Electoral Fraud

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness. I am not familiar with the electoral system in Estonia. When we pilot a number of projects next year, we will be looking at various means by which the voter can identify themselves at the polling station. This might be a bus pass, a bank card or an NUS card, but in order not to exclude those who do not have those forms of identification, we are also looking at non-photographic identification. I will see that the helpful information that the noble Baroness has given us about proceedings in Estonia is fed into the options.

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

I wonder whether the excellent Minister will reflect on a practice which involves freepost by a political party, encouraging those who have signed a postal vote to send it back to the party’s local headquarters. Does he feel that that is totally inappropriate, as I believe it was in the 2015 general election, practised on behalf of the former Deputy Prime Minister?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Without getting involved in Sheffield politics, it is certainly inappropriate for postal votes to be handled in that way. As I said in response to an earlier question, that practice is already discouraged in guidance from the Electoral Commission. There have been recommendations that it should be banned for precisely the reason that the noble Lord explained, and the Government are deciding how best to take that forward when legislative opportunities present themselves.