Elections Bill

Aaron Bell Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is the second time you have done that to me; the first time was my maiden speech.

I welcome this essential Bill. What I want is a fair vote for everyone, and that is why I was very pleased to lead the first Adjournment debate of this Parliament on 19 December 2019. Further to the speech of the hon. Member for Norwich South (Clive Lewis), I am clear that in Wycombe, the victims of electoral malpractice are ethnic minorities. Overwhelmingly, it is ethnic minorities whose votes are stolen, in some cases very deliberately.

First, I want to welcome some provisions and then, if I have time, I will say where the Bill could go further. On postal votes, proxy votes and voter ID, I welcome the provisions in the Bill, but I particularly want to emphasise, because I suspect no one else will, the importance in the undue influence measure of provisions about spiritual injury and spiritual pressure. I have thousands of British Muslim supporters in Wycombe, and I know from my friends and supporters that they were accused in the most strident and offensive terms, which I will not repeat, of being apostate, because they declined to vote for the Muslim candidate. That is an absolutely outrageous way to polarise our politics. If I did it as a Christian, there would rightly be national outrage, so I am pleased to see that provision in the Bill.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, and I draw his attention to the words of the judge in the Tower Hamlets case, who made the same point. He said:

“The real losers in this case are the citizens of Tower Hamlets and, in particular, the Bangladeshi community. Their natural and laudable sense of solidarity has been cynically perverted into a sense of isolation and victimhood, and their devotion to their religion has been manipulated—all for the aggrandisement of Mr Rahman.”

That is the reality of these sorts of fraud cases.

[Mr Baker]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am clear that in speaking in support of the Bill I am standing overwhelmingly for my ethnic minority voters in Wycombe. I am absolutely clear about that in my mind. I am clear that they are the most strident supporters I have on this matter in my constituency.

I will not repeat the matters that I raised on 19 December, because that took several times longer than the time I have remaining, so I will point out five areas where the Bill could go further. The first is that many people are incorrectly listed on the electoral roll, entitling them to vote. Many of the issues are already illegal, but there is a strong argument that if the electoral roll was much more tightly governed, the opportunity for criminality, and particularly the misuse of postal votes, would be reduced.

There needs to be a national check for uniqueness, but without a national database. I am grateful to the Electoral Commission for meeting me; I have shown it a technique that could be used with a kind of digital fingerprint to guarantee uniqueness. We need to ensure that people only vote once in the UK. I have seen a WhatsApp message where somebody said, “I have voted in Birmingham; I am now coming to Wycombe to vote against Baker.” I do not mind people voting against me if they are so convicted, as it were, but I do mind them voting twice.

The second point is that people register to vote at an address where they do not reside. I could take Members to a small Edwardian three-bedroom house in Wycombe where 12 electors are registered to vote. We absolutely know that they do not reside there. It is very important that people register to vote only where they reside. It is also important that people do not end up abusing the postal vote system by applying for a postal vote on someone’s behalf and then casting it without their knowledge. We also can give examples of where that can be done, although I do not have time now.

Thirdly, there are instances where foreign nationals here legally in the UK—very welcome they are, too—and with a national insurance number are not entitled to vote. We have examples of some people of Turkish nationality and some EU nationals. In some cases, people just do not know that they are not entitled to vote in a national election. We need to ensure that we tell them. I could give anecdotes of people who find they have inadvertently voted and wished they had not, because they had no intention of breaking the law, so we need to educate them.

Fourthly, I realise and accept that at this stage the Minister almost certainly cannot do anything about the national uniqueness of the electoral roll—I put that on the record so that we can come back to it—but this is an area where I think he could go further. When someone wishes to make an objection to someone’s name being on the roll at a particular address, the name of the objector must be disclosed. That is a reasonable principle of justice to ensure that the accused knows the name of their accuser. The point for me is about when their name is disclosed. It seems that just as an accused person is revealed when they are charged—not when they are arrested—so it could be the case that a person challenging the electoral roll is named publicly only at the moment when someone is charged so that that person knows who their accuser is for the purposes of the criminal justice system and the accuser does not end up exposed to intimidation for challenging registrations on the electoral roll. I make that case because such challenges need to be made and there is a problem with people either not making them or making them and subsequently feeling they were or could have been intimidated.

Finally, the Minister needs to do much more to educate voters about what the law is. For example, I am sorry to say that we cannot assume that just because a postal vote is completed by an elector in their own home, it has been completed freely. I know of one lady from an ethnic minority community who asked to cancel her postal vote because it had been taken from her and given to a candidate. I personally reported that candidate to the police. That is just one example concerning the treatment of women, which is not equal everywhere. In particular, I fear that women are not being given the opportunity to cast their vote freely. However they choose to vote, they should have their choice. In so far as it is up to me, I am not having this country go back to the pre-suffragette era in which women’s votes were abused. That requires us to be realistic and understand that some women cast their votes at home under duress.

I welcome the Bill and am grateful to the Minister, who will have my full support. Let us not listen to some of the nonsense we have heard today.

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[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

As many colleagues have said, confidence in our electoral system and the ballot is crucial. Members may not be aware, but we experienced a very troubling incident in 2017 in Newcastle-under-Lyme. It was a case of incompetence, rather than fraud. In the general election of 2017—I was not a candidate then—approximately a thousand people in Newcastle-under-Lyme were disenfranchised. Approximately 500 students who tried to register when the snap election was called were not registered in time, and approximately 500 people who sought postal votes because they were going to be on holiday did not get their postal votes. This was incompetence, not fraud, but an investigation was carried out. It did not go to an election court.

The Association of Electoral Administrators produced a report on the failings of the council at the time, and the strength of feeling among the voters who missed out on their votes was very strong. One constituent of mine, who applied for a postal vote and did not receive it, wrote a letter to the chief executive of the council:

“For me a vote is not merely a mark on a paper; it symbolises my inalienable right to choose who shall govern me and set the tenor of my life for the next five years. This right and privilege has been won for us over many generations by brave and dedicated men and women and is a precious gift. That I have been robbed of it by some administrative incompetence is an insult to their legacy and a grave disservice to me.”

That is how he felt about being robbed by incompetence, but we have heard today of many cases where people have been robbed of their votes by fraud.

We have heard anecdotal evidence from individual Members. My hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Anthony Browne) gave us a case, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) described very troubling cases. We have heard Government Members who directly experienced what happened in Tower Hamlets in 2014, including my hon. Friends the Members for Gedling (Tom Randall) and for Bolsover (Mark Fletcher). People had their votes stolen. We all want people to vote—I completely subscribe to what my constituent said—but we want them to vote once, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said—and the Bill will ensure that happens. It will make sure that people cast their votes once and once only, and not under the duress that we have seen far too often.

I do not have time to go over some of the other cases, such as the Slough case or the Birmingham case, which was described as “a banana republic”. The judge in the Slough case at the election court in March 2008 noted:

“Recent legislation has addressed and largely solved the problem in Northern Ireland but there has been a flat refusal to introduce similar measures in mainland Britain.”

Finally, over 13 years later, we are introducing those measures that were called for under a Labour Government way back in 2008. I welcome what the Minister said in her speech.

People need ID to collect a parcel, to use a concessionary bus pass and even to attend Labour party meetings, as others have said. People need ID to vote in Northern Ireland—legislation introduced by Labour. As for the issue of why people should be disenfranchised by not having ID, we have addressed that point in the Bill—there will be free ID for everybody. We will make sure that people know how to access that ID.

I do not have time to go into the other elements of the Bill that I support. I hope to be able to engage with the Minister as the Bill progresses through Committee and on Report. I wholeheartedly support this legislation.

