Elections Bill (Fifth sitting)

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Cat Smith]

I will give way to a Member who has not managed to intervene yet.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady accept that although it is quite possible for someone to go in and say, “I am Mr Jones of Acacia Avenue,” and for the polling clerk to say, “No, you’re not,” they are probably not going to know all 10,000 voters. The requirement to produce a simple piece of ID to confirm that it is Mr Jones of Acacia Avenue is not a barrier.

[Cat Smith]

It is a barrier to someone who does not have that form of ID, which is the whole point of the clause. One witness also made the point that we are asking people who do not have the forms of ID mentioned in the Bill to go through the process of getting a free voter ID card. The people who do not already have those forms of ID are more likely to be excluded from society or disadvantaged. By the way, the Bill contains no detail about how those free voter IDs will be issued and administered, or how much that will cost.

We know fine well that that additional barrier risks creating a postcode lottery. In my constituency, for example, two councils administer elections: Wyre Council and Lancaster City Council. If they were to administer voter ID cards, it would be unlikely, I suspect, that they would both have the same requirement for people to come forward. Some of my constituents may be able to go to the Civic Centre at Poulton on a Tuesday afternoon between 3 pm and 5 pm, but nothing in the Bill gives us the power to ensure that Wyre Council extends that period with evening drop-ins. Lancaster City Council could have a completely different approach, however. We are therefore saying to some voters, “It will be easier for you to access the ID than for others.”

The fact that there are no basic requirements in the Bill is something of an oversight, as I am sure the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton will agree. I hope that we can amend that kind of thing to improve the Bill, so that we do not end up with some councils making photo IDs incredibly difficult to access.

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[Cat Smith]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for sharing the example of Peterborough. I thought Gillian Beasley gave some really strong evidence to the Committee. The Opposition found the example of the CCTV very interesting, as it is a way in which the current law can be used to combat isolated pockets of personation. Gillian Beasley said,

“I would say that we have seen less personation in polling stations in the recent past. Probably our last prosecution was some years ago, and that is because there are some tight measures not only in polling stations, but around ensuring that we have a good electoral register.”––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 21, Q23.]

She also talked about the resource implications of implementing voter ID, saying that,

“we will probably see a surge at what is the busiest time for electoral services”.––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 18, Q19.]

That draws me on to the evidence we received about the clause from the Association of Electoral Administrators. It is an organisation I meet with regularly, because I think it is important that, as legislators, we understand the implications of the laws we make on those who have to administer them. During my time in this Front-Bench role, electoral administrators have consistently told me that elections are often only just delivered securely because of the pressures in local government right now.

Local government has been on the frontline of Tory cuts, and I make no apology for saying that. Our town halls and civic centres are struggling, and elections offices are incredibly understaffed. Speaking for my own electoral administrators in Lancaster and Fleetwood, the staff work incredibly hard. In the run-up to an election, they work seven days a week, and they work incredible hours. I believe that all they do is work and sleep in order to deliver our elections and democracy securely. I pay tribute to all our electoral administrators. They often pull this off under increasing pressure. The snap elections in recent years have meant that they have often been unprepared, particularly in 2019, when the election coincided with the annual canvass. They are under incredible pressure.

Electoral administrators and councils were very clear in their evidence that, if voter ID were to be brought in, they would expect to see a surge in applications for the free voter ID in the run-up to an election, when there is incredible pressure with last-minute registrations and people checking that they are on the electoral register. Since the introduction of individual electoral registration, there has been an increase in people double-checking that they are on the electoral register. It would be nice to see something in the Bill that allowed electors to check whether or not they were on the roll, rather than just re-registering in the few weeks before an election, which puts additional pressure on electoral administrators when their pressures are at their greatest.

Peter Stanyon from the Association of Electoral Administrators said in evidence to the Committee that the applications for voter ID will come in

“when the pressures in the electoral offices are at their greatest.”

Because the Bill has absolutely no detail on how the free IDs will be administered, he asked:

“Will it require attendance in person? Virginia mentioned posting out ID—will that be permissible in the remainder of the UK?”––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 44, Q59.]

Virginia McVea was the witness who gave evidence from Northern Ireland. The Minister is very welcome to intervene to make the position clear. That would be very helpful. As Peter Stanyon was saying, we do not know any of the detail at this stage.

