Community Engagement Principles and Extremism Definition

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister consider that there are a lot of good lessons to be learned from Northern Ireland on community relations? Those relations have come on a great deal, and that is often about creating neutral spaces and reasons for communities to come together that are not related to being extreme or not getting on. It is about getting people on the fringes of those extremists to enjoy life together for other reasons—and that may be sport or art—on neutral ground. Often, when you target people to bring them together, those people naturally resist being brought together, so it is about doing it from ground level up, and doing it because people want to enjoy doing things together.

[Lord Khan of Burnley (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Lord made some interesting points. On the initial point about community relations, I reassure him that that is very important, and it is why counter-extremism has gone back into the Home Office. In my department, I am the Minister responsible for cohesion. We work with different communities to ensure, up and down the country, we hear those diverse voices, not just faith-based voices but from different communities, different diasporas and different parts of the country. So I reassure the noble Lord that this work is happening and we are working with our partners and across the country.

Elections: Multiple Voting

Viscount Brookeborough Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

If we look at the levels of allegations of electoral fraud in the first instance, which the police do in collaboration with the Electoral Commission, they are relatively low for a country of over 60 million people. Convictions are also relatively low. We have a system where we are strengthening the process with regard to the use of voter identification when you go and vote, and we have also strengthened the approach to registration by introducing individual electoral registration. I am sure that further improvements can be made over time.

[Viscount Brookeborough (CB)]

My Lords, would the Minister like to recognise that his answers smack of the Government burying their head in the sand and not accepting that some malpractices do go on? Those of us who have lived in Northern Ireland—where the motto used to be, “Vote early, vote often”—know that where there is election, there will be fraud. Does the Minister not agree that the Government should pay much more attention to what is going on out there in the country?

[Lord Greenhalgh (Con)]

I do not accept that, unsurprisingly. The Elections Act was guided by the Government’s determination to ensure that our democracy is secure and transparent, and we have sought to place participation at the heart of our democracy. The Act was developed in collaboration with people within the electoral services, following on from the recommendations of my noble friend Lord Pickles.