Elections Bill (Twelfth sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Patrick Grady]

I am unsure why Government Back Benchers are not rising in defence of their Minister on the implementation of this crucial manifesto promise. The Minister could not quite explain why it was not in the Bill when it was presented on Second Reading. Trying to blame a predecessor is an interesting approach, not least because the other Minister who spoke on the Bill in the House when the instruction motion was moved, the right hon. Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), said that the Government “speak with one voice”, so we would expect them all to understand exactly what the lines are.

Some of the earlier clauses related to local elections that are devolved, so it is not necessarily the place of the Scottish National party to get desperately involved in this debate, or to tell Members of Parliament in England what decisions they should or should not make, but it might be useful to offer at least some reflection on the effect of the clause, not least on the devolution settlement across the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister said that he is a champion of the devolution settlement, and when he forced through the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and other aspects of Brexit legislation without the consent of the devolved legislatures much of that was on the grounds of his experience as Mayor of London, and that being Mayor of London was somehow equivalent to the entire institutional structure of the individual devolved legislatures.

What those institutions have in common is that they are elected on a proportional basis. At the moment, the Mayor of London has to win a supplementary ballot. Every Mayor has had to go into a second round to be chosen. The First Minister of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, has to command a majority across the legislature. That normally adds up to something very close to a majority of the votes that were cast in the election. I think I am right in saying that almost every First Minister in Scotland, except obviously in the majority Government, has required support from another party, or at the very least abstentions, in order to get elected.

In Scotland, our local authorities for several elections have been elected by single transferable vote. The effect of that is that the voices of all voters are heard. There is a ward in my constituency of Glasgow North, Partick East/Kelvindale, which was represented by four different parties—the Scottish National party, a Labour party councillor, a Conservative councillor and a Green party councillor. That meant that voters had a very wide choice of who they wanted to speak to. The distribution of votes was reflected proportionally, and people had someone they could go to whom they could trust—but voters in England, it seems, will not.

[Cat Smith]

How well does the hon. Gentleman feel the Scottish Conservatives might do in, say, first-past-the-post council elections in his Glasgow North constituency?

[Patrick Grady]

We have only to look at the results of the elections to this place—this is perhaps not the clause specifically to debate that—to see how well the Conservatives fare. When we SNP MPs were elected in large numbers in 2015, our parliamentary group leader at the time made the point that it did not reflect the result proportionally, but perhaps we are straying slightly. I want to come back to the election of the Mayor of London, and the results of first-past-the-post elections.

Perhaps Conservative Members—I look forward to hearing from them when they rise to speak in support of the Government—are quite comfortable with the idea that Ken Livingstone was elected on the first ballot with 39% of the vote in 2000, and with 36.8% of the vote in 2004. That is the mandate for someone to be the Mayor of a major European metropolitan city, which the Prime Minister himself has claimed is a kind of equivalent to the entire Scottish Parliament and the devolved Scottish Government. That is the equivalence that he has made between his role as Mayor of London and the entire devolution settlement in Scotland. It seems that Government Members are quite content with the possibility of someone being elected to that position on about 35% of the vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for tabling the new clause and for his contribution so far. I read the new clause with interest. From the direction of his speech, I think he is arguing that a citizens assembly would be a far more consensual way of coming to a resolution on a binary choice. I wondered whether it was something that his colleagues in the Scottish Government are considering for another issue that polarises the population—rather than a referendum, perhaps a citizens assembly.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Lady was one of the few people in Committee who was paying attention to what I was saying earlier: the Scottish Government have used citizens assemblies not specifically on the matter of the constitution, but to test the views of the population and to help determine opinion and come to conclusions about policy development on both social justice and climate change.

Someone might want to argue that 2014 was polarising because it was a binary choice, yes or no, but I do not think that anyone could argue that it was anything other than a massive exercise in popular democracy. That referendum had the highest turnout until possibly the Scottish Parliament election we have just had—massive participation. That legacy continues to this day with political engagement. I encourage the hon. Lady to think about supporting my new clause.

As I said in one of the previous debates, the SNP supports the introduction of a far more proportionate system for this House. I referred to Angus Robertson, whose first contribution after the 2015 election was to recognise that the result was very disproportionate to what the result should have been. Incidentally, the 2017 result was probably more proportionate than that of 2015 in terms of how people had voted, and we would have been quite happy to have had 35 seats and been the third party in the House of Commons at that time, just as we have been happy with the results in both 2017 and 2019, which have represented overwhelming endorsements for the SNP manifesto and our commitment to allow people the right to choose Scotland’s future, but that is to stray from the point slightly.

The reality is that there is now a proliferation of electoral systems across the United Kingdom. People voting in mayoral elections and choosing police and crime commissioners are just about to experience yet another change—not to the status quo or something that existed before, because they never voted for them using FPP, but they will do so under the new clause. It is therefore appropriate to implement what is suggested in the new clause, and to take a step back in order to look at the implications of the Bill as a whole, particularly in the context of elections to this House. There is growing demand for that—it is not just an idea that we have had. There are a number of campaign groups, and a number of constituents have contacted me, my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute, and probably other members of the Committee, as well as Members across the House, to say that the time is upon us to revisit this question. A citizens assembly provides the most effective mechanism for doing that in a modern democracy. I look forward to the Minister opposing all this.

[Cat Smith]

I had not planned to speak, but I think this is a good new clause. I do not know what electoral systems a citizens’ assembly would decide on, but I do know that we in this House do not have a monopoly on wisdom. We are 650 Members legislating in the House of Commons, and our unelected colleagues down the corridor in the House of Lords also legislate. There is also a broader case to be made about how our democracy works, given how fragmented and disparate it is increasingly becoming. A citizens’ assembly could actually give the Government even more of what they do not know they want yet, because the public do have wisdom. Bringing together a group of citizens who are representative of the country and allowing them to explore ideas and make decisions would add value to our deliberations in this place.

I draw the Minister’s attention to a citizens’ assembly or convention currently being co-ordinated by University College London, which is looking at many of these issues. Certainly since I was elected to the House, politics has increasingly felt quite divided. Are people leavers or remainers? Do people in Scotland want to remain part of the Union or do they want an independent country? All these things are dividing our population and create a lot of tension. We see it in the language used in political dialogue—I implore colleagues to be more thoughtful and kind in the language they use, and I hold myself to that standard as well. Surely a citizens’ assembly would be a new way to look at things and an opportunity to discover that we have more in common than what perhaps divides us.

Elections Bill (Eleventh sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Tuesday 26th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Patrick Grady]

Like the Labour Front-Bench team, SNP Members have warned repeatedly about the chilling effect that the Bill as a whole will have on political participation. We have gone through the clauses that suppress turnout; we have gone through the clauses that weaken oversight of elections; and now we are on to clauses that will deter organisations with legitimate interests from contributing to debate and policy development, though that is what happens during general elections.

