Voter Authority Certificates
Lord Pannick Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I do not think it is an abandonment of the whole policy. We expect the Electoral Commission, as an independent regulator, to provide some analysis and some early, interim reports on the May elections some time this summer. We will learn from that and, if any changes need to be made, we will consider those changes.
Lord Pannick (CB)
Will the Government ensure that adequate, accurate records are kept of the number of potential voters who are turned away because of inadequate documents?
Anti-Semitic Attacks
Lord Pannick Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, we are aware of this tension. The Community Security Trust has reported a massive spike in anti-Semitic incidents, but equally, Tell MAMA has seen a similar increase in anti-Muslim incidents of 420% in the past week. We are funding the Union of Jewish Students to do precisely that: to tackle these issues. We want to see the full implementation, not just the adoption, of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.
Lord Pannick (CB)
The Jewish community will be very grateful to the Minister for what he said today. He knows that anti-Semitism is not confined to appalling attacks on a rabbi in Chigwell and threats to Jewish women in north London. The IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, to which the Minister referred a few moments ago, gives as an example applying double standards by requiring the State of Israel to behave in a way not expected of any other democratic nation. Does the Minister accept that there have been many examples of those double standards in the past week, particularly by broadcasters, and that this more subtle form of anti-Semitism contributes to an atmosphere in which the cruder forms breed?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, my right honourable friend in the other House talked about how sometimes anti-Zionism is a subtler form of anti-Semitism. We need to root out even those most subtle of forms absolutely and ensure that we take these forms of anti-Semitism away from both the internet and the streets of our big cities.