Elections Bill (First sitting)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 15th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Brendan O’Hara]

Well, you say we are moving to the Northern Ireland system. The Northern Ireland system was introduced for very specific reasons. Are you saying we should move to the Northern Ireland system because there are similarities between what is happening here in 2021 and what was happening in Northern Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s?

Lord Pickles: I think you are putting words in my mouth. My remarks on Northern Ireland were restricted to the point that at first there was a paper check, and then photo ID. The Government are suggesting that we move on to photo ID now. What has changed since 2016 is the growth of photo ID. It is important to be able to demonstrate who you are when you go to the polling station, not just in order to deal with personation but to emphasise the importance of the vote. No doubt you will spend many happy hours together debating that point. I shall read the debates with great interest.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Q I wanted to pick up on your point about policing, Mr Mawrey. You have been very critical, in both your judgments and your previous evidence to Parliament, of the police and their determination not to get involved. My question is twofold. What does that imply about how many cases have not been brought that perhaps ought to have been? Does the Bill empower the police, and would you expect them to be more willing to be involved in future?

Richard Mawrey: Those are two separate questions. One was whether the police are empowered. They have the necessary powers now. In the aftermath of my critical remarks in the Birmingham judgment, a number of forces had designated officers to deal with the issue, but for various reasons, there were never enough officers for some to be spared to deal with electoral matters only, so they tended to be somebody who added this issue to his or her other duties—say, with the fraud squad, or whatever it was. They did not have the time or resources, because obviously this was regarded—not unreasonably—by some police forces as being very low priority. They tend to think, “This is a squabble between politicians. Let them sort it out.”

In certain areas—Tower Hamlets is a good example—the police force was wary of the local politicians, who were, of course, only too anxious, particularly in the case of Lutfur Rahman, to meet any sort of criticism or investigation with cries of “Institutional racism!”, mentions of the Macpherson report, and all that. The police were wary of dealing with that. They have the powers; whether they have the resources and the will is an entirely different matter.

On whether lots of cases are going undetected, the answer is undoubtedly yes. It is very difficult to prove fraud, and when you have proved it, it is very difficult and time-consuming to prove who benefited from it. In some systems—in Australia, for example—you can prove fraud until you are blue in the face, but you no longer prove who benefited from it, so anyone elected with fraudulent votes stays elected. That is obviously not a good idea. What you see in the cases that I try is the tip of the iceberg, and those cases exist only because concerned citizens are prepared to put their money—their houses, sometimes—on the line in order to fight that fraud. You can end up, as the petitioners did in Tower Hamlets, with a large order for costs against someone who cheerfully declares themselves bankrupt, and you find yourself having spent a fortune doing what you think to be right, only to see none of that money back.

What the Bill does not deal with, although it might have done, is any reform of the process of electoral petitions, trying disputed elections, and all that—things on which Lord Pickles and I have given evidence on other occasions. I am sorry that it does not deal with that, but it is a big, long Bill; perhaps you will get round to it later. The idea that it should be made easier for elections to be challenged by citizens or candidates, and less expensive—

[The Chair]

I am sorry; I have to come in there. We have one minute left, so we can have a very short question and answer.

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[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland) (Con)]

Q I will build on the questions that my colleague, Mr Clarkson, posed to Councillor Golds a moment ago, about personation in polling stations and how prevalent it is. In his judgment in the Bordesley Green ward and Aston ward Birmingham fraud trials back in 2005, the election judge, Mr Mawrey QC, stated that,

“there is likely to be no evidence of fraud, if you do not look for it.”

Your teams in the polling booths are the frontline in identifying personation. What tools do you currently have to look for personation fraud?

Gillian Beasley: When we organise our elections, we graduate our polling stations to the ones where we think the most issues will be. We employ presiding officers who have a lot of experience in dealing with the administration of their polling station. However, more than that, we train them around the issues of personation and ensure that they know the statutory questions. There are also ways in which, when someone comes into a polling station and they ask them to give their names, they are very particular about ensuring that we keep with the processes.

We also always have police in those polling stations. There will be two police officers, and there will also be polling agents, so we give a very clear statement that we take personation seriously. When you walk into a polling station in that area, you will see well-trained staff and police officers, and you will likely see a polling agent. There is training that we do. There is also an incident response, so if staff are concerned about an elector, they have a police officer they can talk to. If a polling agent raises an issue, it can be responded to immediately.

The message goes out there that that is what you will find when you go into a Peterborough polling station and those that we consider to be at risk. That is the approach that we take in ensuring that the training and the experience is really good. As Paul Bristow said, we also have CCTV. It conveys how seriously we take electoral fraud in those stations.

[Aaron Bell]

Q I just wanted to briefly ask ACC Cann about polling day, and whether he thinks that the measures around voter ID and undue influence will make polling day easier for the police.

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: I am not sure I heard the question. I think it was whether the measures around undue influence are likely to make life easier for the police.

[Aaron Bell]

And voter ID on polling day.

Assistant Chief Constable Cann: Thank you very much. I think, in general, they are potentially helpful measures indeed. It is always difficult for policy makers to strike the balance between an accessible system and a secure system. If the balance was struck in that particular way in any future Act then, on balance, yes, it would probably be helpful for the police if those measures were brought in.

[The Chair]

Order. That brings us to the end of the time allotted for the Committee to ask questions and, indeed, for this morning’s sitting. I thank our witnesses on behalf of the Committee for their evidence. The Committee will meet again at 2 pm to continue taking oral evidence.

Elections Bill (Fifth sitting)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Kemi Badenoch]

The hon. Lady talked about the DVLA not collecting data on the ethnic background of people, so we know the point that she was making. As I said, I will be unambiguous in setting this out: anyone who is eligible to vote will continue to have the opportunity to do so. I hope that for the rest of the Committee we will be able to have a civilised debate, and not one where we bring in issues that are not pertinent to the matter at hand.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I share the Minister’s distaste at the suggestion that people do not have that access and that agency. Is it not the case that the existing elements of voter fraud in the system fall disproportionately on ethnic minority populations, as we saw in Tower Hamlets in the Bangladeshi community?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely agree, and I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point.

I want those listening to the debate to be clear that we will work with them, and for them, to ensure that the implementation supports their participation, and I hope that on that principled point the Opposition will stop their negative and discouraging narrative on the future of the measures. Voter identification is a simple, proportionate and effective means to strengthen the integrity of elections. For those reasons, I urge that clause 1 stand part of the Bill.

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[Cat Smith]

I have been a member of the Labour party since 2004 and I have never been asked to produce photo ID to participate in my local party or national party events, to stand as a Member of Parliament or to be a member of the shadow Cabinet. The hon. Member will remember from the evidence sessions, because he was a member of the Committee then, that an example was given about the parliamentary selection in Tower Hamlets. I imagine that Tower Hamlets will be brought up a fair bit in Committee.

Where there are isolated issues, the Labour party has a process by which it can put constituency parties into what we call special measures. There are additional requirements to take part in our internal democracy where there has been evidence of fraud in the past. That probably backs up my point that the incidents that we have seen are very geographically specific, whereas the legislation covers England, Scotland and Wales. We are penalising huge swathes of the country by putting additional barriers between them and participation in democracy, when at best we have found tiny pockets. Indeed, the Committee heard evidence that personation at polling stations was incredibly isolated.

[Aaron Bell]

The hon. Lady speaks about the evidence, but we heard from Richard Mawrey, who is without doubt the most qualified person to speak about this. He said:

“On whether lots of cases are going undetected, the answer is undoubtedly yes. It is very difficult to prove fraud, and when you have proved it, it is very difficult and time-consuming to prove who benefited from it.”––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 17, Q16.]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This is not an isolated issue, as the hon. Lady seems to think.