The intervention made by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme was very telling. His point was that charities should be seen and not heard—the patrician attitude was that charities do beneficent works, helping poor unfortunate souls, maybe contributing to the Government’s levelling-up agenda, or maybe not, and while doing all the hard work must live with the consequences of the policies made by Governments of whatever colour. That includes SNP Governments in Scotland; there will be organisations that are highly critical of some aspects of SNP Government policy—but so they should be, as the point of a vibrant third sector is to contribute to policy debate.

Most charitable organisations that I have come into contact with in my professional career, both in that sector and as a politician, ultimately do not want to exist. They are there to solve problems, and they do so by providing immediate relief and support to people who require it, but they also want to tackle the underlying policies that have caused those problems. The best time to do that is at election time, when decisions are made and when power really is in the hands of the people and the voters. Of course those organisations want to seek pledges from individual politicians. They are not necessarily seeking to influence political parties as a whole. They are certainly not telling their supporters which party to vote for. First, they are not allowed to, but even if they were, they are not going to tell their supporters and donors which party to vote for, because by definition these are cross-party organisations that draw support from a wide range of people across society, and doing so would be counterproductive.

It is crucial for our democracy, however, to allow these organisations to encourage supporters and donors, educate the people who support their cause, and engage with decision makers. If that means extracting pledges from candidates on a constituency-by-constituency basis, then good for them. If that means that candidates from whatever party get elected and are then held to account for signing a pledge or supporting a policy in the election, so much the better. When we have mass lobby days here in Westminster—there are a few lined up this week, now that covid restrictions are easing—Members of Parliament from all the political parties come along to demonstrate their support for a charitable cause. Yes, sometimes there is weight in one direction or the other, but inevitably the best way to drive political change is to achieve cross-party consensus. That is what these organisations are often trying to do, but the clause will have the chilling effect of which the hon. Member for Putney spoke.

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

When we heard the intervention from the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, was the hon. Gentleman reminded, as I was, of Desmond Tutu’s words:

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river…We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in”?

Is that not the philosophy of the charities that the hon. Gentleman has worked with? Certainly the charities that I have worked with in my constituency want to stop people falling into the river upstream, rather than just keep fishing them out at the bottom.

[Patrick Grady]

Absolutely. Where are those decisions ultimately made? Here, in rooms like this one. We are engaging with charitable organisations on this Bill. We are being advised and lobbied on matters in the Bill by organisations that are making representations to us, have frontline experience, and are delivering in a whole range of sectors. We have heard from domestic organisations and from Bond, the international development network.

I am sure all Committee members have diligently read the written evidence submitted by Bond, EB14. I strongly encourage them to do so, because it explains the challenges and difficulties faced by these organisations, which are having to comply with election registration regulations and reporting requirements, and finding it incredibly difficult. There is evidence in that document—we heard it from the hon. Member for Putney as well—that many organisations are already choosing simply to step back, so their voices are not being heard. That goes back to the narrative of what exactly the Bill is trying to achieve, in terms of suppressing debate and political participation in this country.

Although clause 24 is not quite as draconian as clause 23, it is still pretty oppressive. Amendment 96, tabled by the SNP, could achieve much the same as the Labour party amendments in exempting registered charities from these incredibly stringent new reporting requirements. The threshold of £10,000 could easily be reached once everything that had to be calculated was taken into account, such as staff time, resources, and collaboration with other organisations.

It would be easy to hit that threshold, potentially unexpectedly. The charity would then face another burden if it was sanctioned. There have been examples, referred to in the written evidence, of charities that inadvertently crossed the threshold and did not report that appropriately, and then faced fines. That is fair enough, if that is the regime, but it is another cost. That is money that people have given to those charities. It might be taxpayers’ money, received through gift aid, that has to be spent on fines, compliance and regulation, deterring the charity from political participation and delivery of frontline services, when it already exists in a rightly strong and tightly regulated environment.

The Government should accept the amendments. If they genuinely believe in levelling up, surely they want to hear from organisations that have frontline experience of the difficulties and challenges being faced by ordinary people day to day, and that are identifying solutions that will help to raise standards in society and level up. In fact, we are seeing a levelling down, suppression of debate, sticking with the status quo, and a message not to challenge anything coming from the Government who happen to be in power now.

We have learned in this Committee and in others that the chances of an amendment succeeding are middling to none. Nevertheless, I look forward to the Minister’s response to my points.

Elections Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Patrick Grady]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Edward.

Anyone who has dealt with similar clauses in other Bills, through which the UK Government have sought to legislate in ways that would affect Scotland or devolved matters, will not be surprised to learn that here, the SNP is seeking is introduce the principle of consent rather than just consultation. The Electoral Commission has oversight across the United Kingdom, including of areas that are regulated by the devolved Administrations, and our position is always that laws and regulations affecting Scotland should be made in Scotland, or at the very least approved or consented to by the Scottish legislature.

Amendment 61 and Labour’s amendment 75, which we would be happy to support in lieu of amendment 61, provide for the Scottish Parliament’s scrutiny of, and agreement to, sections of the Electoral Commission’s statement, but only in so far as they relate to devolved functions; we are not asking for a UK-wide veto. We will get on to the merits or otherwise of the statement, and its existential point, later.

We will take an active interest in the parts of the statement that affect Scotland. Amendment 61 may end up being a little-used power, because in the Government’s draft statement, which is very high level, I can see only one mention of Scotland and devolved matters: paragraph 18 on the principles, on page 8, refers to the Crown Office and the Crown Prosecution Service. I doubt anyone particularly objects to that.

I suspect that we will hear from the Minister that the amendment is unnecessary and bureaucratic. [Interruption.] I have pre-empted her; we could have just the one contribution in this debate. We could write each other’s speeches. The amendment, however, goes to the point and function of the devolution settlement. Unfortunately, we see the Government riding roughshod over it, not just in the Bill, but across the piece. We saw that in the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020. We see the Government routinely ignore the legislative consent motion process and legislating without the consent of the devolved Administrations, when previously a lack of consent would have been respected. Unfortunately, I suspect that this legislation will end up being another example of that.

The amendment also speaks to a point that I have made several times on Second Reading and in Committee about divergence north and south of the border. That is not a huge problem for those of us on the SNP benches, but it is something that people who want to make the case for a strong and stable Union really need to think about.

Debate on the point of the statement will follow when we come to the clause stand part debate; we have significant concerns about the existence of a statement guiding the Electoral Commission, certainly in the way that is proposed, but if we are to have that statement, the devolved Administrations’ consent should be required to the parts of it that apply to them.

