Debates between Cat Smith and Karen Buck during the 2019-2024 Parliament

Tue 7th Sep 2021
Elections Bill
Commons Chamber

2nd reading & 2nd reading

Palestinians: Visa Scheme

Debate between Cat Smith and Karen Buck
Monday 13th May 2024

(7 months, 1 week ago)

Westminster Hall
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Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, food insecurity is deeply concerning.

Karen Buck Portrait Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
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I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate her on securing the debate and making a powerful speech. Like many people in this room, I was proud to be able to intervene in support of Ukrainian refugees, who were accommodated by friends and family in this country. We have a large Afghan community, and many people were disappointed at not getting similar treatment. Once again, many people who have family and friends in the Palestinian community feel that there should be parity of treatment for people based on need, rather than on where the conflict originated.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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All I can do is agree with my hon. Friend. My experience was that our constituents were only too willing to be hospitable when it came to us taking Ukrainian refugees—indeed, there is that great culture. I believe we have compassion in caring for our neighbour when they are in trouble.

Elections Bill

Debate between Cat Smith and Karen Buck
2nd reading
Tuesday 7th September 2021

(3 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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Is the hon. Member saying that 2% of his electorate should not have access to democracy? That appears to be what he is saying. Yes, 98% of people might well have valid ID, but 2% of the entire UK electorate is a very large number of people. In fact, to use the Government’s statistics, 3.5 million people do not have access to valid photo ID. It seems that one arm of the Government does not quite know what the other arm of the Government is doing. The Cabinet Office is saying that it is fine and everyone has access to ID, but the DCMS is saying that we cannot have ID requirements for access to social media sites because not everybody has ID. It seems they say one thing from one Department and another thing from another Department.

The reality is that requirements for ID discriminate against some groups more than others. Concerns have been raised from across the House and from charities and campaigning organisations that disabled people, older people, younger people and people without the spare cash to buy that passport or driving licence are going to be disenfranchised.

Karen Buck Portrait Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)
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Does my hon. Friend agree that there is no such thing as a free service? If local councils are indeed going to be providing voter ID, it will be at public expense. The £120 million that is due to be spent on that could be better spent on voter registration and boosting turnout rather than a disproportionate attempt to control the voting of a minority of people.

Cat Smith Portrait Cat Smith
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My hon. Friend is exactly right. In fact, the Bill contains no details about how local authorities are going to roll out this so-called voter ID, which, as she points out, is not free: it will cost the taxpayer money. This is an expensive waste of taxpayers’ money trying to look for a problem to solve.

We know fine well that voter ID will be an additional barrier for voters. It will be an additional barrier even for the voters that have the relevant ID, because they have to remember to take it with them. We are all Members of Parliament—we all go out and campaign—and we know fine well that sometimes on a wet and rainy Thursday it is awfully difficult to get voters down to the polling station. We should be making sure that our elections take place on public holidays. We should be exploring the idea of weekend voting. We should be looking at ways of modernising our democracy for the 21st century. This Elections Bill does nothing to modernise and everything to put barriers up to participation. The 160 pages of this Bill were written during a global pandemic. At a time when our doctors and nurses were in our hospitals wearing bin bags because of a lack of personal protection equipment, this Government were drawing up legislation to put barriers up to democracy, wasting taxpayers’ money on expensive policies designed to benefit the Conservative party.