[Cat Smith]

The same witness also said:

“Not only was there electoral fraud in the sense of false votes—almost all postal votes—"

the Bill does nothing to resolve that issue—

“but the system developed so there was misuse of public funds”.––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 5, Q2.]

I think the point that he was trying to make on the Tower Hamlets example—I may misquote him slightly—was that they were working through all the types of electoral fraud and bad actors were in play. There was an injustice, and I make absolutely no defence of the electoral fraud that went on—I would be quite upset if anyone accused me of that—but is important to point out that elections were overturned and the law worked. Richard Mawrey also told the Committee:

“Voter ID at polling stations, frankly, is neither here nor there. Personation at polling stations is very rare indeed, because it is so dangerous—if someone turns up to a polling station and says, “I am Mr Jones of Acacia Avenue”, and somebody says, “I know Mr Jones; you are not him”, the next thing is a policeman’s hand on his shoulder and he’s up at the local Crown court”.––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 15, Q13.]

We know, based on the evidence from witnesses whom hon. Members are quoting at me, that the clause, deals with something that is not the major issue. I feel that we are somewhat missing the wood for the trees.

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[Cat Smith]

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman’s bringing forward an amendment to the Bill along those lines, and I am sure we would be interested in having conversations across the Committee Room about how we might be able to support him in amending his Government’s Bill in such a way. I look forward to speaking to him after the Committee to see whether I can be of any assistance to him on that matter.

It is quite clear from the evidence we heard that the voter ID requirements will make it disproportionately more difficult for some people with disabilities to vote. We heard evidence from the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and we realise that anyone who is blind or registered partially sighted is very unlikely to have a driving licence, which immediately rules out one kind of ID.

Because of the poverty disabled people face, they are also less likely to have a passport, and the Committee heard evidence of concerns that the Cabinet Office had not sufficiently engaged with disabled groups, charities and campaigns in drafting this legislation. There are issues further on in the Bill—I am sure we will come to them later, so I will not go into any detail—about the changes to accessibility having a double whammy effect on disabled voters’ access to elections.

Labour will reject clause 1, and that is consistent with the position we have taken since the first day that the Conservatives mooted this policy.

[Aaron Bell]

It was not just mooted by the Conservatives; the Electoral Commission has for many years recommended that we introduce some element of identification into the voting process. We have identification at the registration process; would the hon. Lady abandon that as well in her noble goal of increasing turnout?

[Cat Smith]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the Electoral Commission, because of course it did not specify that this very tight form of photo ID should be introduced by the legislation. Its recommendation was much more open-ended. The Government have come forward with the tightest, most restrictive, most excluding form of voter ID. Trials took place ahead of the legislation being presented, but I believe it was only in Woking where this very tight form of voter ID was trialled. I do not know Woking well, but I am sure that it is not very representative of the whole United Kingdom.

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[Brendan O’Hara]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I was not asleep; perhaps he should temper his language somewhat. I suggest he reads Councillor Golds’s evidence, which I will come to in a moment. He talked in such great detail about postal vote fraud: it was the biggest issue in Councillor Golds’s extremely detailed and voluminous file. In fact, he was reduced to anecdotal evidence about personation and a gentleman with large feet and red shoes. That is the nub of where he was. Every person and even the Government’s star witness, as I would class Councillor Golds, was unable to give any evidence that personation at polling stations was a major problem.

[Aaron Bell]

The hon. Gentleman dealt with Peter Golds there, but what about the case in Peterborough? Surely the requirement to introduce CCTV that Gillian Beasley told us about says it is not an anecdotal problem. It is a real problem. That step has had to be taken in Peterborough for deterrence. The Bill enables deterrence without the expense of CCTV.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Again, I will not use the language that the hon. Member for Peterborough used, but read the evidence. Gillian Beasley said that

“we have seen less personation”—[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 21, Q23.]

in recent years; she followed that up by saying that postal voting is her concern. The Government are looking in the wrong place and they know that. They are doing it for reasons about which one can only speculate.

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[The Chair]

Before I call the next speaker, it is not in order to be tediously repetitious. The debate is proceeding extremely slowly. On the lack of evidence and on other points, if I have heard it once, I have heard 100 times. Try to keep speeches to the point and pertinent to clause 1. I call Aaron Bell.

[Aaron Bell]

I will endeavour to follow your strictures, Sir Edward. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship and to follow the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute. It is also a pleasure to welcome new Committee members, not least the Minister in her new role.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute said that the Bill is a solution in search of a problem and that we are looking in the wrong place. The Government are looking everywhere; that is what the Bill is doing. We are looking not only at the issues that he raised about postal voting fraud, but everywhere, including in areas where we know that, because personation is, by definition, a covert activity, the problem is far greater than we can possible expect to see from the numbers reported.

Indeed, as Richard Mawrey said in evidence, the cases that he has tried are undoubtedly the “tip of the iceberg”. That is why the clause is so important. We all strive to get more people to participate, and we all go out and knock on doors to encourage people who have never voted before to vote—ideally, for us—but although participation is important, integrity and confidence are absolutely paramount as well. The constant fearmongering about participation is in marked contrast to the denial of the existing issue of people’s confidence.

I will briefly address the point about America. I know the Bill is not about America, but since it was mentioned by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood, I draw the Committee’s attention to a May 2021 academic paper by Cantoni and Pons, published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics. I will not elaborate too much, but the title is, “Strict Id Laws Don’t Stop Voters”. They analysed different laws introduced in US different states, and found that

“the laws have no negative effect on registration or turnout, overall or for any group defined by race, gender, age, or party affiliation.”

I completely endorse what my right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell said about Trump: acceptance of the result is a completely different issue from the security of the ballot. However, trying to make out that we are following some American Trump-style approach misses the point and completely misleads the public about what we are proposing. We are proposing a proportionate measure to safeguard the system and address the vulnerability that the Electoral Commission itself has identified. Ailsa Irvine said that “there is a vulnerability” in the system—that is what is being identified.

We have talked about how personation is a covert activity, and that is what the clause is for. In the light of the evidence from Tower Hamlets, from Peterborough and from around the country, it should not come to the point of having to install CCTV, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling said, brave individuals should not have to put their own money on the line, and not get it back, to deal with such cases.

On the pilot data, which was mentioned, the estimate by the Electoral Reform Society, which we should acknowledge is a political lobbying group, were exaggerated and inaccurate. The data from returning officers across all five participating local authorities showed that 340 electors were asked to return with the correct identification and did not subsequently return. Not all 340 people may have been legitimate electors, as my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton pointed out, but the 340 figure represents 0.16% of the votes cast, and the experience in Northern Ireland shows that that will fall as people get used to the system.

We cannot argue, as the Opposition have, that because we have big majorities in this place we do not need voter ID, and then say that voter participation is so crucial that one person’s vote makes a difference. What matters is the overall integrity of the system, and the way to deliver that is everywhere: in the postal vote system, in the proxy vote system and on polling day.

Elections Bill (Sixth sitting)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

That raises another question: who will be the judge of what a good enough likeness is when people come to vote? If that judgment is questioned, what would be the means of redress? I have seen for myself people having their photographic ID questioned when out and about, and it is a very disconcerting experience. To have that experience just before somebody is voting and using their democratic right will be very difficult. There will be instances in which that happens, so I hope the secondary legislation will be very clear about how the issue will be overcome.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Given that the Committee has accepted, after a Division, the necessity of voter ID, surely the hon. Lady’s suggestion of a 15-year period does not help deal with the point she is raising. The more up-to-date ID somebody has, the less likely they are to have such problems at the polling station.

