Elections: May 2021

Debate between Chloe Smith and Charlotte Nichols

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments and for again underlining the consequences of there already having been a delay to these elections. He makes a good point about the use of Royal Mail, which gives me the opportunity to reassure the House that my officials and I are in touch with Royal Mail to be sure that it is part of elections—for example, postal votes will be capable of being delivered properly, which is, of course, what voters would expect. I will take away his point about those particular elections and election addresses to give it proper consideration, but I would note that there are already many ways of providing information to voters in a safe manner that I hope can be made use of.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

In Warrington, all-out borough council, parish council and police and crime commissioner elections were due to take place last May but were delayed until this year and risk being delayed again if the Government fail to get a grip on covid transmission, particularly in the light of this new strain. In the US, early voting and drive-through ballot boxes enabled a historically high turnout. The Government have had many months to prepare and adapt to protect our democratic process, so why have they failed to take the initiative and introduce changes following successful international models to ensure no further delays for voters in Warrington and elsewhere?

[Chloe Smith]

Labour Members here today are so keen to paint a picture of delay that they are not seeing the wood for the trees. The point is that a whole set of preparation has already been laid. If the hon. Member were to speak to her colleagues in the Welsh Labour Government, she would know that those colleagues and I have already had extensive discussions about the merits of, for example, early voting. I have also had those conversations with administrators across the relevant area, who do not necessarily share the merits of that argument. I do not think there is a clear case for early voting, because it introduces extra complexity at a time when what voters need is polls delivered safely and easily.

I also take this opportunity to emphasise that I have considered the case for all-postal ballots, which has occasionally been raised in the House, but there are some drawbacks to that—namely, that it would prevent people from being able to exercise their preference of how they vote at elections. As I said at the outset, it is important to help people to take their preferred choice in how they vote. That is why our comprehensive set of preparations gives rise to people being able to apply as early as they wish for a postal vote, and I encourage people to do so; to take advantage of new arrangements for a slightly extended proxy scheme, which makes sure that nobody would be excluded; and, finally, to vote in person if they wish, at which point polling stations will be covid-secure.

Lobby and Media Briefings: Journalists' Access

Debate between Chloe Smith and Charlotte Nichols

Tuesday 4th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I have already answered that point a few times. Again, the answer is that, under the lobby arrangements, any member of the lobby with a press pass is more than welcome to put any question to the Government. That goes for journalists from any corner of our United Kingdom. We on the Government Benches are a Unionist party, and we think that that it should be more than possible to run that kind of practice across the nations of our wonderful country. We welcome close co-operation between the people and the press of Scotland and every other part of our United Kingdom, which I hope will stay united. Again, all of that is supplemented by what we are offering as technical briefings, which I hope can be read as spreading across the Union in that way.

[Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)]

I was interested to hear the Minister refer to the people’s PMQs on Facebook and engagement on social media as some sort of alternative to proper scrutiny of the Government’s decisions by the press lobby. The Prime Minister cannot even answer what shampoo he uses in the people’s PMQs on Facebook. Why is he running scared?

[Chloe Smith]

I use Dove shampoo.