Elections Bill

Lord Woolley of Woodford Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Committee stage
Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Noakes (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness made some interesting points about the issues that will face local government in implementing these proposals. She referred to the cost estimates, which are of course included in the impact statement, and seemed to say that these were extraordinarily large numbers. There are 45 million electors. At £180 million, the top end of the range, that is only about £3 per elector: we have to get this into perspective. We are talking about proposals that will improve the integrity of our electoral system. This is a very modest cost; can we just get it into perspective?

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

My Lords, waiting five hours to speak, you can get a bit anxious. I am not quite sure how you do this on a regular basis. I would have preferred not to be here today; I would have preferred to be in Cambridge, at Homerton College with my students. We have a big event on, and I would have liked to be there with them, but I told them I need to be here discussing the Bill, because of its immense importance, not least to them and their generation. We are making laws that, if we are not careful, lock people out rather than encouraging people in.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord True—I reached out to him to have a conversation and he said, “By all means”. We had a good conversation, and it was a respectful one. I am not sure I persuaded him on some of the fundamental points that I am going to put now, but he said, “Lord Woolley, you need to persuade the House as well”, not least those on the Government side. He said to make sure I have my facts and to make sure I have evidence. We talked about a number of things, two of which I would say the noble Lord, Lord True, violently agreed with. One was the need for comprehensive citizenship in our schools. He said, “What’s not to like about that? We need to empower, to inform, to educate the next generation to understand what happens in this Chamber. Because, if they do not have that, they do not engage in politics.” It is the truth.

I was struck, as the Minister may have been, that a year or so ago hundreds of thousands of young people, black, brown and white, protested with Black Lives Matter up and down the country, demanding justice and race equality. However, many of those hundreds of thousands of people who took to the streets do not vote because they do not see the correlation between their protest and what happens in these Chambers. Having citizenship education, giving them that knowledge, would help their protests to translate into voting. We agreed on that.

We also agreed on the need for the Government and local authorities to ensure that people are encouraged to register to vote. We know that in my community, the black community, particularly among young Africans, 50% are not even registered. So these were the two issues that the Minister and I violently agreed on, yet—think about this for a second—in the Elections Bill there is nothing about citizenship, nothing about how we get people to the polling booths and nothing about ensuring that local authorities and communities engage in voter registration. You could not make it up. What we are presented with is not how we get people to the voting booth, enhance our democracy or inspire a generation to play their part, which this Bill should be campaigning for; instead we are spending hours upon hours ensuring that people do not fall off the register. Many of us today are not trying to ensure that people can get on but trying to save people from falling off. That is the truth. This is putting the cart before the horse.

The Minister said to me, “Make sure you get your facts”—and rightly so, because we are moved by evidence. I am here to tell the House that the last time I spoke here I inadvertently misled the House. When talking about voter fraud, I said in front of your Lordships that five individuals had been convicted of that offence. I was wrong: there was one, and one caution, out of 47 million people. So when we are looking at facts and justifications, are we telling these young people and our society that we are spending £180 million and are on the verge of losing—how many people might we lose through this legislation?—10, 20, 40, 100, 1,000 or potentially even millions of people because we are saying that there is a problem with voter fraud? How can I go to schools and colleges and tell young people to engage in politics when they see how we are doing politics, and when they see that we are spending millions of pounds but the effect is to take people off the register?

Evidence was asked for. The noble Baroness mentioned the local elections in 2019 and the pilot schemes. In its evaluation, the Electoral Commission noted that between 3% and 7% of those who engaged with those elections were turned away because they did not have the right voter ID, including non-photographic ID. We have to extrapolate what that might mean in a general election, because that is the evidence we are presented with. The Electoral Commission and others suggest that between 50,000 and 400,000 people could show up at a general election, be turned away and not come back—that is against one conviction of fraud. Is it me? Am I missing something here about how bonkers that sounds?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

I refer the noble Lord to the evidence mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, and the study by the Rowntree Foundation. I am quite willing to believe—