[Fleur Anderson]

With our amendments, the Opposition are trying to mitigate the worst impact of having a voter ID. Frequently having to re-apply for a voter ID card will have a disproportionately bad impact, potentially stopping people from voting. I do not think any of us want to see that. This is about getting the right balance; is three, five, 10, 15, 20 or 50 years the right balance? I will be interested to hear the Minister’s views. It would be out of step with best practice to require voter ID cards to be frequently renewed, and there is also a disproportionate cost. How much should administering them cost?

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[Kemi Badenoch]

No, I am not giving way any more. I would say that he does not think that. An ideological point is being made, and we will not have it.

The hon. Member for Putney made a point about GP surgeries having our data. GPs are private contractors. This conflation of what is private and what is not, and this lack of understanding of how services are delivered, is poor. The Carillion argument in particular is a specious one. Many organisations both private and public fail occasionally. We have debated these issues on the Floor of the House many times, and there is no point in my repeating them, but public sector organisations also fail. We do not then decide that we are going to rip up everything and that they will no longer provide any services; we try to fix what has gone wrong. I do not accept those arguments at all.

Government and local authorities will, as ever, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland said, seek to ensure best value for money for the taxpayer. That is the right thing to do, rather than the ideological ping-pong that we are seeing here. I say to the hon. Member for Putney: nice try, but we are not accepting the amendment. If any aspect of the production or administration of either of these documents could best be served in the private sector, then that must be an option that is available. We are not being prescriptive about how we are going to do this.

[Aaron Bell]

The implication of how the amendment has been drawn up is that we would need a Government factory to produce the plastic and another Government factory to produce the ink. It is absolutely ludicrous.

[Kemi Badenoch]

I completely agree. That is what the wording of the amendment would mean. It would ensure that private companies cannot take part in any aspect of producing or administering voter cards, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to make that point.

It is also possible that the private sector will have expertise or capabilities, or could offer innovative solutions, that do not currently exist in the public sector but would be of great benefit to the elector. The private sector has long held an important role in supporting the effective delivery of elections. I have mentioned some examples showing that it is already a valuable and capable partner for electoral registration officers and returning officers, and there is no good reason why it should be prevented from contributing in this instance.

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[Cat Smith]

I beg to move amendment 44, in schedule 1, page 66, line 5, at end insert—

“13BF Public consultation on regulations under sections 13BD and 13BE

The Secretary of State may not lay before Parliament a draft of a statutory instrument containing regulations under section 13BD or section 13BE unless they have first undertaken public consultation on those regulations for a period no shorter than 28 days.”

This amendment would require the Government to consult for at least 28 days on regulations made about electoral identity documents and anonymous elector documents before they are laid before Parliament for debate and approval.

The amendment would require the Government to publish the details of the free elector IDs at least 28 days before they are laid in Parliament for debate, scrutiny and approval. It would be outrageous and unacceptable were they to fail to give us information about how the ID cards are administered before the legislation is laid. It is yet another example of how the Government continue to try to dodge scrutiny. It reminds me very much of the voter ID pilots. I appreciate that today’s Minister was not the Minister at the time, but the legislation for the pilots was rushed through Parliament in secondary legislation. All 650 MPs were denied the opportunity to scrutinise the Government’s plans. The Government appear to have some kind of allergy to scrutiny and accountability. I cannot understand why they would have any issue with the amendment, which would increase the confidence of the public and the whole House that the regulations would be workable, fair and proportionate.

Since the policy was first announced in December 2016, the Government have received multiple warnings from charities, civil society figures and campaign groups on the use of voter ID cards if they are rolled out nationally, and the threat that they could be a drawbridge for millions of voters. I remind the Committee that Neil Coughlan has a case in the Supreme Court challenging the pilots, which of course were rushed through by secondary legislation. I certainly would not want that to be the situation for the consultation on the regulations.

[Aaron Bell]

The shadow Minister makes a reasonable request about secondary legislation. I am sure that she is aware of the evidence that the previous Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), gave to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee. She said:

“I am keen to be able to bring forward as much of that secondary legislation as early as possible so that parliamentarians can scrutinise it. That is only fair. In particular, in terms of the passage of the Bill, I am hoping to be able to do that ahead of the Lords stages. That is a reasonable ask of those who are doing the work behind the scenes, balanced with making sure that Parliament can see the detail that is contained.”

I hope that those assurances have been heard by the Opposition.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

The amendments would allow voters who do not have ID to still vote, by other means—either through attestation of their identity from another voter or by signing an affidavit to confirm their identify. They would allow voters who are on the electoral roll to still participate when they do not have ID to show. This takes place in other countries that require ID. Indeed, the amendments were very much inspired by conversations with campaigners in the United States, where, in some states, this has gone some way towards ensuring that voters are not excluded when voter ID requirements are in place.

Throughout Second Reading and so far in Committee, we have discussed the vanishingly rare amount of voter personation fraud that occurs in the UK. I need not remind the House that somebody is more likely to be struck by lightning three times than to become a victim of voter personation fraud.

[Aaron Bell]

The shadow Minister will know that just because there are very few convictions does not mean that there is not a bigger funnel of fraud at the top. The purpose of the amendments is to frustrate the entire purpose of voter ID. The assumption that everybody in the electoral process is a good actor is not one that we can make and not one that Government Members do make. The shadow Minister is talking about allowing somebody to attest to somebody else’s identity; there will be no follow-up check to see whether the right people have been marked off. All the issues that we heard about in the evidence from Peter Golds and others last week would still be permissible under this attestation process. It would still leave open the window for fraud that Government Members are seeking to close.

[Cat Smith]

I feel like we have rehearsed these arguments quite a few times already, but I will just say this: personation is incredibly rare. We heard that consistently from across the witnesses. Requiring an attestation is another barrier, in the same way as asking for ID is, but it is one that is more easily met by electors who, for whatever reason, do not have ID.

We know that there are some bad actors. If a bad actor is seeking to cast a vote that is not theirs, but they know that they have to have an attestation, that is a further barrier, because it is another chance of being caught out. This is another safety measure that could be brought in that is not as prescriptive and discriminatory, I would argue, as requirements for ID. If I am asked for a form of ID, I may or may not have it, but anyone can make an attestation if they turn up to vote. It would give the polling clerks opportunities to do further checks. It is just a way of ensuring, should voter ID come into force, that we do not exclude people who, for whatever reason, do not have ID or, as in the example I gave earlier, lose their ID on the day, and that they do not lose their right to vote.

I believe that this is a proportional and tried and tested measure that we could bring in to ensure that people are not disenfranchised and do not lose their vote.

Elections Bill (Seventh sitting)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I beg to move amendment 54, in schedule 1, page 75, line 9, at end insert—

“(1HA) In this rule a ‘specified document’ also means a poll card.”

This amendment would enable someone to vote by presenting their poll card as an alternative to photo ID.

To recap from where we left off, the Opposition feel that there is no need for the reforms listed in the Bill. They will reduce people’s ability to vote, they will suppress voting and they are disproportionate to the risks identified. They will have a huge impact on councils, be very unwieldy, potentially have an impact on frontline services delivered by councils and be very expensive.

The Government’s own pilot programmes threw up many issues regarding the ability to vote in different circumstances. Different trials were used, including on the use of a polling card, which showed many ways in which barriers to voting can be overcome—not the ways that appear in the Bill. There are also questions about whether people will be turned away on polling day, and that is why the amendment would include the use of a polling card.