We are being asked to vote on something with absolutely no detail. We have no idea what resource implications the Bill will have on electoral registration offices. We have no idea whether the free IDs will be posted out or whether people will have to apply in person at civic centres and town halls. We have no idea whether there will be a basic standard of expectation that people will apply for their voter ID in person, but will only be able to go on a Monday, Wednesday or Friday. None of those basic details is on the face of the Bill. We are being asked to legislate on something that we cannot be confident will be accessible to the people we have been elected to represent.

There is a £120 million bill for the taxpayer to bring in this policy, which we heard in the evidence sessions is basically designed to address something that is incredibly rare and very difficult to do. It does not seem like a good use of taxpayers’ money. In the last 10 years, there were four cases of voter personation fraud, and that was out of 243 million votes cast.

[Chris Clarkson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cat Smith]

I would like to make this comparison, and then I will give way to the hon. Gentleman.

I want to compare those four cases to the trials, which took place in just a handful of council areas, all of which are in England and are not representative of England, Scotland and Wales. Some 2,000 voters were turned away in the 2019 pilots, of whom around 758 did not return to cast their vote. That is just in the pilot areas. Look at the single figure numbers of cases and the hundreds of people in just a handful of trial areas who basically turned up at the polling station and did not have the right ID so went away and never came back. We are disenfranchising scores more people than we even hear accusations of voter personation.

[Chris Clarkson]

The hon. Lady says that there were only four cases. Of course, there were only four cases that we are aware of. That goes back to the point that was made throughout the evidence sessions: it is an incredibly easy thing to do, so we do not know the quantity. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme said, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I have to ask her what an acceptable level of voter fraud is. Are four cases of fraud okay? Do we just let that go, and say, “It’s fine. There’s a cost-benefit analysis to a bit of electoral fraud.”? How many election results have to be overturned before we say that this is actually an investment worth making?

[Brendan O’Hara]

None of them has been overturned.

[Cat Smith]

I do not think that any elections have been overturned, as the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute says from a sedentary position. We have to work on the basis of what we know, and what the facts are. We can only go on the cases that are reported, but we know that 758 people in just a handful of councils were turned away and did not come back. That is an unquestionable fact.

[Chris Clarkson]

Do we know that they were legitimate voters?

[Cat Smith]

I think we have to assume that they were. [Hon. Members: “Why?”] Because of all the evidence that we heard as a Committee. I make no apologies to the Minister—she was not here for the four evidence sessions. We did not hear convincing evidence that this is a widespread problem. That is just not what we heard from the witnesses. We know the statistics on how many people were turned away and did not come back.

Rob Connelly from Birmingham raised concerns that the pilots did not reflect the community that he represents:

“One of our concerns with the pilots was that they did not reflect a large urban area, such as Birmingham, Manchester or Liverpool… It has been calculated that about 2% of people have not got ID. That is the equivalent of 15,000 people in my electorate.”––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, Wednesday 15 September 2021; c. 56, Q85.]

That is in Birmingham alone. A huge number of people—thousands, or tens of thousands—in cities up and down the country will have to go through the process of applying for this free voter ID card, on which there is no detail in the Bill. How can we be expected to vote for something on which there is no detail?

Returning to where I was before I took quite a lot of interventions, I think Ministers and Government Members are living in some kind of alternative reality. Perhaps they are watching too much Fox News. Our elections do not lack integrity. We consistently hear that in reports from the Electoral Commission and when our elections are observed from overseas. I am proud of our British democracy, and of the way we do elections in this country. I am confident that every Member of this House, whether I agree with them or whether we wear the same colour rosette at elections, and everyone who is sitting in this Committee Room was elected legitimately and got the most votes in their constituency. If any Member wishes to question whether they were legitimately elected to this House, I would be very happy to hear them say that they think they won unfairly.

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[Brendan O’Hara]

With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, if a Government ignore the problem in front of their nose and then run about trying to find evidence of a problem when there is no evidence that that problem exists, I suggest they are wasting their time. The problem to be addressed is around postal voting. Richard Mawrey said that Birmingham, Slough and Woking were all cases that involved postal vote fraud; voter ID was “neither here nor there.”

[Chris Clarkson]

The hon. Gentleman says that the Government are wasting their time looking for something of which there is no evidence, but he also says that it is a waste of time to look for evidence of it. Would he clarify his position?

[Brendan O’Hara]

I absolutely will. My position is that there is no evidence whatsoever. Policy must be made on the basis of evidence. We have a limited time in this House in which to act and legislate. It is a waste of that precious time, I believe, for a Government to run around looking to create a problem to find a solution for. We should address the problems that we know exist, and those problems that have to be attacked.

Even Lord Pickles, in his evidence, said:

“I did not recommend photo ID”. ––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 16, Q13.]

