Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hoare and Florence Eshalomi

Monday 4th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

This week’s Budget will be a big one for young people—16 and 17-year-olds—who are starting work or making important education choices, yet they currently have no say on who will be the next Government. We on the Opposition Benches believe in our young people. Will the Government act now to give 16 and 17-year-olds a say in the next general election?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

The hon. Lady makes a case for lowering the voting age—one that I do not support and the Government do not support. The age of 18 is seen as the age of maturity in this country and many others across the world. It seems to have served us pretty well up to now and I see no particular reason to change it.

Christmas, Christianity and Communities

Debate between Simon Hoare and Florence Eshalomi

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Florence Eshalomi]

I agree with the hon. Member for Strangford; that is so important. Going back to an issue that many members highlighted, on Sunday last week, my church held the Christmas luncheon for the elderly. It was really good to see so many parishioners coming together, cooking, exchanging gifts and singing carols. It is important that those events are celebrated and that we continue to hold them.

Christmas means so many different things to different people, and that gives us the strength to continue to enjoy it today. It is also important that we look at how traditions have evolved over time. Christmas should not be confined to a certain era or style of celebration. The Christmas we will enjoy in 2023—not just here, but across the world—is a melting pot of centuries of change, reform, and adaptations in society. In the 17th century, Christmas survived laws introduced by English parliamentarians after the Puritan revolution to ban the celebration. Can you imagine banning Christmas? Father Christmas appeared in John Taylor’s pamphlet “The Vindication of Christmas”, which argued in favour of Christmas and celebrating Christmas. Later, the character of Father Christmas would be combined with depictions of Saint Nicholas and Sinterklaas give us the modern-day Santa Claus who delivers our presents or, as my eight year old almost broke it to my six year old, “You do know Santa Claus isn’t real?”

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

What?

[Florence Eshalomi]

I know—shock horror. She said, “But Jesus is real” so I said, “I’ll take that instead.”

Several Members referenced the films and TV shows that have become commonplace in our lives. We have seen these figures adapted on our screens. New films capture the spirit of Christmas and have rapidly become traditional. Christmas today represents a combination of all these traditions in all our different communities.

I am proud to represent Vauxhall, and it has been great to see all our communities and constituents come together over the past few weeks to attend different carol services. I am proud that people across the world can come to celebrate their own Christmas traditions with their community as well as discover new ones. I am proud that the staff at St Thomas’ Hospital and all our emergency and public services will continue to work throughout Christmas to keep us safe. Come Christmas day, they will be saying, “Merry Christmas”, “Feliz Navidad”, “Buon Natale” or “kú dún” as my late mother would have said in Yoruba. It is important that we recognise all the traditions that come together for many people.

I am proud that our churches and communities will throw open their doors for the less fortunate and the lonely this Christmas. The hon. Member for Don Valley highlighted loneliness and suicide, and the sad reality is that many people will be lonely this Christmas. The Campaign to End Loneliness found that around 3.8 million people in Great Britain experience chronic loneliness. Sadly, that can be exacerbated at Christmastime, when society expects people to be with family or friends or at every Christmas social.

I think about the students and young people in Vauxhall who may have moved from around the world to be here. From the evidence of the “Tackling Loneliness” report, we know that loneliness is high at this time among 16 to 24-year-olds, even among those who do not normally feel lonely. Some of those young people may not be able to afford the flight home, to take time off work or to socialise with a wider group of friends or those who are going back home. It could be their first Christmas apart from their family, and chronic loneliness can be quite depressing. It is important to recognise that this Christmas will not be a joyful one for some people.

I also thank the hon. Member for Don Valley for highlighting the work done in our churches when they open their doors. I echo his sentiments about the churches tackling the issue of loneliness. This Christmas, it is important that we remember not only our family and friends, but the people who do not have families and friends. It could be the biggest gift to someone to invite them round for dinner or simply to pop over and make sure that they are not alone. When churches started opening up after covid, regular churchgoers recognised that some faces had not returned. After one mass, our parish priest said that if we recognised that people had not been to church, and if we were passing their door on the way home or to the shops, we should knock on it, check whether they were still okay and find out why they had not come back to church. It is important that we recognise that loneliness still exists for some people.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (Simon Hoare)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dame Maria. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for his sincere and faithful speech. It was a moving speech, if I may say so. It was very personal and spoke to the universality of the Christmas story and the route to help and rescue, and it was echoed in the very moving speech by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron).