I accept that a Government Bill requires consultation, but as we often see, consultation does not necessarily mean that consensus or any kind of agreement can be achieved. Our amendment 61—and the Labour amendment, which requires consent from Senedd Cymru as well, and which we would be happy to support—would strengthen the requirements of the Bill and respect the devolution settlement. I would be happy to withdraw amendment 61 in favour of amendment 75, but we want to hear from the Minister first.

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

Sir Edward, given that we are taking amendments 61 and 75 together, I would like to speak to the amendment that appears in my name and those of my hon. Friends.

I thought the hon. Member for Glasgow North made the case strongly, and I agree with him, although we come at it from slightly different positions. While he would like to see Scotland separate from the United Kingdom, I would very much like to see the United Kingdom strengthened and I support the Union.

On those grounds, there is a strong Unionist case for amendment 75, which is about respect for the devolved nations. When the Conservative Government continue to treat the Senedd Cymru and the Scottish Parliament with such disrespect, particularly regarding the strategy and policy document, it threatens the Union. From one Unionist to another, I implore my colleagues on the Government side of the House to look again at how deeply disrespectful the Government’s approach to the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd is.

While I disagree with the hon. Gentleman on the reasons that we have come to this view, his amendment is very good, although I think ours is slightly better on the grounds that it also includes the Senedd Cymru.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

I am very clear about this. I will come to it later in my remarks in more detail, but, roughly speaking, regulation of the Electoral Commission regulates elections in which Governments are elected. There is a difference between the regulation of democracy in elections and the regulation of water companies, for example. There are distinct reasons why it is important that an Electoral Commission in particular has independence from the Government of the day. Indeed, that can be seen in examples from similar democracies. New Zealand, Australia and Canada are three democracies that we look to and that, for historical reasons, have structures similar to our own. It very much looks as though the Government are trying to rig democracy in their favour by directing the strategy and policy of the Electoral Commission, and that is very different from other regulators.

The existence of an independent regulator is fundamental to maintaining confidence in our electoral systems and, therefore, confidence in our democracy. That is particularly important when the laws that govern elections are made by a small subset of the parties that stand in elections. Many parties that stand in elections in our country do not have Members of Parliament elected, and much of the legislating on this will be done in secondary legislation. We have only three political parties represented in this room. We have more than that elected to this House, and there are many more parties that the Electoral Commission regulates that do not have any Members of Parliament on the green Benches. I stress that having a very small subset of participants in a process making decisions on the regulation of an independent regulator is deeply troubling.

The commission’s independence needs to be clear for voters and campaigners to see. The commission needs to be seen to be fair and impartial. If we see this measure alongside previous calls by some Government Members on the green Benches—although I do not think by anyone in this room today—to abolish the Electoral Commission in its entirety, it does strike me as a worrying trend. I have been looking at similar democracies—the three obvious ones are Canada, New Zealand and Australia—where there is a complete separation between the Governments and their electoral commissions. A country where the Electoral Commission is told what to do by the Executive is not a country with free or fair elections. The regulator of our elections needs to be independent and impartial and must not be subject to political control.

I have tried to think of other examples. I am a football fan and this is like being able to decide who the referee is and whether they grant a penalty. We would all like to see our clubs do well, but it would be deeply unfair to the teams that we play, so we would not go along with it. We would not allow a gang of criminals to decide whether the police could investigate a crime, and nor should the governing party decide the political strategy of the supposedly independent—this raises that question—Electoral Commission.

Far from increasing the powers of independent electoral regulators, and giving them the powers they need to defend and protect our democracy, it looks like the Government are intent on stripping the Electoral Commission of its ability to do its job in this field. These proposals threaten to end the commission’s independence and put control of how elections are run in the hands of those who have won them, which seems intrinsically unfair. These are the actions of a Government that fear scrutiny, as we have seen in other recent legislation.

I draw hon. Members’ attention to the evidence sessions held by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, where we heard from Helen Mountfield QC. She said that the Bill arguably breaches international law and that

“the removal of the independence of the Electoral Commission is potentially legally problematic”

and breaches the UK’s constitutional standards. I feel that clause 12 should be removed in its entirety.

I finish by responding in more detail to the Minister’s previous intervention. The ministerial powers to specify statements for Ofcom, Ofgem and Ofwat do not include giving guidance about specific matters or functions for which those regulators are responsible. That is a completely out-of-the-ordinary and inappropriate abuse of power. The example strategy and policy statement that was published last month illustrates the scope of this power and how it could be applied in reality.

The breadth of the example statement strayed, I would argue, from the scrutiny of the commission and into decision making and directing how decisions are made. Some of the content would have an impact on the commission’s independence, for example by specifying considerations to which it must have regard when carrying out its enforcement work. I do not believe that this clause should stand part of the Bill and we would like to vote against it.

[Patrick Grady]

The Minister said in her opening remarks that it is important that we have independent regulation, so that the public can have confidence in our elections. The implication of that is that we do not currently have independent or impartial regulation of elections. It implied that somehow the Electoral Commission, as currently constituted, is fundamentally flawed and failing in its duty. That is a substantial claim and none of the evidence we heard, or any of the debates about this Bill, suggests that that is the case. That is perhaps why the Government are coming at this with a slightly different motivation, as alluded to by my colleague on the Labour Front Bench.

The Electoral Commission itself has said in briefings about this Bill that, as currently drafted, the provisions of part 3 are not consistent with the Electoral Commission operating as an independent regulator. It has said that the scope of ministerial powers to specify statements for Ofcom, Ofgem and Ofwat, which was the example given by the Minister, does not include giving guidance about specific matters or functions for which those regulators are responsible. Therefore, this is in effect a power grab by the UK Government, which is consistent with their approach in a whole range of areas.

The Electoral Commission is already accountable to the House through the Speaker’s committee. We have regular questions in the Chamber, precisely to provide some of that accountability. The members of that committee, on behalf of the whole House, scrutinise the operation of the commission. There are also procedures at Holyrood and in the Senedd Cymru to ensure that the Electoral Commission self-accounts for its operations in those parts of the United Kingdom.

The Minister herself said, in response to my intervention, that there will be no ability for this House to amend the statement. It would be for the Government, if they were defeated, to withdraw the statement and bring something back in its entirety. The Government are taking and retaining control of the entire process: taking away accountability from this House and handing power to the Secretary of State.

In the future, if Back Benchers have questions about the operation and actions of the Electoral Commission and what it has done, to whom will they ask the questions? Will the questions be on the Floor of the House at commissioners questions or will they be for whichever Department happens to have responsibility for the operation of the Electoral Commission at any given time? That is not particularly clear. I appreciate the Minister is here from the levelling-up Department, but a completely different Department was leading on this Bill when it was introduced.

