Debate on the Address

Debate between Cat Smith and Clive Betts

Wednesday 17th July 2024 Commons Chamber

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

After nine years on the Opposition Benches, it is a disorientating experience to find myself on the Government Benches, and things just got a little more topsy-turvy when I found I was speaking after the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). I do not think that has ever happened before, but it gives me an opportunity to thank him for his friendship and to let new Members know that in this House they will find friends in perhaps the most unlikely places. I thank my hon. Friend for his friendship and support, and I know in that I speak for many on the Government side.

This is my first opportunity to give a substantive speech as the new Member for Lancaster and Wyre, as my constituency underwent some significant boundary changes at this election. I will break with convention slightly by paying tribute to the MP I have replaced, in the sense that most of my constituency was represented in the previous Parliament by Ben Wallace. He had served as an MP in Lancashire since the 2005 general election, first for Lancaster and Wyre and latterly for Wyre and Preston North. Ben was the MP elected in the first general election I voted in, in Lancaster and Wyre. I confess that I did not vote for the winning candidate, but his assiduous service should be noted, especially his service to the country in his role as Secretary of State for Defence.

This is also an opportunity to acknowledge the change to our electoral map at the general election. The country voted very clearly for change. I am excited to see much of the content in the King’s Speech, particularly when it comes to getting Britain building through planning reform. I was pleased to hear talk about both infrastructure and housing; it is clear to me that when we build housing it has to go with infrastructure. I hear loud and clear from my constituents along the A6 corridor, particularly around the Garstang area, that building new houses without infrastructure puts more pressure on our public services, GP surgeries and school places.

I was also pleased to see in the King’s Speech that local leaders will be allowed to take control of local bus services. This week, Stagecoach, which runs the bus services in my community, has increased the price of the under-19s DayRider, which has been met with quite a lot of response, shall we say, from my constituents—not only those attending schools and colleges, but their parents, who are often the ones picking up the tab for what is a very expensive and often unreliable service.

As a north-west MP, I am served on the west coast main line by a train company called Avanti, so believe me, Mr Deputy Speaker, bringing rail back into public ownership is something my constituents welcomed. I heard loud and clear on the campaign trail that Avanti is not a fit company to be running a so-called train service down the west coast of our country, right the way from Glasgow into London Euston. It let passengers down on a regular basis and I think it knows its time is up.

Some of my youngest constituents are running campaigns at the moment on sewage dumping. We know that Ofwat needs to have more teeth and more powers to regulate the water companies. I know that some of my youngest constituents will be very pleased to see that part of the King’s Speech.

I turn now to the point about strengthening the integrity of elections to encourage wider participation in the democratic process. In the last Parliament I had the privilege of being the spokesperson for the Speaker’s Committee on the Electoral Commission, so you will forgive me, Mr Deputy Speaker, if this turns into something of a hobby-horse of mine. I am deeply concerned about the state of our democracy and look forward to playing a full role from the Back Benches, supporting the Government in improving the integrity of our electoral process.

We cannot lose sight of the fact that 52% turnout nationally at a general election should concern every one of us. In Lancaster and Wyre it was 58%, but I take no comfort from the fact that we are marginally higher than the national average. That is what keeps me up at night. We need to engage people in our democracy, because the alternatives are unthinkable. I support the idea of automatic voter registration.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend is aware, the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee published a report in the last Parliament proposing exactly that. We went to look at the system in Canada, which gets near to 97% or 98% registration accuracy. Some 8 million people could not vote in our election because they were not on the electoral register. We need to address that.

[Cat Smith]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work of his Committee in the last Parliament, and I urge the Government Front Benchers to heed that report. Millions of people are missing from our electoral roll. If Members are concerned about the 52% turnout at the general election, they will be even more concerned to note that that figure is probably much lower because our electoral roll lacks accuracy.

However, that is not all. We need to look again at the ID requirements. During the general election, we all came across people who thought that they could not vote because they did not have ID and were not aware of the voter authority certificate. A conversation that I had in Skerton in my constituency stands out to me. A gentleman who had voted in every general election since the 1970s said: “I don’t have ID, so I can’t vote now.” He had been totally unaware that the voter authority certificate was an option, and it was far too late to apply for one a few days from polling day. That was replicated up and down the country. If we are concerned about and want to increase turnout at elections, we need to fix that. Personally, I think that that means scrapping the entire scheme, which was always a solution to a problem that did not exist, but adding more forms of ID, or including polling cards, would make it so much easier for people to take part in our democracy.

I have heard a lot from constituents who have looked at the results of the general election and raised questions about proportional representation. In the last Parliament, the Government changed the voting system for electing police and crime commissioners from the alternative vote to first past the post, and they did so in a statutory instrument Committee. I do not think that is an appropriate way to go about changing our voting systems. The public should be involved in that conversation. The general election results have led to a lot of conversations in Lancashire with people who feel that the first-past-the-post system is regressive and that we can find more progressive ways of improving our voting systems.

The Electoral Commission’s strategy and policy statement makes the electorate question the commission’s independence. If we want to build trust and faith in our democracy, the public need to believe that the commission is independent and empowered to hold political parties and candidates to account for our conduct in these things, and that it can take on new challenges, including the intimidation of candidates, which has already been mentioned. I associate myself with the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), who is no longer in her place.

Finally, if I may, I will squeeze in an ask of the Government on sodium valproate. There are many victims of that scandal, and they are waiting for a compensation scheme. That should have happened under the last Government, but the chaos that we have had for the past 14 years meant that it did not. I hope that those who have campaigned long and hard over many years for justice following that scandal will get it under the Labour Government.

I recognise that the Government have hit the ground running. The King’s Speech is full of legislation that I look forward to supporting to bring about the change that the country voted for.