Baroness Hayman of Ullock
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Elections Bill
Baroness Hayman of Ullock ExcerptsMonday 21st March 2022
(2 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Elections Act 2022 View all Elections Act 2022 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: HL Bill 96-V Fifth marshalled list for Committee - (21 Mar 2022)
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
My noble friends, who have more experience of being selected to stand for elected office in the Labour Party are muttering that it is not—
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I am being told that it is an option. Perhaps my noble friends can speak of what they know and I do not.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
Perhaps I may clarify, as this has come up before. When you go to selection meetings you are asked to take a membership card in case anyone wants to check it, but it is not compulsory. I have never had my card checked.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
I should say, for the record, that I have never stood for election to a parish council or a PTA committee, let alone to high elected office. I should say that with some embarrassment, given that I am in this revising Chamber, but being a member of a political party is a privilege. It is based on a shared understanding of more than just the broader values of a political project, whereas to be a citizen entitled to vote is a fundamental right, and that is the distinction. It is also a distinction with various commercial transactions, which we understand require a certain element of identification. I would be more persuaded by the point that the noble Lord is making by his probing if we had heard, in response to some hours of debate on previous occasions, evidence of a significant problem with identity fraud in our elections.
As with many things in life, there is a balance of risk to be judged here. The noble Lord, Lord Woolley of Woodford, who is unable to be here today, pointed out the one conviction for voter identity fraud. That is not enough evidence to introduce this level of hurdle, hoop or requirement when balanced against the research that has been ventilated in this Committee and that has been sent to all Peers about the likely outcomes of putting further obstacles, hurdles or disincentives to register in people’s way.
Lord Hayward (Con)
I appreciate that correction from the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman.
But the concentration has been on the problems associated with certain social groups. It was said earlier that it is not necessarily the case that certain groups can or cannot participate in one form or another. The Liberal Democrats will point out that this is a failing of our first-past-the-post system, but selection meetings held by political parties in many constituencies are, in effect, choosing the Member of Parliament. For the selection of the Labour Party candidate for Poplar and Limehouse at the last election, the note that Apsana Begum sent to party members said, “Bring photo ID”. That is a specific instruction. It goes on to say,
“Bring your membership card or another proof of address”—
in other words, at her selection, you had to produce two forms of ID: one photo ID and one proof of address.
You can go on the web for other examples. One of the most racially diverse constituencies in the country—the reason that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, may be aware of this is that it is right next door to his borough—is Tottenham. Again, I quote from the web: for the Haringey shortlisting and selection meetings in 2018, people were told,
“You need to bring ID”.
They were told to bring proof of address—a utility bill or council tax bill—and named photo ID. The types of accepted photo ID were identified as a passport, driver’s licence, et cetera. I willingly give way to the noble Baroness.
“Statement on guidance given to registration officers
The Secretary of State must publish a statement on guidance given to registration officers in relation to the implementation of Schedule 1.”
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, there is a large number of amendments in this group, all of which refer to Schedule 1. As my noble friend Lord Adonis said, Schedule 1 is pretty enormous—there is a huge amount of information in it. It is concerning that there is a lot of very detailed information but that quite a lot of it is perhaps not pinned down in a way that would be helpful when making such huge changes to our electoral law.
It may well be a large section of the Bill but, as the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, said, when you look at the balance between securing the integrity of the ballot and encouraging participation, unfortunately there is simply not enough in the schedule to encourage participation and increase registration. I find that disappointing, because if the Government bring forward an elections Bill, encouraging more people to use their right to vote and take part in civil society in that way should be an absolutely integral part of what such a Bill tries to achieve.
As I say, all the amendments refer to Schedule 1. I will batch them into three groups, which seems sensible, given their focus. First, I will speak briefly to my Amendments 63 to 69, 79 and 81, which concern the electoral identity document. Amendment 66A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, and Amendment 80 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, are along similar lines. My noble friend Lord Adonis asked the Minister a number of questions about Part 2 so I will not go into detail on that, but it would be useful if the Minister could do as he said he would in the previous debate and give some more detailed answers to the relevant questions that were asked.
My Amendment 63 would require the Secretary of State to
“publish a statement on guidance given to registration officers in relation to the implementation of Schedule 1.”
In the previous debate in Committee, I talked about the importance of guidance and training when introducing voter ID. As was said in the previous debate this afternoon, an enormous amount of information will be provided to electoral registration officers, local authorities and the people who will man the polling stations. It is incredibly important that everybody knows exactly what they are supposed to do, what will be allowed and what will not, and how they can support people who may have come in with the incorrect documentation, so that they do not lose their votes, which is another issue we will talk about later. It is also incredibly important that we understand how guidance is being managed and implemented. Having a regular statement on where we are with it is important in making sure that our democracy is not undermined and that we have the best response possible to these proposals. Whether you agree with them or not, if they come in, they need to be implemented as well as possible.