At some point when we are discussing regulations in any Committee like this, someone will ask, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”—I hope my Latin gets some brownie points from you, Sir Edward. “Who is watching the watchers?” is the philosophical question at the heart of the clause and what the Government are trying to do to the Electoral Commission. We as politicians—as elected parliamentarians, which was an important point from the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood—have an active and vested interest in the regulation of elections; even more so a Government who have been elected and want to stay elected. However, the clause allows the Government to mark their own homework—an often-favoured phrase of Ministers—and direct the body that oversees what is supposed to be an impartial process.

Elections Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Thursday 21st October 2021 Public Bill Committees

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

I beg to move amendment 79, in clause 10, page 13, line 4, at end insert

“and

(c) the person satisfies at least one of the following conditions—

(i) he or she was included in a register of parliamentary electors at some time in the past fifteen years;

(ii) he or she was resident in the United Kingdom at some point in the last fifteen years;

(iii) he or she is a member of the United Kingdom armed forces;

(iv) he or she is employed in the service of the Crown;

(v) he or she is employed by the British Council;

(vi) he or she is employed by a United Kingdom public authority;

(vii) he or she is employed by a designated humanitarian agency; or

(viii) he or she is the spouse or civil partner of a person mentioned in sub-paragraphs (iii) to (vii) above and is residing outside the United Kingdom to be with his or her spouse or civil partner.

(1A) The Minister for the Cabinet Office or the Secretary of State may by statutory instrument define ‘United Kingdom public authority’ and ‘designated humanitarian agency’ for the purposes of subsection (1)(c).

(1B) A statutory instrument containing regulations under subsection (1A) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.”

This amendment is a probing amendment to enable debate on the premise of maintaining 15-year rule with exemptions for certain citizens.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Ali. The amendment relates to the 15-year rule exemptions. I will make some introductory comments on overseas electors as a whole, in order to put the amendment into context. As a modern, progressive party, Labour is committed to building a truly global Britain and championing our core values of equality, social justice and opportunity for all. All hon. Members will agree that no area of electoral law is more important than the franchise—who gets to vote and is able to participate in our democracy. Overseas electors play a significant role in providing a close connection not only to our European neighbours but to countries across the world, and we must continue to encourage that valuable connection.

Under the current system, British citizens who have moved abroad can register to vote as an overseas elector in the last constituency in which they were entered on an electoral register. British citizens who have lived overseas for more than 15 years cannot register to become an overseas elector. The Opposition are committed to taking radical steps to ensure that all eligible voters are registered and able to use their vote. The issue of extending voting rights for overseas electors is important and must be considered properly.

The extension of overseas voting rights has come a long way since 1985, when British citizens living outside the UK were unable to register to vote in any elections. The Representation of the People Act 1985 introduced new provisions allowing British citizens living overseas to qualify as electors in the constituency where they were last registered to vote before moving. The time limit from 1985 was only five years. In 1989, that was extended to 20 years, before being reduced to 15 years in 2002.

In the 2015 and 2017 general elections, it was a Conservative party manifesto commitment to abolish the 15-year rule and allow British citizens a vote for life in parliamentary elections. Indeed, about three years ago, a private Member’s Bill was tabled by the then Member for Montgomeryshire that would have changed voting rights for overseas electors, but it did not progress in the previous Parliament. Our position has not changed since those debates in 2018: we are committed to building a franchise that ensures that everyone living in, and contributing to, the UK has their voice heard and represented. The current 15-year rule strikes the right balance between allowing expats to maintain strong links with the UK and ensuring the integrity of the electoral process. It means that expats can continue to engage with our democracy for a significant period of time after they have left the UK, but it maintains the balance in our representative democracy by which people who are affected by rules and laws get to decide who makes them.

My biggest concern about the overseas electors section of this Bill is the fact that it could undermine the integrity of our electoral process. Not only does this change threaten to overwhelm our election teams—who, frankly, are already overworked and under-resourced enough—it threatens to allow foreign money to flood into our democracy. Let us be clear: the true motivation behind these changes to overseas voting is to create a loophole in donation law that would allow donors unlimited access to our democracy, and allow them to bankroll Tory campaigns from their offshore tax havens. There is no possible justification for changing the law, other than to open a loophole so that donors can continue to funnel money into the Conservative party. For example, the new law will allow one of the Tories’ biggest donors to keep bankrolling the party for life, despite having reportedly lived in the Bahamas for a decade. John Gore has given almost £4.2 million to the Conservative party, making him the Tories’ No. 1 donor, despite his having spent more than a decade away from the UK.

The Conservative party accepted more than £1 million from UK citizens living in tax havens ahead of 2017 through existing methods, as reported in The Times. The new law will remove those barriers, and what angers me most is that in one fell swoop, expats will be granted more flexibility in registering to vote than people who live in this country. If the Conservatives were serious about improving democratic engagement, they would be extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds, as well as concentrating efforts on registering the millions of adults in this country who are not currently on the electoral roll. This Bill allows expats to vote in UK elections regardless of whether they have previously been on an electoral register. It is a free ticket for anyone hoping to fraudulently register in a swing seat, who only require another expat to vouch for them.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady can be assured of the Scottish National party’s support for these amendments. It is interesting that she mentioned that many of these voters live in places that are described as tax havens, because when I tabled a written question to the Treasury to ask what estimate it had made

“of the total tax receipts paid to the UK Exchequer by UK citizens registered as overseas electors in each of the last five financial years”,

the Treasury Minister said:

“No estimate has been made of the information requested. HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) cannot identify individuals registered as overseas electors within tax data.”

That puts quite an interesting spin on the old phrase “no taxation without representation”, does it not? It is very possible that we might see quite a lot of people getting representation without any taxation.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Member could not have made his point about the loophole that this legislation will create any more clearly, and I agree about the principle of no taxation without representation. It strikes me that there are 16-year-olds in this country who are going out to work and are paying tax, and are affected by things such as the rise in national insurance contributions, who have no say in who their UK parliamentarians are, while overseas electors who live in tax havens will suddenly get free rein. Rather than taking the necessary steps to safeguard British democracy from malign foreign influences, as highlighted in the Russia report, the UK Government are instead allowing even more foreign interference in our democracy.

Turning to the issue of the election teams that register electors in councils up and down the country, the representations this Committee has heard have proven that those teams are already under a lot of pressure. They cannot cope, and if this clause becomes part of the Bill, the impacts on electoral return officers and councils is going to be huge, because the process of registering an overseas elector can take around two hours. If those officers were to see a huge increase in the number of overseas electors registering to vote, at a time when councils already face huge funding cuts and pressures, that would threaten the integrity of our elections as well.

Obviously, overseas electors fall off the register every 12 months, so the vast majority of registration applications occur immediately ahead of a general election, when the pressure on our electoral administrators is already at its most intense. Abolishing the 15-year rule and therefore increasing the number of British citizens overseas who can register to vote would completely overstretch electoral administrators, who are already being pushed to the limit.