To explain the context, several of the pilot schemes in 2018 and 2019 that were commissioned by the Government asked voters to bring their polling card as a form of identification, or some form of photo ID if they did not have it. The results make for interesting reading. In the 2018 voter ID pilot in Swindon, 95% of voters produced their polling card instead of another form of ID. It was much more accessible to them, and Swindon recorded the lowest percentage of voters not returning with correct ID of all the 2018 pilots, at 0.06%. The Watford pilot saw 87% of voters produce their polling card instead of an alternative form of ID, and only 0.2% of voters did not return with the correct ID.

The poll card pilots in 2019 recorded lower percentages of voters being turned away than the photo ID or mixed ID and polling card models. In the poll card pilots in Mid Sussex, North West Leicestershire and Watford, 93% of voters produced a poll card instead of the alternative form of ID. It is clearly highly preferential for voters, and we want to make voting as easy as possible while making it safe and maintaining integrity.

The impact assessment to the Bill states that the implementation of voter ID could cost up to £180 million over 10 years. As we heard in the evidence sessions, that is not entirely known because not all councils have given in assessments. They do not know how many staff it will take or what the cost will be. Of that total, £80 million could be spent on the updated polling cards, which will notify voters of the new requirements. The proposal is to move to an A4 polling card, to be posted in an envelope. If that much is being spent on polling cards, why not use them at the polling station?

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that, notwithstanding what she said about safety and making it easy, she has not addressed the security element of knowing the person who turns up is the person named on the polling card? In many cases, polling cards can be stolen. I am thinking in particular of when they are posted to pigeonholes in higher education institutions. That has been a real problem in previous elections, and the Opposition’s amendment does not address that.

[Fleur Anderson]

The issue is parity with postal votes. If someone is to have a postal vote, they need to prove that they are living at the relevant address. That applies to polling cards as well; there is consistency.

The hon. Gentleman says that things can be stolen from a higher educational establishment, but that issue should be addressed by the establishment. The same could happen to postal votes, which would be a big concern. Making polling cards safe would be the same as making postal votes safe, so why not use polling cards?

[Aaron Bell]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way again. The difference, of course, is that a postal vote requires a signature. Someone could literally take a polling card out of another person’s pigeonhole and present themselves at a polling station saying, “I am Joe Bloggs.” They would be given a vote. That is how things are at the moment, and that is what we think needs to change.

[Fleur Anderson]

When someone is applying for a polling card, they have to prove that they live at the relevant address. The overall issue is that voting is reduced; people might not necessarily want to go to vote if they find it at all hard. On polling day, we and other people will go to people’s houses, knock on their doors and say, “You can go down and vote.” Despite all the advertising that will happen ahead of time, they will say, “Oh, I don’t have my photographic ID—I haven’t yet got it.” We saw from the pilots how things could be so much easier.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

I just want to expand slightly on the point I made in my intervention. If the opposition to the use of poll cards in the discussion on the previous amendment was because of the risk of harvesting and the lack of verification to go with the issuing of a poll card to ensure it matches the person who is carrying it, I do not see how that argument can be applied to the forms of identification listed in the amendment from the Labour party. All those require some form of external verification and, in many cases, someone else to verify the identity and the physical appearance of the person being identified in the document in question—unless there is evidence that we have not heard during our discussions: about the mass forgery of birth certificates, marriage certificates, paper driving licences or adoption certificates.

In fact, in many cases the forgery of such documents is already a crime, so if someone were to try to impersonate another voter by producing a forged or stolen birth certificate, they would be guilty of two crimes: personation under the existing electoral registration measures and forging important documents.

Perhaps the Minister and hon. Members who oppose the amendment are starting to question the integrity of all the organisations listed in the amendment who issue these forms of identification, such as banks and building societies who issue mortgage statements.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank the hon. Member for acknowledging the force of our arguments on the previous amendment, which of course he voted for. Is it not the case that people could still vote for others in their own household? That is of concern to Government Members. For example, if someone knew that their son would not vote, they could happily take one of those identity documents with them—they have no photos on them—and present themselves at the polling station. Without that check from photographic identification, security is still threatened.

[Patrick Grady]

I am sorry—they absolutely could not. First, I do not accept the force of the previous argument, although I accept the Committee’s decision to reject the amendment. Secondly, there is no way that someone from the same household could turn up because, by definition, they would be voting at the same polling station with the same polling clerks and with the same party candidates and activists standing outside. If one person turned up with two birth certificates, utility bills or whatever, that would be a clear case of personation. I have sufficient confidence in the integrity of our current system to trust the poll clerks on duty in a station to identify that same person from the same household trying to vote on behalf of two people.

I find it slightly ironic that my parliamentary pass, issued to me by the House of Commons on account of my being elected three times by the electors of Glasgow North, lets me get on a plane, and I can cast votes on legislation with it, but I do not think it is good enough to vote in a general election under the Bill. I am therefore happy to support the Labour party’s amendments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Aaron Bell]

I have been provoked by the hon. Member for Glasgow North to show some more support from the Government side for the clause. Before I do so, I would like to briefly pay my own tribute to Sir David Amess. The first general election I was able to stay up late for the results for was 1992. I did not fully understand the concept of a bellwether seat and all the rest of it, but we were all talking about Basildon for the first hour or so before the result came in, and when it did, we saw his million-watt smile. Twenty-seven years later, when I found myself in this place, that smile was still as bright as ever.

We have lost two very dedicated public servants in Sir David Amess and James Brokenshire. They gave decades of public service to this place and their constituents. What I would say about both of them is that it was always service with a smile.

I welcome the clause. It is a proportionate response to the cases we have seen and the evidence we have heard. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough referred to cases in his constituency. We heard from Peter Golds about what went on in Tower Hamlets. I wholeheartedly agree with the Minister on why the amendment is unnecessary. I will leave it there—to be honest, the hon. Member for Glasgow North just provoked me a little bit. As ever, I think the Government have considered the issue properly. I have listened to the Opposition’s points on prelegislative scrutiny, but the clause is very detailed and the Government have considered all the points that need to be addressed. For that reason, I support it.

[The Chair]

It might be a convenient moment for the Minister to make her clause stand part speech now.

Elections Bill (Tenth sitting)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Patrick Grady]

The Minister said in her opening remarks that it is important that we have independent regulation, so that the public can have confidence in our elections. The implication of that is that we do not currently have independent or impartial regulation of elections. It implied that somehow the Electoral Commission, as currently constituted, is fundamentally flawed and failing in its duty. That is a substantial claim and none of the evidence we heard, or any of the debates about this Bill, suggests that that is the case. That is perhaps why the Government are coming at this with a slightly different motivation, as alluded to by my colleague on the Labour Front Bench.

The Electoral Commission itself has said in briefings about this Bill that, as currently drafted, the provisions of part 3 are not consistent with the Electoral Commission operating as an independent regulator. It has said that the scope of ministerial powers to specify statements for Ofcom, Ofgem and Ofwat, which was the example given by the Minister, does not include giving guidance about specific matters or functions for which those regulators are responsible. Therefore, this is in effect a power grab by the UK Government, which is consistent with their approach in a whole range of areas.

The Electoral Commission is already accountable to the House through the Speaker’s committee. We have regular questions in the Chamber, precisely to provide some of that accountability. The members of that committee, on behalf of the whole House, scrutinise the operation of the commission. There are also procedures at Holyrood and in the Senedd Cymru to ensure that the Electoral Commission self-accounts for its operations in those parts of the United Kingdom.