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

To answer the noble Lord’s question, I was citing the review of voter ID from the local elections in 2019. It is difficult to judge what happened in Northern Ireland, but it is easier to judge what happened with these pilot projects in England. That is what the Government set out to look at—to see what happened when people showed up. The Government now want photo ID but, in the pilot projects, it was both photo and non-photographic ID, and that caused significant problems. Imagine if it was just one type—photographic ID, for example—that could double the problem. Bear in mind that people have to be more driven to vote in local elections, where the rates are a lot lower than in general elections—they have to be motivated to go to the polling booth. Then they are told they do not have the right type of ID, whether it is photographic or non-photographic, and so they have to go home and get the right one, and they do not return—they could not be bothered. The danger is, as has been argued, that potentially hundreds of thousands of people will have that encounter and not return.

[Lord Eatwell (Lab)]

As I was saying to the noble Lord, an accurate study to achieve a careful assessment of the impact of any measure would have to take into account all the circumstances of the time. Over time, there will be a change in circumstances, and therefore the gross figures may appear as if there has been no impediment. However, if you disaggregate the components of the motivations to vote, it is difficult to believe that the introduction of a new requirement or impediment has a zero effect.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

It was photo identification—

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

With respect, it was not photo ID, it was ID. That also means non-photo ID. I am afraid that the goalposts are being shifted, which could have a dramatic effect.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I have listened to what the noble Lord said and will check the detail of the manifesto. I will ensure that we write to all noble Lords to make that clear—

--- Later in debate ---

Evidence has to go both ways. If people on this side have to make their case about discouragement from voting, they cite Joseph Rowntree, et cetera, but where is the Government’s evidence that the system is currently so corrupted by widescale fraud that this kind of measure needs to be introduced, notwithstanding our concerns that people will be disenfranchised in a fundamental way?

[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

My Lords, I support the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. Seven hours ago, when my back was not aching, there was a good discussion in the Chamber about not rushing through legislation. Do noble Lords remember that? We must not rush it through because, if we do, we are in danger of getting it profoundly wrong.

I was pleased that the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller community has been mentioned. I have worked with them for more than 25 years and know they are one of the most marginalised and politically disenfranchised communities in the country. They have told me that voter ID would severely impact their ability to engage in the democratic process. We know of other groups too. In 2019, in reviewing the pilot scheme, the Electoral Commission said:

“In Derby there is a strong correlation between the proportion of each ward’s population from an Asian background and the number of people not issued with a ballot paper.”


There is copious evidence to suggest that, if we go ahead with this, black, Asian and minority-ethnic communities will be disproportionately affected. I suggest that we do not make the mistake that we made with Windrush, when we made legislation with the best intentions—one would hope—and the unintended consequences wreaked havoc with the Windrush generation. What we did not do then was have a comprehensive race equality impact assessment.

The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, which looked at the Bill, said in December that there is insufficient evidence to suggest that we need this. We should press the pause button. Let us make sure that we get this right. Our children and voters who find it difficult to get to the booth could be even more severely affected. If we pause, have a comprehensive impact assessment and get this right, I am sure that we can get this in a much better state.

[Lord Kerslake (CB)]

Given the lateness of the hour, I hesitate to come in now, but I feel passionately about the importance of tackling the uneven and potentially discriminatory nature of what we are doing here without the proper assessment to which the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, referred.

I shall make two points. The London Voices project is worth reading in detail. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, on that. It involves more than 100 organisations with more than 5,000 staff. They have produced a comprehensive picture of the risks involved in this project. Has the Minister met the London Voices project? If she has not, will she do so as a matter of urgency?

My second point is about the Mayor of London’s concerns. He has written and set out very clearly the risks, as he sees them, in London: over half a million Londoners without a passport; over 2.5 million Londoners without a driver’s licence; and something like one in five of those with a disability not having a freedom pass. I could go on. A whole range of people in protected groups do not have the evidence that is required. We may then say that there is a free pass available on application—but look at the JRF analysis, which shows that a large number of those very people are the ones most likely not to apply for the free pass. So, the net effect is that they will be excluded. Can that be what we are looking for here? Have we done enough to be sure that that does not happen? I do not think so.