I put three questions to the Minister, which I hope she will answer in her response. Do the Government have any indication of how many of the estimated 5 million Britons living abroad would apply to be overseas electors in the run-up to a UK parliamentary election or national referendum if the 15-year rule were removed? How does the Government intend to fund the electoral registration officers for the additional costs that will be incurred by the proposals, and what steps will the Government take to ensure that election teams have the resources and capacity to manage that increased volume of electors? If the Government are so intent on granting votes for life, why do they not focus on domestic voters and grant 16 and 17-year-olds the vote? The Bill will further embed and entrench current laws that prevent 16 and 17-year-olds, either abroad or in the UK, from engaging in parliamentary elections.

I will not speak for long on amendment 79 because it is probing, and I wish to trigger a debate on the premise of maintaining the 15-year rule with exemptions for certain citizens. The amendment attempts to demonstrate that abolishing the 15-year rule entirely is a drastic, extreme move that will flood our democracy with money from overseas and threaten its integrity. Instead of abolishing it entirely, the Minister could exempt certain groups of people from the 15-year rule, with the necessary checks in place. For example, the Minister might want to exempt those who have fought for our country and might lose their right to vote by being away, which seems very unfair. In the same spirit, we may not want those who serve our country in the service of the Crown—some 1% of our civil service are permanently based abroad—to miss out on their chance to vote, nor those working for the British Council, with the services they perform for our nation and standing in the world, or those employed by a UK public authority or a designated humanitarian agency. Will the Minister consider that this approach might achieve her aim of enfranchising expats while still protecting our democracy?

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

I feel that the Committee has already heard my views on this clause, so I have nothing further to add.

[Patrick Grady]

I do not have much to add, because I think the matter has been dealt with pretty well in debates, and in the evidence sessions. I reiterate that UK voters do pay tax if they live here, because they buy things and pay VAT, so there is a point about taxation and representation. I appreciated the Minister’s earlier comments, and I hope for a little more analysis of exactly how people who have lived away from this country for a long time and can now vote will do so.

Engagement with overseas electors is valuable. I have a small number registered in Glasgow North, and they will sometimes offer quite valuable perspectives. Perhaps one of the takeaways from this is that we can all organise Zoom surgeries for our overseas electors. SNP Members will continue to do our best to increase the number of overseas electors in the UK Parliament, largely by making Scotland an independent country, and then people who live in Scotland who want to register as overseas electors for elections to the UK Parliament will be able to do so.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

The Labour party strongly believes that all those who are subject to local laws and politics have a claim to political representation. Essentially, anyone who lives in a local area and uses public services should have a say in how they are run. That fits with our arguments on overseas electors. Anyone who has lived outside a country for a substantial amount of time can no longer claim to have such a close connection.

Although the Labour party welcomes efforts to ensure that some UK residents from the EU will retain their voting rights, we do not think that the provisions go far enough. At present, citizens of European Union member states resident in England and Northern Ireland are automatically granted voting and candidacy rights in local elections, Northern Ireland Assembly elections and police and crime commissioner elections by virtue of being EU citizens. The rights granted to EU citizens in the United Kingdom were reciprocated, so that UK citizens living in EU member states were also granted local voting and candidacy rights in their respective countries.

Now that the UK has left the European Union, and with the ending of free movement, the basis for an automatic grant of voting and candidacy rights to a European citizen of course no longer exists. Correspondingly, individual EU member states are now able to set their own rules for local voting rights with reference to resident UK citizens. I put on record that the Labour party would like to see measures to ensure that citizens from countries that already unilaterally grant local electoral rights to British citizens resident there are granted local electoral rights in England and Northern Ireland, regardless of whether the UK has negotiated a bilateral treaty with that country.

Luxembourg citizens resident in the UK can vote in England and Northern Ireland local elections, whereas Dutch citizens cannot, even though British citizens resident in both Luxembourg and the Netherlands have local electoral rights in those countries. Since the Secretary of State already has the power to remove from the list a country that ceases to be party to the relevant bilateral treaty, they should similarly have the power to remove countries from the list when the local electoral rights of British citizens in that country are unilaterally removed.

Although the Labour party welcomes efforts to ensure that some UK residents from the EU retain their voting rights, we do not think that the provisions go far enough. We emphasise that people who live here, who contribute to society in a broader sense than just through paying taxes, and who stand to be affected by the outcomes of any electoral process, should have the right to vote. That principle is already active in UK electoral law as it relates to overseas voters.

[Patrick Grady]

It is regrettable that the Government have had to table such a substantial number of technical and drafting amendments. It goes back to the point that we made yesterday about what could have been achieved had there been a comprehensive programme of prelegislative scrutiny and a bit more preparation before we launched this parliamentary phase of scrutiny of the Bill, but there we go. I agree with the Labour Front-Bench spokesperson that the Government could have applied a far more generous approach to the franchise here—the approach being taken in Scotland to next year’s local elections. It is in line with the basic principle that was articulated: if someone lives in an area, is affected by the decisions made by the local authority, and is legally resident, by and large they will have a vote.

Some of that is reflected in the new clauses that we have tabled on UK parliamentary elections, but the Scottish National party has not tabled amendments to the provisions we are considering, because we recognise that they affect local elections in England and Northern Ireland. We respect the devolution settlement. Just as we would not expect the UK Parliament to legislate on matters that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, though it increasingly does, we do not seek to amend this part of the Bill, because it affects local elections. We are, however, disappointed that the more generous and wider application of the principle of franchise has not been applied. It will be a loss to democracy in this part of the world, and to residents who will be affected by decisions over which they will have no say.

Elections Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith]

I thank the Minister for her remarks and echo the fact that for many of us, our politics and our faith are entwined. Indeed, our faith backgrounds often influence our politics and guide our values, so I am glad for her clarification and remarks.

The report that she highlighted recommended improvements around the existing corrupt practice of undue influence, which is subject to an offence designed to protect electors from malicious interference and intimidation. The main purpose of the clause is to clarify the activities that constitute undue influence in order to make the legislation easier to interpret. For that reason, the Opposition will support it.

We are pleased that Ministers backed away from creating a new offence, given that the existing criminal law is perfectly capable of dealing with intimidation and harassment. The enforcement of the law is the problem, and an update of section 115 of the 1983 Act, which, as the Minister pointed out, originated in the 19th century, is long overdue.

Although we welcome the clause, it is just a small step forward. We are disappointed not to see the comprehensive and joined-up reform of electoral law that is required.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 7 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 4 agreed to.