The Minister herself said, in response to my intervention, that there will be no ability for this House to amend the statement. It would be for the Government, if they were defeated, to withdraw the statement and bring something back in its entirety. The Government are taking and retaining control of the entire process: taking away accountability from this House and handing power to the Secretary of State.

In the future, if Back Benchers have questions about the operation and actions of the Electoral Commission and what it has done, to whom will they ask the questions? Will the questions be on the Floor of the House at commissioners questions or will they be for whichever Department happens to have responsibility for the operation of the Electoral Commission at any given time? That is not particularly clear. I appreciate the Minister is here from the levelling-up Department, but a completely different Department was leading on this Bill when it was introduced.

At some point when we are discussing regulations in any Committee like this, someone will ask, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”—I hope my Latin gets some brownie points from you, Sir Edward. “Who is watching the watchers?” is the philosophical question at the heart of the clause and what the Government are trying to do to the Electoral Commission. We as politicians—as elected parliamentarians, which was an important point from the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood—have an active and vested interest in the regulation of elections; even more so a Government who have been elected and want to stay elected. However, the clause allows the Government to mark their own homework—an often-favoured phrase of Ministers—and direct the body that oversees what is supposed to be an impartial process.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

I compliment the hon. Member on his Latin. In the Pickles report, Lord Pickles says:

“The current system of oversight of the Electoral Commission—by the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission—does not provide an effective third-party check on its performance…The Electoral Commission continues act to as a commentator and lobbyist on both policy and law. Yet government should not be lobbying government.”

Should we not ask the same question of the Electoral Commission that he asks of this Committee?

[Patrick Grady]

In that case, I hope the hon. Member will support the amendment to provide for lay membership of the Speaker’s committee to enhance that level of scrutiny and indeed to ensure that there is not a Government majority on that committee. No one is saying we should not expand scrutiny of the Electoral Commission’s operations; we are saying that the clause will reduce scrutiny and put more control in the Government’s hands. It is not good enough to say that statements can be consulted on and indeed might change between Governments as Governments change. In fact, that is more dangerous and would lead to inconsistency, which would really start to diminish the commission’s impartiality.

No one can say, “Well, this is a bland and harmless overall statement of principles that people have already agreed to,” when it provides directives and powers to give directives that are not found elsewhere either in UK regulators or in comparable commissions in the Commonwealth such as those of Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Conservative Members in particular are generally so proud that people in those countries look to the mother of Parliaments for their inspiration and to this glorious United Kingdom as an example of democracy that others should aspire to. Those countries have done that—well, they may have done that—and they have independent regulators that are accountable to their Parliaments and legislatures, not to their Executives. The SNP opposes this power grab and will oppose the clause.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

If the Minister is saying that the amendment to provide that the Government do not have a majority is fixing a “non-existent problem”, the logic of that is the amendment should not cause a problem either. Also, the Government might want to consider—this may be hard to believe at the moment—that they may not be in power forever. At some point in the future, another party or parties may form a majority in this House and may wish to legislate, regulate and all the rest that flows with the taking of power. At that point, I have a feeling that a Conservative Opposition’s view on all these matters might suddenly change. So the Government might want to think about some of that, in relation not just to this amendment, but other things in the future.

The point about lay membership was very well made by the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson. It is not uncommon to find lay members on certain consultative and advisory Committees associated with this House, and indeed in other parts of public life. Given that some of the Minister’s own Back Benchers were asking earlier for increased impartiality in the Speaker’s committee, I would have thought that the presence of lay members, who can bring in outside expertise without worrying about the transition that might happen at an election or whatever, would be quite helpful.

I will be very happy to support any amendments that the Labour party chooses to push to a vote.

[Aaron Bell]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, and to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North; it is good to hear that the SNP also appreciates that Governments are not forever and the electorate may eventually turn on the Government at any given time, based on their record over a long period. It is good to know that he knows that he, too, is mortal.

The clause will provide more efficiency in Government by allowing somebody to stand in for a Minister on the Speaker’s committee. That makes perfect sense. Having spoken to the previous Minister in charge of this Bill, I am aware that there has been a problem in the past. Therefore, it is a perfectly sensible clause and it is disappointing, as the Minister said, that the Opposition have chosen to insert what looks like something born of political motivation into its amendment.

I have the utmost faith in Mr Speaker’s ability to determine the membership of the Speaker’s committee as he sees fit and I have the utmost faith in that Committee’s capability to consider any questions that come before it in a cross-party, consensual way, as the Minister said. Therefore, in common with the Minister, I urge everybody on this Committee to reject these amendments.

[Cat Smith]

I have to say, as a Member of the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, that I do not think there is any risk of the Government losing a vote on that Committee, given the imbalance of the numbers.

The Minister is right that it is rare to have lay members on parliamentary Committees, but it is not unheard of, and I think that it is a jolly good idea and would like to push it to a vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

As the Minister has said, this clause relates to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It does not really cover Scotland because of the nature of the Crown Prosecution Service, and in olden times, this might have been one of those clauses that was subject to the English votes for English laws procedure. I always like to speak on things that might have been covered by the EVEL procedure.

I want to reflect a little bit on this clause, though, because the Electoral Commission and other stakeholders have expressed concerns about what the Government are trying to do here. The Government giveth a statement, a direction to the Electoral Commission, and then they taketh away, saying that the commission cannot have the powers that it wants in order to be able to do its job right now—to increase its capability to prosecute. Throughout scrutiny of this Bill, we have heard from Government Members about rampant corruption threatening the integrity of the UK system. We have heard that Tower Hamlets was not an isolated case—people were prosecuted in that case, and brought to justice—but that similar cases are happening all over the country; it is just that we do not know about them, and they need to be investigated and prosecuted. Here is an opportunity for prosecution, but the Government are taking it away.

Other regulators have this power, either at an English, a Welsh, or a UK-wide level, including the Financial Conduct Authority, the Health and Safety Executive, the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Food Standards Agency. As such, this goes back to the point I made about some of the earlier clauses in this part of the Bill, about what the Government are trying to do here and the power grab that they are determined to effect. I fully accept that the regulatory and prosecutorial regimes north and south of the border are different, so it is not the SNP’s place to challenge this clause or press it to a vote, but it is important that those points are put on record.

[Aaron Bell]

It is a pleasure, once again, to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow North. I could not disagree more with his point about a power grab. This is a clause that provides welcome clarity. The Electoral Commission has neither the capacity nor the competence to act as a prosecutor; I believe there are too many conflicts of interest. It would end up marking its own homework, because it would be providing advice and guidance on the law first, and then acting as an arbiter and prosecutor over its own decisions. That is clearly a matter for an independent Crown Prosecution Service and for the police, all overseen by the courts.

We can only think about what happened in the EU referendum, in which the Electoral Commission was criticised for the legal advice it gave, for failing to ask for evidence from the accused, for the handling of documents, for its enforcement decisions and, ultimately, its flawed bids for criminal prosecutions against leave groups, which were then thrown out by the police and the courts. It was incredibly embarrassing for the Electoral Commission because Vote Leave had followed the advice that the Electoral Commission had given it on making donations to other campaigns, such as BeLeave. That perfectly illustrates the potential conflicts of interest in this area.

This is not just about the referendum. If we go back some time to 2005, when Labour were last in government, there was a controversy about loans to political parties before the 2005 general election. Again, that was fuelled by questionable advice from the Electoral Commission. If it was then marking its own homework on those loans, after the election, the Labour party would have felt in the same position that the leave campaigners did. It is welcome that the Electoral Commission has never brought prosecutions until now, but given the demand and clamour for that in recent years, I really welcome the fact that this clause makes it clear that that cannot happen in future.

