Voter Identification Scheme

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Maclean]

May I take this opportunity to warmly welcome the hon. Lady to her place and to thank her for her comments? On the substantive, non-political points that she made, I have been extremely clear, and am happy to repeat the assurance, that we are working carefully with the independent Electoral Commission, which itself recommended the introduction of photographic ID to safeguard our precious democracy. We are looking at all its recommendations. We will, of course, naturally come forward for scrutiny when the findings are published, as we do as a matter of course.

On the substantive point, is the hon. Lady really saying that the Labour party will repeal the Elections Act should it come into government? What exactly has the Labour party done to raise confidence among Labour voters? Or is this just a case of Labour Members standing on the sidelines making shrill, scaremongering claims? Time and again, Labour has made such claims ahead of the sensible and proportionate pilot schemes that we have rolled out, but none of the things that Labour Members have warned about has happened—[Interruption.] Perhaps she would like to listen to my remarks.

The new shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), warned of shortages of electoral staff, lack of venues and funding uncertainty ahead of the local elections in May 2021. The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, warned that elderly people and ethnic minorities would not visit polling stations. None of those things has happened. The Electoral Commission—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are chuntering from sedentary positions, but perhaps they should listen to the words of the independent Electoral Commission—not my words—which found that

“the polls were delivered safely and successfully”,

and that changes put in place by the UK Government, the commission and electoral administrators helped to “support and reassure voters” and campaigners.

I think it important to make this final point. The hon. Lady talks about ethnic minorities being disenfranchised and discriminated against, but we know from the type of heinous behaviour that we saw in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham that ethnic minority voters are most disenfranchised and disadvantaged by not having security in our elections.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

The crime of personation has been notoriously difficult to prove. We have functioned on the basis of trust that people who go to the polling station are who they say they are. The sad reality is that when I was elected in 2010, we found after the election that scores, perhaps hundreds, of people who had voted in my constituency were actually abroad at the time. The police refused to do anything about it. People impersonated those voters. I do not how they voted, but clearly those votes were stolen from people. Voter ID ensures that that sort of activity cannot happen. Will my hon. Friend also take up the issue of postal and proxy voting to ensure that their proper policing is integral to our system?

[Rachel Maclean]

My hon. Friend is totally right. The suggestion from the Opposition parties is that we should just wait and see whether something bad happens, and then take action. That is the wrong way to go about safeguarding our democracy, which we should all be proud of. He makes the extremely valid point that it is impossible to detect impersonation. When it has been detected, such as in Tower Hamlets and Birmingham—the Opposition do not like me mentioning it—people have been taken to court and found guilty of these offences. He is also right to raise the issue of postal and proxy voting, and he will know that we are commencing provisions to safeguard some of those processes, which is the right thing to do.