Elections Bill (Seventh sitting)

Cat Smith Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Fleur Anderson]

Different people will have different ID. If we open up the forms of ID that people can take, we make it more likely that they will vote. Many people will have lost their photo ID. Some people do misplace their polling card in their pile of post and so do not have it to hand. We can say at the moment that they can just go down to the polling station, but the Bill introduces an extra barrier of people having to find their photographic ID—their passport or driving licence. If a polling card is a high barrier, photographic ID is even higher. My amendment would lower the barriers to voting and enable more people to get involved in democracy, which in the end would make decisions better. The Bill would increase the barriers.

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

I have been reflecting on what my hon. Friend has been saying. I recently had to send off my driving licence to update my address, and that happens to have coincided with the expiry of my passport. Normally I have two forms of photo ID, but at the moment I do not. Could this legislation not end up affecting people who would normally have forms of ID and therefore would not necessarily apply for the voter card, but who due to circumstances may occasionally disenfranchise themselves accidentally?

[Fleur Anderson]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. There are many circumstances in which someone might just not have that photographic ID to hand. My children go off, use their photographic ID in a nightclub and do not return with it. There are so many reasons why it might be hard to find that photographic ID. If people find it hard to locate their polling card on the day—I accept that sometimes they do—they will find it even harder to find their photographic ID.

This amendment is so important. The polling card would give people huge reassurance that they will be able to go down and vote. If the amendment is not agreed to, that will be taken away. The amendment is logical and supported by plenty of evidence from the pilot schemes themselves. I urge the Minister to support it.

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[Kemi Badenoch]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention; I was not aware of that information, which is very helpful. It shows that the evidence we have gathered and the basis for the Bill is correct. As I set out in my response to amendment 54 about pilots, photographic identification is by far the most secure method of those piloted and I cannot agree to amendments that seek to weaken that protection.

[Cat Smith]

Will the Minister give way?

[Kemi Badenoch]

I have finished.

[The Chair]

You can make a speech.

[Cat Smith]

I had not intended to give a speech, but I want to raise the point that when we look at international comparisons, it is important to find countries that reflect our country. The reason America is used as an example is that the United States does not have a national, free, state-issued ID card, unlike the Netherlands, which the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell used as an example just now, where there is a state ID card, issued by the state, for free, to every citizen. Although he is indeed correct that America is on the other side of the Atlantic—I thank him for that geography lesson—it is used as an example because it has a similar policy around state ID cards.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

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[Paul Bristow]

In response to some of the points made by the hon. Member for Putney, I would argue that this change is perfectly reasonable. If someone is trying to renew something as precious as their postal vote, it is perfectly reasonable to be asked to do that every three years. As it happens, I personally think it should be done every year. Households have to renew who is on the electoral register every year. It is not that much of a leap to apply yearly for something as precious as a postal vote. This is a perfectly reasonable request.

I would like to draw Members’ attention to the evidence we heard from the chief executive of Peterborough City Council. It was argued earlier that some of the restrictions about who could hand in postal votes to a polling station were unreasonable. I would ask, what is reasonable about people walking up to polling stations, indeed to the town hall the night before, with plastic bags full of postal votes?

[Cat Smith]

I thought I might help out the hon. Gentleman, because I think he might be straying into the next schedule to the Bill. The hon. Gentleman said that he thought that he would like to see postal votes renewed every year. Why did he not table an amendment to the Bill on that?

[Paul Bristow]

Because we have to start somewhere. As a start, considering the evidence and arguments we have had, renewing every three years is a perfectly reasonable thing to ask someone to do. We should look at what happens after three years and maybe in the future we can see where we are. It is perfectly reasonable to ask someone to apply for something as precious as a postal vote every three years. We have talked about how important the privilege of voting is. If it is important, it is perfectly reasonable to fill out a form every three years. Evidence from my constituency suggests that we have wards in Peterborough that are twice as high as the national average for registered postal votes. I am not saying that that is done for any particularly nefarious reason, but clearly considerable postal vote harvesting and postal vote recruitment have been seen in Peterborough.

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[Kemi Badenoch]

However, the code does not have legal force. We believe it is time to put it on a statutory footing, and make it a criminal offence for political campaigners to handle postal votes.

The clause sets out details of the postal vote handling offence and makes the offence a “corrupt practice”. Of course, it is perfectly reasonable that a political campaigner might, like many others, want to offer help to a family member, perhaps offering to drop their household’s completed ballots into the post box. This measure makes provision for that, creating exemptions to the offence where the handler is a listed family member or carer of the postal voter. We do not wish to deny legitimate support, but we must be clear, as the Bill is, that systematic collection of votes is unacceptable. This measure will strengthen the integrity of postal voting and give protection to postal voters from those who would seek to subvert the postal voting process.

