Representation of the People (Overseas Electors etc.) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Baroness Hayman of Ullock Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I will be very brief, because I know your Lordships wish to move to the vote. I will just follow up on some of the points made by my colleague. The real problem we have is that the 2010 coalition abandoned all the work that Labour was doing on establishing a national identity. If that had proceeded, we would have created a national identity for every individual. We would have known where they were located at the time they left the country, and that would then have been used as the point at which they cast their vote. I address my remarks primarily to my Front Bench. As we prepare our manifesto, I hope we will go back to what we were doing then. We see the problems that we are having with immigration, the failure to know how many people we have in this country and so many areas in which we need a national database. We should have a look at the Indian experience and the way in which India has created quite an amazing national digital identity, and look to see whether we should not have one in the UK to bring ourselves up to date. It would answer many of the problems of this kind of legislation.

[Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)]

My Lords, I have just one very quick point. The noble Lord, Lord Hayward, talked about the fact that I had asked about reviews; when we consider the potential for election fraud, that is really important. The Elections Act was brought in, according to the Government, because they were concerned about shutting the door on fraud. My concern is that this will open the door to more than they will stop.

I will just pick up some of the things the Minister said in her introduction. If there is no national insurance number, there needs to be documentary evidence provided. That will be provided by the applicant. Checks against the electoral register at the moment go only up to 15 years. The Minister said that will be retained for longer in future, but how do we know how accurate it is now? How will we measure that? What analysis will the Government do as this goes forward to check on the potential level of electoral fraud, and how is it going to be reviewed and analysed in future? We need to make sure that the people on the register are those who need to be on the register—especially if that can then lead to donations.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, we on these Benches are in favour of extending the franchise further, but as part of a wider reconsideration of inclusion on and exclusion from the register. I remind the House that we have an estimated 8 million British citizens living in this country who are not on the register—about which something ought also to be done. We are concerned about how this is implemented and some of its unintended consequences. I remind the House that there are 3.5 million British overseas citizens. That is, by my calculation, roughly 5,500 per constituency, if they all registered. If we assume that no more than 50% register, that is still well over 2,000 per constituency. I am sure the Minister will have been briefed that overseas registration in constituencies is not uniform but highly variable. Some London constituencies already have approaching 2,000 overseas electors, whereas a number of constituencies in Wales have fewer than 20. That is to be expected. Next time we redraw the tightened boundaries of our constituencies, do we take into account the number of overseas voters who are registered in various constituencies? If we do, some London constituencies will get quite a bit smaller because the numbers of overseas voters will take them way over the quota.