Elections Bill

Lord Woolley of Woodford Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Wednesday 6th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Woolley of Woodford]

1: Clause 1, leave out Clause 1

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[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

My Lords, I will not be making a long speech today, which I am sure many noble Lords will be pleased to hear. I begin by thanking Jessica Garland from the Electoral Reform Society, Maddy Moore from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Mr Alfiaz Vaiya, who heads up my office here at Westminster.

I said a lot in the previous debates, so I do not want to go over that, but I do want to highlight some of the key matters that we need to focus on. This Elections Bill came into this Chamber for a number of principal reasons. One highlighted by the Government is voter fraud, as well as voter integrity. When it comes to voter fraud, I am sorry to say that the Government have not made the case. Noble Lords will all know that there was just one conviction out of 47 million voters. You have more chance of being struck by lightning at, I think, one in 3,000 and more chance of winning the National Lottery, at one in 46 million. The case for fraud has not been made; that is just a matter of fact.

Let us move on to the other key point that the Government have made. It is a valid point, which needs to be addressed: as the noble Lord, Lord True, has rightly said, this was in the Government’s manifesto. We must acknowledge and, in part, honour that. My only contention is that in their manifesto the Government talked about voter ID, which is distinct from voter photographic ID. Noble Lords may think “What is the difference?”—I am here to tell your Lordships that. The noble Lord, Lord True, might say that a lot of people have voter photo ID but not everybody does. The calculation, even with the Government’s figures, is that we could lose over 2 million voters if we persist with photographic ID. That is 2 million, because of one case of voter fraud.

Noble Lords all know that I am a disciple of Dr Martin Luther King, fighting for social and racial justice. Can we sit here in this beautiful building and allow a Bill to go through Parliament which removes 2 million voters? Will we allow that to happen or will we tell the Government that, with the best will in the world, they have got this wrong and need to be big enough, strong enough and brave enough to say, “We need to make an amendment that does not lose us so many valuable voters”? If there is an amendment that removes photo ID I will, begrudgingly but democratically, accept it. If there is no movement, however, I will put my amendment to a Division.

[Lord Grocott (Lab)]

My Lords, I have heard speeches from the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, on a number of occasions. Each time, I have found him completely convincing. The one line I will pick up on is his reference to the level of fraud identified by prosecutions as being “a matter of fact”. I just want to put another couple of matters of fact in front of the House.

Fact one is that, whatever you think are the rights and wrongs of voter ID, it is a new hurdle that people will have to surmount in order to vote. Whether it is a big hurdle or a small one is a matter of debate, but there is no doubt whatever that it is a hurdle. In our many experiences of elections, great effort is made in our electoral system at the local level to try to minimise the difficulties that people may experience to make it easier for them to vote.

A simple example is the siting of polling stations. I am sure that dozens of people in this House have spent ages saying, “It’s no use putting the polling station there because people won’t go to it—it’s too far away. You need one nearer”. Why do we say these things? Because we want to make it easier, with the fewest hurdles possible in the way of people exercising their right to vote.

I remind the House that there has been a serious decline in turnout in British general elections. When I first fighting them, the turnout was around 75%, generally speaking. It is now around 65%. We are going in the wrong direction. I submit that this clause will send us even faster down that slope.

All I propose to say for now is this: what has been missing throughout our debates is any estimate whatever —even a guesstimate would be an improvement—from the Minister as to precisely what the effect on voter turnout will be in the event of this Bill becoming law. He cannot have it all ways. It will either improve turnout or worsen the situation. Which way it will go cannot be a matter of fact because it is an estimate, but I would have expected at least some information from the Government Front Bench, in this crucial respect of voter turnout, on their estimate of the effect of this Bill on that figure. We have not had one so far. I am not optimistic that we will get one from the Minister when he winds up—but I live for ever in hope, as you do when you are in opposition. Even at this stage, so that we can judge it in the event, I hope that he will tell us his estimate of the effect of the Bill on turnout.

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[Lord Woolley of Woodford (CB)]

It has been an interesting debate. I want us to move on, but I want to pick up a couple of points raised, not least those raised by my noble friends Lady Verma and Lord Desai regarding the point that there is not a race issue around voter ID. I think we should put our political colours aside for the moment—that is really important—and look at the facts. When we did these pilot projects, there was one in particular in Derby in which Africans, Asians and Caribbeans—more colloquially, black and brown people—came to vote and did not have the right identification. Many—and this is the point—disproportionately black and brown people, did not come back to exercise their franchise.

I do not know where people get their information from but if we base this on the facts we see that we are hit harder—and that is before we even get to the polls. If you calculate the number—it was between 0.5% and 0.7%—of those who came to the polls, were turned away and never came back, and translate it to the general population, you will see that we would be looking at hundreds of thousands, if not more than 1 million people, being turned away before exercising their franchise. Are we happy to accept that? Ask yourself that one question.

The other point I want to make is this. People talk about identification cards, but let me ask the House these straight questions. How many noble Lords—raise your hands—have been stopped and searched by the police? How many noble Lords have been stopped and strip-searched? I am sorry if noble Lords find this funny. It really is not funny—ask Child Q if it is funny. I say to my noble friend Lady Verma that for a lot of young Africans and Asians the worry is that, in the hands of the authorities, identification cards will be used to target us, because that is our lived experience. So we worry: we worry that it will be abused; that we will be harassed and humiliated. I know this is a digression, but the subject came up and I wanted to knock it on its head.

I am also from Leicester and I also know the young Africans and Muslims there. They are worried about what we do here. They want us to use our energy and our wisdom to ensure that they know about this institution, that they understand it, and that they can effectively register to vote—which I hope we will vote on shortly—and for people like me to express their lived experience and protect them. That is why I am worried about photo ID. I want to make it work. I want to bring people in, not lock people out.

I thank noble Lords for giving me that time. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.