He also said that fraud

“is not endemic within the system”,––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 8, Q5.]

However, somehow, Lord Pickles has now embraced this voter ID card with the zeal of a convert. It is further evidence of a Government with a solution looking for a problem.

Councillor Golds gave chapter and verse on the problems of postal voting in Tower Hamlets, and he was extremely convincing. Fair play to Peter Golds and the people who he has been working with—they have identified a serious problem—but to try to segue that into pretending that ID cards at polling stations will somehow solve what we saw at Tower Hamlets is frankly nonsense. It is not there.

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[Patrick Grady]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I echo the welcomes to the Minister and Members who have joined the Committee.

The phrase “voter ID is a solution in search of a problem” has been heard several times since the start of the Second Reading debate. That is a quote that my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute did not want to explicitly attribute to Baroness Davidson, who was once the coming thing in the Tory party. She was going to be the leader or a Minister. She was going to save them all and save the Union. Now that those future leaders of the Conservative party, the 2019 red-wallers, are here arrayed in front of us, demonstrating to the Whips, the Minister and everyone else their value, I am sure they will not be overlooked quite as much in the next reshuffle.

The previous Minister on the Committee made the pertinent point that we must be careful about the use of the word “disenfranchisement”. To disenfranchise someone is to actively take their vote away; where once they were previously eligible to vote, they are now no longer eligible. They made the point that we must be very careful about casually suggesting that voter suppression, which I will get on to later, is the same as disenfranchisement—which is fair enough. However, that also means that we must be quite careful when we use other terms—terms such as “voter fraud”, which has been bandied about on the other side of the House in reference to a whole range of electoral malpractices, some of which we heard about in the evidence sessions. In fact, voter fraud specifically refers to personation and the casting of the ballot.

As has been quoted back several times from the Committee session with Richard Mawrey:

“In Tower Hamlets, as I said, they virtually ticked every box of electoral offence. But for my being rather kind-hearted, they would have ticked the intimidation box as well—they ticked them all. Voter fraud played a very small part, funnily enough,”.––[Official Report, Elections Public Bill Committee, 15 September 2021; c. 14, Q13.]

That is the point about personation. It is a point that has been made repeatedly by hon. Members from Opposition parties, and that has not been challenged or proven false by Conservative Members. My hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute quoted another witness as saying that personation was an incredibly inefficient way of swinging an election and making oneself the victor. It carries with it an extremely high risk; someone only needs to do it once to be tapped on the shoulder and kicked out of the election campaign and into jail.

[Chris Clarkson]

Would the hon. Gentleman agree with me that, technical merits of personation aside, any one instance of personation is a negative input into our democratic process? Anybody stealing a vote, misusing a vote or representing themselves as somebody else should be a cause for concern.

[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.

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[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.

[Chris Clarkson]

Just to expand on that point, would the hon. Gentleman say that having to present a vaccine passport in order to use goods and services, for example, would present a barrier to people engaging in the economy?

[The Chair]

Order. We are not discussing vaccine passports. Let us remain focused on the Bill.

Elections Bill (Sixth sitting)

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd September 2021 Public Bill Committees

[Fleur Anderson]

Amendment 32 looks at the detail of how long an election ID card would be valid, which is important to know. Obviously, this will be coming out in secondary legislation, but it is important to know whether there will be an annual expectation to renew the ID card, or whether it will be valid for five, 10 or 15 years. The amendment suggests 15 years, but if the Government are open to the card being valid for longer, we would be supportive.

The reasoning behind the amendment is simple: in the real world, voter ID will be a barrier to voting for many people, and it will cost the taxpayer a significant amount of money, so the number of times that electors should be expected to apply for the card should be at an absolute minimum. Making these documents valid for 15 years is a reasonable and sensible proposal. A passport needs renewing every 10 years, so it is not at all unreasonable to push this further, to 15 years. It will come round quickly enough, and it is worth noting that such a period would cover only three general elections.

[Chris Clarkson]

I recently renewed my passport, and it was quite heartbreaking not being able to use the same photo, because I have changed quite a bit in the past 10 years. Given that the purpose of this is to issue photo identity, does the hon. Lady agree that people change physically over the course of 15 years? A young person who registers at the age of 18 will look considerably different at the age of 33.

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[Fleur Anderson]

In Northern Ireland, people can take an expired form of photo ID and it will still count, so there is no limit there. A limit of 15 years does not apply in Northern Ireland, so perhaps a longer period of time should be looked at. It would be good to know the Minister’s thinking on that.

