Rome, in Oman and Kuala Lumpur. After that, my high respect for her rose further. It is partly because of who she is and where she comes from that she is able to speak with such conviction to diverse audiences and have them accept what she says. In particular, she talks about her background as the child of a mixed Sunni/Shia family and her comfortableness about being a British Muslim. In understanding religion, she quoted in one speech an imam who taught her that your religion flows across the bed of the society in which you live. That is a lovely concept. Therefore, to be a British Muslim is of course a little different from being an Omani or Saudi Muslim, and the same applies also for many other faiths. I pay very considerable tribute to the work my noble friend has done and is doing.

She certainly contributed to upgrading the Foreign Office’s emphasis and understanding of the importance of religion. The Human Rights and Democracy Report for this year has a very useful section on freedom of religion and belief which says,

“Baroness Warsi has made freedom of religion or belief an FCO priority, and now every minister at the FCO is an ambassador for religious freedom, raising and promoting these issues in the countries with which they engage”.

It goes on to talk about training and seminars within the FCO and briefings for representatives elsewhere. My noble friend Lord Cormack asked for a specific FCO envoy on religion. The problem that other states have found with appointing a specific envoy on religion is that a large number of countries then refuse to accept visits from him or her. However, everyone having this as part of what they do and say helps in the many difficult countries with which we must have this dialogue.

Of course, my noble friend Lady Warsi also worked with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and one must have dialogue with a range of organisations around the world. As the noble Lord, Lord Sacks, will know, the UK currently holds the chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Sir Andrew Burns has done some excellent work in that respect. He, my noble friend Lady Warsi and others have also encouraged various different faith communities to think about genocide and holocaust as something which moves across different faiths and has been a tragedy for many of them. In recent months, the commemoration of the tragedy of Srebrenica is very much part of all that.

I assure the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry that the reshuffle will in no sense affect this emphasis. This Government, as my noble friend Lady Warsi said, “does God” because we recognise that religion, power, faith and ideology all flow in and out of each other. Religion can be misused as a force for evil as well as good.

As most noble Lords will know, my noble friend Lady Warsi convened a group within the Foreign Office on freedom of religion and belief, which includes people from a range of different faiths—and from none, because we emphasise that Article 18 includes the right to believe, to change your religion or not to believe. It is a statement of religious toleration and of toleration of thought altogether. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, suggested that the United Kingdom was on its way to withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights and then, perhaps in time, from the UN Declaration of Human Rights, or at least from Article 18. All I can say is: not this coalition Government, whatever a future Government might do.

The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, referred to our work with the Arab League and others on freedom of religion. We work with as many international organisations as we can on all these issues.

We heard in this debate a huge range of concerns about attacks on many different religions in many different countries. The most immediate concerns we all have are about the attacks on Christian communities across the Middle East, the region from which the three great monotheistic religions grew and within which different faiths have managed to co-exist, with occasional disasters, without too much hatred over so many centuries. We also heard about south Asia, from which a number of other global faiths emerged, where to our horror we see Buddhists attacking Muslims and Hindus. There is also the Muslim-on-Muslim violence that we see across the Middle East. We know that religion is used in a whole host of ways across a great many countries.

Religion has linked historically with power and has also—sorry; I have lost one of my pages. Religion was abused as part of the way in which states established themselves, such as forced conversions and killings of religious minorities. When I read of the way that ISIS is behaving in Mosul, I recalled that in 1870, when the tsarist Russians conquered the north Caucasus, they offered the Circassians and the Chechens the choice of conversion or expulsion. That is the origin of the Chechen and Circassian communities in Aleppo, Amman and elsewhere. It is one of the reasons why the king of Jordan has just visited Grozny to talk to the local Chechens about some of those links.

We all have to recognise that tolerance takes a long time to develop. Religion and modernity have had a difficult relationship. Indeed, the origins of religious fundamentalism were in the 19th century United States, as rural communities came to terms with the tremendous problems of transition to urban and modern life. We have seen that turbulence now running across the Middle East and elsewhere, where the speed of change from traditional society to modernity is so much greater and where, therefore, the fundamentalist reaction is often so much stronger.

