Elections: May 2021

Debate between Chloe Smith and Toby Perkins

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Chloe Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this point, because he reminds us of the consequence of the first postponement. It is therefore important to think this issue through carefully again, rather than to reach easily for the argument for yet more delay. He will have heard me say clearly that I am not in favour of delay and I think that there are very strong arguments for the elections to be able to go ahead safely, so it is not my intention to have to do as he asks. None the less, I will take his point away and discuss it with colleagues in the Department responsible—the Home Office—so that his concerns can be properly understood.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to see the Minister on the road to recovery; I wish her well. Does she agree that, for these elections to have validity, we need people not only to be able to vote in them safely, but to be able to campaign in them safely? Will she do a lot more than what she has laid out so far and work with the other political parties that will be competing in these elections in England to ensure that there is agreement about a way in which the elections can be held safely and which can allow political parties to campaign in them as fully as possible?

[Chloe Smith]

I am very grateful for the tone that the hon. Gentleman strikes. It is important that there should always be a level playing field in our elections; that is a critical principle of our democracy. I am therefore keen to secure the kind of cross-party consensus of which he speaks. If he and his Labour colleagues would like to begin by creating that today, that is excellent. In addition to what I have said today, I point him to the written ministerial statement that I provided to the House late last year, in which I referred to the technical area of spending limits. Given the circumstances, it would be quite understandable if parties and candidates wished to be able to use more digital methods this year to campaign and properly communicate with voters. I hope that that piece of information will be helpful to the hon. Gentleman in thinking through how voters can be assisted to get the widest range of information ahead of these polls.