Voter ID Pilots

Debate between Chloe Smith and Paul Sweeney

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I have already said that the Government are absolutely committed to wanting to have as many people as possible registered to vote. I have focused on that relentlessly through the two occasions on which I have held this ministerial post with responsibility for electoral regulation. We need to be able to work with a range of people to do that, and we need to use a range of tools. Yes, we are using pilots to look at ways to secure people’s votes, but that goes alongside a very large other body of work to ensure that our democracy thrives and is fit for the 21st century. I would welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support in that.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituency had the lowest turnout of any UK constituency at the last general election, so for me this is a question of priorities. The Government should be spending much more time and effort on driving up participation in elections, particularly in constituencies such as mine that have a higher than average level of deprivation, rather than spending so much money, resource, time and effort on a relatively trifling issue. We need to focus on the main issue of what the Government will do about driving up voter participation, instead of fannying around with this issue.

[Chloe Smith]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman’s words might have spoken for themselves. I simply do not agree, nor do I think his constituents or mine would agree, that electoral fraud is “trifling”, or that we should not be, to use his words, “fannying around” trying to put a crime right. I am sorry; I think he let himself down with his choice of language. The point underneath it is equally poor. We ought to be able to focus on tackling crime. Voters would expect us to do that. Electoral fraud is a crime, and we are focusing on tackling it. That is to the good of our democracy.

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was touching on an argument about costs and the choice of expenditure in an electoral system. We would be foolish to try to put a price on democracy. We would be foolish to try to isolate the cost of one measure to protect our overall system compared to any other. I say to him, as I have said to other hon. Members, that all these things together give us a thriving democracy. I have happily committed through the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to ensuring that the costs are available for scrutiny as soon as possible, which is reassuring to all our constituents.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chloe Smith and Paul Sweeney

Wednesday 27th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

My Department has not received any representations about the legality of the pilots. The powers to make the pilot scheme orders are in section 10 of the Representation of the People Act 2000, which was, of course, passed by Parliament. Those powers enable changes to be made to rules regarding the conduct of any local elections in England and Wales.

[Mr Sweeney]

At the last general election, my constituency had the lowest turnout in the UK, and it also has a low registration rate. What kind of democracy are we living in when the Government actively pursue a scheme that results in people being denied the vote, as was shown by the pilot in May, instead of seeking better engagement and participation in our democracy by potential voters?

[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Gentleman will have just heard me setting out measures to encourage more people to be involved in our democracy. He knows, as I hope does every Opposition Member, that there is a point of principle at stake here. Do we defend our system from fraud or do we not?

Voter ID Pilots

Debate between Chloe Smith and Paul Sweeney

Monday 23rd April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

Yes, I have had that experience, and I would be surprised if many Members had not heard that from voters. The widespread assumption among voters is that ID is needed already. What we are doing is bringing Great Britain’s electoral system into line with other parts of the world, including Northern Ireland—inside the UK, of course—and Canada, which already run such a system successfully with turnout remaining up and evidence of fraud down.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Minister mentions Canada, but in the last general election my constituency had the lowest turnout in the UK, and that is combined with a low registration rate. If this policy is rolled out at a general election, how on earth will it help my constituents, many of whom are already at the margins of society? We need to engage them and bring them back into participating in our democracy. How will this approach help when evidence from the United States suggests that it suppresses votes?

[Chloe Smith]

That is quite wrong. The evidence does not suggest that this suppresses votes. The evidence says that turnout has remained up. I quoted the evidence in the Northern Ireland example, and I have cited how it has reduced electoral fraud while not damaging turnout. Let us have the debate on the evidence.

The hon. Gentleman asks how I can help his constituents. I suggest that we need to work together to ensure that more register to vote. To be fair to him, he has given both parts of the voting process—low registration rates and turnout rates—and the key is to ensure that we have higher registration rates. That is why the Government have set out a full democratic engagement plan, to drive registration rates up across all the groups in our society who register least. I am following through on that and I am passionate about doing so. Today we are talking about the policy that ensures that, once registered, those people have the confidence in the system to go and vote to complete the process.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Debate between Chloe Smith and Paul Sweeney

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

The previous time I updated the House on this inquiry, Members spoke about the need for the inquiry to respond to the needs of victims in all the nations of our country. I am happy to write the hon. Gentleman and, indeed, to other representatives of constituencies in Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales, should they have such questions, to set out exactly what the situation will be for their constituents.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My constituent, a victim of the contaminated blood scandal, has asked the Minister the following: now that a cover-up and illegal research have been acknowledged in Parliament, the Prime Minister has used the word “scandal” and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has said that this should never have happened, why are dying victims waiting for compensation? Why will the Cabinet not show leadership? At what point do the Government increase the insult by failing to acknowledge their liability for what the Prime Minister has described as a scandal?

[Chloe Smith]

We are having an inquiry to answer those questions.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Chloe Smith and Paul Sweeney

Wednesday 21st February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

11. What steps he is taking to increase participation by under-represented groups in parliamentary and local government elections.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chloe Smith)]

Last December, we published our democratic engagement plan, setting out our current evidence on under-registered groups, our plans for deepening our understanding of engagement barriers and a commitment to tackling them. This year we are already delivering a number of projects focusing on young people and linked to the suffrage centenary celebrations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chloe Smith]

I do not think that the hon. Gentleman was listening to my answer. We are not trying to make it more difficult to register to vote. We have set out a full plan about making it easier to do so for the groups who need it most. I take this opportunity to make it absolutely clear that we have a number of record highs on our register. Since the introduction of individual electoral registration in 2014, more than 30 million people have registered to vote. Ahead of the general election last year, a record number of additional applications to register were submitted. The electoral register has reached a record level of 46.8 million electors, and we should be proud of that.

[Mr Sweeney]

The Minister may be interested to know that the turnout in my constituency of Glasgow North East at the last election was 53%, which was well below the national average. It also happens to be an area with some of the lowest incomes and highest unemployment in the country. Research has shown that low-income workers and long-term unemployed people report lower levels of political knowledge and participation in political activities than those from other occupational backgrounds. Given that they are also less likely to be on the electoral register—

[Mr Sweeney]

Given that these low-income groups are less likely to be on the electoral register, what is the Minister planning to do to actively engage with them and get them on the electoral register?

[Chloe Smith]

As I say, a range of things are set out in the democratic engagement plan. I look forward to working further with the hon. Gentleman and people across parties in this House and outside it to ensure that all those who are eligible to vote do so.