We are conscious that the resistance to a liberal and open society has been there in a great many religions. I recall the papal bull that denounced liberalism and all its works in the 1870s. To some extent, the disillusion with Arab nationalism and the collapse of the secular faith of Marxist communism have left a hard-line version of political Islam as an all-enveloping ideology for the discontented, dispossessed and frustrated young men of so many countries, including some of our communities in this country.

A number of noble Lords have talked about the United Kingdom as an example. Among others, the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, and the noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, talked about the importance of remembering that religious toleration begins at home. I am not entirely sure that we should quote Magna Carta in our defence. I know that Article 1 of Magna Carta says that the English church is to be free, but that is the defence of the organised religion, not of the individual. It is also the defence of the church and all its privileges from the king. That is not my understanding of Article 18, so we need to careful about quoting Magna Carta.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

I interpreted it as the seed from which has grown the tree and a proper universal application of that principle of seeking for religion not to be controlled by the state.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, it was a very small seed and, sadly, the tree—looking back at British history—grew rather slowly. We had a civil war and quite a lot of killing of Protestants by Catholics and Catholics by Protestants and others on the way to the achievement of the religious toleration that we have.

I grew up as a Protestant and I was instinctively anti-Catholic. I did not have the category of Jewish in my mind so I had no concept of whether I should be anti-Jewish, pro-Jewish or what. I slowly learnt not to be anti-Catholic and so one has moved. Over the past two to three generations in this country, the levels of intolerance have, happily, gone down a great deal. When I occasionally go to services in Westminster Abbey where I was a choirboy, and where you would never have seen a Catholic priest in the 1950s, I see not only representatives of the other Christian churches, but a range of other faiths represented: the Chief Rabbi, representatives of Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian, Baha’i and other communities. That is the way we should be going; interfaith dialogue and understanding in our schools and among different organised churches are what we should be doing to promote and defend an open society.

In particular, I regret that as regards what I think I learnt as a child about the three religions of the book—the Abrahamic faiths—we have lost some of that sense that the three great monotheistic religions belong together.

Egypt: Human Rights

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Grand Committee

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the human rights situation in Egypt.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, the recent presidential election in Egypt and the subsequent inauguration of former Field Marshal Sisi as president make this a very timely debate. This week’s visit of the United States Secretary of State to Cairo, as well as the conviction of the three Al-Jazeera journalists, casts a spotlight on the human rights situation in Egypt. The return of the strongman to Egypt once again brings to centre stage the classic dilemma of how we navigate between interests and values in our foreign policy.

President Sisi takes office in the midst of a fiercely orchestrated campaign of repression against the Muslim Brotherhood and civil society activists, and at a time of serious security threats in Egypt and, of course, the region. Since the revolution that ousted Mohamed Morsi from office on 3 July 2013, more than 41,000 people have been arrested for political reasons, among them many youth activists who played such a prominent role in toppling both Mubarak and Morsi. Undoubtedly, Morsi’s rule caused widespread discomfort in Egypt and led to an intensification of violence against Christians and other minorities. His removal was welcomed by large sections of society. Nevertheless, many court rulings against the opponents of the present regime have been nothing short of scandalous. I think of the repeated death penalties handed down to approximately 1,500 Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Minya earlier this year.

We could also mention dozens of other cases where the courts’ harsh rulings are disproportionate to the deeds of the accused in any regard. Press freedom, academic freedom, freedom of thought and speech, and freedom of assembly remain heavily restricted in Egypt. The introduction of tough protest laws and the prospect of ever more restrictive laws on NGOs are all signs of a polarised and silenced society. Taken together, they have contributed to a climate of populist tolerance and a shrinking of the democratic space in Egypt.

In the field of religious freedom, the end of Egypt’s first Islamic presidency has not presaged a golden age for Muslim Coptic relations. Instances of violence and physical intimidation against Coptic Christians remain disturbingly high. Police investigations are haphazard and prosecutions rare. In addition to the targeted attacks against Christians, we are, sadly, witnessing a predictable return to the subtler, pernicious problems of the Sadat-Mubarak era. Egypt’s outdated laws and authoritarian institutions continue to enshrine inequality and discrimination, which breed social tension and religious conflict. The implementation of Article 98(f) of the Egyptian Penal Code, which criminalises contempt for religion, continues to be used against religious minorities despite the new constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion.