[Cat Smith]

The official Opposition rise to support that clause 3 stand part of the Bill. Indeed, the advice given by the Electoral Commission is also issued by the Labour party to our own activists, in terms of the rules by which we guide our canvassers, campaigners and candidates not to handle postal vote documents from electors when out canvassing. Fraudulently applying or tampering with or using someone else’s vote—postal vote personation—is already a criminal offence in electoral law; and a person convicted of personation or postal voting offences, which are corrupt practices, can be disqualified from standing for and voting in elections for five years. This proposal is in line with the advice that we give our campaigners and activists already, so we will not oppose clause 3.

[Patrick Grady]

Again, I just want to echo the points made from the Labour Front Bench. This is advice that I think all of us identify as best practice. All of us want to ensure the integrity of the system when we are out and about canvassing our voters, and particularly on polling day, as regards the handling of postal voting documents. I just think it is interesting that we can find points of consensus, and perhaps as we go through the Bill we will find some others. It slightly speaks to points that were raised in evidence and on Second Reading about the need for a far more far-reaching and comprehensive review of electoral legislation, and that is precisely the kind of thing that might have been achieved by more effective prelegislative scrutiny—by a draft Bill and a draft Bill Committee that would have heard from a wide range of stakeholders, that would have taken place over a longer period and that would really have come up with the comprehensive electoral legislation reform for which we have heard there is a need. We all welcome this provision, and we want to see this particular clause proceed, but it is a pity that it is couched among so many other things that we find objectionable and will continue to object to.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 4

Handing in postal voting documents

[Cat Smith]

I beg to move amendment 69, in clause 4, page 8, line 27, at end insert—

“(6) The Secretary of State may not make any regulations using powers under this section unless they have first undertaken a public consultation on a draft of those regulations for a period of not shorter than 28 days.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to conduct a public consultation for at least 28 days before making regulations by virtue of Clause 4 of the Bill.

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss clause stand part.

[Cat Smith]

Clause 4 is about the handing in of postal vote documents—not necessarily by party political campaigners, but by anyone. It is about setting out requirements for the handing in of postal votes to the returning officer and at polling stations, including setting a limit on the number of postal voters on behalf of whom a person may hand in postal votes, and postal votes being rejected if not handed in in accordance with the requirements.

The new rules could create barriers for some voters who genuinely need assistance. For example, the new rules will limit, perhaps, care home staff being able to hand in, say, a dozen postal votes from residents in the care home. This leaves us in the bizarre situation whereby a care home worker could drop a dozen postal votes into a postbox but not hand them in at a polling station, so I raise that as a potential loophole with the Minister. There is something of an inconsistency. As has just been said by the SNP spokesperson, the hon. Member for Glasgow North, perhaps some level of prelegislative scrutiny with a draft Bill could have allowed us to look at ways to deal with such matters. Given that we can find consensus on many issues in relation to elections, we might have been able to iron some of these matters out before we ended up in Committee.

Let me deal with amendment 69. In its current form, the Bill, as I have just set out, contains numerous holes. Our amendment asks the Government to provide draft regulation that would include greater detail about exactly how the new limit would be enforced, and I would like to put a few questions to the Minister. Could she outline whether polling station staff will be asked to enforce the new limit, and if so, how? What level of training does she envisage polling staff will receive in order to be able to, potentially, enforce this legislation?

[Paul Bristow]

I want to repeat the point that I probably made rather presumptuously in my previous remarks. I want to know what the hon. Lady’s thoughts are on the evidence proposed by Gillian Beasley, the chief executive of Peterborough City Council, when she described a practice of people turning up with plastic bags full of postal votes either at polling stations or at the town hall the night before the election. I want to know whether she thinks that a reasonable practice.

[Cat Smith]

That is exactly why prelegislative scrutiny would have been useful. This is about the distinction between political campaigners and voters. There are legitimate reasons why some voters may wish to hand in more than two postal votes at a polling station.

I gave the example of a care home, but equally, in the current context of covid, a family of three may not have posted their postal votes and ask neighbour to deliver them. If two postal votes can be handed in by an individual but three postal votes cannot, and someone turns up with three, how do we know if that third postal vote is an individual postal vote? There are various holes in the legislation. I am putting these questions to the Minister and I hope she will be able to answer them.

For example, with the limit of two postal votes, if someone were to turn up at a polling station with three postal votes to hand in, and they are able to hand in two for other people and one for themselves, how do we know which is which, given that when they are sealed there is no way of identifying whose votes they are? If the person says, “That one is mine. That is my postal vote so I can legitimately hand that in, and these are the two that I can legitimately hand in,” how would a polling clerk know that those were two postal votes that were being handed in on behalf of other people and one that was for that individual, if the envelopes are sealed and there is no way of identifying them? Can the Minister clarify how she envisages a polling clerk can make that assessment?

According to the explanatory notes accompanying the Bill,

“regulations may require a person seeking to hand in a postal voting document to complete a form containing specific information, which the government anticipates would include, among other information, the name(s) of the postal voter(s) whose ballot papers are being handed in. Regulations may make provision to require the “relevant officer” receiving the ballot to reject the document if the person fails to complete the form.”

The Minister will know that, once completed, a postal vote does not have a person’s name on the front of the envelope, for obvious reasons to do with the secrecy of the ballot. How does the Minister see this being enforced or policed? It would be impossible to know if the postal vote being handed in actually belongs to the person recorded on the form.