[Tom Randall (Gedling) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. We have mentioned Tower Hamlets again. Perhaps another footnote in this is that the Electoral Commission registered a political party, Tower Hamlets First, without checking whether it had a bank account, which it did not. It is perhaps further evidence that giving further powers to the Electoral Commission may not be the best idea, and that they should be given to other bodies instead.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his point about Tower Hamlets—a case that he knows well. Indeed, the Pickles report said:

“Despite years of warnings on misconduct in Tower Hamlets, the Electoral Commission gave the Borough’s electoral system a gold-star rating for electoral integrity in its inspection reports”

and went on to say that it was a tick-box inspection of town hall electoral registration departments. There are other reasons why we need to have better scrutiny of the Electoral Commission and why we need the clause that we debated previously, but the point about criminal proceedings is the one that I particularly wanted to speak to. I will leave it there and let colleagues come in.

[Jerome Mayhew]

It is an absolute pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme. I associate myself with all his comments. However, this is, with respect, actually a wider issue than just dealing with the Electoral Commission and the evidence that we have heard about the referendum and Vote Leave.

At the beginning of this process, the Committee heard first-hand oral evidence on the negative impacts of an organisation that provides guidance, sets the rules, and then seeks to prosecute. It is part of a wider problem that we have experienced in just the last couple of years. We only have to look at the Post Office, which is another private prosecuting authority, and its conduct in the Horizon case—the greatest miscarriage of justice that this country has ever experienced—including a sub-postmistress constituent of mine receiving a suspended prison sentence as a result of that miscarriage of justice.

It simply goes to show the issues with these conflicts of interest between investigating and then being a prosecuting authority—or “marking your own homework”, as my colleague just mentioned.

Elections Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Fleur Anderson]

I am pleased to speak to amendments 76 and 77, which would significantly improve the Bill. Amendment 76 would exempt registered charities and community interest companies, or CICs, from the notification and registration requirements of clause 24, which introduces a new, lower-tier registration for third party campaigners who spend more than £10,000 on controlled expenditure anywhere in the UK. Our amendment 77 seeks to allow charities or CICs that wish to campaign at elections within the lower tier of expenditure, and that are already subject to transparency requirements, to avoid the additional compliance burden arising from clause 24.

The Electoral Commission says on part 4:

“Some of the changes in Part 4 of the Bill would increase transparency for voters about who is spending money campaigning at elections and how they are funded.”

So far, so good. It goes on:

“But they would not increase transparency about how much is being spent and on what. The added complexity of these changes could deter some from campaigning at elections, or restrict the type of campaigning they can spend funds on. Voters could therefore receive less information about candidates and parties, and hear from a narrower range of sources.”

The Electoral Commission continues:

“Third party campaigners are individuals and organisations that campaign in the run-up to elections but do not stand as political parties or candidates. These are a vital part of a healthy democracy and play a significant role in providing voters with information. It is important that a broad range of campaigners can take part in public debate ahead of UK elections and referendums so voters hear a diversity of voices.”

The commission states:

“These changes would add new requirements to laws which many campaigners have said are already complex and hard to understand.”

Again, these changes are unnecessary and will have a chilling effect on democracy, and especially on registered charities and CICs. That is why they are the focus of our amendments. The Bill risks tying organisations up in red tape and stifling democratic engagement by civil society organisations, which are concerned about breaking the rules.

I was working in a charity when the gagging, or lobbying, Act—the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 —was introduced. I very often found myself sitting around with my colleagues asking, “Can we now do this? Can we now say that? Can we now work with them? What can we do?”. Our charity did not have enough money to seek a large amount of legal advice. The law was also quite unclear, so to avoid falling foul of it, we would step back and not do many things that would have been perfectly within the law, which had been changed, just in case they were not.

The provisions we are discussing extend those powers. Indeed, I see this as a trilogy, comprising the lobbying Act, the Trade Union Act 2016 and this Bill, which altogether stifle democracy and free speech, and stop really valuable campaigners campaigning about issues that we politicians need to hear about.

I spoke to the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, which is concerned about this issue. It said that it was unconvinced by the argument in favour of the lower threshold in general terms. Has the Minister met the NCVO to discuss its concerns? The Government have framed the issue in terms of increased transparency, but it was not clear to the NCVO, which represents charities across the country, that there would have been a significant impact. It cannot see that there will be more transparency.

The NCVO asked the Minister’s predecessor to look at whether charities could be exempted from the lower threshold. Its argument is that when campaigning is done by a registered charity, people can in any case look it up on the register and see who its trustees are, how it is funded and so on. The transparency point therefore does not apply in the same way, because charities are already transparent and highly regulated. This new tier will inevitably result in smaller organisations being unable to engage in democracy. Charities and community groups that might not have the policy and legal expertise of larger organisations and that, as I have said, will fear running afoul of the rules may decide—in fact, will decide—that it is not worth the trouble to spend a relatively small sum, or they might be put off by appearing on a public register.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is obviously making a powerful speech, but the primary purpose of charities, which we give tax relief to, should surely be supporting good causes, not campaigning in elections.

[Fleur Anderson]

In many respects, supporting good causes is done by campaigning. For many charities, the causes of the symptoms they are seeking to address will be back in Government policy. The policies that we decide all the time obviously have an immediate impact on people on the ground. Charities work with those people and need to change the policies to change the issue they are addressing.

Elections Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Aaron Bell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith]

I must say that I was very surprised when we received an instruction motion. To be honest, I had not seen one before during my time in this House, and I did not realise that the Government had been so disorganised that they had forgotten to put one of their manifesto commitments in the Bill, but by all accounts, that is exactly what has happened. It is not only chaotic, but deeply disrespectful to the House.

Our colleagues who do not have the privilege and joy of serving on this Committee got to debate the Bill on Second Reading, when we had no idea that this new clause would be included. Although we are able to debate this new clause, our colleagues were not able to raise concerns about it on Second Reading. It is disrespectful to our colleagues that they have not yet had the opportunity to raise concerns about this clause, but it is also disrespectful to this Committee. When, through the usual channels, we decided which witnesses should give evidence to the Committee, we did not know that a new clause was going to be tabled that would massively shake up the way in which many elections take place in England and Wales. We were not able to get witnesses who were experts in voting systems before the Committee, so that we had the opportunity to quiz them—to ask questions and explore whether the first-past-the-post system is as desirable as the Minister seems to think. We did not have the opportunity to explore how successful, or perhaps otherwise, the supplementary vote system has been in mayoral elections in England, or in police and crime commissioner elections in England and Wales. None of that was allowed for, which is disrespectful to this House, this Committee, and our colleagues who did not have the opportunity on Second Reading to ask questions and scrutinise the Government.

Moving beyond the incredibly disrespectful way in which new clause 1 has been tabled and turning to its specifics, I ask the Minister what consultation she or her predecessor have had with Mayors about whether this was a change they were seeking. Having spoken to many elected Mayors over the past few weeks, it strikes me that they did not know that this was coming, and it has come as something of a surprise. There was no clamour for it from their offices, and they are deeply hurt that the Minister has not reached out to them to consult with them on this new clause.

Specifically looking at London—I admit that I have had to swot up a fair bit on this issue, because I am not a London MP—in 1998, in the Greater London Authority referendum, Londoners were asked whether they wanted to have a Mayor and an assembly, and it was clear that that Mayor would be elected using a supplementary vote system. Londoners agreed, by a majority of 72.01%, that this was something that they wanted. Is this Committee going to overturn a democratic referendum—the democratic will of the people, we might say; in this case, the people of London—to change the voting system?