Mandating renewal of these documents any less than every 15 years would have a huge and disproportionate impact on groups that are already vulnerable to disenfranchisement, and it would only increase the costs and administrative burdens on local authorities—as we have already discussed, they are substantial. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has previously warned the Government that

“voter ID will have a disproportionate impact on voters with protected characteristics”,

and this could increase that opportunity. We saw with the Windrush scandal how some communities struggled to provide official documentation, which had severe consequences. The EHRC has warned that if voters were

“disenfranchised as a result of restrictive identification requirements”,

this could violate article 1 of protocol 1 of the European convention on human rights.

The LGBTQ+ community are at risk of disenfranchisement and have been in contact with Members about the Bill. Stonewall is concerned that such proposals could prevent many LGBTQ+ voters, as well as voters from other marginalised groups, from engaging fully and fairly in democratic processes, and we should all be concerned about the issues that it raises.

[Chris Clarkson]

Could the hon. Lady develop her thinking on that? There are at least four pieces of photo ID in my wallet, and it will be no surprise to anybody here that I am very gay.

[Fleur Anderson]

For many trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people, the photograph, name and/or gender marker on their legal documents may not reflect their appearance or gender identity, which goes back to the earlier point about changing identity. The introduction of voter ID could inadvertently result in such people being turned away from voting stations or simply deciding not to vote, for fear of this happening. They may not want to apply for the card. Of course, the argument against this is the same for some groups—for example, members of the trans community may significantly change appearance.

Stonewall helpfully points out that the solution is not to put people through the process of applying for voter ID before every election, but to roll out training to presiding officers and related staff to ensure that they operate in a manner that is LGBTQ+ inclusive; to put in place specific measures to ensure that LGBTQ+ people can vote; and to ensure that any equality impact assessment of such measures specifically includes the needs and experiences of trans people, gender-non-conforming people and anyone who is concerned about their appearance being on an identity card that must be shown when they go to vote.

--- Later in debate ---

[Cat Smith]

I feel like we have rehearsed these arguments quite a few times already, but I will just say this: personation is incredibly rare. We heard that consistently from across the witnesses. Requiring an attestation is another barrier, in the same way as asking for ID is, but it is one that is more easily met by electors who, for whatever reason, do not have ID.

We know that there are some bad actors. If a bad actor is seeking to cast a vote that is not theirs, but they know that they have to have an attestation, that is a further barrier, because it is another chance of being caught out. This is another safety measure that could be brought in that is not as prescriptive and discriminatory, I would argue, as requirements for ID. If I am asked for a form of ID, I may or may not have it, but anyone can make an attestation if they turn up to vote. It would give the polling clerks opportunities to do further checks. It is just a way of ensuring, should voter ID come into force, that we do not exclude people who, for whatever reason, do not have ID or, as in the example I gave earlier, lose their ID on the day, and that they do not lose their right to vote.

I believe that this is a proportional and tried and tested measure that we could bring in to ensure that people are not disenfranchised and do not lose their vote.

[Chris Clarkson]

I appreciate that, with this amendment, the shadow Minister is attempting to ensure that as many people as possible can access the process, but does she really think that it would act as a deterrent to somebody who had got it in their mind to go through the process of looking at who does and does not vote? I could present myself at the polling station in Lancaster and say, “I’m Cat Smith; I’m here to vote.” Does she think I am then going to sign myself “Chris Clarkson” there? I will simply write that I am Cat Smith and go and cast the hon. Lady’s vote, and then she may turn up later and find out that I have stolen her identity. I have got away with it—I have cleared off.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Member makes such a ridiculous point that I do not know where to begin. He highlights just how difficult personation at a polling station is. Were he to turn up at my polling station in Lancaster and claim to be me, I suspect that for several reasons he would probably not get away with it. I do not share his youthful good looks, clearly.

Government Policy on Iran

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Wednesday 9th December 2020 Westminster Hall

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Miller? I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) for securing this debate.

Iran is a part of the world steeped in history, culture, art, and religion, from the Seleucids to the Parthians and the Sassanids to the Rashidun caliphate and beyond. This is a part of the world that I greatly admire, so what follows is not a criticism of the Iranian people but, rather, of the regime which controls their country and has set back thousands of years of progress.

Iran is a bad actor on the world stage. We are not dealing with a country that has much interest in the international rule of law or standards of human rights and transparency, which we and our partners would consider the baseline for a country’s conduct in the wider world. Tehran is enriching uranium to a higher fissile purity than is permitted under the JCPOA, and is on track to possess weapons-grade enriched uranium. This is not a clandestine activity by a secretive state; it is a flagrant and belligerent provocation by a thugocracy. Iran continues brazenly to violate the terms of the JCPOA, and it has failed to engage in constructive dialogue. I would urge Ministers to consider what the next steps are.