I leave the Minister with those questions. It would be helpful to have some clarification on these matters, in terms of how the Committee might progress and whether or not to accept this clause as part of the Bill. I draw the distinction between political campaigners, whose actions were the subject of the clause we previously debated and who I believe should be held to rights, and members of the general public, who might be handing in postal votes on behalf of a neighbour or family member, or be a care home worker handing in ballots on behalf of residents of a care home.

[Kemi Badenoch]

Amendment 69 would require the Secretary of State to conduct a public consultation for at least 28 days before making regulations under the provisions in clause 4 of the Bill. The Government will not be accepting the amendment as we believe it would impose an unnecessary administrative burden.

The Government will be required to consult the Electoral Commission on any regulations made under this clause, followed by parliamentary scrutiny under the affirmative SI procedure, which answers the hon. Lady’s question about further detail. We have had a similar conversation in earlier Bill Committees, but Parliament would naturally want to ensure that any future changes are appropriate and based on contemporary evidence.

We have been working with the Electoral Commission and electoral stakeholders on the issue of handing in postal votes while developing the legislation. We will continue to consider their inputs, and the needs of voters, in the development of the regulations. With the example that the hon. Lady gave about care homes, I do not believe that that is a loophole. Just as we said earlier in terms of political campaigning, we recognise that there are exceptions, and a carer in a care home would fall into that.

The measures in the Bill to tighten up the current arrangements concerning the handling and handing in of postal votes flow from the report by Sir Eric Pickles into his review of electoral fraud. That review took into account views from a range of persons, including academics and policy-makers; electoral administrators and political parties; and people who have found themselves impacted by real examples of fraud. The review’s findings were informed by a wide range of views. Given that, the Government are not able to accept the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kemi Badenoch]

Thank you, Sir Edward. Clause 4 concerns the handing in of postal ballot papers at elections. The clause is closely linked to clause 3, which introduces the new offence banning political campaigners from handling postal votes issued to other persons. Together, these measures address concerns about the harvesting of postal votes and individuals handing in large numbers of postal votes, and reduce opportunities for votes to be stolen.

It will still be permitted for people who are not campaigners to handle and hand in postal voting documents issued to others. However, we believe that it is important to ensure that the arrangements in place governing that process are robust and support the integrity of postal voting. The clause therefore seeks to tighten up the current arrangements concerning the handing in of postal votes. It does so by introducing powers to allow regulations to be made that set out requirements for the handing in of postal votes at elections to returning officers across the UK and at polling stations in Great Britain. That includes setting a limit on the number of postal voters on behalf of whom a person may hand in postal votes, and requiring postal votes to be rejected if not handed in in accordance with the requirements.

We currently envisage that in addition to their own postal vote, an individual will be able to hand in the postal votes of up to two electors, but that will be considered during the process of developing secondary legislation, which I hope the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood will be most interested in and will contribute to.

I note that currently there is no requirement for a record to be kept of persons who have handed in postal votes or of whom those votes belong to. The clause will allow regulations to require persons handing in postal votes to complete a form giving these details, which will help promote compliance with the new requirements and with investigations of allegations of fraud.

It is right that these reasonable limits are introduced on the handing in of postal votes to ensure that the integrity of postal voting is safeguarded. The clause, and the postal vote handling measure in clause 3, are aimed at addressing activities and behaviour that have been cause for concern at past elections. They will give greater confidence in the integrity of the process by preventing an individual from collecting and handing in unlimited numbers of postal votes on polling day to returning officers at polling stations across Great Britain or at the Electoral Office in Northern Ireland.

[Cat Smith]

I am glad that the Minister has raised the issue that I will almost certainly be spending many more hours of my life in a Committee Room ironing out how this stuff works in secondary legislation. My frustration is that so much is not on the face of the Bill and will be decided in secondary legislation in Committee corridors, which, as you, Sir Edward, and members of the Committee have pointed out, does not have the same level of scrutiny as it does on the Floor of the House. Indeed, it is very unusual—I do not think it has ever happened—that an Opposition have amended a piece of legislation in an SI Committee or a Bill Committee and it has been accepted by the Government. It seems somewhat reckless to be legislating on the strength of the Bill as it stands, because it does not have the level of detail that we will clearly need.

I am minded to press my amendment to a vote. Picking up on what the Minister said in her opening remarks about its being an unnecessary administrative burden, there is a huge administrative burden on our electoral officials up and down the country, and the Bill will heap a whole load more tasks on electoral returning officers and registration officers in town halls across the country. In the last five years there has been one piece of legislation after another, putting more and more administrative burdens on electoral returning officers.

I think it is fair to say that our local authorities have had their belts tightened. They have had austerity and cuts, and we are asking fewer and fewer people to do more and more. I want to flag my concerns that electoral administrators are under a lot of pressure and that the Bill is putting additional pressure on them. While it is slightly beyond the scope of my amendment, I will be cheeky and say that the Government really need to look at how we resource local authorities as well.

Question put, That the amendment be made.