At its heart, this is a question of citizenship and what it means to have full membership in the national political community. I am inspired by the words of his Grace Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the United Kingdom, when he said that Egyptian Christians need to be seen as citizens on the basis that they are Egyptians who take pride in their indigenous homeland. Before anything else, he called for equal citizenship for all, by which he meant,

“equal rights and equal accountability before the law”,

regardless of religion. Any discussion on religious freedom in Egypt should note that, besides the Copts, the Shiites and the Baha’i suffer from many hardships. These hardships are at least as onerous as the problems encountered by the Copts, but because they are so much smaller in number, their problems do not appear as pressing—although, of course, they are.

Against this background it would be wrong to assume that the presidential elections signal a meaningful return to democracy or even political stability; they do not appear to do that at all. The European Union election observation mission to the Egyptian elections demonstrated in its preliminary statement of 29 May that the elections were administered in an environment that fell short of the principles of the new constitution. Do the Government agree with the assessment that the voting took place within an inherently biased framework?

Although it remains too early to say how President Sisi will act in office, and whether hopes that his political connections with the army will be properly severed, the early signs are not encouraging. Let one small example suffice: the week before last, all branches of the well established Seoudi supermarket chain were raided by the police and temporarily shut down. The owner’s family is alleged to be sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood but the move was clearly designed to ease competition for other military-run supermarkets. Egyptians without personal connections to the army appear to be treated as second-class citizens when interacting with their Government.

I am aware that this depressing picture presents the Government with an all too familiar quandary. I am conscious that Egypt’s current hypersensitivity to foreign criticism means that there might be little short-term prospect of effecting positive change. Yet without bringing these human rights injustices to attention, the stability and prosperity that is currently being sought through repression of these rights is itself undermined. Clearly, the Government should work with President Sisi on development, security, migration and other mutual interests but they must at the same time also maintain clear and critical distance from the regime. I would be grateful, therefore, for the Minister’s reassurance that the Government will continue to argue both privately and publicly that Egypt’s future development, including its stability, depends on a political system that gives a fair and equal stake to all its citizens, and which allows for the free and open expression of dissenting political views.

In addition, I would be glad to know what impact the EU’s Support for Partnership, Reform and Inclusive Growth programme is having on the ground in Egypt. At the very least, I hope that Her Majesty’s Government and their EU partners will not look to assist the stabilisation effort by following the US lead and loosening the restrictions on arms licences that were put in place by the Foreign Affairs Council in August of last year. I recognise the countervailing economic pressures, not least given impending US arms exports to Egypt, but I trust that these will be resisted. The likelihood of an escalating cycle of repression and violence in Egypt cannot be ruled out. The deep divisions of Egyptian society require determined processes of reconciliation. Does the Minister hold out any hope that there might be a reconciling role here for the EU, given that it appears to be the only actor currently able to talk to all sides?

Whatever we conclude about the UK’s short-term capacity to assist Egypt to significantly improve its human rights record, I hope that this debate will serve as a timely reminder that the situation in Egypt leaves the liberties of its people severely restricted. Finally, I hope that it will strengthen our resolve to avoid slipping back into the habits of old whereby the values on which human dignity depend are too readily sacrificed on the altar of political stability.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Judd]

My Lords, the noble Lord has been emphasising positive engagement and dialogue. Before he sits down, can he give us a specific assurance that the Government’s representations will include the dangers of counterproductivity and the hard-headed argument that what is happening within the penal system plays right into the hands of the extremists?

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I did not hear the Minister address my question about whether the loosening of arms licences is envisaged, in the light of the recent statement by the US Secretary of State.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise. No, it is not envisaged. There are those who think it is a not entirely happy event that they should have announced that—for good security reasons about Sinai—just before the judgments on the journalists came out. We have no such intention.