Last time we had a debate about changing the voting system in this country, the alternative vote referendum that everyone has clearly long since forgotten about, that question was put to the people, because this is a really major change. For us to be changing the voting system used in elections in this country not by referendum, not even by putting it in the Bill and debating it on Second Reading, but by slipping it in in Committee, is absolutely shocking and appalling. It is one of the lowest points of this Bill; as I have said at earlier stages, there are plenty of other things in this Bill that I disagree with, but I am deeply offended by the way in which the Government have gone about this. It is disrespectful, and it is riding roughshod over democracy.

Specifically in the case of the London referendum, every single London borough voted to elect their Mayor using a supplementary vote system. Who is this Committee—many of us are not even London MPs—to say to those people, “You voted in that referendum for that, but we are taking it away from you”? I had a little look at the breakdowns for different boroughs, because I was surprised when I saw that every London borough had voted for it—this is a diverse city—but in the lowest supporting areas, Havering and Bromley, it was still 60% and 57% voting in favour of that system, with the highest support being in Lambeth and Haringey, which had 81% and 83% respectively.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cat Smith]

I will give way—I would like to hear the hon. Member’s defence of this.

[Aaron Bell]

Of course, the voters in all those boroughs were voting in favour of the principle of a Mayor and an assembly and not specifically the voting system employed. But may I put a question to the hon. Lady? At the last London Mayor election, almost 5% of voters in London saw their votes essentially not count, because of the confusion that the system engendered. That is why the Government are proposing the change.

[Cat Smith]

I have completely forgotten the hon. Gentleman’s first point, but on the second, there were a lot of spoilt ballots in London this time and that was because the ballot paper was designed with two columns, rather than one column, for the first time. I have to be honest: I have seen the ballot paper, which was shared on social media, and it was shocking. It should never have been allowed to go to print. [Interruption.] It is amazing that it got past any level of scrutiny. There is probably a lesson to be learned about how we legislate and how we make sure that checks and safeguards are in place to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised, because I do not think—

[Cat Smith]

Thank you, Mr Pritchard.

For more than 20 years, Londoners have been using the supplementary vote system to elect their Mayor without major incident. There were some issues with spoilt ballot papers at the last election—I concede that—but I think that it was very clearly because of the design of the ballot paper, as we did not see that in previous elections. Clearly, the ballot paper needs to be better designed.

I will raise again with the Minister the point about police and crime commissioner elections, which take place in England and Wales. It was a Conservative-led Government—she wishes to push her Liberal Democrat colleagues under the bus for the coalition, which is a pattern of behaviour that we have seen a fair bit—who chose the supplementary vote system for those elections, because there was a consensus, which new clause 1 is shattering, on a supplementary vote system. It is not proportional representation. It is not a radical change to the electoral system. But it is a fairer way of voters casting their vote, and I think there was a general consensus about that, which is why we saw it introduced for regional Mayors in England and police and crime commissioner elections—many of these under a Conservative Government, of course. It is why, since the year 2000, that system has been used pretty much consistently when bringing in new elections. I have counted them up: there have been 212 elections using the supplementary vote system in England and Wales since the turn of the millennium, and I think that voters are confident in using it now.

The only election that is not first past the post in my constituency in Lancashire is the election for police and crime commissioner, which uses the supplementary vote. The feedback I always get from my constituents is about how nice it is, in their words, “to be able to vote for the person who is my favourite candidate really, but then to have my vote count in relation to the people that we know the contest is actually between.” That is because the electorate are of course an intelligent electorate. People know whether their preferred candidate is likely to be in the final run-off of two, and they vote accordingly.

[Aaron Bell]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way again. I am listening to what she is saying, and she may be interested to learn—in fact, both Opposition parties may be interested to learn—that in 2011 I actually voted for the alternative vote system, which makes me rather unusual on the Conservative side. In 2011, however, the country quite firmly did not vote for AV, and did not believe in the principle that people’s second votes should essentially count the same as their first votes. That is what the supplementary vote system means. SV is, in my opinion, far worse than AV, but I, on this side of the House, respect referendum results. I think both Opposition parties should do the same thing.

[Cat Smith]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman: we absolutely should respect a referendum result. That is why I am surprised to see those on the Government Benches riding roughshod over the 1998 Greater London Authority referendum, in which it was very clear that the supplementary vote system for Mayor of London was what people wanted—by a huge majority. I do believe in respecting referendum results, and I respect the referendum results that he referred to. I voted against AV, so we were on different sides in that argument. I personally think that there are far better voting systems than AV, but this is not a debate about different voting systems. I think it is about riding roughshod over the democratic will of Londoners in 1998 by pushing through in Committee something that has not had the scrutiny of the full House. The way in which the Government have gone about this, whereby we have not been able to take evidence as a Committee and truly scrutinise the measure, is shocking. I know fine well that Government Members will just all vote for this anyway, but I ask them to look at their consciences on this new clause, because it is overturning the democratic will of the people of London.

The voting system has been working fine. I have to question why it is a Government priority suddenly to change it. The cynical part of me, and I am not normally a cynical person, would suggest that the Government feel that they cannot win an election under a supplementary vote system and perhaps think they have a better chance under first past the post. Perhaps it is a case of “If you can’t win the game, move the goalposts,” because it looks an awful lot like that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

We have only to look at the results of the elections to this place—this is perhaps not the clause specifically to debate that—to see how well the Conservatives fare. When we SNP MPs were elected in large numbers in 2015, our parliamentary group leader at the time made the point that it did not reflect the result proportionally, but perhaps we are straying slightly. I want to come back to the election of the Mayor of London, and the results of first-past-the-post elections.

Perhaps Conservative Members—I look forward to hearing from them when they rise to speak in support of the Government—are quite comfortable with the idea that Ken Livingstone was elected on the first ballot with 39% of the vote in 2000, and with 36.8% of the vote in 2004. That is the mandate for someone to be the Mayor of a major European metropolitan city, which the Prime Minister himself has claimed is a kind of equivalent to the entire Scottish Parliament and the devolved Scottish Government. That is the equivalence that he has made between his role as Mayor of London and the entire devolution settlement in Scotland. It seems that Government Members are quite content with the possibility of someone being elected to that position on about 35% of the vote.

[Aaron Bell]

rose—

[Patrick Grady]

I look forward to the hon. Gentleman telling me why that is.

[Aaron Bell]

I was about to say that I was happy to see the hon. Gentleman returned to Parliament for Glasgow North in 2017 on 37.6% of the vote.

[Patrick Grady]

To be fair, I have already made that point. I am very happy to submit myself to the electorate under any proportional system that the Government want to introduce. The hon. Gentleman can be sure of the SNP’s support for a Bill introducing such a system; we have said that many times in this House.

The experience of preferential voting in Scotland is that results can change, and that has not always been to the SNP’s advantage. In fact, owing to the nature of Scottish politics at the moment, there is a clear trend with transfers. Where the SNP is a voter’s first preference, they cast their vote for that party. That is the very clear trend. In fact, in the ward that I mentioned, the SNP won the vote in the recent by-election, under first past the post; we got the most votes. We had an excellent candidate in Abdul Bostani. He got the most first preferences, but because of transfers, he lost out, so that ward is now represented by two Labour councillors, one Green councillor and one SNP councillor. It was a Conservative vacancy, incidentally; I say that for anyone who has not turned up to enough of the Committee sittings. That proves my point on the issue on which the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was trying to catch me out. It proves the value of preferential voting systems.

Ultimately, it is for England’s Members to make a determination about what electoral system is used by their local authorities, but Government Members have to think very carefully about the consequences of this.