Foreign Interference in UK Politics

Debate between Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Lemos

Thursday 9th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

My noble friend Lady Hayter will have to read my body language, I am afraid. I will not be drawn. Her arithmetic is correct. If those patterns emerge, I go back to the principle that we want to stop foreign interference in our politics. If we see these rules being manipulated, as she suggests might be the case, we will respond to that. On voter ID, as she knows, the Bill does contain some provisions to make it easier for people. We will come back to those in Committee, I am sure.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

On procedure, I suspect that on the Opposition Front Bench the lady doth protest too much, judging by what I hear about the precedents. It is rather a good thing that there is a vehicle, in the Representation of the People Bill, ready for the addition of the amendments that the Government are making, picking up from the Rycroft report. I thought that the report was very good and that the Government’s answers were generally good.

My concern is over penalties. There is a risk, given the very large amounts of money that are flying about and the penalties being exiguous, of them simply being seen as a cost of business. I am rather sorry that on the recommendation that sentencing should be reviewed, the response is:

“Significant changes to criminal thresholds and sentencing length require a longer process of analysis and consultation than is possible to deliver in the timeframes of the RoPB”.


I am not sure why that should be so. Is the Minister sure that it is not possible to tighten up penalties in this Bill?

[Lord Lemos (Lab)]

I am starting to feel the need to defend the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, but will not fall into that temptation. On enforcement, one point that I should perhaps have made and will make now is that we are increasing the fining powers of the Electoral Commission. I know that is not quite the point that the noble Lord is making but it is precisely for the point that he makes. The current cap on fines from the Electoral Commission is £20,000, which could be seen as the cost of business for people and businesses richer than I am. We are raising that to £500,000.

On the point about criminal sanctions, we are in active discussions with the Ministry of Justice. As the noble Lord rightly acknowledged, we want to do what we can and not go at the pace of the slowest recommendation. We will come back to that point because the recommendation from Philip Rycroft gives us a very clear direction of travel.