I know the Minister said that he would explain why my Amendment 64 is not necessary, but we should do everything we can to increase participation. Providing an option so that someone can apply for an electoral identity document as part of the same process as registering to vote seems a straightforward, easy, sensible thing to do. I do not understand why the Government do not want to make this explicit in the Bill; it just seems terribly sensible to me.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
The issue that I hope the Minister will address, and which goes to the heart of my noble friend’s Amendment 64, is that he said when he replied to me earlier that, under paragraph 2 of Schedule 1, it will be possible for people to apply at the same time. However, if we want to minimise bureaucracy, surely, we want to make it a requirement that they be able to apply at the same time, which certainly is not part of that paragraph. My reading is that it could be covered by the regulations
“about the timing of an application for an electoral identity document”
in new Clause 13BD(4), as proposed by paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. But obviously, the way to ensure that it is possible, that we minimise bureaucracy and that we do not have an impact on turnout is for the Minister to accept my noble friend’s amendment or give an undertaking from the Dispatch Box when he comes to reply—so that he has time to commune with his officials—that the regulations will provide that electors can apply at one and the same time to register to vote and for the electoral identity document.
Baroness Chakrabarti (Lab)
To save multiple interventions on my noble friend, I just want to say this: it is all very well to say “Perhaps this will all be dealt with in regulations” so long as the vires—the power—in the schedule is broad enough to allow for regulations enabling people to apply to be registered and have one of these government-provided ID documents. However, I have read paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 and what it proposes. New Clause 13BD(1)(a), which is headed “Electoral identity document: Great Britain”, says that an application for an electoral identity document may be made by a person who
“is or has applied to be registered”.
That begs the question of whether these things can be done simultaneously. If these regulations will allow for an application only when someone is already registered or has already applied to be registered, that appears to leave out the group to which my noble friend Lord Adonis refers: people who are applying to be registered but know that they do not have a relevant document and want to make one application, rather than two applications at different times.
I am sorry to labour that point but I think it might be helpful to the Minister to hear that concern so that he can deal with it in one go later on.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
I thank both my noble friends for their contributions and support for this amendment. As I said, this measure seems simple and straightforward to me. On the basis that it is important for people who do not have the right document to be able to vote, it seems a simple and sensible proposition that, when they register to vote, a little box comes up that they can tick if they need an identity document. It would then all be dealt with and sorted. I hope the Minister will seriously consider the importance of having that spelt out in the Bill, or, if he is not going to accept my amendment, of making sure that this works in the legislation as drafted, as my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti said.
I have two further amendments, Amendments 65 and 66, which are about the issuing of the documentation. The first amendment refers to
“the issuing of digital electoral identity documents.”
We are in a digital age, after all, so it seems sensible for people to have that option. I get my train tickets digitally, so it is not beyond the wit of man to come up with that. The other amendment is
“about the distribution of an electoral identity document by post.”
At the moment, that is not in the Bill; the regulations provide for the timings, issuing and collection but they do not go into any detail about whether a document could be issued digitally or sent through the post.
Amendment 66A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Scriven, is interesting. It would change
“the deadline for applying for a Voter ID card to 5 days before the day of a particular election. This is in line with the practice in Northern Ireland.”
We have had a lot of discussion in our debates on voter ID about the way things are done in Northern Ireland, so I am interested to hear more on this from the noble Lord and from the Minister.
Amendment 67 is very straightforward: it is just about ensuring that every electoral identity document should have the date of issue, which again seems pretty sensible so we all know where we are with it. Amendment 68 would delete new subsection (9) in paragraph 2 of Schedule 1. The reason for this is that it says, fairly vaguely:
“Regulations may require an electoral identity document to include other information.”
Why is this necessary? What kind of “other information” are we looking at? It would just be interesting to have further detail and clarification on what that part of the schedule is intended to do.
Lord Adonis (Lab)
My Lords, I am sorry to labour the point, but can the Minister write to us on this? It is one thing for him to say what the Government’s policy is but what the law says is another. The issue here is whether that power would require documents which are added to be photo ID documents or whether they could be any other item on the list by the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, in his Amendment 80. I am offering the Minister a possible way out in due course for accepting the noble Lord’s amendment by the back door.
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for their contributions to this lengthy debate, and the Minister for his detailed responses. I am sure that there are areas of these amendments that we will return to on Report but for now, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.