Iran’s malfeasance is not limited to its nuclear ambitions. In January, I had an opportunity to visit the Golan heights in Israel. Just a short distance from where I stood, a bloody, brutal civil war is raging. “Civil” is, in all honesty, a terrible misnomer for what is happening in Syria—it is the systemic suppression of that country’s people by a despot. Iran has invested millions in military assistance for Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah controls the country’s southern border with Israel and acts with the impunity of a terrorist state, regularly staging attacks on its neighbour. The common thread, again, is substantial financing by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. It has become a prolific and notorious state sponsor of terror; its tentacles are wrapped around each of its regional neighbours, and it cannot be treated separately from its proxy.

Our Israeli friends have an expression: “Ve’im lo achshav aymatai”—“And if not now, when?” In recent months, Israel has agreed landmark peace deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, and those outstanding achievements are evidence of a new direction of travel for a more peaceful and prosperous middle east. The normalisation of Israel’s relations with its regional neighbours is underscored by a shared common concern about both Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its sponsorship of terror through its proxies.

The Arab world should be commended on how far it has been willing to come in such a short time, and on or the statesmanship of its leaders in setting aside old and bitter rivalries with the region’s only democracy. To quote a common Arabic phrase, “Eljyaat ahsan men elrayhat”—“What is coming is better than what has been”. Iran is looking increasingly like the outlier in the middle east.

In closing, I would urge colleagues in the Government to redouble our efforts to bring the Iranian regime to account. We owe it to the people here at home; we owe it to our friends in the middle east, and we owe it to the Iranian people. There will come a day when Iran is a free nation again, loosened from the dogmatic and extreme regime that grips it, but that will not be an easy process.

There is a Persian expression: “Baa yek dast nemitunaan do hendhuneh bardaasht”—“You can’t lift two watermelons with one hand”. It means that one should always get some help. The Iranian people need a hand, and we should be willing to reach out.

China

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support for the measures we are taking today. It was clear in the original decision on Huawei that we wanted to reduce reliance on high-risk vendors; it is equally clear—we have to be honest about it—that we had to take the measures that we took based on technical necessity, following US sanctions and their impact on the supply chain. We have been clear and honest about that, but there is a much broader challenge for us and our international partners, which is diversifying supply chains and telecoms providers so that we can build up greater diversity of high-trust vendors in the field, and that is what we have focused on.

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

If we are for human rights, we must be for human rights everywhere. If we are for the rule of law, we need to be for the rule of law everywhere. In welcoming today’s decisive actions in relation to Hong Kong, may I ask my right hon. Friend for an assurance that our commitment to pro-democracy campaigners and oppressed minorities across China does not end here?

[Dominic Raab]

Of course, freedom of religion and freedom of expression are not only under threat in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. There is a broader issue, which we continue to raise with China and international partners in the relevant multilateral forums.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Clarkson Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Chris Clarkson (Heywood and Middleton) (Con)]

17. What diplomatic steps he is taking to enhance UK soft power overseas.

[Dr Jamie Wallis (Bridgend) (Con)]

18. What diplomatic steps he is taking to enhance UK soft power overseas.

[The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)]

Our consistent top-table ranking in numerous soft power indices makes the UK’s strengths clear, from our diplomatic network to cultural institutions and leading scientific research. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office enhances the UK’s soft power overseas by investing in international future leaders through the Chevening and Marshall scholarship programmes, supporting the BBC World Service in its biggest expansion in 70 years and, this year, showcasing our creativity alongside the British Council as part of the UK-Japan season of culture, as well as taking a leading role on climate ahead of COP26. Through our actions, we continue to have a positive influence in the world.

[Chris Clarkson]

I recently visited Union Papertech in my constituency with Britain’s high commissioner to Pakistan to see how its innovations in paper technology are leading the way in booming consumer and green economies in the subcontinent. Does the Minister agree that some of global Britain’s best advocates and ambassadors open our markets for our values as well as our products?

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend is spot on. I agree that British innovation is a key soft power asset. We recognise the importance of innovation and technology for global Britain, which is why the Prime Minister has committed to the UK being a global science superpower by increasing investment in R&D. My hon. Friend’s example of the high commissioner’s visit to Heywood and Middleton shows that our diplomats are committed to supporting innovative British products, as they do throughout our global network.