Clause 8

Assistance with voting for persons with disabilities

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I beg to move amendment 60, in clause 8, page 11, leave out lines 16 to 27 and insert—

“(a) in paragraph (3A)(b), for ‘a device’ substitute ‘equipment’;

(b) after paragraph (3A)(b) insert—

‘(c) such equipment as it is reasonable to provide for the purposes of enabling, or making it easier for, relevant persons to vote in the manner directed by rule 37.’;

(c) after paragraph (3A) insert—

‘(3B) In paragraph (3A)(c), “relevant persons” means persons who find it difficult or impossible to vote in the manner directed by rule 37 because of a disability.’”

This amendment would retain the requirement for returning officers to make specific provision at polling stations to enable voters who are blind or partially-sighted to vote without any need for assistance from the presiding officer or any companion and change the nature of that provision from “a device” to “equipment”.

Elections Bill (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Tuesday 19th October 2021 Public Bill Committees

[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.

Elections Bill (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith]

I am glad to have provoked this debate. I suppose I was thinking about my own constituency office, which is not shared with a political party. When we receive our budget from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, it is very clear that we are not meant to use our IPSA-funded office for party campaigning, and that was very much in my mind. But are we not trusted parts of our community? We sign passport forms and verify identities in other ways. It is meant to promote the idea that we are those trusted individuals, and perhaps we could make it more accessible on an individual level.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

The hon. Lady makes the point that it is not uncommon for any of us to verify a passport application for our constituents. All that we are verifying in that situation is a likeness, and the amendment only refers to applying for ID cards at our offices. I do not think anyone is suggesting that MPs’ offices would be issuing them.

The other commendable aspect of the amendment is that it links to a discussion that we will get to later in our scrutiny of the Bill, about automatic voter registration, and that is about being able to apply to vote in the first place. For those of us that want to promote that principle, it makes sense that if we have to accept that voter IDs will be issued, they should be made as accessible as possible, precisely to achieve the kind of increase in participation that everybody seems to agree is worthwhile.

[Cat Smith]

I agree wholeheartedly with the points made by the hon. Gentleman. Will voters be able to apply for electoral IDs online, regardless of who they are applying to or who is printing it? Will the application form be available online or will it be paper-only? Does the Department have any expectation of how long an application process will take? Will there be any minimum standards? Will the ID card be delivered to the elector’s home address, or will they have to come in person to collect it?

The amendment not only demonstrates the importance of making free electoral ID cards as accessible as possible, but gives us the opportunity to explore whether local authorities have the capacity to administer those IDs, on top of administering the election, given the backdrop of cuts to local authorities over the last decade. A point was made earlier about councils administering other forms of identity documents, but in two-tier council areas that is not always the case. In Lancashire, for example, the county council administers blue badges, but the borough or city council—the second-tier council—would administer electoral IDs. It is important to recognise the diversity across these islands in the way that local government is organised, because there are slight differences and responsibilities lie in different places. As we see the patchwork of devolution in England develop, we shall increasingly see local authorities having very different powers.

Returning to the amendments, local authorities need to have clarity about what they are being asked to do and how that would work. Is there any opportunity to ask other public bodies to support their work, in order to take the burden off our electoral administrators? The Association of Electoral Administrators has already expressed its concern about the huge burden of such a technical administrative task being placed on already overstretched local authorities. Local authorities are being expected to deliver photo ID cards, alongside the additional burden of registering millions of new overseas electors, on top of boundary changes. That is an awful lot of work.

Can the Minister understand the concern here, and will she provide some assurances to our dedicated electoral returning officers up and down these islands? Voting should not be a postcode lottery; there should be equality wherever we are. We must see measures introduced to ensure that obtaining an elector card is as easy as possible. These may include expanding the number of locations at which voters can obtain a card and measures to ensure consistency in administering the scheme in different locations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

I am aware of those comments. Perhaps my amendment gives the Minister the opportunity to confirm that it is her intention to keep to the commitment made by the previous Minister.

The free ID cards will be the linchpin upon which all the Government’s arguments rest. Every time the Minister, or her predecessor, was asked about voter ID plans, I have had it explained to me that everyone will be able to access the free ID cards. In July 2020, the House of Lords Select Committee on the Electoral Registration and Administration Act 2013 recommended that the Government needed to

“clarify how local elector cards will be funded and how it will ensure that local elector cards are easily accessible for everyone who needs one.”

In the Committee’s view,

“local elector cards will be crucial to ensuring that voter ID does not deter or prevent any eligible elector from voting.”

We are yet to hear any clarification from the previous Minister or the Minister on these matters—I appreciate that the Minister is only a few days into this role. The Bill does not contain any information about how the process will work.

I have a number of questions for the Minister, and I hope she will be able to respond. She said that the free ID cards issued by a local authority would be valid in other local authorities. For instance, if someone registers in Westminster but then moves to Lambeth, their ID card would still be valid for elections there. How would that work for anonymous electors who, instead of having a name on a polling card, have a polling number? Would they be the exception? For instance, victims of domestic violence who appear anonymously on the electoral roll will not have their names on their ID cards. How will those cases work across boroughs or council areas in different parts of the country?

Will the Minister explain where voters will be able to apply for their free ID cards? Does it have to be done in person? Will electors be able to apply for a free ID card on the day of poll? If an elector loses their ID card before the election, will they be able to collect another one on the day or would it be the day before polling day, if they are already in the system as having a free voter ID card? I have asked this previously, but will ask it again, and would be very happy to receive a more detailed answer in writing: will voters be able to apply for the cards online? That is a crucial issue and I will keep pushing it.

How long will one voter ID card take to process? How much will one ID card cost the taxpayer? Will it be the same ballpark figure as we have seen in Northern Ireland? Has the Minister considered how the Government will ensure that additional trained staff are available to process applications? What sort of equipment will be needed to verify applications and issue cards? Will local authorities need to purchase new printers? Will the Minister ensure that voters who want to apply for a free ID card on the day of poll can still vote? How many additional staff on average will be needed in each local authority to process this extraordinary change?

There are a lot of detailed questions there. I would appreciate it if the Minister could respond to what she can in the debate, but I would also be happy to receive something in writing during conference recess.

I could go on. There are an awful lot of questions about this policy—I have just scratched the surface. We have no detail on this policy, which is why the amendment is so important. It would provide time for the Opposition and the public to see the details and scrutinise them, and hopefully help the Government by making sure that the legislation is workable and fair.

