Elections Bill

Baroness Bull Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 23rd February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to have heard so many important speeches by virtue of my position on today’s list. However, this leaves me little chance of adding anything original to an excellent debate in which we had the great pleasure of listening to the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Moore—on which I congratulate him.

I will keep my contribution brief and focus on two specific concerns raised in the comprehensive briefings received from sector organisations, both of which relate to the risk of further excluding groups of citizens who are already challenged to engage in the election processes.

First, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford, the Bill weakens the already imperfect protections for blind and partially sighted voters in exercising their right to take part in what is undeniably a visual exercise: the reading of names, the locating of boxes and the marking of a cross which is the act of casting a vote. Current provisions are in place for blind and partially sighted people, including the tactile voting device which we heard described. Even so, there is no way for a person without sight to review candidate lists without assistance. For the majority of the 350,000 blind and partially sighted people in the UK, participation in elections is not a private process, as it is for those of us who are able to see. It involves sharing their vote, often out loud, with another person. Respondents to an RNIB survey described this as not only humiliating but open to fraud, because there is no guarantee that the person helping them will put the cross against the candidate they choose.

The RNIB is concerned that, rather than building on improvements piloted following a 2019 judicial review—a review which described the current situation as

“a parody of the electoral process”—

this Bill will make voting even less accessible. It shifts the responsibility to individual returning officers to determine what provisions they deem reasonable at a local level. This creates uncertainty for blind and partially sighted citizens about what they can expect when voting or, indeed, what they are entitled to. The removal of the crucial phrase, “without any assistance”, obfuscates for blind and partially sighted people the clarity afforded to the majority by the Ballot Act of 150 years ago: namely, that all citizens should have the right to vote independently and therefore in secret.

The second issue I want to address briefly is the potential for photo ID to impact negatively on voter participation. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, that while the Cabinet Office-commissioned research explored possession of ID with reference to race, disability and age, it failed to ask the question with reference to income status. Research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation fills this gap. It finds that adults living in a household with an income of less than £30,000 per year are much more likely not to have photo ID compared with those with greater assets—6% compared with 1%. The research also found that some 700,000 low-income adults do not have photo ID in which they would be recognisable. Taken together, this means that around 1.7 million citizens would not possess the photo ID required to vote.

Researchers also asked whether they would be likely to apply for a voter ID card, and while half said yes, a worrying 41% were unlikely or unsure. Assuming the 51% happy to apply for a card did so, this would still leave some 700,000 UK citizens disenfranchised. We know that adults on low incomes in the UK are already less likely to vote or engage in political processes than their high-income counterparts, and this matters because it promotes an unequal representation of interests, and it limits the ability of low-income adults to influence political decision-making. The end result is that social inequalities grow ever deeper.

The Joint Committee on Human Rights has warned that voter ID proposals risk disproportionately disenfranchising people on lower incomes. This is not only discriminatory, it is bad for democracy. We should be doing everything in our power to encourage participation—teaching and enabling active citizenship, as my noble friend Lord Woolley so passionately argued. By putting new barriers in place, this Bill risks doing the opposite, further discouraging already disengaged communities from taking part in our electoral system.