You may wonder why I am replying to this debate, Dame Maria. I am the Government’s Minister for Faith, and it is a pleasure to take part. One or two colleagues commiserated with me on having to respond to a debate on the last day of term. Initially, I had some sympathy with that proposition, but it has been a privilege to hear the debate and it is an honour to respond to it.

Observant Members will notice that I have neither officials nor a typed speech with me, although one was offered. I wanted to speak from the heart in response to what I presumed would be the heartfelt speeches that we have heard. I particularly echo the words of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) that, as Christians, we cannot sleep easy in our beds knowing that fellow Christians are persecuted around the world merely for exercising their right to worship in the way they see fit. Reference has been made to the dispiriting and terrifying situation unfolding in the middle east, and our thoughts and prayers must surely be for a rapidly peaceful solution to that horrible state of affairs.

Many colleagues have mentioned what many students of scripture refer to as the “golden rule”, which is referenced in Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12. That is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Surely that is the central message of our Christian faith, and it is a message for all of us, including those who take part in social media. It is the whole of the Christian message, set out in just a few short words. What better time to demonstrate that and make it manifest than during the Christmas season?

I echo the thanks that others have given to organisations such as the Lions Clubs International Foundation, the Salvation Army and the Rotary Foundation; they are an army of unthanked, unpaid and unnoticed community volunteers, both within church settings and without, who will do—and are doing—so much to support, help and engage with our communities. They engage with those who are feeling lonely, those who are feeling depressed and those who are feeling that they are outside the community boundaries; they do so much good, and they are the very manifestation of what it is to be a Christian.

[Florence Eshalomi]

Will the Member give way?

Draft Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2023 Draft Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Debate between Simon Hoare and Florence Eshalomi

Wednesday 6th December 2023 General Committees

[Simon Hoare]

I shall deal first, if the shadow Minister will forgive me, to the comments made by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk. On the basis of the data compiled after a very thorough assessment of the May local elections, I dispute fundamentally that there is any evidence that it has been made harder for people to vote. Our system has been made more robust and more resilient to meet the challenges of the time. That the Government have some sort of malign intent to suppress turnout or legislation is a trope that has been trotted out by several people involved in politics in recent times. The hon. Gentleman is smiling. I would call him a friend—we were in the same 2015 intake—but such a mindset is entirely alien to our history and to our processes in all the reforms to widen representation, going back to 1832, 1867 and other Acts. We need to ensure that our democracy is robust and resilient to challenge and that it meets the purpose of modern times, and I refute wholeheartedly any idea of suppression, gerrymandering or falsification, or the sorts of things that sit alongside that.

I thank my shadow, the hon. Member for Vauxhall for—I hope she will not take this the wrong way—the gentle and considered way that she approached this debate. I very much welcome her and her party’s support for the broad principles that underpin the regulations. She is absolutely right to ask the questions that she has, and I will endeavour to, if not answer, then certainly address them.

I am tempted to say, on the broader of question whether this will work, the answer is, in essence, this: we believe that it will. A huge amount of resource, time and engagement has been spent to arrive at this position. This is not a “back of a fag packet” piece of legislation. I know the hon. Lady knows that, and she was not suggesting that it was. However, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. As we saw in the May elections, quite a lot of the things that people were concerned about with regard to voter ID did not come to pass. Some issues have manifested themselves, however, and work needs to be done. This is an iterative and organic process; it will be reviewed and it is able to be tweaked and changed. I am grateful that any future tweaks and changes by this Government or a subsequent Government will be done from the starting point that the broad principle of democratic inclusion is enshrined.