[Patrick Grady]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cat Smith]

I was about to finish, but the hon. Gentleman is just in time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

It is either that or the Committee gets a separate speech. We fully agree with the amendment and the hon. Lady’s point. Does this not go to the heart of what the Bill is allegedly trying to achieve, which is greater participation, greater trust in the process and greater political engagement, in which case why not have a full public consultation period of no shorter than 28 days, so that everyone with a stake in the matter is able to contribute? That would boost confidence in the system.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Light is a very good source of scrutiny. A public consultation, as the amendment suggests, would bring in the expertise of more than just Members of this House. Obviously, we all engage with the process, but our electoral administrators might well have points to add. It would give them the opportunity to contribute, as it would political parties who are not represented in this House. Smaller parties would be able to have their say. It would give the Government far more credibility on what is, at the moment, quite a flaky policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

The other point, of course, is that if someone was going to all that hassle to cast a vote in the name of the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood, why would they not just print out a fake passport or one of the other forms of ID in the Bill? If that would be an offence under the Bill, so would making a false declaration—even more so, because the voter would potentially be asking their colleague to sign the attestation that the voter is who they say they are, or the voter would sign an affidavit. That would be an offence; they would still be personating.

Given that the Committee has agreed to the principle of voter identification, should we not look at finding ways to make that as inclusive as possible? I do not understand the hostility from the Government Benches when the Committee has accepted the principle of the need for increased safeguards and identification of voters. Let us find ways to make it as open and inclusive as possible. Once again, the hon. Lady can be confident of the support of the Scottish National party.

[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Member. We are finding an awful lot of common ground on the legislation. In the 2018 and 2019 pilots, we found that when voters were asked for a restrictive form of ID, hundreds of people who did not have it and did not understand that it was needed were turned away. This is a safeguard to ensure that those legitimate voters who were turned away would get a chance to cast a ballot.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

Despite losing many votes this afternoon, I do hope that the Government might be open to the idea of looking at various different IDs that we can add to the list of valid IDs in the Bill.

There are many aspects of the Bill that I find quite shocking and, arguably, undemocratic. The fact that people are unable to use student IDs or 18-plus Oyster cards to vote is an attack on young people’s ability to take part in our democracy. It is something that falls to all of us, as Members of this House, to ensure that the next generation engage with democracy. There is an oversight, in that, the legislation does allow for travel passes for older voters to be used, but not for younger voters who have similar passes.

The inclusion of student IDs that contain photographs and names would be an improvement to this Bill. I hope the Government considers this, as it is incredibly important that we engage young people in our democracy. We have seen in other parts of the United Kingdom, where 16 and 17-year-olds have a vote, that if they use their vote when they are 16 or 17 they are more likely to develop a habit of voting and taking part in democracy.

This goes back to my first argument: that our democracy is stronger, and it is harder for bad actors to influence it, when we have higher participation. This amendment seeks to increase that participation, to ensure that more forms of ID are included on the list in the Bill. It cannot be right that some IDs seem to be valid and some IDs seem not to be valid.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right about the enthusiasm with which 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland have participated in ballots and plebiscites since they have had the opportunity to do so, and how frustrating many of them have found it when a UK snap election has come along—the pattern in recent years—that they cannot participate in. I particularly welcome amendment 52 including the Young Scot National Entitlement Card as a form of ID, because it is already recognised in law by the Scottish Government and Police Scotland as an acceptable form of proof of age. I will be very interested to hear it if the Government decide that they oppose the suite of amendments that we are currently debating, because why, having accepted the principle of photographic identification, would they then want to narrow the scope and narrow the chances of people being able to demonstrate who they are? It just seems a bit bizarre.

[Cat Smith]

I completely agree with the hon. Member. His intervention gives me the opportunity to put it on the record that the Welsh Labour Government have also recently extended the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds and seek to make participation in democracy something that is easy to do yet still secure. On that note, I look forward to hearing the Minister’s responses as to why young people are seeing more barriers put up to their voting than already exist.

Elections Bill (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith]

I am a little confused by the Minister’s intervention. That would be reported because the person would have a tendered ballot and that information would be available. The point is—we heard it during evidence—that this policy has been brought in for UK Parliament elections with large electorates and we did not hear one witness say they thought a major election had been swung by mass fraud.

On the example of referendums, I campaigned in the EU referendum for remain, but I do not question that leave won because it would be unthinkable to enact personation fraud on such a scale.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

Is it not precisely the point that the EU referendum was not swung by a voter fraud of fake leave voters turning up and stuffing the ballot boxes, but by the voter fraud of telling people that there would be £350 million a week for the NHS, that food prices would go down and that the NHS would not be harmed—it was swung by the frauds that are now being proven as precisely that by the state this country is in?

[The Chair]

Order. Can we all calm down? It is getting very lively.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

Absolutely. However, we have repeatedly heard, throughout all the evidence sessions and debates, that when personation has been identified it has been called out and punished, the perpetrators have been brought to justice and, if necessary, candidates have been disqualified and election results overturned. What would swing elections is disincentivising turnout—making it more difficult for marginalised voters to turn out, particularly in marginal constituencies, and putting up barriers to electoral participation. That is exactly what voter identification will do. There have been disputes about how many people do or do not have adequate voter ID, as required under the terms of the Bill, but even the most conservative figure—with a small c and capital C—is that there are at least 2 million people across the United Kingdom without adequate voter ID. At an average, I think that works out at around 3,000 per constituency. There are plenty of us Members sitting on majorities of considerably less than that. It is clear to see the difference that could be made if suddenly those people were unable to cast their votes.

The Minister said right at the start that everybody who wants to vote will have the opportunity to do so. That is just a simple statement of fact. That is the case now; everybody who is currently eligible and wants to vote has the opportunity to do so when an election comes around. What will happen with this Bill is that barriers will be put in their way. What if someone turns up at quarter to 10, on a wet Thursday night, and it turns out they have left their voter ID at home? What if their passport has expired—will that be valid? What if they have recently got married and their surname has changed—what happens in that situation? There are all kinds of barriers that have nothing to do with anyone’s background or minority status.

[Cat Smith]

I was about to raise the issue of women who marry and need to change their surname on IDs and other documents. However, the hon. Gentleman has triggered in my mind another thought. Kate Robson, who works for me, left the purse containing all her ID documents on the bus. If that had happened on polling day, she would not have applied for the free voter ID as she had a driving licence in her purse—but that purse had been left on the bus. As it happened, all ended well and she was reunited with that document, but it shows that it is not just those who do not have photo ID who would be disenfranchised; so too would those of us who mislay documents. I am sure that all of us in this room are very organised, but people who mislay documents do exist, and they might only remember that it is polling day on their way home from the gym at 9 o’clock, when they will not have time to go back for their ID. A greater number of people will be disenfranchised than just that percentage who do not have ID.

[Patrick Grady]

Absolutely. It will put up barriers and make that democratic participation more difficult and more challenging.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

That is incredibly helpful. People across the country with expired passports will be breathing a sigh of relief, unlike the people across the country who, for whatever reason, do not have passports or who, for all kinds of reasons, find it difficult to make that approach.

