Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Smith and Chris Skidmore

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

It is great that the Government are showing bureaucratic flexibility to help domestic abuse victims to vote, but such flexibility should be put into all the Government’s voter registration efforts. Will they build “register to vote” links into all their online service application pages?

[Chris Skidmore]

During the past couple of years, we have introduced the ability to register to vote online. It has been highly successful, with 24 million people taking the opportunity to register to vote online. As part of our democratic engagement strategy, which I will publish in the summer, I am keen to look at digital democracy and where it can work, and to see what we can do with other Departments to ensure that we have such points of contact and that we base democratic registration around individual users. I will be taking forward exactly what the hon. Gentleman mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Smith and Chris Skidmore

Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about international comparisons. Many countries, including Canada, Brazil and Austria, already require photographic ID to vote at polling stations, and such a scheme was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2003. The Government are taking forward pilots to look at electoral identification in the 2018 local government elections, and we are willing to test various forms of identification—photographic and non-photographic—to ensure above all that no one is disenfranchised.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

12. The Government’s talk of voter fraud is a smokescreen for voter suppression.

[Nick Smith]

Yes. They are putting obstacles between people and the polling booth instead of working to boost our democracy. If voter fraud is such a problem, will the Minister tell the House how many voter fraud convictions there were last year?

[Chris Skidmore]

I am surprised by the hon. Gentleman for somehow claiming that this is a smokescreen. It was a Labour Government that introduced photographic ID in Northern Ireland in 2003. The Electoral Commission and all other electoral administrators have called for ID in polling stations, and we will test its use rigorously in the pilots. There were 481 cases of voter fraud reported to the Electoral Commission, and 184 additional cases were reported to the police. Above all, this is about perception. The Electoral Commission reported last year that 30% of the population believe that voter fraud is an issue in their local area, and we are determined to tackle that perception.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Nick Smith and Chris Skidmore

Wednesday 7th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Skidmore]

During every previous boundary review, Parliament has accepted that there must be a defined date and a set of registers to access. That was set down as a result of the delay to the 2013 review, which was voted for by Labour Members. Not only do those who now seek to delay the boundary review even further seek to overturn the accepted will of Parliament, but to delay the boundary review again would ensure that we have constituencies that are of dramatically unequal size, and that are based on data more than two decades old.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The boundary review next week is going to be a sham. Nearly 2 million voters have not been counted. Why does the Minister not start again, so that our democracy is not undermined by next week’s partisan gerrymandering?