I think it is worth remembering that what we are doing here is not particularly novel. The 15-year qualification is an entirely arbitrary figure. Other democracies have all sorts of conditions, and Canada, France, Estonia and the USA have no limits in their voting rights. We are not breaking new ground here as a point of democratic principle.

False attestation is a criminal offence. People will need to know that, and the full weight of the law will be brought to bear on people who falsely attest. Let us be absolutely honest: we fool our constituents if we maintain that by the passing of a statutory instrument or piece of legislation, we, with a stroke of a pen, remove human instinct and human nature. Is somebody going to do a false attestation? A pound to a penny, somebody will. If we discover them, the full weight of the law will be deployed against them. Tweaks and changes can be made in order to respond to that, but fear of the bad should not stop us trying to do some good. I would argue that what we are trying to do this afternoon is some good.

The hon. Member for Vauxhall raised a really important question when she asked whether somebody can pick a seat: “I support party X, and this seat is particularly marginal, so I’m going to pretend that I live there.” Well, they could try to pretend to live there, but they would not get on the register and would not get a ballot, because they would have no proof at all of being a resident there at any time or of having any connection to the place. That will have to be monitored. I make the pledge that those who are involved in our electoral processes, including the Government from a policy point of view, will look at that. The impact on marginal seats—though I do not think the seat of the hon. Member for Vauxhall is marginal—

[Florence Eshalomi]

Every seat is marginal.

[Simon Hoare]

I do not think my seat is marginal—I add the caveat of “currently”—but we shall see what happens.

With regard to fraud, the hon. Lady makes an important point. We want our elections to be clean. Why do we want that? These are important principles. We want elections to be clean because we want the victors to understand that their victory is legitimate. More importantly, we need the defeated to understand—[Interruption.] That was a very peculiar noise of support, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington for it. I am not quite sure if there are any tablets for that, but she was a nurse, so she may have better news on that than I do.

Marginality is an important issue, and as I say, proof of residence and connection will be important. Party donations are exactly the same. Illegal and proxy donations are illegal now. The parties that receive donations have to go through due diligence and checks, and the Electoral Commission provides overview. The National Security Act 2023 is very welcome because it addresses in great part the point that the hon. Member for Vauxhall rightly made. That Act and the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 create data-sharing opportunities between a raft of organisations, including Companies House and the Electoral Commission. They are hugely important in trying to minimise—we hope to obliterate, though I make the point again about human nature—this problem. The levers and buttons to push to tell against this sort of behaviour and bring serious offence charges against perpetrators are there. The Electoral Commission itself publishes quarterly returns.

Having addressed the points that the hon. Lady rightly, sensibly and properly asked, I hope I have been able to persuade her and her not to divide the Committee, but that is entirely up to her. A lot of work and thought by officials and others has gone into the instrument to make it, as I say, resilient, fair and robust. I believe we have achieved that, and I commend the regulations to the Committee.

Question put.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Simon Hoare and Florence Eshalomi

Monday 4th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Florence Eshalomi (Vauxhall) (Lab/Co-op)]

A report from the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and the constitution has found that the photo voter ID scheme creates a real risk of injustice and potential discrimination. The report highlighted the case of an immunocompromised woman who was denied her right and her voice at the local elections after being told that she needed to take off her mask. Does the Minister agree that denying someone a say in how their community is run because of a disability is completely unacceptable? Can he confirm that any indications of potential discrimination found in the photo voter ID system will be dealt with prior to the next set of elections?

[Simon Hoare]

The hon. Lady raises a serious point, and let me put it on record that I would be happy to meet her and the APPG to discuss their issues and concerns. We have made great strides—there is a specific workstream—in ensuring we maximise how those who have a disability can vote and do so in a free and unfettered way, and we will continue with that. I am very sorry to hear about the case the hon. Lady raises, but if she wishes to write to me on the issue, I will of course look into it in my discussions with the commission. It is absolutely pivotal that, in all we do with regard to our election rules, access to voting—freedom to vote—is absolutely at the heart of it, and as the Minister responsible for elections, I shall guarantee that.