We have heard about the pressure that there will be on electoral administrators to deal with the inevitable surge in applications. We have heard about some of the accessibility challenges that will be faced by people with different kinds of impairments when applying for photo documentation. There are all those kinds of barriers. Nobody is questioning the agency or ability of minority communities to apply for voter identification; the point is that many people are already disproportionately without existing forms of voter identification and so are already disincentivised from taking part in the democratic system.

[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for being so generous with his time. I feel moved to mention that my grandfather, who sadly is no longer with us, did not have any form of photo ID because he was illiterate. The idea of having to approach the local council and fill in a form in order to get an ID document—he just would have stopped voting. There is a group of electors that we have not talked about so far, either in evidence or in Committee this morning—those constituents that we represent who would be filled with dread by the idea of approaching the council and being asked to fill in a form. They will do that only if it is absolutely essential to their survival. The reality is that my grandad would not have applied for a voter ID card because he would have been too embarrassed to go to the council and confess that he was illiterate.

[Patrick Grady]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. Precisely those concerns have been raised by Age UK, which quotes the Cabinet Office’s own research as showing that

“2% of people aged over 70, equivalent to 180,000 older people in Great Britain, do not hold any of the forms of identification that the Bill proposes would be accepted when voting…Having to present photographic identification at the polling station would ‘make voting difficult’ for 6% of people over 70, or around half a million people living in Great Britain…4% of people aged over 70…less likely to vote…These figures are likely to be underestimated as the Cabinet Office’s funded research did not include a representative sample of older people in Great Britain.”

A whole range of minority and segregated groups in society will be affected by this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Patrick Grady]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Compare that to the “Oh no, here we go again” response to the sequence of snap elections and uncalled for and unprepared for ballots that have happened in the UK in recent years, because of the utter chaos and incompetence shown by the Conservatives.

My hon. Friend brings me on to my next point, which the Labour spokesperson touched on. We as elected politicians are not impassive observers, as perhaps parliamentarians can be on other aspects of legislation, where we can take an objective view. All of us have an active interest in who elects us and how we get elected. I join the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood in paying tribute to election administration staff in councils up and down the country—later in the Bill we will talk about the role of the Electoral Commission and who gets to mark our own homework. If it has been tough south of the border, it has been even more so north of the border, where there has been another referendum, local elections and the devolved Parliament elections, on top of all the UK-wide ballots and plebiscites that have had to be administered.

I also pay tribute to our party activists and volunteers, as I am sure everybody in this room will—perhaps we can get one point of consensus. They are in many ways the backbone of the electoral process and political engagement of this country. They are the people who stand outside the polling stations in the pouring rain and the blazing sun—sometimes in Scotland that can be within the same 10 or 15 minutes. We can have all four seasons in one day or even just a couple of hours—that is certainly true of the last couple of elections we have had. These people play an incredibly important role. If there was widespread personation, with people turning up in dodgy rain jackets, funny moustaches and thick eyeglasses to repeatedly impersonate other voters, it would kind of be noticed. That is the point of having the system we do.

We have polling agents, counting agents and voluntary observers. That is a hugely important part of trust in the system. It happens at counts as well, when we watch how the ballot papers come out and how they are sorted and so on. We have heard examples of electoral malpractice and intimidation outside polling stations. Exactly: we know about it because it has been witnessed and reported. It has been covered on the news, because it makes for a bit of drama if people are shouting at each other outside a polling station—the cameras like to go and see that. It should not happen, and that is why people have been punished for it.

[Cat Smith]

Another thing that has been observed outside polling stations in recent elections is really long queues of people turning up just before 10 pm. They are allowed to vote if they are in the queue before 10 pm. If people also have to show ID and have it verified by the polling card, what does the hon. Gentleman think that could do to the queues outside polling stations? How does he think that might incentivise people to actually turn out and vote?

Elections Bill (Instruction)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Instruction
Monday 20th September 2021 Commons Chamber

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

The Minister is telling us that we will have time to scrutinise and debate the amendment he is proposing tonight, but he might not be aware that this Bill has already started; we have already had Second Reading, where all Members of the House were able to debate the merits or otherwise of the contents of the Bill, and the Bill Committee has already met four times. We have already finished our evidence taking. I say to the Minister that on page 114 of the transcript of the Committee he can see that, as a member of that Committee, I made a point of order to the Chair, asking whether or not we could take evidence from witnesses on the issue of electoral systems. The Chair was very clear in saying that that was out of the scope of the Bill and so Committee members were not able to take evidence on electoral systems. So I have to question why this was not included already in the legislation. On 16 March, the Home Secretary announced that the Government planned to change the voting system for all PCCs, combined authority mayors and the Mayor of London from the supplementary vote system to first past the post. If the Government had wanted this to be in the Elections Bill, surely they should have put it in the Bill from the beginning, allowing Members to scrutinise it on Second Reading and in Committee.

The supplementary voting system that is used for all those different types of elections—

[Patrick Grady]

Does the hon. Lady agree that we should find a way, through the usual channels, to make sure that the Bill Committee can take some supplementary evidence and we can schedule in some additional sessions so that, assuming the instruction is passed tonight, the Committee can have that level of scrutiny that has so far been denied to the House on Second Reading?

[Cat Smith]

I find myself in agreement with my fellow Bill Committee member; I hope that the usual channels will find time for extra evidence sessions so that the Committee can be informed on the different types of electoral systems.

Elections Bill (Fourth sitting)

Debate between Cat Smith and Patrick Grady

Committee stage
Thursday 16th September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith]

Thank you.

[Patrick Grady]

Q Thank you, Fazilet, that is really very helpful. I have quite a technical question about the wording in the legislation and what the Government propose. What they propose to do is to take out the wording that currently exists about prescribing devices for eligible voters who are blind or partially sighted, and to replace it with a more general paragraph about supplying, as you already mentioned,

“such equipment as it is reasonable…for the purposes of enabling or making it easier for, relevant persons”.

Relevant persons would include blind or partially sighted people, but also people with other disabilities or impairments or difficulties.

Is there any reason why you could not just have both? You could keep the specific provisions, perhaps updating them so we are not limiting this to one specific piece of advice, and making a bit of a tweak so that we talk more generally about equipment that might change over time with technology, but keep those provisions and add in the extra requirement for a wider group of voters who might have difficulty accessing the polling stations. Do you see any incompatibility with that approach?

Fazilet Hadi: No, there is no incompatibility. My main point would be that if there is prescribed equipment—that is not just for blind people; if there is prescribed equipment for wheelchair users or people with dexterity problems—let that be prescribed, so that we get consistency across the board, but let us have an additional provision about how all reasonable adjustments should be made, which is actually just repeating the duty in the Equality Act, because electoral officers are discharging a public function anyway. I do not mind that being repeated, but I do not think we should be confusing prescribing equipment for whichever impairment group needs it with the duty to make reasonable adjustments. They can live together quite harmoniously—I agree.