Elections Bill

Debate between Baroness Fox of Buckley and Lord Hayward

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Committee stage
Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

The noble Lord is misinterpreting the data within those datasets and what the Electoral Commission and an individual research team undertook to do. They were trying to establish the level of concern. Had the noble Lord allowed me to continue for a few more sentences, I would have identified why I am concerned about that. It is not about a particular election; it is about when elections or referendums become close and contentious.

I speak here as a remainer—I was not a Brexiteer. When a referendum, or some form of ballot, becomes both close and contentious, the way in which the ballots have been conducted comes out as a matter of concern. As a result, it is precisely for those reasons that I am concerned that we should have certainty and security in the process.

I do not regard it as a process of voter suppression. President Trump—or Donald Trump, whatever you like to call him—had a basis of foundation for his arguments against the result at the last presidential election because there were uncertainties about the way in which it was conducted. As far as I am concerned, I want to see certainty in this country.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

In my Second Reading speech, I said that I recognised the sense in which we have a problem of people withholding loser’s consent. I made the point that that was one of the problems we had in America with Donald Trump withholding it. Loser’s consent is a fundamental part of democracy. For many years following the referendum result, there was a substantial number of people who wanted to withhold loser’s consent for a majoritarian vote. That is complicated and there is a political issue going on about why people no longer accept that.

My argument—and this is what I want to ask the noble Lord—is that it is not a technical matter. It has absolutely nothing to do with impersonation. Nobody accused anyone of impersonating anyone. All sorts of accusations have flown but not that one in the UK. Therefore, does this technical way of trying to tackle a problem imply that there is a big problem of impersonation when there is not and therefore fuel the very sentiments that we are trying to reassure people around? It just does not make any sense as a way of dealing with a problem that I agree exists.

[Lord Hayward (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her intervention. She and I clearly recognise that there is a problem and there are different problems and you can tackle them in different ways. I happen to believe that photo ID is a way of tackling the issue.

Unfortunately, the noble Lord, Lord Woolley, is not present. I was present on the Select Committee when he gave evidence. The noble Lord, Lord Rennard, was also present but, unfortunately, he clearly is not able to be here today. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley, dealt with issues way beyond the question of voter registration and voter ID when he gave evidence to the Select Committee. It was an incredibly powerful submission then and it was last week in his contribution here. He was essentially talking about alienation from society in a much broader sense, and I recognise that. I live in the ward which I think has the largest proportion of voters of west African origin of any ward in the country—Camberwell Green. In Camberwell Green, if you want to collect a package from the Post Office—and I did last week—you are required to produce one of six items of ID, four of which are photo ID, two of which are not and one of those I do not think anybody would use in this day and age. In terms of general—